Houston, TX

My sister and her family invited us to come stay with them for a little over a week. Kris is in the middle of his surgery rotation so Denzil and I jumped on the opportunity. We had a great time with them and enjoying the wonderful spring weather in TX. We spent a couple of days about an hour north of Austin and so we made our way to a train museum in Temple. It was pretty fun and nice that they had a little room just for kids to play with toy trains and such. Denzil really liked that idea.

You can go inside the cab of his engine and ring the bell and move a few levers and such. It was a bit of a challenge to get all the kids to look at the camera but they had a great time.

On our drive back to Houston we made a stop for lunch with Anita, Kris' sister, and surprisingly Denzil let her hold him long enough to get a picture taken without crying. He is for sure in the "I love mom" stage and would cry while I was taking a shower at my sisters, even with the other kids around to distract him.
Denzil had just woken up and had this sweet hairdo going for him and I couldn't resist the awesome sleeping position of Kate as well.
There is a place near Houston that has a bunch of small trains and tracks set up and on one Saturday a month they do free rides for the public. As we were standing in line I thought that it would be a quick ride because of how frequently the trains were coming in but it ended up being about 10 minutes or so. We had a great time and it was so pleasant out there.

Denzil really had fun with Kate and Sam. They loved playing together most of the time. Denzil started to learn what it is to wrestle.
They have some pretty sweet dress up stuff and this is the dragon suit. I tried to get a better pic of it but I also wanted to get his cute face.

Thanks for a lovely trip Laura, Adam, Kate and Sam. Can't wait until we can do it again!

What we have been up to lately...

A few days before Valentine's Day I took Denzil to Barnes and Noble for their story time and craft time and this is the card Denzil made for Kris.

I know, my kid is so smart already! He did help me write this by holding the crayon with me;)

He is still in love with the park and especially the swings. We have Victoria over one or more times a week and she seemed to love the swings as well. I went to the park with Denzil the other day and I'm pretty sure he spent at least 1/2 hr on the swing. I'm surprised that he didn't get bored. I had to keep switching arms to make sure one muscle didn't get bigger than the other.
He is also in love with bikes. I guess that is why I decided that I should buy him a tricycle today and yes I did cave and get the one with the adult push handle because my back can't take the bending over for that long. He cried at the store when I made him get back in the cart so we could purchase the bike. He wanted to keep riding the "test" bike.

For one of our playgroup times we went to a bounce house that has little kid hours (6 and under) and we had a blast! We went down this slide at least 10 times because I was having so much fun on it.

This was taken a few weeks ago. I have pulled out the maternity clothes and bought a few more because last time I didn't buy much because a girl at work let me borrow hers. Hopefully I can find a couple more pairs of shorts so that I can be cool and comfortable for the summer. No names have been picked yet for this little girl but we are getting more and more excited to welcome her to our family in a few more months.

It's official. It's a GIRL!

Christmas Break

Christmas break was another fun chance to make it back out west. We were able to stay in Utah for a week and in Washington for a week. It is always great to be able to see family and friends. Mostly everyone just wants to see Denzil though :). We sure wish we were a little closer.

Christmas lights at Temple Square with Jenny's family. It snowed a little but we stayed warm.

This is a great little toy store called Blickenstaff's in Provo. Here's the little guy making the rodeo look easy.

Denzil loves playing with balls, especially like this at the Children's Museum. He had a fun time with all the little exhibits they have to play on there.

Picking out some good fruits and veggies from the Farmer's Market at the Children's Museum.

Hiking up Millcreek Canyon on Christmas Eve.

Hayride and caroling in the neighborhood with the all the families.

This shirt was Denzil's gift from us. It's tough to read, but it says "I'm going to be a Big Brother." It's true, starting in July.

The weather was a bit wet for the week in SLC, but Christmas Day was beautiful. We headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon and went snowshoeing up to Willow Lake near Brighton. It wasn't too long, the weather was great, and the snow was wonderful. Jenny's dad came with us.

Found a soft spot when we were pulling out. Had to dig for a few minutes then we were able to drive right out.

Multnomah Falls, OR. The tallest waterfall in Oregon (620 ft combined) and the 3rd tallest year-round waterfall in the US. We went for a drive to see the Columbia River Gorge.

This is the Portland Children's Museum. Denzil loves the water and couldn't get enough of the water area that they have.

Jenny and Jaxon (our nephew) on our first geocaching adventure.

We were driving in the mountains near home and Jaxon asked if we could stop and have a snowball fight. We accepted the invitation. What a fun day.

Richmond

We drove up to Richmond, VA for a quick trip. We stopped at some Civil War sites and visited Geof and Darla, some of our friends from Washington who are living in VA now. The weather was great and it was a fun trip! We stopped at a park and took some family pictures.

A fun little Japanese garden with a bridge that was perfect for photo ops.

Random Late Fall Fun

D learning how to tame a wild bronc.

He also likes to play at the playplace at the mall, which is nice when it is cold and wet.

More fun at the park.

You don't have to look closely to see that he was not happy about being with Santa. Even with the support of his pal.

Amazingly even mom couldn't calm this one down.

Halloween

Ok, I think that I am caught up on my blogging after this post. For Halloween this year we went to our ward Chili cook off/Trunk or Treat and a few days later we went to our friends party too. Kris was a cowboy, I was Pippy Longstocking, and Denzil was Frankenstein. My favorite part about my costume was that the young girls had no idea who Pippy was but they liked that my hair stuck out.

Nana came to visit!

Kris' mom came to visit us for a week in October and we had a great time. Denzil decided then that he loves horsey rides courtesy of "mama horse."

We went to a little farm place that had a hay ride with multiple destinations. There was the petting zoo part (Denzil loved all the animals being so close but they were a bit out of control if you ask me...probably because we were the only people that came that day so they were hungry;), then we went and did a hay maze, a little fairy land thing, and finally we got a little pumpkin at the end. I think Denzil had a blast and we did too just watching how much fun he was having.

Denzil held a wooly worm which peed on him because he was just a little rough;)

We went to Mrs. Hanes Moravian Cookies bakery and watched how they hand make all the cookies. They said it takes them about 4 months to figure out the texture that the dough needs to be and how to roll it out and such. The lemon ones are my favorite.
We went to the Biltmore Estate. Denzil did pretty well in the backpack but he was pretty upset when I wouldn't let him down to play on the piano there.
He also got upset that I wouldn't let him get into the fountain.
We travelled to Colonial Williamsburg, VA. In the cabinet makers shop they were nice enough to let Denzil play on the harpsichord that they had made as a replica. He was a lot easier to handle after that.
The Capitol Building

Uh oh! Luckily no one had rotten food to throw at us.



This caterpillar has become a great toy. Denzil loves to be "caught" by it and wrapped up in it. He had a great time with Nana and we were all glad she could come and visit us.
Denzil had a full head haircut. We did a trim on the back in August because it was getting mullet like but he was in need of a full haircut. He did really well until the hair started to tickle his face and make him itchy. Kris did a great job and there are only a few long hairs around the ears.

Denzil has started to like the bath again so we are all stoked about that one.

But he isn't a fan of having the hood on his head.