Happy Anniversary

I have to admit, I am not a very romantic guy. I sometimes forget things. One thing I will never forget is my anniversary. I purposely got married right after Gideon's birthday so I would always remember. His birthday is a trigger that reminds me it is almost my anniversary. I am a very lucky man. Staci is the most wonderful wife I could ever imagine. She does so much for me and helps me in so many ways. I don't know what I would do without her. She gets up every morning and makes me lunch. She takes such great care of our beautiful daughter. I love her so much. She is always thinking of ways to serve and help others. She is a kind and considerate mother who goes out of her way to make the lives of those around her better. Sometimes I am rude and mean, and she forgives me without question. She has great faith and determination, and that helps me a lot. She makes delicious food that makes me gain weight, and then makes me go on a diet and still makes good food. She loves unconditionally and helps me love others more. She puts up with me being gone so long some days without complaint. She loves football. She really is amazing. I love her. It was a good thing to marry her.

Katya Loves zucchini

The great thing about blogging is that I can put stuff up that is so easy for my family and friends to see. These are things that my parents could only write letters about. The only delay is how long it takes us to record something. For instance, last night, Katya wanted some of my soup, so I gave her some, but I didn't realize how much she liked zucchini. All this time we have been feeding her food that tastes good, like fruits instead of vegetables (still good for her, don't worry, grandparents). We taught her that putting her fingers together and up to her mouth means more food, so she does that a lot. Please enjoy the video. By the way, the sounds she makes are amazing. We don't know how she does them, especially the really sharp breathing in sound.

Katya's Newest Crush

Katya found a new boy to be in love with. Even though she only had one 20 minute nap today, she was in a great mood. She loved this new toy. This was the at least the twentieth time Spiderman danced and sang and she loved it every time. About half way through, she looks off camera and doesn't seem interested in Spiderman. That was because she saw our friend Stephanie eating ice cream. Ice cream is much more important to her than anything else.

We also took Katya to Nursery for the first time today and she loved being around all the kids. She loves people her size. I put both videos even though they are the same to see which is better, Blogger or YouTube. I know Google owns YouTube, so I would assume they are probably pretty similar, but I am just curious. Indulge me. The Blogger video apparently is not working, so I guess YouTube is better.

New Stuff

I meant to blog about this a couple weeks ago, but I forgot to. Two weeks ago Katya had a major first. We took a snack for her to church. It was so cute. She is growing up so fast.

A Link to the Past

Despite the poor title (extreme, just to get you to read it) and sloppy writing, this article is actually quite good, and brings back great memories of one of my favorite families is Ulan Ude. You can tell they are happy because they look healthy. It is very exciting to see that.

Crib Happenings

We always catch Katya doing the cutest and funniest things. Here are the latest.

She went to bed with both pant legs on and I'm not quite sure
how she was able to get one leg out without the pants coming
all the way off.

When I tuck Katya in for naps now, she likes to snuggle with
her frog and always hugs it. It's pretty cute.

Can it get any cuter?

Yesterday Nya and Katya were wearing matching outfits so I just had to take pictures. They are just too cute together and you can tell they just love playing together. I'm glad that Nya lives close enough that they get to play often. Enough babbling, here are the pics.

Silly girl

Fun times

What a funny Nya

So cute!

These two are so stinkin' cute!

That's my girl!

Daddy's little girl!

I love this picture.

So cute!

Home Depot

Have you ever noticed that the recent Home Depot commercials show ethnic minorities planning to go to Home Depot, but then when they show employees interacting with customers, there are only white people at Home Depot. So, is Home Depot saying that minorities are all about intending to go to Home Depot, but never make it? Do they get lost along the way? Interesting... View two of the commercials below. The second one is pretty poor quality, but it is one of the best examples.

What has Katya been up to?

Katya is developing more of a personality every day and seems to be acting older and older. She is just so cute that I cannot help but take pictures of her cuteness. Here are some of the latest.



We went to Murray Park on Labor Day for a picnic. Katya sure loves the park and had so much fun. She also really likes to play with the grass and pick it and eat it. Silly girl.



Katya's new favorite food is cucumbers. She loves to get a nice slice and then chew on it until it breaks. She gets so mad at me when I take the broken pieces from her. She is happy again when she gets a fresh one though. Good thing we have a ton of cucumbers in the garden so she can eat till her hearts content.

Cougar Football

Saturday as the first game of the BYU football season and we were so excited! Even Katya was excited. We dressed up in Cougar blue and headed down to Provo. Despite the fact that it was way too hot, it was a great game. It helped that BYU beat Arizona. Here are some pics from our day.

Comic Life

So, at my new school, I got a sweet MacBook. It is really nice, and it has this neat little program called "Comic Life" and I have been playing around with it tonight. This is my first comic...it is not that funny, but hopefully some will forgive that. Click on it to enlarge it.

Birthday Weekend

I don't know why, but this year I was really thinking a lot about getting older. I was thinking how that when I'm 30, my littlest Katya will be 8! I can't believe that it will come faster than I think. The first year has already gone by so fast and every time I turn around she is older, which makes me older. I don't really obsess over my age, it just seemed that this year I really thought how time has flown and how much life has changed in just the past year. I'm not afraid to get older, except for the fact that my kids will get older too and will no longer be so little. Oh how I will miss it!

My birthday was great. We went to another ultrasound that morning and it was so cute to see our little girl getting big and see how cute she is. It was a very relaxing day and Jethro took care of Katya the whole day so I just st and relaxed. That evening we went down to some friends house for dinner and cake and ice cream. Nice and relaxing. We had big plans for the weekend so relaxing was good. Jethro made me a dark chocolate fudge cake with dark chocolate fudge frosting for my b-day and we waited to celebrate with the cake until my family came. The next day, my parents came into town and took me out to dinner. I just love Olive Garden.

Blowing out the candles. Jethro got trick candles so I had
a little trouble. It was such a good cake. I love dark chocolate!

On Friday we went up to Midway to a timeshare condo. Rebekah watched Katya for us so it was a nice getaway. We were supposed to have friends come up on Friday too, but they couldn't come up till Saturday. Jethro And I just enjoyed our alone time together and it was so nice to just relax. We are beginning to realize how important it is to just get away from kids for a little trip every year. Nice and necessary.

On Saturday it was so nice to just sleep in late and lazily get ready. We met our friends in Heber City for lunch at Dairy Keen and I had the best shake. It was Chocolate Dipped Strawberry with real strawberries- so good! We also went up to see the war memorial in Midway, miniature golfing, and playing a ton of board and card games. We also barbecued for dinner. It was so much fun and just great to relax.

Here are some pics from the weekend.

Jethro and I at the war memorial overlooking Heber City.

Tyler, Stephanie, Staci and Jethro

Stephanie and I

Jethro miniature golfing

Jethro playing on the giant outdoor chess board. It was
tons of fun.

She's getting so big...

I can't believe how big Katya is getting. She went to the doctor last week and is 15 pds. 4 oz. and is 27 in. long. I'm glad she finally hit the 15 pd. mark. I was wondering when that was going to happen. She loves to laugh and make mean glares at us and then laugh. So cute! We got Katya a ride on toy and she loves it. She can't sit on it and touch the ground, but she has gotten pretty good at balancing with one foot on the ground. She loves to just sit there and push the horn and dance to the Winnie the Pooh music. She also loves to sit in front of it and push the music buttons.

24 weeks and growing....

Our little baby girl is getting bigger and I can't believe that I'm already 24 weeks along. She moves so much and I can't wait until she finally gets here in December. Here is a picture of me at 24 weeks.

Sacramento Trip

Yesterday we got back from our trip to Sacramento. We left on Saturday and had so much fun. We took Nya with us and I'm sure glad hat we did. Katya watched Nya the whole entire time we were in the car. She wouldn't even take a nap because she just wanted to look at Nya. It was so cute. Nya was so good in the car and the whole time that we were gone that it was so easy to have her with us and so much fun.

Nya loved seeing Kate and Sarah and Katya loved being around everybody and getting so much attention. We took the kids swimming, to the park for a picnic and to Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. Mostly the kids just really loved playing together and it was a lot of fun watching them play. As adults we stayed up late many of the nights talking or playing games. That was a lot of fun. It was nice to actually have Jethro be able to go on a trip with us this summer and we had a lot of fun spending time together as a family.

Here are some pics from our trip.

Jethro and I at Discovery Kingdom

The dolphins in the show at Discovery Kingdom.

Shouka the whale.

Katya getting tired during the Shouka show.

Nya wanted to make sure that Katya could watch the movie too.

All the kids at the park. Jethro barked to make Katya look at him
and that's why she's doing her infamous sad face.

Nya, Kate, and George on one of the rides at Discovery Kingdom.

Katya and I on the carousel.

Kate, George, and Katya waiting for the dolphin show.

Nya, Jethro and Katya during the dolphin show.

Katya in her Sunday dress. I've waited a long time for her to grow into it.

Sarah, Kate, Katya, Jethro, and Nya swimming.

Cute Katya.

Katya loves mirrors and these were in our room. She thought it was so cool.
She sat there and playing with the mirror for about 45 minutes. This is
her telling secrets to "her twin".

Nya and Kate at the park. This is one of my favorite pictures.