While in St George Noah made a big mess with a rootbeer float. So I decided the only way to clean him and everything around him up would be to just hose it all down. Somehow we ended up with him in this small bucket that had a hole in the bottom. He sat this way for a good hour before I had to finally take him out kicking and screaming.... who knows how long he would have sat there.
As soon as school was out in Virginia my brother Nick flew out to make the long drive to Utah with me and the kids. The kids were surprisingly really good up until the last few hours of the third day, but we made it! We then spent a lot of time just hanging out. We went to my parents house in St George doing a lot of swimming a little bit of hiking.
We left our home in Virginia, but not without spending one more day doing our favorite family bike ride through D.C. We already miss it. Here are some of my favorite pictures.
Santa was kind enough to bring Abby a camera this past Christmas and it's always interesting to see what she takes pictures of. Here is a sampling of her work
we sure do love her
We call him "daddy" around these parts.
I love him. We all love him.
He is truly an amazing dad and an even better husband. I wish I could show you all how incredibly awesome he really is. Im more excited to get to texas just so that he can feel like he can breath again.
This last 7 or so months have been so crazy for our family and mostly for Aaron. Just to give you a small glimpse into the life of aaron at the moment...He is trying to get his masters and man I can not believe sometimes how much he just has to READ for his classes. The other day he came home with a very tall stack of books. These were the books he had just read. I should take a picture next time. I was dumbfounded. Now that we know we are going to be having a baby soon Aaron has been going in at night to work on his thesis so he can hopefully finish early so we can get to Texas as soon as we can. His promotion test is coming up in a few weeks so when he can (usually late at night or super early in the morning... kids are no help when they are awake) he is studying for that. Add church responsibilities, 4 kids, and a sick pregnant wife... he is busy and I honestly do not know how he does it all. And if you know Aaron he never takes the easy way out or never ever settles for mediocrity. He just amazes me. And even with all of this you will never hear him complain.
I just had to share.
He keeps telling me he is already thinking about getting his Doctorate. He may be a little crazy as well. Oh well we love him anyway.
abby took this picture of aaron.
Yesterday Aaron took our computer in to find out why it just stopped working. Found out it was the hard drive. Not a big deal we had been backing up all our stuff after the last time our computer crashed and we lost all of Emma's baby pictures. Or so we thought. Turns out the backup to an external hard drive (im pretending to know what im talking about... aaron tells me and I just repeat) didn't work because of damage to "something". this is the last picture we have that was saved
That is Noah just days old. Everything else is gone. Aaron is taking in the old hard drive to (cross your fingers) see if anything can be saved.
I feel sick.
Sometimes I wish I could see the world through Emma's eyes. She lives in this crazy care-free world. Emma does things her own way and she doesn't care what anyone thinks. She can't go anywhere without a little lipstick (thank you Grandma Vi) and the world is always so much better with a little glitter. Emma is crazy and spontaneous. When she comes home the first thing she does is start making some kind of "art". She goes through more tape than anyone I know. As soon as I empty a box (like a pasta box, or cereal) she HAS to have it for some kind of project.
Last week we had parent-teacher conferences and Emma's teacher said "emma is...emma" while laughing. I knew exactly what she meant. And its a good thing.
One thing I really love about her is she calls Aaron her prince and has since she could first speak. He will always tell her she is his princess to which she will always reply "you are my prince" and then they will dance while he sings "so this is love". The other day she didn't want him to leave to go to work. Its like that everyday, but this particular day she was determined to make him stay. She had me put the chain on the front door to lock it (i guess the deadbolt wasn't enough to keep him in). Then she stood guard at the door with her pink foam baseball bat. If he came close she let him have it. He somehow finally made it to his car. But she was fast and opened the back door and climbed in. After pulling her out about a dozen times and trying to tie her to a chair in the house and Aaron getting karate chopped while he dragged her back in the house she finally let him leave as long as he kissed her good-bye and promised treats on his way home. He was only about an hour late. but worth it.
I love her.
I also hope her lisp never goes away.
