July 2013

July was a very hot month in Utah. There were over 10 days were the temperature was in the triple digits! We did not do too much this month. We did not attend the KSL Pioneer Day parade like we normally do. We did attend the Bountiful Handcart Days where were able to see 2200 young men march as part of the Army of Helaman exhibit. This comes from one of my favorite stories in the Book of Mormon about 200 stripling warriors who fought bravely and did not doubt because their mothers had taught them to believe in God. "Now they never had fought, yet they did not fear death; and they did think more upon the ^aliberty of their ^bfathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their ^cmothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them.

 48 And they rehearsed unto me the words of their ^amothers, saying: We ^bdo not doubt our mothers knew it."

Daniel also really started loving the show WordWorld which is shown on PBS. It teaches kids to problem solve and sounds and letters. Once a word is 'built' it turns into what it describes. For example, 'pie' turns into an actual pie. From watching this show, Daniel can now spell duck, big, pig, sheep, radio, pie, dog, ant, and bug. He has stopped watching Sesame Street, which we hope he will start up again soon. 

He has also taken a break in the potty training. I guess he wants to wait until he a little older. Sadly, it looks like we may have two kids in diapers.

News!!!!

Yesterday we had the ultrasound. After finally getting the baby to cooperate, we found out that we are expecting a girl. She looks great and we can't wait till we get to meet her!

A Quick (But Long-Overdue) Catch-up

I don't need even know where to start on this blog. I has been so long since I updated it! Here is a quick recap:

My family who attended the anniversary  party.

The game of who knows my parents better. David won.

November 2011: We spent Thanksgiving with my parents and also had a 40th anniversary party for them. It was great to see how much they have been through in 40 years. The food her sister made was incredible! Katina also got a new calling as the Relief Society compassionate service leader.

December 2011: We spent Christmas in Idaho with Katina's family and enjoyed that. Daniel also became a huge fan of nursery this month. He loves to sing the songs during singing time.
January 2012: We celebrated my birthday by going out to eat and went bowling. I beat Chris 2 out of 3 games! My parents came down at the end of the month for my mom to  have surgery on her windpipe.The surgery went very well and was a big improvement in her breathing.
February 2012: My parents came back down her again for the second half of my mom's surgery. Like last time, it went well.

March 2012: Daniel celebrated his second birthday. We had a small party for him and he loved all the attention. We also moved our rooms around and Daniel got to sleep in his big boy bed!

April 2012: My dad suffered another back injury which required him to stay in the hospital for nearly 6 weeks while he recovered from two surgeries. He received a pump in his back that puts a muscle relaxer straight into his spinal cord. He is doing so much better.
May 2012: We found that that Daniel is going to be a big brother in December. We also went to Idaho for Mother's Day to see Katina's dad in the hospital and to spend time with her mother. At the end of the month, Daniel had eye surgery to correct his lazy eye. The day of the surgery was rough, but he was back to normal the next day. His eyes are perfectly straight and he is more coordinated now.
 The doctors did surgery on Elmo also. Daniel thought this was pretty cool and would tell people that him and Elmo were brave during their surgery.
June 2012: This month was spent trying to stay cool in the abnormally hot weather in Utah.We did spend some time with Chris's aunt and her mother who will be moving back California this week. We attended a Beach Boys tribute band concert with our friends the Nelson/Valenzuela family. Here is Daniel dancing with Tamara:

3 Months In One

This updating the blog thing I had planned at the beginning of the year is not working out so well.

August 2011

This month seem to fly by. We did not got to Idaho for the fair like we normally do. Chris had to work and we really wanted to support the Night Out Against Crime that Friday evening. Katina had a booth on Prepaid Legal (now Legalshield) and gave out information on this important program. Daniel and Katina spent the first week of August sick with the stomach flu. Both spent a lot of time throwing up and in the bathroom. Good thing Daniel can entertain himself because Katina spent one day sleeping on the couch most of the morning.

September 2011

This month also went by quickly. There was a trip planned to Idaho for RJ's baptism, but due to a planning problem, was cancelled at the last minute. Daniel turned 18 months and was able to attend Nursery for the first time. We had been taking him a few weeks prior, but him staying the entire 3 hours was a big deal. He actually does quite well in Nursery. He really likes the Nursery workers and loves snack time. He has never given them any problems, even when some of the other kids are crying or throwing toys.

October 2011

We started this month by enjoying General Conference and very nice weather for most of the month. We went to Idaho Falls the 3rd week for RJ's baptism and Merritt's ordination to the priesthood. We went to my parent's house afterwards and Katina had to deal with a very scary experience of dealing with a driver who hit and killed 4 of her parent's cows. She felt very grateful for the Holy Ghost in helping her deal with the driver and emergency crews. At her parent's ward on Sunday, they had a musical sacrament meeting where members could go up and share their favorite hymn and the congregation would sing a verse of it. Very cool sacrament meeting!

Katina also spent most of this month looking for some part-time work. She finally found a job doing custodial work at the University of Utah. She works from 10pm-2am Sunday through Thursday. The job actually is not bad and she enjoys it. She doesn't need to find a babysitter or worry about lunches, so it saves on money.

Daniel was a horse for Halloween. He was so adorable. He made quite a hauling on the candy. Chris and Katina did a good job eating the candy Daniel couldn't eat!

I will post pictures later next week. Blogger is so slow at uploading pictures.

July 2011

July was not too busy of a month for us. As per tradition, we went to the Pioneer Day parade downtown. Daniel was not a happy camper to have to be up at 6 am. He was very cranky and did not like to sit that long. We were glad to be home.

We also saw Chris's aunt Susan, who is staying in Utah taking care of her mother. She went with us to the float preview party and we enjoyed having her come for dinner.

Daniel has really starting talking. He is always saying words, but most of them are not understood by us. We gave up on him wearing his glasses. We have new insurance for him, and his eye doctor is not on the approved list. We will be taking him in to another doctor for a second opinion.

Here are a couple of parade pictures. Many more can be found on our Facebook album.

Ronald McDonald at the parade.

Our favorite marching band performing.

Pictures(finally)

Daniel in his glasses. He looks very handsome.

June 2011

Here is a rundown of our busy June:

Chris started the month working, which has been a huge blessing. His work really started to pick up two weeks ago. Currently, he is working for the same company, Manuals Access, but is working on location downtown for the next few months.

We spent some much needed time in Idaho over Father's Day weekend. We enjoyed going out to dinner with Katina's family and seeing Katina's aunt in Idaho Falls. Daniel did pretty well on the drive there and back.

The last weekend, we went to Taylorsville Dayzz, an Anthony tradition for the last 4 years. Friday night an Elvis impersonator entertained the audience with a great fireworks show afterwords. This was probably our least favorite year of it so far. We enjoy seeing the Beatles or Jason Hewlett perform there. Daniel was also crabby that night and had trouble staying still. A good thing came out of the night though. Katina entered a drawing from IHC and won a rolling cooler!

We also saw Extreme Makeover: Home Edition while they were building a house in Daybreak. We saw the nearly completed house and, more importantly, Ty Pennington without a shirt on. He was intentionally sinking a canoe in the lake and they were filming it.

Daniel has mastered walking and is working on running. He has starting using a lot more words. He also got glasses a few weeks ago. They are supposed to help his lazy eye, but we are having a hard time with him keeping them on his head. He likes to take them off and try to stretch them.

Pictures will have to come later as Blogger is incredibly slow right now.