Swimming in January

The balcony is almost done - just needs the railings and a paint job - should be happening this week. I rekeyed the house yesterday as my Saturday project - now the door knobs lock on the inside, too, so we don't get locked out - plus the doors are now lined up correctly and the lock directions are universal - amazing to me that the original installers couldn't have done a better job.

TJ and Heather and Toby and I had a blast swimming for almost 2 hours last night - the water was nice at 85, but TJ was cold, so he learned how to change the thermostat and made it 95 degrees. Mommy went and got a well deserved pedicure and manicure instead of going swimming with us. The kids and I also went on a bike ride to the school and went over the speed bumps over and over again - I guess that is fun to see how much it will "bump" the kids in the back seat. 8 am church is fun - we had to yell to get Heather to wake up this morning - she slept on the floor next to Susan and let me know that she was still tired once I finally got her up. And now, we have meetings on Sunday afternoon and of course, visiting teaching and home teaching - no chance for a nap still!

Toby is starting to talk more - he is even using some of the hand signals that Susan has been teaching him - hopefully he'll start doing some potty training soon, too. I realized today that the kids are 8, 5, and 2 - and started counting up to what kind of age combinations we have to look forward to in the future - like 12, 9, and 6 - then 16, 13, and 10; and watch out for 19, 16, and 13!!!

Susan and I are going to have to have a "companionship inventory" to determine what we can be doing now to make those teenage years easier - we should probably start storing prayers in the prayer bank now :)
 

Biker Gang at the playground

 

Candles and Licks

 

Grateful 5 Year Old Girl

Heather waited for this birthday for a LONG time - and she was very grateful to everyone that was there (that brought a present)


 

Balcony Progress

Almost done! Hopefully the rain will slow enough for the railings and the paint to be done this week!


 

Nerds, Geeks, and Technophiles

Yes, we (David and I and Seth and Tim and Troy) went to the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas 2 weekends ago. Unfortunately, no pics of myself there to prove it since I was carrying around the camera. Below you can see ONE of the many drop-off/pick-up areas, David with one of the large LCD TV's (but this wasn't the new record holder 108" one), Asimo the robot getting LOTS of attention, and Tim trying to take pics with his "older" cameraphone.


 

Tool man Toby

So, the balcony/covered patio is coming along nicely - hopefully (weather permitting) they will be replacing our upstairs windows with a french door on Wednesday of this week. It really makes the backyard feel BIGGER, not smaller as we expected. Toby has had a blast watching Jose and Rodrigo working with all of their tools in the backyard - they even leave some behind when they aren't here, so we have to keep Toby inside with his plastic tools so he won't go after theirs. Like Susan said in her blog - TJ is back at school, but Heather isn't - so she is getting lots of Arthur and Max & Ruby repeats into her big head. As you can see in the candid pic of them on the couch - Heather's eyes are glued to the TV.
I'm off to CES tomorrow for just 2 quick days - it'll be fun to look at all the tech stuff and get lots of walking in. And, Susan says she'll miss me - so it's good I leave for a couple days so they remember and appreciate me :)


 

Tile and Makeup

This is Heather's friend, Kylie

After the playground at the school, we took Toby home for naptime, then went in the Mini to David's house to see their new tile, countertops, and backsplash. We ate Sonic at the park across from Dave's house, played on their playground (TJ said it was the best day ever, because they went to two parks), and then played with Ruby's toys. David tried to fly his airplane in the park, it just kept crashing. We were lucky enough to see Ruby right after she had put on some of her new makeup!
 

New Year's Eve Eve Daddy Time

Before 8 AM on Saturday we were putting together some more lego sets that Santa left. We had to set up in the garage 'cause mommy wanted to clean up downstairs, and upstairs there wasn't anywhere that Toby was "allowed" to be (TJ's room is off limits to his little brother).
Jose is working on the balcony on the back of our house - he got lots of the framing done on Saturday, and is going to keep working on it on Tuesday. We're excited! We'll finally be able to enjoy the nice view from the back of our house.


We went on a bike ride once the lego castle was built. The park at the school is one of their favorite destinations. Heather's friend, Kylie, was there with her grandma and her little sister, Lexie. Their mom just had another baby girl - another Sadie. Toby drove a radio controlled truck around the basketball court, TJ and Heather played on the slides and swings, and I crashed my flying boat/airplane that Santa brought me and broke a wing off. It should be fixable and was fun while it lasted. I also had a blast using the "loudest bike horn in the world" that Santa brought me for the bike.
 

Girls' night out

Susan's gift to the other women in the family was tickets to see the professional ballet version of "The Nutcracker" in downtown Phoenix. So after eating at Grandma and Grandpa Jensen's, the women took off (with multiple maps) and the men started putting the kids to bed right away.

David "attempting" to control his daughter's excitement over the magnets and get her off of the table.
Sadie with Grandpa 

More cousins!

Raymond Ranes

Ruby in her "dress up dress"