Little Loves

I just remembered that I never added the boys' valentines to the good old blog. The boys loved sharing their valentines this year and loved getting some from family and friends too!

And this little guy will be here in roughly 14 weeks. 

We . Can't . Wait!!!

MMA

We took the boys to a Mixed Martial Arts class a few weeks ago. The age group was for 4-7 year olds but the instructor asked Brock if he wanted to join in too; Brock was SO excited to be a part of the class!

They did a really good job of introducing and explaining when it's appropriate to use MMA skills. While covering the ABCs of the technique (and after Brock finished singing the ABCs to the entire class since he already knew his ABCs)  one of the topics was "who's got your back?" The instructor was saying that at school, your teacher has your back. While playing soccer, your coach has your back. He then asked who's got your back at home…Troy proudly raised his hand and answered, "Jesus!" The instructor laughed and accepted Troy's answer, then added parent's too, of course!

Troy couldn't contain his excitement when they announced that they would each be able to kick a board. Troy's notorious ear-to-ear smile and little jumps of excitement made for another round of laughs from the parents.

Both boys had successful first attempts at breaking through their boards and earned their white belts. 

And only because this one cracks me up:

Jeremy snapped this one of the boys while I was taking "too long" in the dressing room. It feels like my stomach has tripled in size and new shirts were very much needed!

Pinning

Jeremy's long over-due promotion is official! He technically promoted the beginning of September but with one paper missing, leading to the next, and this and that and that and this, it finally went through for him!

The boys were excited to help with the pinning. Brock got to rip off the old gold bar...

Troy anxiously awaiting his turn...

to carefully pin on the black bar sealing it with a nice, strong punch!

(Good thing Jer is sturdy, Troy would have knocked me flat on my back!)

Congratulating the line up of first lieutenants

Troy giving his crush a nice big hug. Whenever Jeremy's work comes up in conversation, Troy usually asks about Jenny and gets so cute and even bashful around her!

I like how the little buddies held hands for our family shot :)

It was nice hearing what Jeremy's commander had to say about him including being an easy-going nurse with a level head.

As always, we're proud of our G.I. Jer.

Snow, next post down

A Little Snow and Glow Stickin

Our first snow fall for the year was only a little, but it was fun!

We thought the boys might have had some snow to play in when we were in Idaho, but it took coming back to Washington to play in the fluffy white powder.

I made Brock wear a "beard" since he was still trying to recover from a little head cold

Troy was happy to have a few snowball fights

Jer nailing Troy in the back with a snowball

There was enough sticky snow that a snowman made his way in our backyard

This made me laugh seeing Troy sitting on frosty while touching up his tipped back face

AND a little more snow. We measured about 10 inches at our place. It was crazy seeing how the trees transformed and broke apart because of the heavy snow and ice…the reason for our recent power loss. Trees and branches were hanging SO LOW and since the trees here aren't trimmed back from the power lines they caused a little damage.

So while we had TOO MANY dark hours during the outage we played endless games of Skip-Bo, Uno, Go-Fish, Memory, Hide and Seek, and glow stick dancing. After the boys were asleep, Jer and I would play a few card games and surprisingly Jeremy made it out alive after a few issues (with making up rules and cheating ;) For his sake it's a good thing the power finally turned on!

Brock-left
Troy-right

Leaving their trails as they ran around the table

Baby Baby Baby!

It's a BOY!!!

Our power finally turned on after being off for almost 96 hours, we were heading into our 5th day without it (thank goodness for our gas fireplace and hot running water!!), but thankfully my 20 week anatomy scan wasn't cancelled. We have a very active and healthy growing baby boy who has some very excited big brothers (and parents) who are constantly hugging, talking, and singing to their little brother.  Our littlest man is growing right on schedule making him bigger than both big brothers measured; maybe we'll break our 6#3oz record! My placenta has fully reattached now so we're now hoping for a full term baby!

I started out with a gut feeling that we were going to have a girl; then after having four dreams that we'd have a boy it turned to "gut v. sub conscious"… sub conscious was right!

Profile

I wish this would have printed better but on the right of the pic you can see he already knows how to put up his dukes while stretching his leg straight out on the left of the pic

One of my favorite moments during the ultrasound was hearing Troy lean over to Jer and whisper, "I'm going to take really good care of my little brother."

We can't wait for May to get here!

Newsboy One and Two

I love how easy and fun Pinterest has made running across fun ideas and pulling up great search results. I've been "pinning" long before Pinterest started by saving fun ideas to a folder, but you can't beat how easy Pinterest has made it! I found THIS newsboy hat pattern and while in Idaho, with my mom there to help clarify with the directions, made a couple hats for my handsomes. I only followed the first half of the pattern then did my own thing (I used a different size yarn and hook than what was recommended and it turned out looking like a baker's hat…big no-go!)

Button, button, who's got the button? I bought a set of buttons before we left for ID and remember thinking I should leave them home since I could add them on any time. Guess who lost the buttons? Me and my mushy, forgetful brain. Now that I've bought these new sets I'm waiting for my originals to show up any time now!! I should get my brain back in five months!

Great-Grandpa Tanner

We had my parents with us for almost two weeks here in WA; then we drove back to Idaho with them so we could go to Grandpa Tanner's funeral.

Owen and Bonnie - Summer 2010

It was a very nice funeral service and his sweetheart is doing really good. Grandma made us laugh quite a bit and it was nice being able to visit with her and all of our other family that we could squeeze time in for.

Owen and Bonnie - Summer 2010

 2007 - Troy meeting his Great- Grandpa for his first time

2009 - Brock meeting Great-Grandpa for his first time

The boys had fun playing with cousins and they all got along great. The last time these guys were together it was only Morgan, Troy, and Lucas...Brock and Kaitlyn hadn't been born!

They all sat together for a few minutes to watch a movie and played hard the rest of the time

The guys

With Great-Grandma

It had been a long seven months since these cousins had seen each other, they gave the word "play" a pumped-up definition! Plus they all loved every minute and cried after their good-bys :(

More craziness when I peeked in their tent to take a picture

still craziness

and as still as they could get!

We all did great for the 13 hour drives, we loved visiting with everyone though we wish we could have had more time to spend. It's nice being home, though we all agree we wish "home" were in Idaho!

A Very Merry Christmas

Christmas came sooo fast this year it seems that our decorations weren't up that long. The boys loved seeing where Michael, their "Elf on the Shelf" would be sitting each morning and he must have given Santa a good report on their behavior because they had a fantastic Christmas!

Christmas Eve was made extra special when these surprise visitors showed up at our home!

Santa's cookies - check.
Milk - check.
Michaels mini cookies - check.
Carrots for reindeer - check.
Final letter to Santa - check.

Christmas Morning:

I wish I would have beat the boys downstairs with my video camera. They were SO excited and I think I heard Troy say, "This is the best Christmas EVER!" at least a handful of times.

Brock "passed out" after handing Jer a big present

NERF GUN!!!

The boys were so happy that Santa received their lists and was able to give them their "kid" IPads, belts, and yo-yos. They were given lots of fun gifts from everyone and we all had a fantastic Christmas!

We've had nerf darts flying around the house ever since these presents were opened, (even the adults have fun with these toys too, thanks Ty and Laurie!) 

The boys LOVE their "Ipads"

It's always fun having new things to play with and we love having G'pa and G'ma here too!