One of these pictures is not like the others....

I have a picture of Zack sucking his thumb during the ultrasound I had at 20 weeks. He came out and began sucking his thumb at once. He quickly became attached to one blanket and his thumb and he was a very content little boy. He slept well and was comforted easily by his thumb and his "blank" as he so lovingly called it. He was often nicknamed Linus as he tugged his blank around with him everywhere we went. When he turned four, I tried to get Zack to stop sucking his thumb- he could not do it with his blank around- and told me he would stop when he turned five. Now Zack is almost four and a half and I am worried that he will do damage to his teeth if he keeps sucking his thumb. I bribed him with a new star wars PS2 game if he would stop sucking his thumb. We had to put his blanket away (it was actually really hard on ME!). With his blanket gone, he never sucked his thumb again. So, yesterday he got his new game (see top picture). I never thought it would be quite so easy. My little boy is just a bit more grown up.

boys boys boys.... and Katie

Brian and Josh

Ricky, Caleb and Zack

Katie

Ricky, Brian and Zack watching a movie with Grandpa

Bradley rides the bull...

Zack's turn

Josh holds on for eight...

JJ- being the oldest, went first.

We spent a few days at Amy's house with her four boys and her husband Bret. My brother Swen was also there with his wife Jenni, their three boys and their sweet little girl Katie. My Mom and Dad also came for a few days. With ten boys ages 9 and under and a crazy Grandpa, there was some serious action!

MLK Day

We finally got a chance to take the boys to a bigger hill to go sledding. We had lots of laughs and a few tears- overall, it was a hit!

cheesy potatoes coma

This the the coma that one slips into after eating so many cheesy potatoes that they are actually running back out of the body. I have to admit- they were pretty tasty... And yes, he is awake- he was just making this face to show me how much he was enjoying his food...

Happy New Year!

On New Year's Eve we jumped a plane (one Ryan happened to be flying) to Redmond, Oregon. We spent the night in his hotel, ate pizza and watched the ball drop with the boys. They all stayed up past midnight (amazing) and we all slept in the next morning. It was a nice hotel (with a great breakfast) but not much to see around town. We went for a little walk and enjoyed just being together. Ryan flew us back to SLC that afternoon. It was a great way to ring in the new year!

Idaho

We spent part of the week after Christmas in Idaho. The boys finally got to make their snowman "that is so tall you have to use a ladder" with Grandpa Garth. We went to movies with both Grandmas, spent time with Annie and had such a great time seeing everyone!

Santa Claus came to town!

The boys slept until 7:30 Christmas morning. Josh and Zack were SURE

they had heard hooves on the roof the night before. As we went downstairs, they went straight to the cookie crumbs left on the plate. Everything after that was a haze of wrapping paper and excitement. I will really REALLY miss these magic filled Christmas days when the boys get older...

The Christmas "hits" this year- Leapsters, Playstation games, Heelys for Josh, and Geo Trax airplanes.

Christmas Eve

We had a very relaxed Christmas Eve. The boys spent the afternoon sledding and snowboarding and then we had lots of fattening finger foods while we watched "Christmas Vacation"- the edited version that we got from Amy's family... Thanks!

We read the story of Christ's birth from the scriptures and then watched the DVD of it. Bradley was really into it this year. He wanted to watch the movie over and over again...

The boys then opened their Christmas jammies- aren't they so cute!

Happy Birthday Grandma Marge!

We ended up making a last minute trip to Idaho for a couple of days and got to go to dinner with Grandma Marge for her birthday. We are so happy that we still live close enough to spend special days with our families.

Josh's new talent...

What does Josh love most about his new snowboard?

It attracks all the neighbor girls...

Zack does such a great job on it!

Snow!

It snowed in Utah!! The boys were so excited to have snow. They got their sleds out and made snow angels all afternoon.

Thanksgiving feast

We had such a great Thanksgiving with our family here in our new house. We had so much great food. Kricket even broke in the stove by running the turkey over... =)

We may have set off the fire alarm a few times, but in the end, everything turned out delicious!

Thanks to Tom and Kricket (Annie of course)- Grandma Bonnie- and Grandpa Garth for coming to start off the first of many great holidays in our home...

Busy week...

The boys bathroom...

The master bedroom-(the pink spot on the comforter is from the camera.)

Zack and Bradley's airplane bedroom- it was painted sky blue at their request

This is Josh's cowboy bedroom- He was so excited to have his own room!

The week after we moved to our new house was a busy one. It was filled with making trips to Lowes, painting and hanging- lots of hanging... We pretty much worked around the clock for over a week in an attempt to have things put together for Lisa's family to come for Thanksgiving. Everyone pitched in and things came together well. We are very pleased with the how it turned out...

moving day

Zack was so grouchy the day we moved and did not want to be in this picture. I told him that if he didn't get in the picture I would paint his new bedroom pink- not blue like he had requested. Notice that he IS in the picture- but is NOT happy about it...

Moving day was stressful, but we had so much help from our families that we will pretty much owe them forever. Ryan's parents and brother Jeff spent the day helping make load after load into the trailer, and then drove down to Utah and helped us unload the trailer into the house. It was such a long day, but we were thrilled to be spending our first night in our new house...