Merry Christmas

Dear Family and Friends,

Merry Christmas, another year has passed and we feel so blessed for everything we have. There have been some major changes and accomplishments this year. So here is and update of what has been going on.

Jason finished his thesis and now has a Master's in Computer Science from Utah State University. YEAA!!! We have been doing lots of happy dances since then. He worked on it for four long years (since before Jonathan was born). Jason loves his job at the Church working on the new family search project. He is currently serving as the second counselor in the Stake Young Men's Presidency. He has been asked to plan a week long merit badge camp for the 12yr olds for 3 stakes. It is a major undertaking and time consuming. He loves scouts and helping the boys. In his spare time he squeezes in fishing, hunting and basketball.

I am enjoying my family. We are having a lot of fun. This year we've been to donut falls, hidden falls, Knotts Berry Farm, camping, swimming, sledding, dance recitals, playgrounds, dinosaur museum, fish museum, Thanksgiving Point Gardens, movie nights, family dinners, missionary farewells, baby blessings, graduations, and a funeral. No wonder I've been tired... In my rare free time I teach Rebekah's primary class, go shopping, and do family history. My Grandmother Nona passed away in November. We miss her so much. We look forward to being reunited with her one day.

Elisabeth is an intelligent and happy 2nd grader. She loves helping out. She is a beautiful ballet dancer, a great big sister and loves playing with her friends. They play school almost everyday. This year she has been so excited about Christmas and picking out presents for everyone in the family.

Rebekah is in kindergarten this year. She started kindergarten already knowing everything. She enjoys going to school and playing with her friends. She is a fantastic reader, loves dancing and is very creative. So creative that the drawers and shelves are over flowing with all the drawings and pictures she has drawn and colored.

Jonathan is a very active 4 year old. He likes helping out and likes riding his scooter and playing. His special love is for anything dinosaur. His favorite game is "Dino and Bull" where he pretends to be the dinosaur while Dad pretends to be bull and they wrestle until someone taps out.

Jacob is 20 months. He is super adventurous, tries to do everything that his older brothers and sisters do, and is always busy...I mean neverendingly busy. The tip of the iceberg example happened just yesterday, he turned the bathtub water on and then proceeded to put everything he could find in the tub: library books, scriptures, telephone, papers ... Everything was soaked! What can you do but laugh, after you cry.

Kayla is 3 months old. She was born August 28, 2008 at 4:29 pm and weighed 7 lbs 11 ozs. She has acid reflux and an allergy to soy and milk. She is now on special formula that has helped to lessen the impact of her colic. Now she is smiling, cooing and watching her brothers and sisters.

We are so grateful for our loved ones and would love to hear from all of you. We hope this letter finds you healthy, happy, and enjoying the Christmas season. Merry Christmas! May you feel the peace and love of the Savior, and may this coming year bring much joy.

Love,

Jason, Kristine, Elisabeth, Rebekah, Jonathan, Jacob and Kayla

October

This past month has been fun and exciting and busy.

We went to Cascade Springs and had a picnic. Jason was looking for elk the whole time. Jason went hunting. He had a fun time walking around in the woods. He didn't get to spend as much time as he wanted to between work and kids. He didn't get anything this year, but is hoping for something next year.

We went to Cornbellys Corn Maze. They had a bunch of fun activities. They had a big trampoline, playground, go-carts, princess-land, and a corn maze. The princess land was cute. The girls all dressed up in princess dress and got into the cinderalla carriage with the pumpkin princess. Jason and Brian both tried on the wigs. Brian's pink wig looked great on him. We cheated on the corn maze and didn't do the whole thing.


Jacob is always busy and getting into things. All day we try to keep him from getting into trouble and hurting himself. I found him up on the counter when I came back from speech with Jonathan looking for candy. He now knows how to sign for candy.


Elisabeth is a super girl and always helping with Kayla. They are both super cute. Kayla was still jaundiced she's not anymore.



We finished our garden boxes. Five years after we started (haha). The kids had fun helping hammer and carrying the rebar.

We hiked to Donut Falls with Brian, Trinna, Maddie, Alisha, and Mom. It was a nice fall hike. Elisabeth, Rebekah, Brian, Trinna, Maddie and Jason hiked to the top of the falls.



We went fishing to Tibel Fork. Didn't catch anything. Usually we catch something. At least we got to eat some pizza at the lake.

We went to Jason's cousin's mission farewell. He is going to the Ukraine and will do fantastic.

We went trick-or-treating, to the pumpkin parade, and to the school costume parade. Jason was a clown, Elisabeth was a wizard, Rebekah was a cow girl, Jonathan was a lion, Jacob was a elephant and Kayla was a pumpkin (It is hard to take a picture where everyone is happy). They all got lots of candy. We had friends over afterwards and watched Casper and had carmel apples and carmel popcorn.


My Grandma Nona is sick. We have been visiting her. It is peaceful to sit and hold her hand. She wanted to hold Kayla. Kayla is starting to get chubby cheeks.

Goings and Comings

We've been busy with five. We've been doing homework, laundry, dinner, elk scouting, changing diapers, etc...

Jonathan was potty trained. For his reward we went to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. Jonathan loves dinosuars and we didn't want to have three kids in diapers.

Elisabeth started 2nd grade =). She is loving it and having a fun time.

Rebekah started kindergarten. She is fantastic at reading and making lots of new friends. She had a caterpillar that hatched into a moth. She loves watching bugs.

Kayla is super cute and is still mixing up her days and nights

Here is her crib that we spray painted. We now have two cribs. One for Jacob and one for Kayla.

Kayla Kristine Has Arrived!

The quick fact first, then the pictures and then the long story

Kayla was born Thursday August 28th, 2008 at 4:29 pm (MST). Doesn't 8/28/2008 just have a nice ring to it?. Anway, she weighed 7 lb 11 oz, 19.25 inches long, with a head circumference of 35 cm. She cried enough to let us know she was alive and doing well, but doesn't appear that she will be a loud one.

Here are some pictures from the day she was born





Here is a video I took while she laid on the warming table - just getting used to this world.



Here is a another video of Kayla getting weighed




Here are several more pictures from Kayla's first 5 days of life:

July Stuff

We had a get together for Kari and Jeff at Debbie's. Played badmitton and had a BBQ.

Went swimming a few times with everyone. Went fishing with Brian and Trina.


Jason, Kari, Jeff, Alisha, and Brian hiked Mount Timp. It took them 10 hours. For some reason they wouldn't let me go... They left at 11:30 at night and then saw the sunrise.




Had a good Pioneer Day. We set off fireworks. Rebekah and Elisabeth dressed up as pioneers.




Went on a campout up Spanish Fork Canyon. Lots of fun. Rebekah was the only one that caught a fish. Brian kept saying that there were no fish in the river. My whole family came camping: Mom, Alisha, Kari, Brian...





Went to BYU Computer Science Alumni Social. It was fun seeing people from school. Rebekah, Elisabeth, and Jonathan did a pinata and played on the bouncers.

Moved Kari, Jeff and Bradley out of their place. They are moving to Atlanta, Georgia where Jeff is getting his Master's in BioInformatics. We are going to miss them lots and lots and lots.

June Bug

This month was lots of fun. It is so nice that the Elisabeth isn't in school. No having to get her to school by 8:00 and then doing homework in the evenings. Elisabeth had her birthday this month. She turned 7. We went fishing at Cabelas, to the Children's Museum and had a family party to celebrate. We had a cupcake decorating contest. There were some creative cupcakes. Elisabeth got a new bike for her birthday. It left her speechless (which doesn't ever happen). It was fun.





Since Jason's thesis is finished we went fishing every Tuesday evening for the month of June. Elisabeth, Rebekah, and Jonathan loved it. Each time they caught 3 or 4 fish each. My mom watched Jacob, that was so nice, otherwise he would have tried to jump in the lake. We go fishing at Tible Fork in American Fork Canyon.





For Father's Day we went on the Hidden Falls Hike up Big Cottonwood Canyon and then drove up to the lake and fished a little. Everyone had fun on the hike. There was still snow on the lake.






For family home evening one Monday we got out our fire pit and did marshmallows in the backyard. My family came over so that was cool. It almost felt like camping if you looked out at the field while you roasted the marshmallows. We didn't have graham crackers, so we improvised and put chocolate chips inside the marshmallows while they were roasting, yummy.

We went to the Lehi Parade on the 28th. They threw lots of candy, so that made it more fun. We left before it was over. I was done.

Fourth of July weekend was fun. Elisabeth and Rebekah had a sleepover at Debbie's and went to the movies and to the Provo Parade. They had a ball. Jason and I worked on staining the deck for a little. We had everyone over for a BBQ (ribs yummy) and fireworks. We watched the Thanksgiving Point fireworks. I watched some of them from my couch. We love our view. It's way cool. We went swimming on Saturday. We go to Kari's pool. Elisabeth is getting to be a fantastic swimmer. She was practicing jumping in on the deep end of the pool and working on her cannon ball. Jason and my mom took on Jeff and Kari in a chicken fight (quite funny), we declared it a tie.

I'm so happy that I only have eight weeks left of being pregnant. I've been "nesting" and working on a bunch of projects around the house. Jason is trying to figure out how to get me to do less projects, especially since I have him finishing the projects I start =). We painted under the island, stained the deck, painted bunk beds race car red for Jonathan's room, hung some pictures, went through all the baby clothes, hung curtains for Jonathan and Jacob, hung Rebekah's curtains, painted chairs for Elisabeth and Rebekah's desk, added another layer on the garden boxes .....

May - shouldn't it be warmer??

May was lots of fun, but it should have been warmer. It was crazy cold all month. I wanted more heat.

May 1st Jason defended his thesis =). He is now done with his Masters in Computer Science. He has been working on it since I was pregnant with Jonathan (3 1/2 years). We are going to get our Saturday's back, yea. He did a great job. His thesis was on Hiding Data in Covert Channels of Word Documents. He defended on the last day possible to graduate for Spring Semester. He cut it real close.

Jason spent the entire first week of May at the Java One conference in San Fransisco. Work sent him. He learned lots. It was a long week to have all the kids all by my self allll day and night long, no relief. We survived. I bought a lot of prepackaged stuff, so didn't have to cook. The kids love those dino nuggets from Costco. We made wraps out of them.

Elisabeth had a bunch of school performances last month. She did the musical Grease, did a 1st grade presentation, Hawaiian day, dance recital, and dance festival. She did a great job in all her performances. Rebekah and Elisabeth danced to the High School Musical song Fabulous for their dance recital. They did a fantastic job. Thanks to everyone who came and saw them perform. We went to dinner after at TGIFriday's to celebrate.

The last weekend in June Jason and Jonathan went on Father and Sons. They went to a campground near Jordanelle Resovoir. They had a great time and caught a couple of fish. Jonathan keeps asking when just him and dad will be going out fishing again. It was the last outing for Jason's truck =(. It won't pass emissions and it will cost to much to fix it, so to the Junk Yard it goes. It will be missed.