Big Day

Today was the big day! Jackson has been saving his money for awhile now so he could buy a toy he's been wanting. To earn money he has been doing his chores and then doing extra things like setting the table etc. Today he saw the fruits of his labor when we were able to go to the store and buy the toy he's been eyeing. He was soooo excited. It was so much fun seeing how proud he was walking through the store carrying his toy up to the front to buy. We put all of his quarters in a plastic bag and got lucky to get a cashier who thought this was so much fun and made it a great experience for him. She was very patient and dealt with only him after I made the comment that HE was here to buy a toy with his own money. I made sure to have the camera ready when he handed over his hard earned cash. He got his receipt and change and then he bounced out of the store. I even had another employee come up to me on our way out who said we made his day seeing me taking a picture of Jackson paying for his own toy. Jonathan and I are sooooo proud of him for sticking with this. It's taken him awhile to get enough money to do this. (If you can't tell, the toy he bought is Zurg, who is in Toy Story 2. Jackson loves him)

Jackson says..."I'm so happy that I got eight dollars to buy Zurg."

Love you all

We're On! We're On!!

Okay! We now have the internet in our home! Happy Birthday Rob! Maybe now I'll be able to put some of the junk in our garage onto Craigslist and get rid of it. . . oh, and post to our family blog.

So I usually feel like a whiner whenever I talk about myself, because it's all about work and how horrible my life is - so let's talk about what keeps me going - Diedre and our kids! They're brilliant. They're cute. One of them is even starting to show that she's pregnant. ;-)

Our family's happenings include: Rob - work.
Caleb and Peter discovered the museum of natural history and anything new to explore is wonderful for a boy. We had our first snowfall of the year and Peter discovered after enough bundling the snow can be fun. And Caleb rediscovered the joy of snowball fights. We also got out our Christmas music and have enjoyed dancing. Peter's most important thing as of late is new words and two word sentences. It's wonderful to see him get absolutely tickled by a picture of an "orse", a "toed", a "wuf", a "pgg", a "m-oww", a "gote", or a "dukk." The "orse" is his favorite though. We may be on our way to more coherent conversations. Oh, and the boys are also learning that having a brother can actually be fun, but do not push it, we still have our moments of "brothers can be a nuisance."
Diedre - where ever Caleb and Peter go, she goes too. To visit the horses, off we go. To discover the world of worms, off we go. To read Biscuit for the 10th time today, off we go. :) Oh, and Diedre is also pregnant, but we all know that.

Thanksgiving weekend

I'm flying!!!

Cute boys

East Rock Park

So all of the visits are done and we realized last night that we don't have anymore plans to see family until...who knows when. Kind of sad. :-(

Dave and Mindy came and stayed with us for the Thanksgiving weekend. We'd never met Mindy, and since she's now a part of the family, it was nice to finally get around to that. We had Thanksgiving dinner, cooked in our VERY small kitchen. We didn't have turkey because we were such a small group and Jonathan doesn't like turkey too much, so a ham was cooked instead. I did pretty much all the cooking (only one person can fit in the kitchen at a time) and I guess I wore myself out because I fell asleep on the couch at about 9:30. I never fall asleep just sitting somewhere! The rest of the weekend was spent watching lots of football (Dave and Mindy wanted to), eating Thai food, going to East Rock park, walking around Yale, and doing a little bit of shopping. For the most part though we just hung out at the house and relaxed.

The boys are doing good. Jackson it loving school and is a little sponge. He comes up with some pretty crazy things and when I ask him where he learned that he says "at my school". This morning it was something about how we need to use our brain so that it doesn't die.
Yesterday after church he told us the whole story of Samuel the Lamanite and asked some pretty deep questions about it. It lead to talking about Jesus being born and Jackson said that Jesus "gave his blood to us". Then we tried and explain that he didn't give his blood to us (like he was thinking)...yeah try explaining the Atonement to a 4 year old who keeps asking more and more questions. The answer, He died so we can live with Heavenly Father again someday wasn't enough for him.

Cooper is a walking injury. A few days ago he was sitting on the arm of the big chair and I told him he better get down before he fell. He looked at me and smiled and then proceeded to fall off the chair a few mins later and landed on his cheek bone and gave himself a blackeye. Then on Saturday he and Jackson were rough housing and Cooper ended up with a nasty rug burn on his chin. While walking around Yale on Saturday he also fell 3 times, once banging his knee pretty hard on the concrete. Will this stage ever end with him?

Jonathan only has this last week in internal medicine before going back to a two month rotation in oral surgery again. He's had fun in this last rotation and even got to do a rectal exam on a large overweight older woman. :-0 We aren't looking forward to the hours of surgery again. We've really enjoyed these last two months of him coming home at 5 almost everyday, and not being on call. As of right now we hear he's on call for the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th weekend of December. And we also heard that they've changed weekend call to having friday night, all of saturday and then all of sunday instead of just having either sat. or sunday. We haven't heard if he's on Christmas day, but there's only 3 residents that can be on call, and I heard from one of the wives that her husband is on call for christmas eve so it's between Jon and the other 3rd year for who's on Christmas day. I don't get a good feeling though. He'll be on call the weekend of our anniversary, but I had him atleast ask off this first weekend of Dec. so we can do something as a family for Coopers 2nd birthday. Back to being a single parent for awhile. :-)

As far as me...well things are going good. Having three hasn't been as hard as I thought, but getting the timing down is what I've struggled with the most. I feel like I'm always running 5 mins late to everything. And it seems that no matter what, Cooper always has to poop just as we're walking out the door to go pick up or drop off Jackson to school. I'm sure I'll get it down soon, it's just going to take some time.
Wow this is getting long. Well I love you all.

Opps...
I forgot to mention the biggest news in our family! We decorated for Christmas last night! Jackson has been bugging me to decorate for almost 2 weeks. We bought a skinny fake christmas tree a few days before Thanksgiving (it's the only thing that will fit in our crowded front room) and put it up, but haven't been able to find the time to decorate it until last night. The boys had a blast and were soooo excited. We're (Jon and I) getting more and more into this whole making a big deal out of holidays. We weren't so good at it when we didn't have kids or even when Jackson was a baby. But now we see how much fun they have with it and it makes it much easier.
Merry beginning of the Season! Have fun!

Autumn Family

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

So...how does one put this delicately...

Hi family, so I have been meaning to say this for sometime but I always get too scared to when I work myself up to it, but I just need to let you all know that I am gay. No, no one broke into my account and is writing this as a joke, but it is true. I tried to muster up the courage yesterday at Rob and Diedre's birthday breakfast, but there was no time that seemed right to blurt out, "Mom, Dad, I'm gay." Now Jon and Heidi and David and Mindy already know this, but I haven't talked about it with anyone else in the family. Any questions, just ask. I hope I don't disappoint anyone with this little bomb.

Steve

Blessing Time

Thanks everyone for coming out and sharing this special time with us. We loved having you all here.

View of New Haven from East Rock Park

What a cute baby!

Tracing Douglas' feet for FHE project

Our FHE project all finished. Top is Jackson, middle is Cooper, bottom is Douglas

Baby Blessing-Whole gang

The guys

Douglas in his blessing outfit mom made

October Fun

Had a lot of fun in October! Not a lot going on, other than growing boys, and Halloween candy. Enjoy the pics!


Dacia's new haircut

Jonah as black spiderman

Emily as a soccer klutz

Jon-Jon as a firefighter. He has body armour, but the coat is covering it. That is an axe in his left hand, to knock down doors 'n stuff.

Spencer. He's a tootsie roll

Slowly getting back

So it's been awhile since I've blogged. Life has been pretty crazy, as you can imagine. Douglas is now just over 2 weeks old. He's such a good baby!!! Jackson and Cooper have both been sick since we came home from the hospital (cough, fever, runnynose), so they don't get to be around the baby much. That's the reason we haven't got a picture of all three since the hospital. Jackson is so anxious to get better so he can hold the baby again. Cooper doesn't understand why we won't let him near the baby. It'll be nice when everyone's healthy enough to be able to enjoy having Douglas home.
My Mom and Dad are both here now and the kids love having both Grandma and Papa around. Life still goes on even when you wish it would slow down for just a min. Doctors visits, school field trips, etc. So here's some pictures of the last 2 weeks. I'll post more later, but the blog freaked out on me and wouldn't let me put more pictures on. Love to all!!!


Baby Douglas


Cooper as Buzzlight Year on Halloween


Cooper and Jackson as Buzz-with their new Buzz dolls from Grandma


Cooper loves his Buzz and makes sure he's well fed


Douglas


Red Head


Look at that RED hair!


Jackson at the firestation with his preschool

So, let's play a game.

Below are two photos. One may be Jackson and the other may be Douglas. The game is...who's who?


A-



B-



C-Both Douglas

D-Both Jackson

E-Some random kid/s off Google Images

Short and Sweet

Hey guys. Just wanted you to see the new haircut. Emily and I donated to Locks of Love during the Jetblue craft fair for charity on Saturday. I have never had my hair this short, but I really like it. It definately takes a lot less shampoo and conditioner. And I don't have to dry it with a hair dryer. It just goes the way it goes. I love it. Not sure how Emily likes hers, but I bet it is easier than it was. We each donated around 13 inches. It takes 6-10 donations to make one wig prosthesis. If you were to buy one it would be anywhere from $3,500 to $6,000.
Here are some before and after pictures so you can get the full effect.