Our Baby Girl

She made it, and in one piece! Autumn was born yesterday and is a bundle of joy. She is very alert with wide eyes. She has curly brown hair, and already has more than her dad.

Evidently, our children tend to love to bite our noses. This is Autumn exhibiting her skills.
And here is Russell when he was just a few months old showing that he and Autumn are definitely brother and sister. :)
Here is our beautiful little girl getting some beauty rest. She's gorgeous!
And our family picture. We are very grateful to have a new member of our family!

Happy Valentines Day!

Here is my date for tonight, he is handsome don't you think? Chad has to work a late shift, so it is just me and the little man. He has been having too much fun lately tearing the house to pieces, and he will be found quite often with his sand bucket on his head, he calls it his helmet.He also has a fascination with Toy Stories Buzz and Woody, So Chad cut this box, so he could be Buzz, I am not sure that he understands, but it was fun for a minuet, and he sure was cute.
He even got to squeeze in the cheese face for the camera.
And here it is your one and only picture of me big, I will be 38 weeks tomorrow.

January Fun

Russell asked to go for a hike by water, so we went to the Arizona side and hiked down to the Colorado, it was such a beautiful day we had a blast!Russell and Chad enjoyed throwing rocks of all sizes in to the water and making "splashes"
Russell loves to ride in the backpack.
Lovely picture of us we were taking a break, Russell was having an asthma attack. So we took some silly shots. Then he wanted to see them. I had to hold him back because he wanted to hold the camera.
Oh the water was so enticing, but we got away with only wet shoes and socks, we should have taken his water boots. Next time.This is Chad's latest project it is a dresser for baby girl, who will be here in no time.
I painted the flowers on and after they were dry Russell wanted to have his turn, he goes up to it often and says, "draw draw."
I made these for the sisters that I visit teach it was one of the sisters birthday, they were fun to do, but I am afraid that the strawberries were not as ripe not being in season, and quite pricey, but like I said so much fun!
And this is a big BIG OOPS. Do you know what this is? Well I have been ironing Chads work pants and shirts for several years now, and I have never had a single problem, till this incident. I plugged the iron in and wanted to get ironing so I could get it over with, and it was only on for like 60 seconds, I didn't think that it would be warm enough, I just figured I could go over what needed more a second time, But I did not check the temp. It had gotten turned up to the highest setting.
Now Chad is one pair of pants short and my poor iron has a black stain. That wont come off.

Water

Last night as Russell and I were reading bed time stories, we got to a new one that I have never read before. It was a very touching story for a mother of a son.
Now that you know that, as I was reading I began to cry and then my voice started to crack, and I became very concerned at how almost two year old Russell would react to his Mom crying. As my voice cracked I looked down into his face as he looked up into mine, there was a moment of uncertainty, then my sweet child burst out laughing and then pointing up at my face saying, "Water ha ha Water, Water..."
To say the least I did not need to worry.

Christmas Time = Good Times

We have had a lot of fun these past few days. Russell and I have spent a lot of time driving "the King" and "McQueen" around the halls, and I've even worn a new hole in a pair of my pants. It has also been raining a crazy amount for this area and we have been enjoying it. Natalie and Russell went out with umbrellas and somehow managed to still get soaked. Russell thought it fun to stand right by the house and get drenched where the water came off of the roof, with and without his umbrella. :)
For a special Christmas treat, Natalie came up with the idea of making whip cream snowmen in the tub. It was a hit, and each snowman met the same fate as Russell would say "yummmmm." This is Russell looking at his favorite present on Christmas morning. He probably would have played with it like this all morning if we didn't ask him to unwrap it.And here it is, a kitchen (that had soooo many pieces it took over two hours to assemble.)Russell sees me do a lot of things for my schooling/profession and likes to copy me any chance he can get a hold of any of my "tools." Here he is checking Elmo's ears...Needless to say, he was very excited when Grandma Johnson got him a pair of scrubs. If he looks a little grumpy in this picture, its because he's worked a long shift in the ER.We were able to go to Toddler time at Sky Zone where we set Russell loose in a warehouse full of trampolines. He really gets after it. The camera couldn't even keep up with him jumping/running around!

Christmas Countdown

Great Grandma Johnson has given these countdown calendars to the grandkids for as long as I can remember. Russell really loves his and sometimes tries to trick us by saying "what's under Santa" or "the house" etc. It has been very fun seeing him excited to open a new door every morning this month. We took Russell ice skating today. I had fun skating him around, but it was just too cold for him in spite of our efforts to keep him warm and he didn't enjoy himself as much as I'd hoped. However, afterwards he said "skate fun, fun" so it wasn't that bad. Poor Natalie sat on the sidelines and froze.
Our latest project was finishing a table we got back in May from the DI. It was orange and beat up, so Natalie painstakingly sanded the detailed legs and I stuck to the big flat surfaces. Then I stained it and put several coats of varnish until it looked rather good we think.
MERRY CHRISTMAS to all and to all a Good Night!

That canyon was grand!

Last week we had a day between rotations and so we took the opportunity to drive the 4 hours to the Grand Canyon! Chad had never been, and we figured that it was something that we should do as we will probably never be closer to it again, and since time is running out for us here we decided that it was now or never. It was fun and I think that Chad really enjoyed it, Russell on the other hand did not love the 8 hours in the car that day. But we did try to make it fun for him, we made a couple of stops just to get out and move, and when we got there, he got to play with snow for the first real time!

If you will notice in this first picture, Dad has built Russell a little snow man, move to the next picture...

Russell demolished the poor thing! Then he started to cry because it was gone, Chad and I busted up laughing, and made him a new one that he left standing and we said good by to it, on the trail.

Dad and Russell at the look out!

All of us with the sun in our face. We had a lot of fun, but I would have to say that I did not particularly enjoy the hours in the car with Russell being a pill.