Richmond, VA

I found a few posts from a while ago that I never finished... so I'm taking you back to November!

John is on Duke's moot court board and had a competition in Richmond, VA the weekend before Thanksgiving. He headed up there with his team Thursday morning and the boys and I came up Friday afternoon. The boys slept the entire 2 hours up there and Harry Potter's (Deathly Hallow) on cd kept me great company :-)

It was too cold and dark when we got there to do anything so we put on our swimsuits and went down to the hotel (heated) pool with Daddy before he had to go down to a banquet event that evening.

After baths, PJ's and bed time stories, there was a knock on our door. House keeping brought us cookies and milk and this is Jack's
"Please Mommy" face. How could I resist?? The next morning John was off to another round of competitions. He's so handsome.

This was the view outside our hotel room...

and this was the view inside our hotel room! Jonah was on his thrown.

While Daddy was in his tournament, I took the boys out to explore Richmond!!

We went to the capitol and learned about the Indians who first settled in the Richmond area. They had a Tepee and this canoe was a huge hit!

" I'm so strong like these guys mom!"

Jack stood by this tree and asked me to take his picture.

showing mommy how he knows all of his ABC'S!

Thank goodness there was an elevator!!

After John was done, he and his dad met up with us at the capitol.

That building behind them is the US Courts of Appeals... where John's competition was.

We went to this beautiful park and threw a tennis ball and ate awesome hotdogs.

Jack watched the leaves fall.

and I snuggled Jonah!

We went to the "American Civil War Center" the boys were showing me how big the cannon was!
Just 5 years ago I was living with beautiful girl at BYU!! I love you Mandie. Oh we had some good times. I will forever LOVE "The Front Door" our little white house full of 6 amazing, single, fun, hot (if I do say so myself!!) girls! I LOVED college...it was so fun!! We hadn't seen each other FOREVER so it was a blast getting caught up.

The offspring!

Look what 5 years can bring!! Love you Mandie and David :-)

Overall... a fabulous weekend in Richmond, VA. We will miss you east coast falls!

Kiddo's Videos

These videos were taken November 22nd, 2009... Enjoy :-)

Getting so big and ever so cute!

I'm so sad John stopped videoing because right after that he gave the best faces, started gagging, threw up and made us all laugh pretty hard :-)

I LOVE being a MOM!!

... but who wouldn't love it when you get to hangout with these stud muffins?? (pictures over the past 6 months)

Recent conversations with Jack:

Jack stands on the scale in the bathroom and proudly says, "WOW! I'm 100-o-clock inches heavy... that means I'm a VERY tall, strong boy!"... yes it does Jack... yes it does :-)

Jack: "Mommy, it's my turn to read the scriptures... And it came to pass that the mean troll was waiting under the bridge. But behold the goats were hungry so thus they went over the bridge and partook" ..... So, at least we know he's getting the language, but we'd better work on the stories a little more :-) We ended the night by reading "The Three Billy Goats Gruff"!!!

Jack has been eating me out of my fridge lately. Every waking moment he's telling me he's hungry (even when he's eating). This morning he woke me up with a kiss and after about 10 minutes of him trying to get me out of bed and go down to fix him breakfast he said, "Mom, if I don't get breakfast soon I might squish you!" Tomorrow I think I"ll just leave a box of cereal outside his bedroom door...

After continuous jumping off of our coffee table in hopes to "scratch the ceiling" (because he thinks he's SO TALL) he comes over to me with a HUGE smile and says, "Mom, I think I have a great idea" He runs over, gets his step stool and puts it on top of the coffee table... "Now I can REALLY scratch the ceiling"... "Hate to bash your dreams, but mommy don't think that's such a great idea Jack!!"

Jack comes to me in complete seriousness: "Mom, you might think I'm a race car, but I'm not... I'm just a REALLY FAST boy"... then he sprints to the mailbox!

I nanny a little girl (Lily) whose dog (Bear) had to be put to sleep because he had cancer. When we went over to give our grievances on the day it happened Lily said, "My dog had a sore on his leg [referring to the cancer] so we had to send him to a farm"... a few days later I was snuggling Jack at nap time when I noticed a scratch on his leg. I asked him what happened and he said, "I hurt my leg mom. Please don't send me to the farm". I kissed and hugged him for a long time and simply said "I will NEVER send you to the farm Jackers!"

I LOVE BEING A MOM!!!

Happy New Year

After 3 weeks of vacation and 2 weeks of getting back on our feet, we're finally back in NC and trying to get back into real life. Between finishing up finals, traveling to AZ, Christmas parties, my sister's wedding, New Years parties, more traveling (to Albuquerque), a lot of family, a lot of parties, a lot of food, a TON of pictures, and hardly any sleep... I didn't find time to blog the holidays.

I of course thought, "No big deal. I'll just do it when I get back to NC". But the other day I pulled up my computer, opened my "December 2009" folder in my pictures and there was nothing there. I opened the file entitled "Recently Imported" and and I was relieved when I saw pictures of Christmas morning... but that only last about 3 seconds then all of the sudden they just disappeared. I looked everywhere, but couldn't find them ANYWHERE. We took the computer in to be looked at and the lady said we had a virus on our computer that most likely "ate" all of my pictures. We had just recently saved everything onto our external hard drive... and it just HAD to choose December to feast itself on!!

So, anyone know how to retrieve pictures you thought were lost forever??? Boys in new PJ's on Christmas Eve, Family pic in front of Christmas tree, pictures at mall with Santa, cookie day at Grandma Ray's, nativity scene with grandkids, caroling on the hayride around JaNae's neighborhood, coming up the stairs and video of Christmas morning, video of Jack reciting "Twas the Night Before Christmas", pictures of secret pals, Jenica's endowment and Joseph Smith dinner, and a whole lot more...Such a bummer!

Martin Luther King Day

January 18th 2010

Duke doesn't give Labor Day off, but they DO give MLK day off. Since John didn't' have school we decided to go to Raleigh. We've lived here for 2 1/2 years and have been in Raleigh for only one reason... the airport. So, we decided it was past time to go exploring in our state's capitol!!

John's sister (Hailey) is going to school at BYU Idaho and she's on the track system where she only goes to school Summer/Fall semester so she decided to come live with us for the Winter semester. We are thrilled to have her living with us. She couldn't come with us to Raleigh because it was her first day of work! She's been here for one week and already has a job!! She's selling Cutco knives and had lots of appointments set up for that day. Maybe next time...

"THE PIT" is a famous BBQ place here in North Carolina and since John is determined to try as many different BBQ places as possible while we're in North Carolina, we thought a famous one would be an excellent choice... and it was!

We went to MARBLES, this AWESOME children museum in Raleigh. Jack loved it! It was a fun change because we usually just go to the Museum of Life and Science in Durham.
Driving the fire truck with daddy

Getting the hose ready for spraying!! They had an "infant" station just for little tykes like Jonah.

They were having a canned food drive while we were there and they had the cans displayed as all kinds of cool things including Super SMURF!!

They had this awesome "Tool" station where you could use real saws, screw drivers, wrench, all on real wood! We spent a good amount of time here. I'm not sure who liked it more, Jack or John.
Very determined and concentrated!!

Jonah enjoying the large fish tank built into the wall.

They had another station where you could race your car after you constructed it yourself.

Exploring the museum with mommy!

We could have stayed at this station ALL DAY LONG. Jack was in heaven. But what little boy wouldn't be with 3 entire train tables in a row??

Jack said he's pulling his trains through the tunnel because they need shade!

Then we walked around the Capitol Building in downtown Raleigh.

These 3 Presidents came from North Carolina.

James K. Polk, Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson

Playing on the Capitol grounds.

These little robin red breasts birds were everywhere.

North Carolina State Capitol Building

On our way back to the car we passed the Museum of Natural History and had just a few minutes to peek inside before it closed. We're excited to go back someday very soon. It looked very cool. Thanks John for taking your day off to hangout with us instead of doing homework. This was WAY more fun!!!