Just a preview...

This is will come in a later blog, but there are two reasons I'm not posting it yet. 1) I haven't gotten to the letter for it yet. And 2) I don't have them all yet. We had family pictures taken this morning by a friend of ours. She has a little preview up if you want to go check it out. Her blog is
http://www.myscrapkreations.blogspot.com/

N...

Can you guess what we are doing the with letter N? Jordan is NO longer 4! She had a birthday with 2 seperate parties. She must be the luckiest girl ever! The first "party" was at Nana and Bop-Bop Staheli's house since we were there for her actual birthday. Mostly we just opened presents and did a couple fireworks that evening. She also had some other kids come give her presents, which was so sweet since she had just met them earlier that morning. When we got home, we had her real party with all her friends there. Some school friends even came, which she was sooo excited about. We went all our this year since we haven't done anything big or special for her birthday for a few years. We rented a bounce house. She was sooo excited for it, and all the kids loved it... for a few minutes. I thought we'd have a hard time pulling them away from it, but I was wrong. Jordan's toys she had were much more fun than jumping in a bounce house. Duh, Kristi! But it was fun and we ended up having it for the weekend, so it got some good use out of it. Here is a slide of Jordan's birthday celebrations. Enjoy.

My, oh my....

My kiddos are so cute. I know this picture is kinda blurry, but the image stability control thing wasn't on, so sorry. This is the first time they went swimming this summer.

My little Tank man LOVES 4-wheelers. We spent some time above Cedar City, UT in a little village called Duck Creek, and everyone rides through the town on 4-wheelers. Every time he saw one driving, he'd get sooooo excited and start flailing everywhere with this huge grin on his face. Thankfully Nana and Bop-Bop Staheli have one that Liam could ride on. He had a blast watching everything.

Meet our newest nephew, Bentley. At 4 weeks old, he was still smaller than Liam was when he was born, but Bentley sure is a cutie!

My family... well, the Staheli side anyway. This is the first time we all have been together in at least a year, but I think it's been longer than that. It's mostly our fault, as we are the ones who live WAY out in the middle of nowhere California. It was fun to all be together for the blessing of Bentley. Sorry about our neice. This is actually the best picture we have of her. She wasn't happy we stopped her from playing on her scooter to come for pictures.

Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe- Before I start writing about that, I just want to let you all know that we are still here and alive. It's just too stinkin hot to sit near the computer long enough to blog anymore. Plus, now that it's summer, it's too hot to do anything, so it seems like there is nothing to blog about. But now, back to Lake Tahoe. What a blast!!!! About a month ago we went to Tahoe with some friends of ours. The "C's" and the "H's". It was our first vacation since the previous August, so it felt so great for our little family. We planned this vacation early this year because we tried to do it the year before, but never found a weekend we could go. Thankfully it happened this year. We mostly just hung out, played games, played on the beach at the lake, and the guys fed the chipmunks (though the kids called them squirrels, or chikmunks. We couldn't seem to fix that). I didn't do that great taking pictures, so if either of the other families who went have some good pictures they would like to share, feel free. Here are some that I have though.

My little ham!!! :)
Joey and I at the beach the first time we went. Liam and Ty were back at camp napping. Next year we'll remember to take swimsuits so we can go farther out and enjoy the water more.
No, none of us are about to go up para sailing, but it looked like tons of fun, so I got a picture.

These geese litterally came about two feet away from us. Rees loved to go chase them off!

Karate Kid, Keep

Karate Kid- For a couple weeks, Jordan got a free trial for Karate (it was actually Tae Kwon Do, but hey, it's all a martial art... right?). Anyway, she loved it and had lots of fun, but the whole time kept telling us it was only for a few months until she could do gymnastics. Due to that, we didn't keep her in it. During her time in karate, she learned how to do a round house kick (sort of) and what to do when a stranger grabs you. The problem with the second one is that when we went to Disneyland back in March, she decided to start doing it and she'd get away and scream "You're not my daddy!!!!!" (while Ty was holding her hand, or mommy while I was holding her hand) I was worried that the security was going to come up to us, but thankfully we avoided that one. And we talked to her about why you don't do that when it really is your mommy or daddy.

Keep-
Ty keeps chugging along at work. Last week was budget hearings, so he worked 3 18 hour days. Not my favorite part of his job, but oh well. I can't change it and at least that's over for a year now. Thankfully right now is his down time at work. Not that he has nothing to do, but less to do than normal. We normally get a huge break in August, but he has a new boss coming August first, so he's taking a shorter break in July. We will be at our friends cabin for a few days, then on to Oak City to see family and our newest nephew B. We are excited to see him.
Kristi keeps going with everything. Sometimes I feel like the kiddos are going to drive me nuts, but they have yet do that... thankfully. I am still running several mornings a week. I haven't been able to run 6 straight days yet, but I know some is better than none. I still work for the China Lake Surgery Center on Fridays. I am the final check to make sure all the charts are complete. A few months ago I also picked up another job. I now am the medical assistant for a general surgeon in town. He does lap bands. He's only in town one week a month and I only have to work full time for two days that he has clinic. It's been a huge learning experience for me, but an enjoyable one.
"Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming." That quote from Finding Nemo was stuck in my head constantly for a couple weeks. Jordan is taking some swimming lessons this summer. It's 5 nights a week for two weeks. She did her first set of lessons a couple weeks ago. The first day she wouldn't do anything. The next day we got her doing a little more, then a little more until she's begging us to go back now. She didn't pass level one yet, but she's still kind of young. I think she'll pass next time.

Every time we swim she gets a little more confident. She also keeps learning more and more in gymnastics. She almost has how to do a cartwheel down. She may not be the best in the class, but she enjoys it and that's what matters.
Liam just keeps growing. And growing, and growing. I can't keep up with him. A friend told us yesterday that in the two weeks it's been since she's seen him she thinks he's grown like 2 inches. Okay, so he hasn't grown that much, but I know he's grown some because he grew out of his pajamas. He has officially learned how to crawl. We've seen it coming the last couple days, but it's official now. There is no stopping him. Saturday he crawled three steps to the vacuum. Yesterday he crawled a few steps a couple different times, and today.... well, he's crawling everywhere. I can't believe it. He also swam for the first time this past week. He loved it. We got him a floaty, so I don't have to hold him the whole time in the water. He would just lounge back and splash water all over himself. I swear that kid must have some fish gene in him somewhere.