A Few of This Month's Highlights

Hanging out at our Brownsville Ward Valentine's Dance

Justin was dancing a lot! Miles LOVED dancing with him!

Making heart pizza's during Grandma & Grandpa's Valentine's lunch.


The kids had a blast decorating cupcakes!


Sweet Girls made sweet cupcakes


Justin turns 29!!


Poor little Miles... this is when we got home from the urgent care last night. Justin bought special Diego band-aids for Miles on our way home.


We got him to smile!


His stitches are so long because when Miles was wiggling so much, the doctor didn't feel comfortable cutting the strands too short for fear that he would cut Miles. He didn't want to make a difficult situation worse.

Accidents Happen

Tonight we were hanging out upstairs putting some laundry away and getting the kids ready for bed. The kids were being really goofy and running around. Miles was the wildest as always. The kids ran into Brooklyn and Riley's room and all of a sudden Justin and I hear a thump and immediately we hear Miles start screaming and crying. We went to see what happened as he was coming to our room. He had blood dripping from his chin onto his shirt and his mouth was bleeding a little. Miles is pretty accident prone because of how active he is, but it's usually a bump here and a scrape there. When Justin and I saw the blood we knew he needed stitches. We packed the kids up, got in the car and headed to the urgent care. We had to wait about 15 minutes before they called him back. By that time, he had stopped crying and was playing with stickers. Mark and Mary (Justin's parents) came and picked up the girls so Justin and I could both stay with Miles. The doctor came in quickly. He and a nurse held Miles down, with the help of Justin and myself. He tried to numb the whole chin area, but Miles was screaming and crying and moving like crazy. It should have taken maybe 20 seconds, but it took a couple minutes instead. Then the doctor started stitching Miles up. He kept screaming and crying and it took all the energy we had to hold him down (4 adults!) Finally it was getting too difficult for the doctor to try to stitch a moving target (the doctor was getting pretty frustrated) so we had to call in one more person to help hold him down. I think it was a traumatic experience for everyone involved. I was nearly in tears because Miles kept saying "Mommy, it hurts! I want mommy!" I think if I didn't have something to focus on... the job of holding him down, I would've fallen apart! Miles ended up with 6 stitches. He's a tough kid, though, and we're glad that that was the extent of his injuries! I don't think we'll ever really know how it happened, but we're glad our little man is a trooper and he's ok!

Neighborhood Park

We have a neighborhood playground down the street from our house that you can see from our house. We pass it everyday when we walk to and from the bus stop and the kids always want to stop. We haven't been playing there as much lately because of the colder weather and it's often raining. But this evening the kids really wanted to go for a little while before dinner. They had so much fun! They were running around like crazy and laughing and burning off tons of energy. It was fun. I guess we really need to take advantage of the dry days in the winter and be outside as much as we can. It makes the kids much happier!



Riley is quite the acrobat!

Miles is very relaxed :)
I think this picture looks so cool! Brooklyn likes to swing so high, it's hard to take a picture of her, but it does make for a very artistic photo.

The kids love going head first down the slide. They were cracking up!

Brooklyn's hair kept flying into here face, so I gave her my hair tie. Again, though, this girl is fast! She flew off the end of that slide!

It's hard to get all three kids looking at the camera with smiles and eyes open all at the same time. Here are our two attempts before Miles had had it with the camera.

Living in Luxury!

Recently, Justin and I went to the Aldrebrook Resort and Spa. It was so nice! It was very beautiful. We wanted to go hiking, but decided not to because of the rain. Maybe this summer we can go hiking up there without staying there (it's a little pricey!). We had dinner at the restaurant... Justin had king crab leg and lamb. I had a chicken fettuccine dish. It was pretty good, but honestly, I'm not a very fancy person, and it was hard for me to spend over $100 on that meal. I wish they had a Denny's across the street or something. :)
The highlight for me was swimming. The pool was huge and just warm enough. It was deep enough that we could dive in and there were only a couple other people there so it was almost like we had it all to ourselves. They had a huge hot tub too. Justin liked that better than the pool, but not me. Those things are nice for a while, but they're too hot, I think. So after we went in the hot tub for a bit, I went back in the pool. Not Justin, though. He likes the heat.
The view from our room was gorgeous. It looks over the Hood Canal. We were able to get a few pictures, but none of them does the view justice.
Justin really wanted to get a couples massage... it is a spa after all. We weren't planning on it, so we didn't make reservations for it ahead of time. They ended up being completely booked for all massages (and all rooms). I couldn't believe it. We went the last weekend in January, and they were totally booked! I can't imagine what it's like in the summer when there's so much more to do there.
Anyway, we had a great time. It was nice to spend some much needed quality time together and celebrate making it through 7 years of marriage! :) It's been a bumpy ride at times, but I've learned that it's those times that help us grow as individuals and as a couple. When we are pushed to the limit, we realize we're much more capable of things than we thought. I'm grateful to be making life's journey with Justin. He is a wonderful man!

This was our room. Justin is on the phone trying to schedule a massage. We had some A&W Root beer floats (pretty good), and some chocolate and vitamin water... quite the array of treats! :)
We're standing on the balcony outside our room... it was beautiful!
Justin loved posing for pictures!
We had to have at least one semi-clear picture of the two of us.
And here it is...
the beautiful view...
...of Hood Canal