The Graduation, it's official!

WOW, the past week has been a whirlwind of huge events in our lives. Tyler had all sorts of graduation events this last weekend: a hooding ceremony, graduation, dinners, etc. We also managed to move all of the furniture out of our house and into the top corner of our friends' garage. His parents and both of his grandmas joined us for all of the great graduation events, as well as all of the hard work that comes with moving. We are feeling the pinch...only 4 days left until we move. We will post more once we get settled in...

We are very excited to be finishing medical school and moving on to the next phase of life, however, we are beginning to recognize how much we truly LOVE the friends we have made during the past few years. We are sad that we are all going our own separate ways, we are going to really miss our medical school family. We love you guys! There will be a lot of tears this next week as we all pack up to go...

Last, but certainly not least, Makinzie!

When we found out we were pregnant with Makinzie, we knew our hands would be full. Even now, we are still trying to understand just how much we underestimated. She has brought so much into our lives. Here is just a glimpse at the past few months...

Since moving to North Carolina 4 years ago, Makinzie has grown from a baby into a beautiful girl. She has made so many friends, like Grace. She is always imagining new ways of having fun with them! She will miss them all very much in a couple of weeks.

Though at times she tries to act shy, she really is quite the show-off. She loves to get attention and be involved in everything, especially if there's silliness involved. Her dance recital was very entertaining, Papa really enjoyed it, or at least Makinzie REALLY enjoyed being able to perform in front of Papa (scroll down on the right and click on the link to Kaye & Charlie to see a few good video clips of the recital, until we can post some video clips of our own).

Makinzie's favorite things to do the past few months have been going to the museums/parks with the family and to her swimming lessons. She loves being a big sister and helping out whenever she can. She certainly is a wonderful daughter. We love her so much and we are grateful we have her in our family.

Papa came to visit!

Papa was here for almost a week and the only pictures we managed to take were at the zoo. We had a blast running around town, running around the house chasing kids, and just spending time with Papa. We went to the movies and had a big nice theatre all to ourselves. We had fun walking around the lake; pushing our strollers through the gravel and looking at all of the beautiful trees and butterflies. The girls especially loved throwing rocks into the water with Papa. We spent one of our evenings watching Makinzie dance in her recital. We had a fun pizza movie party in our front room (after a huge car melt down by the entire crew). But most of all, we really LOVED the extra pair of adult hands around here. Thanks Papa, you were very helpful and very nice to have around! We miss you already!

Addellyn absolutely loved the zoo! We stopped and saw the elephants at the very beginning of our journey and she made elephant noises the entire time after that and kept asking to go back to watch them. She also really enjoyed the monkeys. There were several places to find monkeys, but the Chimpanzees were very fun to watch; they drank from a water fountain, swung from the tree, walked past us in a single file and even tapped at us through the glass. Addellyn has been excitedly talking about them ever since. She was really happy to come home and tell Daddy all about her zoo adventure.

Makinzie really enjoyed the peaceful aviary. She found a sign as we walked in that showed all of the birds that could be found in the building and pointed out the blue bird with a "funny hat" as her favorite. A few minutes later we rounded the corner and that big blue bird was standing in the path right in front of her! She still tells us how much she loved seeing that blue bird.

Papa was a trooper, he pushed the heavy double jogger for miles in the heat...we realized after he left that the front wheel had been on a little crooked and he was doing double the work, sorry Dad!

Addellyn

Addellyn's turn...

Addellyn is our girl of MANY moods. She has quite the booming personality. She really loves getting reactions out of anyone and everyone around her. Lately she has been big into acting like different animals. The pig and the elephant are among her personal favorites...She loved the elephant trunk dad fashioned for her out of silly putty.

Addellyn can get very silly and crazy. She is usually covered in filth and has some sort of something on her head (like the pig hat or the winter ear cover, etc.) She does a lot of spontaneous dancing and face contortions to make us all laugh. When she gets tired she starts out being hilarious, and then, sometimes, she can quickly become a screaming monster(with a superb pouty face). If Addellyn finds a mirror, she will immediately begin to go through her repertoire of faces (she wants to make them perfect I guess).

She is a busy little girl. It was hard to keep her up in the bleachers as we watched Makinzie swim each Saturday. She really wanted to be down in the water with her big sister and she seemed to be willing to attempt to get down there any way possible or at least to continually lean clear over the edge to get a better look...

Addellyn is also very sweet and calm. She loves our good friends' ("Aunarka and Beebees") yard. She begs to visit their house daily. She especially enjoyed sitting and watching the water fountain(at least at the moments when she wasn't trying to be sneaky and play in the water while mom wasn't looking...)

We love her, she is a lot of fun to be with, I don't know what we would do without Addellyn around to entertain us and keep us hopping. She is a beautiful little girl.

Coleson Spotlight

We thought it would be fun to spotlight each child and put a few pictures highlighting each. Coleson seemed like an easy place to start, since he has fewer photos to choose from...

Coleson has really started to love our trips to the park!

As is pretty obvious by those chubby cheeks, Coleson loves to eat whatever he can get his hands on. He enjoyed his first Oreo about as much as anything.

Mommy and Coleson sure are cute together!

Coleson playing in the grass. That face sure looks a lot like Daddy's when he is trying to concentrate!

He sure was curious about the buzzing machine during his first haircut.

Such a handsome devil!

Having fun at the Museums

We love going to all of the museums for kids around here. These last couple of weeks we have had a blast going with Daddy and some of our friends(Hannah, Connor, and Andrew).

I think fishing might have been everyone's favorite.

Makinzie and Addellyn are best of friends when they are out and about; they are entertained for hours. It's so great to see them have so much fun with eachother.

Coleson's best new discovery...his voice

Do you love it or do you hate it? A little of both? It's funny for a minute but just try turning the volume all the way up and replaying the video over and over for about an hour. He recently figured out just how loud he can make this noise; he does it when he's happy, when he's upset or any other time he finds himself with nothing else to do... We sure love him, but this tends to drive everyone a little bit bonkers! :)
Addellyn recognized this noise from clear across the room as I was posting this, "Mai beebee!" she screamed, as she came running across the room to see the computer.
Coleson had his 6 month visit today(even though he is closer to 6 1/2 months), he weighed in at 20lb 14oz and he was 29 1/2 inches tall! The doctor looked down at his car seat and quickly made the remark that it was a good thing we bought the largest size or else he wouldn't fit in it anymore. He just has to stay under 32 inches and less than 25 lbs for three more months (when we can get a bigger vehicle), I think we can make it...
He gives the best "love looks!" Usually he's so calm and happy(when others are close and he's not practicing his grunt/scream)...he is so fun to cuddle!

Easter

We had a wonderful Easter Sunday last week. The girls loved finding eggs and especially loved eating candy. The girls looked beautiful in their matching Easter dresses that were custom made by Grandma...thanks Grandma Pam! They especially loved the "princess" gloves that came with the dresses in their Easter package as well. Coleson, as always, was happy and handsome :).
Makinzie was very good at remembering the real reason for Easter. As we arrived at church someone asked her if the Easter bunny had visited and was good to her, she quickly leaned over and whispered in my ear that Easter isn't about the Easter bunny, it is only about Jesus and that He loved us so much that he died on the cross and then He was resurrected. I explained to her that they were just asking her about the Easter bunny to make her smile, hoping that she would talk for a minute and not be quite so shy :). We had been talking about Jesus dying on the cross all week because out here there are giant crosses put up in the lawn in front of all of the churches. Makinzie had asked lots of questions about why our church doesn't have a cross on it and we had talked about the fact that our church likes to celebrate Jesus' resurrection and that because of his resurrection we can all be resurrected and live with our Heavenly Father again some day. Makinzie is always excited about celebrating; she was very happy to explain how wonderful Jesus was to die for us and be resurrected to all of her friends and her teacher at school. I'm so glad that she is happy to bear her testimony of her Savior.

Teeny tiny traveling space

We are now counting down the months until we can get a new car. The little Toyota has been wonderful, but the kids are beginning to need a little extra elbow room in the car and we are having a hard time lifting Coleson's 40lb chair into the middle of the car just right so that it snaps in...hopefully the new car comes before mom needs a new back and Coleson gets in the middle of one too many fights between tired and frustrated sisters :)

Happy Birthday Daddy Ty!

Tyler's Birthday came 2 days after he matched into his radiology program, needless to say, it snuck up on me a little bit. Matching was a birthday present all it's own (at least that's what I tried to convince him of as we gave him his one tie for his birhtday from the whole fam :)), but we still decided to try and celebrate. We all went to the park to play a game of soccer and enjoy the play equipment and the WONDERFUL 70 degree weather! Then we came home so tired and worn out that we had crackers and hummus for dinner, then quickly sang Happy Birthday, ate our ice cream sundaes and the kids headed for bed. (The main problem stemmed from Addellyn being sick AGAIN!!! can you even believe it? so we had been up all night and somewhat grouchy all day) You have to love Birthdays as a parent, they just aren't quite the same (sorry Ty). Happy Birthday, we love you!

Drum Roll Please...

Well, Match Day came and went with BIG surprises...Tyler will be doing his radiology residency right here in NC! Yep, we're going to stay at Wake Forest for 4 more years (that was a surprise of its own). But, the real fun came when we found out that we will be going to Boise for the preliminary year of training. That's right...we'll move 2,500 miles at the end of May, and then come right back a year later. We are excited to get close to home for a while and happy Tyler will be getting his radiology training at one of the best programs in the country. The logistics of moving twice will be somewhat of a challenge, but the Lord must have a definite plan for us, so it will all be worth it in the end. Thanks to all for your support!

6 months old

There are moments during the past 6 months that have seemed miserably long... but, when it comes to Coleson, 6 months have flown by. We can't believe our tiny baby is now rolling around, playing with toys, wearing clothes for kids three times his age and enjoying the interaction of his sisters and anyone else that shows him a sweet smile...he is a JOY! We are so glad that he is a member of our family. Life just wouldn't be the same without him.

Coleson loves...shaking his new toy, having his shirt pulled over his head, chewing on his hands, watching other kids play, being tickled, playing peek-a-boo, and lots more!

Ear tubes for Addellyn

6 in the morning came very early the day after daylight savings. Addellyn assumed she was on a fun adventure with mommy and daddy all to herself as we waited in a very "kid friendly" waiting room. However, as soon as she recognized the doctors and nurses, she began to throw her usual doctor's office kicking and screaming temper tantrum. But, we couldn't blame her.

Once she saw the great toy room that she could run around in until the surgeons were ready, she began to calm down and serve us some well cooked breakfast :). Soon, the medicine they had given her kicked in and she was more than cooperative with the Anesthesiologist who came to carry her back to the operating table. The surgery went very well and very quickly. We were home again to recover by 9:30 am. We are glad that things went so well and that Addellyn is quickly getting back to life as usual.