Weight, who knew?

VaLEnTiNE's DaY!!!

To start off, Andrew had made us a calendar for us for Christmas. The first two are below, January and February. It is such a cute calendar! Made all out of his hand prints.

Okay, now back to the original post. Yesterday was Valentines Day. Andrew had his school party on Friday since it was also their 100th day at school. He had such a great time! I didn't go fancy on his valentine's but I did let him pass out chocolate and that's really all anyone is looking for right? I did make my butterfly bubbles for his and Julie's church classes like I did last year. I hope they were a big hit, I love them!

After school Monday, which was the real Valentines Day, Andrew and Julie went outside to play. It was super windy most of the day but thankfully it calmed down a bit so they could play. Andrew used to always stick his head in through the doggy door, must be a kid thing because Julie ended up doing the same thing yesterday.
After Mark got home I realized I was out of stuff to make my sauce for dinner so I headed to the store for a quick trip and Mark got the kids and made me a card, he's so sweet!!! Andrew drew the heart...
It says "Thank you for being such a great mother and wife. We love you!!" He drew their hands and let them color them in. Julie did AwEsOmE but Andrew wanted Mark to color his in with black. What a little stinker.
Then for dinner we had heart shape cheese filled ravioli (I'd like to say I made them myself but I'm not that good. I got them from Costo and they were delicious!) We also had artichokes and red velvet cake (also Costco) with vanilla ice cream. We actually started our celebration Friday and had crab (Costco, I love that store!) and just other yummy dinners and food all weekend.
Then after dinner Mark, Julie and Andrew played songs on the piano. I didn't get a picture of that but I did get Julie playing the other day. I'm glad my kids love music!
Anyway, that was our Valentines Day. I hope all of you had a great time as well!

More on Tanner

Tanner was going to be released and taken home on Saturday but before checking him out, the hospital had to check his vitals every so often and he has to pass before being sent home. Turns out, they were having difficulty with his heart beats. I can't be sure of all that happened but they had to put a catheter in his head or somewhere not normal and they ended up sending him over to Primary Children's Hospital. Since then it sounds like he will need open heart surgery and the cardiologists will be meeting this week to discuss all of their options. Ali has created a blog for Tanner and will update it as much as she is able to. He has had a blessing and seems to be doing a bit better and seems to be such a strong kid. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. I feel confident that everything will be okay. It's such a hard time still for us all, not knowing what is going on and the fact that surgery is needed, any kind of surgery, makes us all uneasy. I know the Lord blesses us and never gives us anything we cannot handle. I know there is a plan and even though we can't see it now, I know whatever happens that God has the best of intentions. Kollin, Ali and Tanner, there are a lot of people out there that love you. Stay strong, we are all praying for you and the doctors. I love you!

Tanner Stanford Stark

My nephew finally arrived!!! Tanner Stanford Stark was born February 3rd, 2011 at 3:32 PM MST. He weighed 6 pounds, 6 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches long.It's just not fair that he has more hair than Julie and she's almost 2 but isn't he CUTE?!?!?!A picture of the new happy family!At Ali's baby shower one of her friends gave her a sock monkey. Little does she know I had my friend make Tanner a sock monkey hat out of the same (or close to) colors. I haven't sent it yet so Ali, if you are reading this, SuRpRiSe!!! I hope you like it, I'll get it mailed off soon. Send me a picture of him wearing it when he fits into it :)

Dress Up

Even though Julie has been into putting on skirts or anything she can find really (including Andrew's underpants over her clothes), I think I am hoping she'll want to play dress up or just be girly. I love dressing her, Andrew stopped letting me dress him a long time ago so it's been a lot of fun! Here are just a few of my favorite on her lately...
My all time FAVORITE is playing with the color of things. She looks so grown up and ballerina biker all in one! I love both of my kids but I have to say, girl clothes are THE BEST!

Battle Wound

Andrew's found a best friend, Jake, from church and from his Kindergarten class. Jake is about a year older (one of the oldest in the class with Andrew being one of the youngest due to the cut off dates) and has a younger brother that's 4. His mom is pregnant with a girl due in April. We all get along so great! We've started hanging out and even went swimming (trust me, you don't want to see those pictures!). While playing one day, Andrew was wearing a cape. He got the cape caught and the velcro must have rubbed his neck. Andrew was fine, he mentioned that his neck hurt but I played it off as like nothing had happened. It looked really painful and like someone had either strangled him or held him at knife point. The pictures don't show how red or puffy his neck really was. I was so worried his teacher was going to report me the next day but thankfully no phone call was received. Here is his battle wound...He's such a trooper! His neck looks much better today and it's also the weekend so I'm hoping he'll be as good as new by Monday.

Utah Trip 2011

Since Mark and I were unable to travel to Utah for Thanksgiving (2010) and Trevor was unable to travel to NV for the boys annual snow board trip in Jan/Feb, we decided that we needed to go to Utah. It was SO much fun! We left Friday, Jan 14th after Mark got off work and drove through the night. It was so much better than driving super early in the morning. I was driving first shift and I was doing great! I knew from past driving that I can make it to Wendover without filling up on gas so I wasn't worried. For some reason, this trip I had a hard time with this. I thought I was doing well and when I saw the sign for 30 miles to Wendover my gas light came on. OH CRAP! Here it is, midnight-ish with my husband asleep in the seat next to me, both my kids asleep in the back and we're going to run out of gas 2 hours away family/friend's help. I said MANY prayers. Mark ended up waking up about 15 miles left to Wendover, helping me keep calm and saying we can make it. When I saw the freeway exit to Wendover I was so relieved! If you don't know, there were NO gas stations during this huge stretch of freeway. I think the last option was about 70 miles before Wendover. Anyway, we did make it to the gas station, filled up and were back on the road to Utah. That was our only issue driving that I can remember this trip so YAY!

Saturday was Ali's (Kollin's girlfriend) baby shower for her friends. I went since I was in town and I was excited! She got a lot of cute stuff, I didn't get pictures of anything since I didn't have my camera out but Corey (Troy's girlfriend) made this super cute blanket for the little guy!
It was a LOT of fun to see family again and I was getting even more excited for the rest of the trip. Sunday we had dinner at Mark's parents house with most of his family. Andrew and Julie were off playing with the cousins that they never get to see and the adults were catching up.

Monday was a holiday so I went to IKEA with my mom, what's Utah trip without going to IKEA? I did some other shopping with her as

well and then back to Ogden to hang out with my family. Tuesday Andrew really wanted to go outside and have a snowball fight. He'd been begging all trip to go. There wasn't as much snow as I had expected but we made the most of it. Julie ran for the playground and got to swing. Andrew followed for a bit, wanted to do what Julie was doing you know.
And then, it happened! The snow was flying everywhere! Okay, I might be exaggerating a little but Andrew was chasing Mark around with snow and Mark was doing the same back. They both looked like they were enjoying themselves and it was nice to be able to play as a family and not have any stress about work or house cleaning or anything else.Julie was a lot more interested in EATING the snow, rather than playing in it. She couldn't stay out long since she

got her gloves wet almost immediately so we went back in but overall, FUN!Wednesday I put together another baby shower for Ali with my Mom's side and my Dad's side of the family. The turn out was GREAT and it was so nice being able to see most of my relatives. Both grandma's were there and most of the girl cousins with a few of their little ones. I had gotten this cute hanger-type-thing and my mom hung up all sorts of baby stuff on it for the decorations. My cousins Tiffany and Cory made her a two-tier diaper cake. It was so cute! We ate Papa John's (my FAVORITE pizza and we only have in Reno so I don't get to eat it EVER) and I made this super yummy salad from Our Best Bites and brownies for dessert. I'm so glad everyone was able to come! I love my family!Thursday Mark and Trevor went snowboarding. I packed up our stuff and got ready for our drive home. They boys had a blast in the snow, we had fun relaxing at Grandma Kathy's. We started our drive home after Mark got back and made a safe, uneventful drive back home.

Julie took some time getting used to her nap schedule again so she fell asleep on the floor a bit. The cutest and most uncomfortable spot I think was under Mark's computer desk. She's not back in the habit of going into her bed when she's tired. Although I love to see my family and go on vacation, it sure is nice to be home!

Christmas 2010

This post really should be titled something about an update of December but everyone needs a Christmas title right? Anyway, since I've not updated much, here it goes...

The beginning of the month we made a Christmas chain. The kids got to decorate paper, I cut them up and we made a chain. We wrote a scripture on the back and read it as we tore the paper off the chain. It was a lot of fun but next year I'm hoping to have an advent calendar made and attach my own scriptures to each thing. I found the scripture references for this chain on some website I don't remember now but the scriptures didn't really have anything to do with Christ's birth so it didn't make much sense. Anyway, here are the kids working.
I have a misc. box of craft supplies and found these crayon/marker things in it and they are AMAZING! It's like writing with lipstick but in a marker form. i LOVE them!In the hall we have a linen closet. I keep some other items in there as well, including puzzles. As you can see, Julie has been exploring a lot more and found a very difficult puzzle and tried her best to put it together. I hope she's a problem solver and puzzle lover like her mom!I'm not sure what this was from but it was TOO CUTE!We also played outside a bit this month. There wasn't much snow but whenever there was a bit, Andrew and Julie would go outside and play. I had made them hot chocolate when they came in and this is what Andrew looked like...He wanted me to take his picture.
Julie and Mark love to cuddle. Julie is also a big thumb sucker! She was completely content as long as someone was sucking her thumb, even if it was her dad.Mark played games with the kids, Andrew was in heaven!!!We went to the park with some friends, let Andrew ride his bike a bit more, Julie got to go on the slide. I couldn't keep her off, I love that she's starting to venture off and be a little more daring!Julie follows Andrew around ALL THE TIME! If he's doing something, she had to be right next to him doing the same thing...This time it was sitting on the coffee table...And this time it was playing 'cars' with boxes we had gotten from Christmas presents...This was Andrew copying Julie. She was playing 'BOO' with the vertical blinds and Andrew wanted to play. Can you find Julie or Andrew?And this was one of my FAVORITES! Andrew got down on the carpet, started making 'carpet angels' (snow angels but indoors), Julie saw him and had to copy but she didn't just lie on the floor and start making her own angels, NOOOO. She had to lie down right in his armpit and try to make angels. He was getting so irritated and scooted away but she keep scooting right next to him. Anyway, SO CUTE!On December 23rd, 2010 we gave Julie her first haircut. She is a year and 8 months at this time. Why do you ask did we cut it??? To get rid of her MULLET! As you can see, she has one of the worst girl mullets and I couldn't stand it anymore! I threw her in the tub and cut her hair. She still has thinning-looking hair in the front and can pull off a comb-over but at least she doesn't have that awful mullet. It turned out really cute and we get compliments all the time. I don't have an after picture of her hair dry but I'm sure you'll notice in other pictures that it looks SO MUCH BETTER!This was one of our trees. I don't like doing a full 6' tall tree since we have kids that might try to open gifts, dogs that might try to pee on it, or even just the fact that we usually don't have room for one or the money for one. I like how we do it now actually. We have one small tree in our little cubby area that we fit presents around throughout the month and then we have another small tree (see below) that we let the kids decorate and it's just for fun. It's worked so far, why change it now right?We had to hang our stockings this way this year since Julie was just the right height to pull them off the mantle. Maybe next year we can hang them from the mantle. Andrew did NOT like them here, he wanted them on the mantle for Santa.We made and decorated cookies on Christmas Eve. Both kids got to do their own and a few of the 'best' would go on the plate for Santa. I made one myself and let the kids have at it on the rest. They really enjoyed it! Aren't they such great artists?CHRISTMAS MORNING FINALLY CAME! We didn't get a TON but I think we had a great time and enjoyed everything.One reason we didn't get too many gifts was because of the new bedroom furniture the kids got. Andrew's been asking for MONTHS for a bunk bed. I'm not comfortable with one and the room is too small for one so we compromised with this smaller bed from IKEA (yea IKEA!) We had a toddler bed in the garage for Julie and set it up. Both kids really seem to enjoy the room. We did get Julie her own dresser in pink instead of blue but we just set it up in January since we were missing the base.Mark got this keyboard. I'm really excited for us to teach ourselves and just have some fun playing. I used to play on my Grandma's all the time as a kid.Andrew gave Julie the game 'Elefun'. The commercials made it seem like the butterflies came out easy and it would keep them entertained. I should have known! The butterflies had a hard time coming out and there was a lot of waiting in-between so I was disappointed. The kids still seemed to enjoy it though.I took Andrew out after Christmas to spend some Christmas cash. He got this really cool something from Star Wars that you can put some action figures in. Julie had to be the model because she wanted to play with it and Andrew wasn't letting her. Aren't siblings fun?
Julie got herself a puzzle a little more 'age appropriate' with some of her Christmas cash. I'm hoping to teach her farm animals and sounds while she puts it together so I'm really excited for this myself. I'm odd, I know it!And lastly, this is Andrew's first bloody nose. He didn't get it the way you might think. He came out of his room one night after he went to bed like this. I'm thinking he was picking at his nose and with it being so dry, this is what happened but we'll never know for sure. Mark wanted to get a picture since it was so bad looking and it was his first so I'm sorry if it's a little disturbing.Anyway, that was our December. Sorry for the lack of posting, I'll get a few more out soon so hopefully I'll be caught up before I go to bed tonight.