One Stop Shopping

I have to say I'm always amazed at what can be found on a trip to Las Vegas - for good and bad. You can see the entire world in one stop shopping. You want wild animals? Got 'em!

G-Pops showing Danny the giant Koi.
Flamingos - and boys pretending to be flamingos. More huge fish.Even dinosaurs! Don't worry, Olivia survived the attack. :)You want a little culture? Some international flair perhaps? Got it!

Chinese New Year with Kaya & Olivia.Luke, Danny, and Olivia pose with Caesar. I forgot to take pictures of our Venetian gondola ride, but did get some of the volcano.
Danny found it almost as scary as the real "cano" in Costa Rica.And in case animals or foreign countries aren't really your thing, the giant piano is a winner.

It is pretty cool when you can walk from country to country without ever getting a passport and enjoy some fantastic wildlife without going on a safari. I can't say I'd highly recommend jetting off to Vegas as a family trip though - as mentioned before there are plenty of things you come across you may not want to see - but we managed to have a pretty fantastic trip anyway.
Thanks again g-pops!!

Love II

My family had a tradition growing up that we'd make Valentine Bags a week or so before Valentine's Day. Danny had fun doing it this year, and Matt was quite the artist himself. It's fun and frightening allowing Danny to practice his fine motor skills. He's still working on the appropriate amount of glue. On Valentine's Day we had fun opening the bags and seeing what Valentine's we had gotten each other.

LOVE

So I'm sure I fooled some of you into thinking this was a Valentine's blog . . .not so. :) A couple weeks ago we got to go to Las Vegas with Matt's family. One highlight was getting to see Cirque du Soleil's tribute to the Beatles - LOVE. It was phenomenol - familiar usic, incredible acrobatics, fun dancing. Dad Hong had gotten us some pretty spectacular seats up front so we could really see everything from facial expressions to rippling muscles during the rope acrobatics. AWESOME!

Wow!!

Though Danny didn't make it to the actual performance (which started at 9 PM - thanks for watching him Lance!!) Danny did enjoy some of the hype around the theatre and gave a nice show of his own.

Needless to say, all the action wore our little man out. Thanks again for a fantastic trip Jerry!!!

And by the way, if you made it through reading this whole blog . . .
ultrasound says . . .
WE'RE HAVING A GIRL!!

Bad Guy

So, when Danny was a sweet innocent baby boy, I remember imagining that he would always be so kind and angelic. Though I knew he was a boy, I thought with careful parenting I could be sure he never got obsessed with swords and guns and "Hi-ya!" kicks. I still remember, however, the first time he found a toy laser gun at his cousin's house. They don't even have a lot of toy weapons and have pretty strict rules about how to use the light sabers and stuff. But down the stairs comes Danny, shooting up a storm with the one laser gun in the house. Where did he learn that!?

Not too many weeks after that I became a little more concerned when we were eating waffles and he bit a piece into the shape of a gun. "Look - gun!" Followed by gun sounds. I explained I didn't like him shooting his waffle at the dogs. That's a conversation I never planned for.

We also try to read the picture scriptures every night before bed, but again I started to feel a little nervous about this routine when instead of requests for the stories of bravery and righteousness Danny just got excited to read about, "Sticks mommy. Bad Guys!" I've continued to try and explain that although it's generally not good to cut off arms or murder people with swords, that Ammon and Nephi were really good guys. Not sure how much of this is sinking in with my two-year-old.

Matt has continued to reassure me that none of this means our son will be the next unabomber or grow into an overly violent teen. It's just typical boy stuff. I try to reassure myself that I'm not a bad mom while continuing to teach Danny the difference between good guys and bad guys and the danger of the weapons he's so keenly drawn to.

I had to laugh the other day though when my precious, innocent, angelic two-year-old pulled out this one. I had been cleaning out my closet (the joyous swapping of regular clothes and maternity clothes) when out of the back comes this guy. "Look mom. I a bad guy."


My little thug. Can anyone relate?

Snuggling

Definitely Pregnant

A couple weekends ago Matt and I went to Austin to celebrate our friends soon-to-arrive baby girl. Jenny and I had fun at her baby shower while Mark, Matt, and Danny did guy stuff. We had scrumptious salads, cupcakes, and soups while they ate wings and meat. The girls oohed and aahed over pink and purple wrapping paper and fun shower gifts. The boys splashed and laughed holding Danny over fountains. I forgot to take more shower pictures, but had to be sure to get one of Jenny and I. We have lots of high school pictures together, and now we're still great friends so many years later.
The first shot is pretty fun and I thought, "Wow, I don't look pregnant at all!" Jenny is about 36 weeks pregnant in these shots, so she's supposed to look super cute & pregnant.But then we turned sideways. "Woah! I'm definitely pregnant!" I feel like I'm looking so much more pregnant at 18 weeks than I did with Danny, but I hear that's typical. Or maybe I just better cut back on the nightly 9 PM ice cream . . .

Happy New Year . . . Chinese I mean

So tonight Danny and I enjoyed a tasty Chinese celebration with Chartrands and Swansons. Poor Matt was still at work. However, I didn't take any pictures of the lanterns, homemade wontons, fried rice, or Benjamin's lesson tying together the Year of the Ox to the gospel. I thought I could finally post pictures from our December 31 New Year's celebration instead.

Matt's cousin Evonne and her family came to visit from Dallas. Though they've been up there a few years it wasn't until Hurricane Ike that we finally met up. We have been able to get together with the Wallaces several times since and always have such a fun time! Even though Matt is really Kelsie, Jackson, and Chloe's 2nd cousin, they call him Uncle Matt. Mostly he just acts like a little kid when he hangs out with them. :)

Here Danny, Kelsie, and Jackson having fun with Matt's Ipod Touch.

On New Year's Even we had a delicious steak dinner followed by fireworks with Billings and some other friends. Sadly, I missed out on most of the show because Danny was scared of how loud it was. We were surprised because he loved the fireworks on the 4th of July. I heard it was a pretty awesome show though. After fireworks we invited Billings over for S'mores and hot cocoa. Kelsie and Leah are both 8, and Jackson and Alex are both 5, so the pairs had lots of fun playing together. Danny and Chloe are fairly close in age, but Chloe was far more interested in the dogs than Danny. Everyone was having so much fun that we invited Leah and Alex to spend the night.

It's funny to me how as I've gotten older, the excitement of staying up 'til midnight has lessened. The younger kids went to bed, but Kelsie and Leah were going strong. I remember how fun it was in high school to stay up really late - well past midnight. Wally, Evonne, Matt, and I had to work hard to stay awake. Luckily they taught us a pretty cool card game called Golf that kept us up. I don't think any of us were awake past 12:15 (though little ones woke us up shortly thereafter).

New Year's Day was a georgeous sunny day, so after breakfast we headed over to the park. Billings again joined us for some of Matt's tasty grilled wings, smoked ribs, and football. We stuffed ourselves with all sorts of tasty appetizers . . . maybe our New Year's resolutions can start a week after the feast is over. Wallaces had to head home in the afternoon. It was a short visit, but we had a great time. Hooray for 2009!

Alex & Kelsie
Alex, Jackson, Brenna, Kelsie, and Leah

'Twas a month after Christmas . . .

And finally I blogged!

We had fun with all the Christmas preparations this year from the cookies to the decorations and most especially the surprise snowfall! Yes, in Houston!
Visiting Santa Claus did not go over so well this year though - screaming child and blurry picture. It is pretty tough to take a clear shot of a squirming, screaming kid though. Christmas crafts with Grandma Couch were a huge hit though. She always had something up her sleeve to help entertain all the grandkids. Sadly, the handprint for dad didn't work out quite as expected, but Danny was proud to give it to him anyway.

We had fun opening a few early presents from Grandmother and Papa Douthitt. However there was a bit of confusion when Matt and I through in a gift from ourselves as well. Mom and Dad Couch couldn't figure out why Grandmother and Papa had sent them an ultrasound picture and a little onesie. It only took a minute before they realized that it was from us, not the grandparents.For Christmas Eve our friends the Swansons joined us. I warned them about our families traditional Christmas Eve Program and described it as a talent show. They were the only ones who provided real talent by singing a fabulous rendition of Michael Bubles song "Everything." Benjamin's not in the picture because he was playing the piano. We provided some more traditional family "talents" like a dance, a magic show,
and a doggie poem.Fortunately we had enough tasty appetizers and treats that Swansons weren't scared away entirely. In fact, they still consider us friends even after our wacky talents. We did end the silliness by singing some Christmas hymns and watching the video of Luke 2. It was fun to keep asking Danny who we were celebrating just to hear his little voice say, "Baby Jesus." For Christmas Eve, all the cousins spent the night at our house. Leah left Santa a note at their house so he could find them and leave their presents in the right spot. They looked pretty great in the snowman jammies Grandma and Grandpa Billings got for all of them!

And Santa certainly did find all of us. He brought wheels for the kids who could walk and a jumper for the littlest one who couldn't. We had a fun morning giving and receiving gifts and after a delicious roast beef dinner enjoyed an afternoon of playing, relaxing, and being together. It was a Merry Christmas indeed!