Norway 2011

Mark and I had a great trip to Norway this month to visit Brandee, Tim, Lexi, and new baby Lillian. Mark was honestly an ANGEL on our overnight flight there. Can't really say he was an angel the whole time we were there, but there were moments of sweetness. We'll just chalk up all bad behavior to toddlerhood, jet lag, and a stomach bug!

So our trip was to cuddle with baby Lillian, which we got to do, but it really turned out to be Mark and Lexi play time. The poor little cousins barely ever get to see each other so they had fun playing everyday.

Here we are at the Tulsa airport - about to start our LONG trip! (We are VERY proud of our backpacks)

The first flight to Atlanta - Mark kept himself busy watching little einsteins on my phone, eating pretzels, and drinking from his cool cup while mommy vomited and vomited and vomited. (the hottest flight I've ver been on combined with a dud dramamine!)

On the big flight to Amsterdam. Mark actually slept for almost 5 hours! In a completely full transatlantic flight, the ONE open seat on the plane was next to Mark! Perfect!

So the first big trip when we got there was to go ice skating! So fun! The kids just strap on some blades to their snow boots and push some little penguins on the ice. They loved it. I wish we could've done it again later in the week because Mark was really tired that first morning but once he got the hang of it he loved it!

Mark asked me to take a picture of him and Lexi. See? He can be sweet!

The band. I think Lexi is pretending to have a microphone and Mark a drum. At times there was a guitar and baby stroller involved in this concert, but so no to make John mad I won't post a pic of Mark pushing the baby stroller!

Mark LOVED baby Lillian. He asked to hold her a lot. I bet he'll do the same with baby Kate at first too. Maybe he won't get tired of her...we'll see!

We went to a really cool mall playground. Here is the awesome slide. Mark is apparently more of a daredevil than I thought because he found a toy motorcycle (tricycle size) and attempted to ride it down the slide. Well he and the motorcycle made it down the slide, but not together and not without tears! But luckily nothing was broken!

Sticker fun! We found that if Brandee and I weren't around that Lexi and Mark played a lot better together. They entertained themselves doing a lot of crazy stuff. They even invented a game up in Lexi's room called "catch-up" - we never did find out what it was. Had something to do with jumping on and off the bed.

One trip was to Ikea. They have a cool ball pit for the kids to play in. Sorry, not good pics through the glass!

Yes, I was there too. And I got lots of cuddle time with Lillian before my mom showed up! Lillian loves me, by the way. I'm sure I'm her favorite aunt! And while we're on the subject of Lillina, lets talk about the angel! She is perfect! Sucha good little sleeper. And in the evening once the two vocal toddlers were asleep she would coo and talk and smile. She's just so content and happy all the time. I think she cried once in the 10 days we were there! Can't wait for them to move over here and Lillian and baby Kate can just be the best of friends! Oh yes they're moving over here - they don't know it yet, but I just know they will! Lillian promised me she would move closer to Aunt Kristy!

Lexi and Mark loved to "take care" of Lillian.

Isn't she precious? So alert and so content!

One morning we went on a long walk through the neighborhood and played at all the parks.

Mark and Lexi opening their birthday gifts! Lexi turned 4 on the 23rd and Mark turned 3 on the 26th.

Couple pics of the trip home. Here we are waiting to board our plane in Amsterdam. I had Mark running sprints, doing jumping jacks, and here he is jumping on and off the window sill - we seriously needed to burn some energy before the 9 hour flight!

And last but not least - he crashed in his stroller in Atlanta. We had been awake for 20 hours at that point. He didn't wake up until we landed in Tulsa. Poor tired baby!

Just realized I didn't post any pics of Bran and Tim! Well they were obviously there too! Just not quite as entertaining as the kids I guess! Thanks for the great visit guys! We can't wait to see you in April!

Christmas 2010

Well, Brandee wins by one for posting 27 pictures - I'm posting a mere 26! We had a great Christmas even though Mark came down with another cold. (Mark with a cold = grumpy pants!) It was nice to spread our Christmas activities out over three days. It was nice not to have to work so I didn't miss out on any of the festivities. Mark is really starting to understand all aspects of Christmas this year. Next year he'll probably be so excited that he can't sleep! He even remembered that we needed to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus on Christmas morning. He was a little groggy when he first woke up Christmas morning because I went into his room and said, "Mark, guess who came to our house last night?" And he said, with a look of sheer excitement and awe, "Aunt Brenda!" I about fell over! Then I said "no, he landed on the roof with Rudolf and his sleigh and came down the chimmney!" And Mark said, "SANTA!" and couldn't crawl out of his crib fast enough! Interestingly, thats the last time he ever slept in his crib and the last time I'll get to go pick him up out of it - see one of his gifts pictured below!

Well we started our Christmas partying on the night of the 23rd when all of John's fam and all of mine (minus the Norweigans!) Everyone came over for soup and a white elephant gift exchange. Here is Opah with the singing/dancing christmas hat on....
And here is Mark acting just like his Opah!

We are so excited for Josh! He just got the head football coach and assistant athletic director position with Muskogee High School! Here he is coming in that night as he was greeted with....

us! We all dressed in Muskogee green and made some homemade football jerseys. We really are nerds! But it was fun. We are so excited to cheer for Muskogee this upcoming year and finally put this Jenks/Union rivalry behind us! (Go Jenks!) =)

Here's Omah and Josh...

Debi and Barrett during the gift exchange...

Christmas Eve morning putting the last piece of the Advent calander up...we saved baby Jesus for last!

Christmas Eve morning when went over to Josh and Lindsays for homemade sweet rolls!! Yummy! I had two little helpers (aka Mark and Barrett) helping me eat mine so I just had to have two!

Here is Mark scaring Aunt Lindsay with his new alligator puppet from Omah and Opah!

Christmas Eve afternoon we went to Mimi and Hoho's house. Here is Mark with his super cool new remote control car from Josh and Linds that also goes in the water!

Sweet baby Barrett...

These two had a blast playing with each other over that two day period! They played chase until they were worn out! Here they are "sharing" Barretts new chair!

Rudolf the Red-nosed reindeer. He loves to wear this red nose that lights up and flashes while singing the song!

Christmas Eve night - Mark and daddy playing with the cool new parking garage toy from MiMi and Hoho...

Even the dogs knew it was Christmas! They actually played/wrestled each other for about 15 minutes! It happens about once a year so I had to take a few pics!

Well we sat out 3 cookies,a glass of milk, and a sac of reindeer food for Santa. (I realized later we were supposed to sprinkle the reindeer food on the lawn!). Anyway we sat it out right before bedtime. We were all in Mark's room for about one minute when John came out to find that "Santa" had already eaten his cookies! You may note he didn't even spill his milk. You may also notice some of Santa's drool all around the plate! (Rocky Star!)

I got a new puffy coat for Christmas! I was sincerely surprised!

The boys got to open their stocking too!

Mobley with his bone...

Mark got a big boy bed!! In a big boy room! He loves it and really has done pretty well with the transition from his crib. In fact he just said tonight, "I know the rules Mommy." The "rules" are that once you are in bed for the night or for nap you are not to get out until mommy or daddy says its time.

Mark and daddy both got new watches...

Daddy got a new mountain bike!

And Mark got a new red pedal bike too!! He has been asking for a pedal bike for months! Only he has been asking for a BLUE pedal bike for months. We had to brainwash him that he really wanted RED since that was the only color the bike shop could get in his size. (Why not buy one at Wal-mart, Target, Academy, sports authority you ask? You'll have to take that up with John (aka bike snob!)) =)

All suited up for his first ride! We've had the knee pads and elbow pads for a year and he wouldn't ever wear them when he rode his strider bike. Somehow he knew he needed them today because he asked for them!

The first ride!! Daddy says no training wheels....we'll see how long daddy's back holds up!

And last but not least, Gammy and Papa got Mark a big combined christmas and birthday gift. A trampoline! (or jupiter jump as Mark calls it!)

Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera over to my parents house for our Christmas Day dinner and gift exchange with Brenda, Jonathan, and Jennifer! I'll have to get some pics from mom. But I will say one of the best parts was when Mark opened his gift from Aunt Brenda. She got him Lincoln Logs which I'm pretty sure he has never seen before. As soon as he opened it he said, "This is actually what I always wanted!!!" So cute! I think it made Brenda's day too!

Christmas Activities

Although I feel like I have worked every single day in December (I have no idea how I managed residency when I actually work about half the time now!) we have still gotten do a lot of fun Christmas stuff. Last week we went to the Dry Gulch Christmas Train with the Garcias. Please see Lisa's blog at www.cuatrogarcias.blogspot.com for flashback pics when we went 8 years ago without kids! Its pretty funny how young we looked! Anyway, we had a great time - especially Britton, Leyton, and Mark. They ran and ran and ran. They were even semi-good waiting in the 30-45 minute line to ride the actual train. (I say semi-good because Mark was being a twerp to Britton and Leyton kept trying to escape. Britton was an angel as usual!) Lisa didn't have any pics to prove that she and I were there, so here you go!

And this is now one of my all-time favorite pics. Mark is so sincere in how much he loves his buddy Leyton that he doesn't even realize he's strangling the poor guy! See Lisa's blog for a pic of Leyton still breathing! =)

The three amigos. Leyton's eyes are squeezed so tight he looks asian! You might have to enlarge to see.

Mark and I have been baking baking baking. John of course is concerned that I am making him too girly. Bah Humbug! Gammy got Mark his very own Christmas apron when he baked cookies at her house. He's showing it off here one night when we made pizza before I had to go to work. (Aren't we cute in matching red aprons? =))

So we made cut out sugar cookies with a little twist. We painted a glaze on them before we baked them. So not only did we get to play in flour with the cookie cutters, we painted with colored egg yolk! (Never again with a two year old!! Needless to say Mark only did one batch and I did the rest after his bedtime!)

So here is some finished product - nice and shiny. See the pioneer woman's blog for our recipe.

Let the mess-making, I mean baking, begin!

Time to paint!

Clean up time! Such a good little helper!

Mark's finished product. These were not deliverd to our neighbors like the others. They may not look to pretty but they were still tasty! We ate every last one!

Christmas Party's and Stuff

Friday night my parents had their Life Group (Sunday School) Christmas party and I must say my parents are the best-looking couple in their class! I know because mom took my camera to take their pictures and also because I'm a little biased. No offense to any one else's parents in that class - maybe mine are just the youngest! Here they are:


Also on Friday was the Parents Night Out at the church so we dropped off Mark and went shopping. We were supposed to be Christmas shopping but really we each bought ourselves something! Oh and some Christmas presents too! Anyway, I have never seen Mark as hyper as he was when we picked him up from church that night. I asked him if they fed him and he said they had cake for Jesus's Birthday party. Well he's had cake before and never acted this wild so I said,"oh, and you had juice too?" And he replied while spinning circles and running up to tell me nose to nose with his arms waving in the air, "No, I had cake and then I had WATER!" Maybe you had to be there but he was so wired he was excited about having water. Well sounds like he was just super happy from a good time. He said if they sat pretzel legs with their hands in their laps they would get a ticket. And with their ticket they got to shop in the Christmas store. He brought home all kinds of little trinkets that he bought. So fun. So I don't have pictures of that, but here he is showing us his muscles. (Yes, I realize he looks cold but this is his muscle pose, trust me.)

We had our Life Group Christmas party last night and had a blast. I promised not to upload individual pictures onto my blog, although their are some great ones! Here are the girls descending on the desserts! They were soooooo good!

Here is the best (worst?) ornament of the night! Its a squirrel (with a really bushy tail) on a pine cone if you can't tell!

And here is our group photo. A smaller group this year but just as fun!

Alright already!

So my sister is giving me a hard time about updating my blog. Well, no one reads it anyway and I just don't seem to have the camera out much these days. Maybe when baby Kate gets here the camera will be more handy! Or better yet, maybe I'll have a new fancy-dancy camera by then!

So here are some really random pics from the last few months. The first one is of Mark about to race. He and I love to cheer for John at his bike races and luckily, sometimes they have a kids race too! You may notice Mark on the far right about 3 heads smaller than all of the other kids! He came in dead last, or first in the non-pedal division, depending on how you view it. He thought he won of course because he got a medal. None of the races seem to be long enough for him. He's always disappointed when they're over and has to do them again.



Next, spiderman. This is the pose the kid on the outside of the costume package was making so it became Mark's "pose". He was a cute spiderman for trick-or-treating, but still enjoyed handing out the candy at our house more.


Mark and hs good buddy Leyton took soccer practice this fall and they LOVED it. As the season wore on they seemed to have more and more trouble staying focused and were just plain goofy together. One drill was to run backwards from one side of the field to the other. Well the very first time one of them tripped and fell over and the other thought it was funny so fell over on purpose. You can imagine what happened next. Every few feet they would fall down simultaneously laughing and giggling. I'm sure the coach appreciated how long this drill took every week thanks to Mark and Leyton!
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We always went out to eat with the Garcias after soccer practice. You can see Britton had an outdoor soccer game that morning too. I just noticed that Mark and Leyton look like they are members of rival gangs!


Last but not least, some new sayings by Mark:

1.) Me: I'm glad you made a new friend at the playground today.
Mark: Uh-uh. God made him Mommy.

2.)John gave Mark some money to put in the offering plate at church and told him he was giving the money to Jesus. First, he looked down at the bill in his hands and said(in a voice just slightly too loud for church), "Is that our house?" Then as we passed the plate he looked down the row at the usher and said, "Is that Jesus?"

3.) The other day John had used our guest bathroom and not 10 minutes later I heard him in Mark's bathroom. I whispered to Mark to ask John a certain question when he came out. Well he did and I swear if the kid hasn't forgotten a single word! John can hardly use the bathroom anywhere without Mark saying, "Daddy, how many bathrooms are you gonna stink up?" HA!!!