2009 Family Goals

For family home evening yesterday we decided to make a few New Year’s resolutions as a family, type them up and print them, and hang them up on the wall. I tried to explain the idea of making goals to the boys, and I gave them an example – that we (the parents and kids) would all try harder not to yell at each other, and we talked about how we could remind each other about this goal and try to do better. Michael came up with the goal to not only read the illustrated scripture stories books with the boys, but to also read the scriptures together as a family each day. And Michael also wanted to include having a family trip sometime this year on the list, which sounded good to me. So, we asked the boys if they had any ideas for family goals. Kolby promptly answered, “Don’t go under cars.” And then he added, “And don’t walk in the middle of the street.” He even insisted that I write those goals on our paper. Eli’s idea of a goal was that he could play the piano with Kolby next time he was practicing (maybe a 3-year-old isn’t quite old enough to grasp the idea of New Year’s resolutions). But then Kolby came up with a great one by himself without any prompting from us: Be reverent in church. I liked that one. The last one we added to our list is something we’ve been working on a lot lately, and the boys are doing quite well with most of the time. It is that they need to ask what they can help with, and continue to ask and help until the job is done. It’s pretty cute – even Camden now has started to come up to me when I am getting lunch ready and say, “Mommy, what can I do to help?” And I’ll have him get out the milk or set bowls on the table. The boys really are good helpers. Anyways, those are our 2009 family goals. We’ve done pretty well with them so far (for the last day and a half).

Video Clips from Our Trip to Boise in December

And now it’s time to play catch-up on posting videos of the kids. These are all the ones from our trip to Boise in December (except for the ones of the boys playing with Michael and Mindy that I posted last month). It was fun to watch these clips as I got ready to post them, especially since I hadn’t even seen all of the ones before that Annette took. These videos are of Isaac smiling, Eli climbing up Mindy’s legs and flipping over, Dalin teaching the boys how to do push-ups, and Camden at the Discovery center in Boise. Enjoy!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

The Last of the San Diego Photos

Here are the rest of the photos from San Diego in January. The first few pictures are from one day that the boys were playing with the stroller and decided to take a walk (inside my parents’ house), and they wanted me to take pictures of them on their walk. Isaac enjoyed sitting in the stroller basket for that little walk too.

The next set of pictures is from a day that we all walked with my mom to a nearby playground at Patriot Park, which is a nice little park that is right next to the elementary school in my parents’ neighborhood (the school that Kolby would go to if we happened to end up in San Diego for Michael’s transition year). I loved the fact that we were playing barefoot in the sand while it was blizzarding at negative temperatures in Milwaukee.

And the next big batch of photos in this slideshow is the day that we went down to Old Town for the Mormon Battalion anniversary. There were all sorts of fun little pioneer activities that the boys had fun doing, including making their own rope, making bricks, making pioneer (boy) dolls, cooking their own biscuits, drinking buttermilk, dressing up like pioneers, and panning for gold.

I took a few pictures of Isaac in his blessing outfit that my mom made while he was laying on the blanket that my dad and all of my boys have used on their blessing days. I couldn’t believe it when I realized that I had brought that little blanket all the way across the country to use on Isaac’s blessing day and I had forgotten to get it out for the blessing. But I still had to have some photos of him with it.

And the rest of the pictures are of the little birthday party that my family threw for Eli the night before we left San Diego. He adored that Elmo balloon that my mom got him, and he even took it all the way through airport security the next day until it popped in the airport. He also got a really fun little train track for his train set that has gates that open and close and it makes different train noises. All the boys were excited about that toy.

That trip sure was fun! The only bad thing about it was that Michael spent so much time interviewing that once we reached the last week of our stay in San Diego I felt like we really got to start vacationing with Michael there too, and then we had to leave before too long. (Don’t get me wrong – I’m not complaining that Michael got several interview invitations, but when he’s away I always miss him).

So, there it is. All caught up on the photos from our trip. That wasn’t too much work to get those all posted. Now I just need to get caught up on posting all of the photos from the last two months since we’ve been back in Wisconsin.

Photos from our Boise Trip

I haven't really posted any photos since we went to Boise on December 1st. Now that it is January and we are not in Boise any longer, I thought I'd start posting the photos from this first leg of our trip. Enjoy!

Arriving in the Boise airport:

Kolby and Eli with Grandpa Dick:

Camden and Kolby crashed after the plane ride:

Kolby and Eli making cookies with Grandma:

Eli helping to set up the Christmas tree:

Kolby helping too:

Grandma Debbie with baby Isaac:

Camden playing the piano:

Kolby just wanted us to take a picture of the shapes he made,

but he did not want to be in the picture:

Grandpa was working on a project and there were two little extra pieces of sticky black velcro that he stuck on Camden's eyebrows. Everyone got a kick out of how funny he looked:

Eli playing with puzzles:

Aunt Mindy's 16th birthday:

Kolby helping Aunt Jennie do the dishes:

The boys with Santa at a church Christmas party:

Isaac in his BYU sweatshirt:

Tummy Time:

What a Sweetheart:

A new haircut for Kolby (after a quick trim went wrong):

Hmmm . . . maybe it's time for Eli to get a haircut too:

Eli's haircut:

Isaac loves his pacifier:

Smiles:

Well, it's 1:30 in the morning, so I'll have to post some more of the photos from Boise later.