WELCOME BABY BELLA!!

There she is! A beautiful baby girl for my brother Thomas and Amy! (Thanks for sharing your pictures with us.) She came ON her due date. February 11th. Only 5% of babies actually do that. So we know one thing about her already - she is prompt and on time!



This moment is so perfect - mama seeing her baby for the first time. That gaze full of awe... there are no words to describe the feeling. Oh, it makes me cry every time I look at it.


And what a great first family portrait.


Look at her eyes so wide open. Thomas said she had her eyes open like this for the first 4 or 5 hours.


And she's already talking. Look at that "cooing" mouth.
Thomas and Amy we are thrilled for you to begin your new life as parents. The kids are also thrilled to have their first Duran cousin. They keep calling her "cousin baby Bella". We wish you guys all the best in these first few months.

Lizzie's 5th Birthday Morning

It is tradition in our family to wake up on your birthday morning to a PARTY! We pile all the presents on the table....


...and decorate it up just a bit with balloons and curling ribbon to make it feel even more special for the birthday person.

Lizzie so enjoyed her birthday morning party with just our little family. We all woke just a little bit earlier than usual so we could party together before daddy had to leave for work. You may notice everyone looking like they just rolled out of bed - because they did.


Lizzie opened so many of her favorite things. She's been talking about Fancy Nancy for several weeks now and thank heavens for Costco! They had 3 of her books. Lizzie was stoked! She was also much in need of a couple Ken barbie dolls to go with all her princess barbies. Make-up, bubbles and Littlest Pet Shop VIP's were also on her list.


My favorite quote from Lizzie was this, "Daddy can I have doughnuts for my birthday breakfast? It's my birthday so I get whatever I want, right?" It's cute now, but I'm sure in 10 years it may sound different coming from a teenager...


So, to honor her birthday wish, daddy whisked away to the doughnut shop at 5:30 AM to get his little princess her birthday breakfast. Thank you daddy for making her birthday morning perfect.

Ouch! part 2

So we visited Valley Children's yesterday to have them look at Lizzie's broken pinky toe. They x-rayed her foot one more time and decided not to reset it - thank heavens! The doctor at urgent care did a pretty good job of that. They also decided to put her in a walking cast for one month.

Here she is BEFORE. Lizzie is looking a little rough due to the fact that she spent the last 2 days on the couch.



And here she is AFTER. Yep, she chose a PURPLE cast! Aunt Aimee was so happy about that.

(Can you believe that we forgot the camera - again?! You'd think we would have learned the first time! Jeremy and I both didn't expect them to put a cast on her. Thank you to Jeremy's blackberry for these 2 shots - they turned out better than I expected.)

Yesterday she thought this thing was pretty cool. That may be due to the fact that Jeremy and I were both a little over excited about the cast. We made a bigger deal out of it than we should have. Neither he or I have worn a cast nor have any of our children. So neither of us had ever even seen a cast put on before - we were almost giddy I think. We both marveled at the fact that it was our only girl that got the cast first - we had dibbs on Jackson to get the first broken bone in the family.

Today the reality is setting in a bit. This cast means: no more trampoline, no more gymnastics, easy-does-it going up and down the stairs, no bike rides, no tights to church, no jeans, plastic bag around her leg when she bathes (any suggestions on that one?), and she is about 3 1/2 inches taller on her right leg so she walks tippy toed wherever she goes. Walking is also interesting - she hobbles and limps/gimps around.

So please share any hints/tips/stragetgies for life with a cast. We need all the help we can get!

Dinner in 3D?

The kids got silly the other night at dinner time. There were about 50 pairs of leftover 3D glasses from the superbowl the night before (thank you Matt for picking those up from Vons - they also worked great for watching Chuck 3D on Monday night!). Trevor picked up a pair and then the rest of the kids joined in on his silliness. They thought they were hot stuff eating their nachos and wearing glasses. Jeremy and I were cracking up.

Ouch!

Poor Lizzie. Friday night Trevor, Logan and Lizzie attended the Pump it Up party of Josh Campbell. Somehow in all the fun, Lizzie got her pinky toe wedged in the side of one of the inflatable play gyms and totally broke it. You can see the result of the break down below in the x-ray. Notice how the bone is not a continuous line but slides over to the right about half way up.




As a result, the greater part of Saturday was spent at urgent care where the doctor did his best to snap it back in place. Lizzie was very brave crying only when she realized that she was going to have to get a shot (3 actually). I thought that Jennifer was going to pass out when the doc was putting all his power into her toe to snap it back in place. He was pulling so hard I actually had to pull in the opposite direction on her leg to keep Lizzie on the table. Luckily her foot was numb and she could not feel a thing. As a result, Lizzie's foot and Jennifer's face turned blue. Lizzie was smiling when the doc was done, but Jennifer looked like she was going to toss her cookies. Afterwards, we told her that she deserved a treat for being so brave. She choose Carl's Jr. chicken stars.


We will be spending some time at the ortho this week seeing what more needs to be done. In the mean time, Lizzie is enjoying bossing everyone around and getting lotsa simpathy from everyone. She also likes screaming out "Daddy" everytime she wants to be moved around.

Hard to believe, but this is the first break in our family. Jennifer and I have (knock on wood) never broken a bone and she is the first child of the four to do so. Hopefully we didn't just open the floodgates...

PineWood Derby 2009

Pinewood Derby is one of the boy's most favorite times of the year. They love getting crafty with mom and dad - and then getting to compete in a big race! Here's the breakdown of our family car-making: Trevor and Logan choose a design, Jennifer draws the car profile on the block, Jeremy cuts the form, Trevor and Logan sand it down, Jennifer paints the design, Jeremy assembles and makes sure the weights are just right. We all get to have fun working together. That may be my favorite part of the whole ordeal.

Here's Trevor's car... black with lightning bolts.

Logan also wanted lightning bolts, but with a red background. Logan doesn't officially become a scout until May, but siblings are welcome to compete at this Pinewood Derby.

Here's the track we use every year. Sister Moon and Sister Edwardson were great about setting everything up for the boys. They had a "PitStop" complete with glue guns, extra weights and coins. It was perfect for when the kids needed a quick repair to their cars.

These boys were so excited they could hardly contain themselves!!

Here's Trevor with Brother Moon - he runs the whole show and the boys love him.
Thanks for another fun year - good work Trevor!

"P" is for puppets!

We did the letter P this week for Joy School. Lizzie, Preston and Sarah had a blast making puppets, playing playdough, and playing outside. The yarn hair got a little out of control with the puppets, but they loved them all the same. It was fun playing prince and princesses - until the girls wanted kisses of course.

Here was our letter P menu for snack time:
popcorn
pudding
pretzles
pickles
pineapple
pears
peanut butter

Is your bowl big enough?

Lizzie's 5th Birthday Party - PJ style

This year we did Lizzie's first ever friend birthday party. She's finally old enough to understand parties and all the fun that goes along with them. She debated over several different party themes and finally settled on one - a PAJAMA PARTY!

Now, when we decided it would be a "pajama party" we had to be very clear that it would NOT be a sleepover. Not yet. A sleepover with 20 kids under the age of 10 did not sound appealing to either of us. But we did compromise to do all kinds of activities that we'd normally do at a sleepover.

When I was maybe 12 years old my mom did a sleepover party with a time capsule bags full of goodies (scrunchies, make up, junk food, etc.) for us to open every hour. We thought it was great back then and I had completely forgotten about that until I read this post by Kristin. So, special thanks to Kristin for inspiring the time capsule idea. We made a time capsule bag to open each half hour with a different sleepover activity inside each one.


The first time capsule held all the makings for our first project. The entire theme for the party was inspired by this idea here. Pillows. Lizzie really wanted all the kids to MAKE their own pillow to take home as a party favor. Did you get that key word? "make" - as in sew - as in craft for 20 children. I have to admit that I was on board for this whole idea even though I knew it would be time intensive and would add more chaos to an already chaotic party. So I sewed up all the pillow forms the night before (thanks to my mom for helping me with that small detail) and all the kids had to do was choose a pillow and then stuff it! My mom and Amy came over as I was in the middle of sewing them all up - they came right in and took over. Thanks for your help guys - your timing was perfect!

The next time capsule held the most cutest girly pinata of all time. Check her out! Tinkerbell was definitely a hit. Now don't worry when I say that we did the pinata in the house. This pinata is one of those non-violent/no baseball bat involved types. There are a bunch of ribbons that hang out the bottom and the kids each took a turn pulling a ribbon. There was one ribbon that breaks the bottom of the pinata and then the madness began...

Here they are scooping candy as fast as they could. Poor Mackenzie got clunked in the back of the head by a falling gumball, but quickly recovered when she saw the rest of the candy waiting to be snatched up.


After all that pinata madness we opened a nice calming time capusle bag - Lizzie's favorite Spongebob DVD, popcorn and licorice. My favorite part of the entire party was when all the kids chimed in (cough, cough, YELLED) the Sponge Bob theme song. "SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS! SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS! SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS! SPONGE BOB SQUARE PANTS!" Yeah, I think all the neighbors down at the other end of the street could hear em.


After the DVD (and candy gorge fest) we tried a game of spin-the-bottle Truth or Dare style. Jeremy really hammed it up with his creative truths and dares. Here are some of my favorties:

1. DARE: smell the inside of Jaxckson's diaper pail.
2. DARE: put your face into the toilet bowl.
3. TRUTH: do you wear boxers?

Classy right? Well, the kids LOVED it!

Finally it was cake time, but wait! What kind of cake do you eat at a PJ party? Doughnut cake of course! Complete with scrambled eggs, sausage and chocolate milk to drink.

The last thing we did was the present opening. Notice the hoard of girls surrounding her. It was like that the whole time which accounts for this picture being taken from above - it was the best angle.


Thanks to all the friends and cousins that came and made Lizzie feel so special for her 5th birthday. We had so much fun and so did she. Happy Birthday Lizzie!

No Moon, No Wind on the Titanic

We have been waiting almost 4 months for this night - the night we got to see our nephew, Zach star in Titanic the theater production put on by our local high school. Zach got to play the part of Frederick Fleet - the guy that spots the ice berg. He's been prepping for months, learning lines, memorizing the words to his solo and going to rehearsal after rehearsal. Finally - it is time to shine!!

Here's a shot of the entire cast at the beginning of the show. Zach is on the top row - start at the steering wheel and count to the left - he's the 5th guy over, black hat, black coat.

Here's his big solo. It's broken up into 2 parts. He's standing up on the 2nd story of the theater in a doorway that opens to the nothingness below. He's supposed to be high above the ship in the crow's nest.



My favorite part is his most enthusiastic line at the end of the video. You really feel like you're in the moment...



Here he is with the Titanic survivors at the end of the show.

What a solemn crowd they were.


Here he is after the show with his proud parents. His costume was so cool - the hat, the scarf, the pea coat. Love it! Where can we get a hat like that?

Way to go Zach. You did great and we are so proud of you for sharing your talents with the world.