Ahhh, isn't she cute?

Ok, so what if I am getting a little excited. I had my big "healthy baby" ultrasound yesterday with the technitian. I love this picture the best, where she has her arm up to her head and she's facing down. She said everything looks great and when it comes to telling the gender, she doesn't guess. She is certain it is a girl. I know the dr. told us last month, but I only took that as a guess. Now that were sure, I can start painting. We will move rooms around next month.
Thanks to all who put in their comments on names. We are really leaning towards Brielle. There is a 4 year old girl in our ward with that name, but I asked her mom and she fine if we wanted to use it, too.
Tommorrow is a typical Saturday for us with all the hussell of raising kids. Soccer games for all 3 at 9am, piano recital at 4pm, and pictures with Skyler in his scout uniform, for the court of honor, at 5. Not to mention that Kevin and Caleb want to start a garden. Life is good when were happily involved in a good cause!

An Eagle in our midst

Schuyler is officially an Eagle Scout!! We are so proud of him. He will share his court of honor with friends and family on May 15th, (3 days before his 15th birthday) He has worked so hard and has had some great leaders help him along the way. For his eagle scout project he took picture of headstones at the Brigham city cemetary and downloaded them on to a CD where the city will now put them on the internet for others to look up their ancestors. You'd think after getting your Eagle you can relax and enjoy a few moments, but Schuyler is a doer. He is putting up posters today in fact for the sophomore class officer elections. Then he is studing for his learners permit next month, and this summer he has been hired as a camp counselor at the Bear Lake Scout Camp to assist in the aquadic department, helping scouts to recieve their swimming merit badge. He will be at camp for 9 weeks, coming home for the weekends (to do laundy and go to church). He is very excited to do that, especially with a few of his friends from school.

I am now 19 weeks along and finally looking more pregnant than fat. So lately we've been throwing around a lot of girl names. Since Mark has 15 nieces and I have 7, plus 2 more niecs born this summer, we have our work cut out for us. Mark is great at making lists then handing them to me so I can scratch out the ones I don't like. Here are a few we actually agree on. Give input:

Katherine
Summer
Paige
Brielle
Abigail

Bring on the Pink!!!

I had an ultrasound last week and ......It's a girl. At least we're 90% sure. The Dr. said to keep our recipts on stuff we buy, but he also said he is rarely wrong when he gives such a high percentage rate. We are excited. I bought a pink blanket to put in a bag, which the boys opened later that night. They were so thrilled. They all said they wanted a little sister, so no disappointed faces. Now we just have to come up with a name. Toshia and Danielle also found out they are having girls this summer, so we will have girl cousins, yeah!! I am feeling better these days, but sometimes, without warning I will still get sick. Mark and the boys have been wonderful to help around the house and do extra jobs.
I am still doing water aerobics, which helps the sciatic nerve problem! Plus being in the water helps me feel lighter.

Other important news, soccer has offically started. All the boys had games this past Saturday. It's good that K&C are on the same team so Mark and I can split up when Skyler's games are at the same time. This will be a busy spring. Can't wait to sit and enjoy General Conference!

Happy St. Patty's day!

Kevin
Skyler

Most of the time I can be a creative and fun mom. But lately I haven't felt well enough to celebrate holidays, especially with my boys getting so old. Do they really care? Well yesterday, Mark convinced me to do something fun for St. Patrick's Day. So I got up and made green eggs and ham. I think they thought it was fun. Can't wait until Easter...

Guess What?!

binoculars from Grandma & Grandpa Bradley

Cousins: Kyle, Skyler, Brooke, Nicole & Karlissa


Cousins playing DS games!



It's amazing how time can get away from you during the holidays. Especially when you're not feeling well. Of course, when you find out you're expecting it makes it all worth while! I thought it was from eating so much good food. I am now 10 weeks along and we are excited to have a new little one join our family the first week of September. The boys are also excited and are hoping we have a little girl! Caleb tells Mark the other day," I am so excited, I feel like I believe in Santa Claus again!" Then the other day I asked one of the boys how school was and they said, "Great, I came up with a new list of baby names!" Oh brother! So far, the morning sickness hasn't been too bad. I feel tons better than I did with the boys. We are thrilled to join the pregnancy ranks of 2 sis-in-laws. Andrew's wife Toshia and Mark's sister Danielle are both due at the end of July. How fun.

Now for the rest of you who want to know what we did for Christmas, I will insert a few pictures. We opened gifts at home and by noon we left and joined the Bradley family in Moroni. I love that Skyler, Kevin and Caleb have cousins their ages. I went looking for the twins while we were there and found all these cousins hanging out all playing on their Nintendo DS games! It was funny! For New Years we had some friends come over and played games.

Skyler is done with the swimming. The season is over and he had a great time. He is now going to go out for HS Baseball. The twins will start soccer next month. Then we will be busy. So, if you don't hear from me in a couple more months, you'll know why!

There's no place like home

Skyler, Grandpa, Caleb & Kevin

15 grandkids
Andrew, Daniel, Doug, Julie, Me, Crystal,
Dad, Connie and Ryan

For those of you who do not know, I hale from Portland Oregon. I grew up in the middle of the city with all the craziness that comes with it. 8 of my siblings and my Dad still live there. Eventually they will see the error of their ways and move out here. Ha Ha. In the meantime, I am forced to drive or fly back to Oregon whenever there is an important family event, or if we feel like going to the Oregon coast. In the past 15 years, Mark and I have only gone back to Portland for the holidays once. Skyler was 18 months old. So, this year, weather permitting, we made the decision to drive back to Ptld for Thanksgiving. We left on Wed. the 25th and we were blessed with great weather! We stayed with my sister, Crystal and her husband Jason. They were great hosts and my boys got to know their cousins, Kayla and Brandon, better. Thursday we drove to the chapel that dad had reserved because we have a large enough crowd that meeting at a family members house is daunting. Everyone was there except Victor, Shelly, and Nick. We had a great time and great food. It is hard to see my family and get causght up with all they are doing in such a short amount of time. So, thank heavens for Facebook and email! After the dinner the kids took a whack at dad's pinata. What fun!

We went out to see Shelly and Victor on Friday and did a little shopping. (Nick lives in California) Then Saturday we drove the 12 1/2 hours home! It was a quick holiday visit, but worth it. Now if we can just get a few family members to move out here....

Happy Haunting

I love this time of day when the sunset creates pink mountains.
Logan canyon colors

Caleb

Where's Skyler?

To say life has been busy around here would be an understatement. Since school started I feel like we have been going non-stop. Waking at 6 am to take Skyler to swim practice every morning is the first exciting thing to do on our trip through the day. After swim practice he goes straight to school then back to the pool from 3:30 -5:30pm, where Mark will pick him up after work. I will say, I am impressed with Skyler's self determiation to get to the pool everyday. He had his first swim meet last Thursday and I think he did really well, being a freshman competing against upper classmen. Let's play "Where's Skyler?" Can you spot him in the picture with his team mates? (hint: he's wearing white goggles) So far he is keeping up with his studies and piano. He also works for a widow in our ward, pulling weeds etc... on the weekends. Kevin and Caleb are not as involved with sports right now ,but come spring, soccer will take over. They are home around 3:30 and have a slew of homework and piano practice to get done. I am still doing water aerobics Monday and Friday. I have asked a friend to take over the Wednesday class because we have YM/YW and I was tired of running from one place to the next without dinner and a shower! Scary! I have also been working a few hours at Honeyville every week. It's good to be reminded about our need to stock up on food storage, however, I practically spend my paycheck there. In September we went to a free concert in town and heard Jon Schmidt play the piano. He is a famous LDS composer and Skyler has been learning to play his waterfall piece. This past month we drove up Logan Canyon for a look at all the fall colors before winter hits. I think these pictures don't do justice to the colors we saw. Saturday is Halloween K&C are excited to dress up and go trick-or-treating. However, I feel like Skyler is too old and should just invite some friends over to watch a Halloween movie. To top off my week Saturday night, we had a neighbor come over to tell us that water was coming out of the asphalt in front of our driveway. Since it was around 6:30pm, we called the after hours utilities and they came over and promptly turned off our water and dug up an 8' hole to see what the problem was. Forunatly it was a small leak and was in the street, so the city covers the expenses. Unfortunatly they filled the hole back up but have not reasphalted yet, so when it rains or snows this week, like predicted, it will be a muddy mess. I will still count my blessings it wasn't worse!