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.

April and May

I know, I know. . . . I promised to update this blog every month. I am a little behind. Here are the major events of the last couple of months:

April was spent enjoying General Conference. The next week we went on a family vacation to Bear Lake with Katina's parents, grandma, and sister's family. We were a little bummed because the pool got shut down and we could not use it. We ended up going to the city pool where it was way too crowded. It also rained the entire time we were there. It was still great to hang out with the family.

how much snow there was at the top of the lookout

Daniel having fun with his cousin Faith

Daniel mastered walking two weeks ago. We didn't know if he would ever start walking. Now that he is walking, there is no stopping him. He has started carrying things over and finds great joy in piling books on top of Mommy's lap. He is getting taller and now can reach on top of the table. He is still a really happy boy and has this cheesy grin that makes us laugh. He also carries things around in his mouth. He actually won't sit still for a picture as he is too interested in the lens cover.

Chris found work at the end of May. He works with a guy in our ward who has his own business. Chris worked with him a few weeks last year. This job is perfect for Chris as he will have enough work to do for at least 2 years and is only 2 blocks away right now. They will be getting a new office in a few weeks. This company is unique and the only one that can do this in the state. The company basically takes anything that has to do with a building (floor plans, exit, directions on how to use the fire extinguisher, etc.) and puts it into a PDF format. It is a great job and we feel so blessed to have found it. Thank you all for your prayers in helping Chris find a job.

My aunt Irene was involved in an accident last week. She has a diabetic dog who is blind and deaf. He was under her feet and she went to avoid stepping on him and whacked her elbow down hard on the kitchen island. She ended up breaking the tip of her elbow off and shoving it up her arm into her muscle. She had surgery yesterday and is doing pretty good. They ended up taking the broken part out of her arm and sewing on the triceps tendon back to the arm bone. Talk about painful!

Katina's dad is doing very well. He only has to use a cane now and has most of the feeling back in his arms. They will be seeing her parents over Father's Day weekend.