A Fun Game Night

When the Owens came over the other night, we had so much fun having dinner and playing games together. The kids enjoyed the night too.

Camden and Jessica reading books together:

The boys watching a movie after Isaac and Jessica fell asleep:

Happy Birthday to Me!

Here are some photos from my birthday just over a week ago. I turned 27. I’m not one of those people who freaks out about being “old” when they turn a certain age, but I have felt that 27 seems a lot closer to 30 than 26 did. Oh well. I guess being married for several years, being done with college, and soon having 5 kids, it’s ok that I’m not 20 anymore (but with Michael still doing his medical training and us continuing to move all over the country, I do still feel like I relate to college students and don’t feel much like the majority of adults out there who have a house, a “real” job, and are really settled down).

Anyways, I had a great birthday this year. The boys and Michael brought me breakfast in bed and homemade birthday cards in the morning, I wore a cute new shirt and necklace that I had gotten with some Christmas money that week (and it’s always fun to wear new clothes), I got to open gifts in the morning, Michael and I enjoyed a comedy at a local theater in the afternoon, and later we had birthday cake with the boys before Michael and I went out to dinner with Miriam and Wayland Barker, and then we all came back to our place to enjoy dessert and a board game.

Catch-Up on Photos

So, I'm finally taking a little time today to post some photos posted. Here is one of Michael and I at our anniversary dinner at Rodizio Grill.

Miriam's Family Christmas Party

So, on Sunday evening we got to go to Miriam Barker’s family Christmas party at her mom’s house. It was fun to meet her family, have a nice dinner, and take part in their annual white elephant gift exchange – especially since the kids got really excited about opening and trading gifts. I took these cute pictures of Kiera, Eli, and Aspen coloring together. It was so nice of the Barkers to invite us and I was glad that Michael got done at the hospital early enough to come meet us there in time for dinner and the gift exchange. It’s nice to have some good friends here in Utah.

Carving Pumpkins

So, when Dick and Grandma Bradshaw came for dinner and family home evening we carved pumpkins for our activity. I enjoyed figuring out what the jack-o-lantern’s faces would look like, and I left the scooping of the pumpkin innards to the boys and the carving to Michael and his dad. I think they turned out pretty cute. I’ll have to get a better family picture of us all with the finished pumpkins – we took a silly one on our camera, and the only nice-looking one with the whole family ended up being on Dick’s camera.

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Feeding the Birds

We went to Sugarhouse Park in Salt Lake for a little family dinner Sunday evening to celebrate Grandma Bradshaw’s birthday. When we realized that the family was setting everything up just a few feet from the lake, we knew it would be hard to keep the kids dry. Camden stepped in first, and then slipped and fell in up to his neck (then he was walking around in just a diaper for the rest of the evening). Kolby later fell in when he was trying to throw bread to feed the birds (and he was walking around in his shirt and boxers the rest of the night). And later Camden fell in again (I think this time may have been an accident) while he was trying to feed the birds. Michael caught this last fall on tape. It was an eventful night and several of the family members thanked us for providing the entertainment for the evening. Happy Birthday, Grandma!

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Grandma and Grandpa McIntosh

We got to go to Michael’s Grandma and Grandpa McIntosh’s home for dinner the other night. It was nice to see them again, and Michael’s uncle and cousins, Rich, Leilani, and Makaio. The boys had fun playing Grandma and Grandpa’s organ and piano, playing with the lego blocks, and Camden had a lot of fun following Grandpa around and playing with his cane. Thanks for having us over. It was good to see all of you!

Thanksgiving Day

On Thanksgiving day we read a few little stories that were a tradition to read in Michael's family when he was growing up. One is a children's story with pictures about a little boy who was thankful for his favorite whole wheat rolls that his mother made for him. Then there was an article about the history of the Thanksgiving holiday. And the last story was about a group of family and friends who gathered for a Thanksgiving dinner together, and the hostess told about how the Pilgrims on the first Thanksgiving only had 7 kernels of corn each, after storing away the corn that would be needed for planting the next years' crops (I don't know how accurate this part of the story is, but oh well), and so the group of people each had 7 kernels of corn on their plates, and they took turns going around and each telling 7 things they were thankful for.

So, for our tradition, after reading that story we went around and let each of the kids have 7 kernels of corn and tell 7 things they are thankful for. It was pretty cute what kinds of things the boys came up with that they were thankful for. Kolby said some pretty thoughtful things -- that he was thankful that Isaac came home from the hospital, he was thankful for Heavenly Father and the atonement (I didn't know he even knew that word), and he was thankful for his family. I thought that Eli might be too young to understand when we asked him what he was thankful for, and he said that he was thankful for the little plastic bag that we were using to collect each person's kernel of corn, but the next time it was his turn we asked what made him happy and he said temples and churches (I guess he didn't know what the word 'thankful' meant the first time around). So that was a lot of fun.


We had dinner at home as a family, and it was nice because my Grandma was here with us. We were originally planning to invite a few good friends over to have dinner with us (especially since we don't know if we will be moving next summer for Michael's residency, so this may be our last Thanksgiving here in Milwaukee), but when Isaac was born they told us to keep him away from other people, especially little kids, as much as possible, so we decided we would have to do Thanksgiving by ourselves. Then last week I took Isaac into the ENT doctor for his follow-up appointment, and the doctor said that Isaac is fully recovered from the surgeries and we should treat him like any other child his age. So, we will probably try to keep him away from crowded places with lots of little kids for a while longer, but we probably could have had over a few families if we were careful to have people wash their hands before holding him. But it was too late to invite people because everyone had other plans already, but we still had a nice dinner together as a family. I had fun using the table cloth and a pretty candle holder that I had found earlier when we were still planning on having guests over for dinner, and we got out the nice china for the first time in a while (I have been scared to use it with the kids, but none got broken).

Here are pictures of the table all decorated before dinner, and of Daddy and Isaac taking a nap after the meal:

Toddler Art Class Luau

We had a luau the other night at the Nielsen’s house to celebrate the end of the summer Toddler Art Class that Kolby and Eli have been attending on Thursday mornings. The kids made decorations for the luau at their last art class last week, including palm trees, tiki statues, and grass skirts that they modeled for pictures. Then we all brought food and had a nice dinner together in the Nielsen’s back yard. It was perfect weather for an evening outside, except with the recent rain the mosquitoes have been worse this summer than any other time since we moved here, and I think that these annoying bugs were the reason that most families didn’t stay too late. But it was a very enjoyable evening.

Michael and the Boy before the Luau -- they all happened to be matching in their red shirts.

Kids in their grass skirts: Sofia Maas, Nathan Kearl, Mikey Kam, Kolby and Eli Bradshaw, and Eva Nielsen.

Kolby and Eli

No, those aren't chicken pox on Camden's face -- just mosquito bites the morning after the Luau.