McKinlee's Turn

Her hair is one of her defining features, and her eyes...but it's her little voice and personality that steal my heart!

The Many Faces of Tucker

I didn't realize until I was going through these pictures that Tucker has been having an "upside-down" fetish. Here are some recent pics of our good little boy!

Yates' brother, JD, graduated from the Northern Arizona Regional Training Academy (police academy) the beginning of December so we drove to Prescott, Arizona to go. It was a neat experience to see all the progress he'd made throughout the academy. He is working for the police department in Fredonia, AZ as a sheriff's deputy. He's already been involved in some pretty hairy stuff for being in such a small town. He and his wife, Jeri, will finally get to live together again in February. She was finishing hair school the whole time he was in the academy, so he drove 4-5 hours every weekend just to meet her for the weekend and now that he's finished she graduates from hair school in February and will go to Fredonia.

P.S. Sorry about the eyes, Roxi, it was the only picture we got of the girls. :(

LOOK WHO'S TWO!

We were in Kanab for Kinlee's 2nd birthday so we just had cake and ice cream and opened presents with Yates' family out there. What a babe she is...her hair is a bit outta control in these...you've been warned!

So NanaVon (Yates' mom, Yvonne) comes over from Kanab to spend the night with the kids and cater to their every desire. It's good for them all I think and they just LOVE their Nana. One night Tucker wouldn't give up having a dinner "with the candles", so of course we got the candles all set up and she had a special dinner with the kids. They loved it! Sorry the pictures are so blurry. I didn't want a flash so the mood was right, but I don't have a tripod yet and so you can tell I obviously didn't hold completely still taking the picture.

Christmas Morning!

Now that the kids are getting older, Christmas morning is LOTS more fun! I woke up 1st though, because if truth be told, I'm still a kid at heart! I took pictures of the tree, which is something I just love. I love my parents house all decked out for the holidays and they have a HUGE tree.

My little "marshmallow" kids all dressed up to go play in the snow. That's Tucker's old stuff so that's why they look the same, but as much snow as we get around to getting into, it's hardly worth buying an entire new winter coat just so it's "PINK".

I'm letting you know right now that I'm saying forget it to the whole picture editing thing. If we wait for that...well you know what they say about hell freezing over. :) We did lots of fun things while we were in Idaho for Christmas. One of our highlights was going on a sleigh ride through the Elk Refuge over in Jackson. There were some pretty amazing elk and we even saw 3 bald eagles that showed up for the day! However, if I remember correctly, the temp was in the single digits most of the time we were in Idaho. I think the warmest it got (yes, even during the day) was 12 degrees or something like that.

I really do have new pictures coming...honest!!! I got a new camera and I'm starting to think that I'm not as computer literate as I thought. There are tons of pictures on there and I just barely took the time last week to figure out how to get them to my computer. Now that they are there...I have to figure out how to edit them so they look all nice n' stuff and then I'll get them on here.

Sad news. I finally broke out my maternity clothes today. I'm not wearing them, mind you, but they're out waiting to be washed. :( Tucker told me that they were my "pregnant clothes, like the ones you wear when you want to get pregnant". Uh...not really, but that's a lesson for a future time. A MUCH further ahead future!!! Oh...my due date has been changed to June 5, 2008. I had an ultrasound and the baby was quite a bit smaller than we were expecting so they've moved me back a whole month. That's alright with me, at least I know now.

Tucker's been funny lately. He got a Nintendo DS Lite for Christmas with a Lego Star Wars game and has been loving it. We were excited to see him keep trying to learn how to get to new places. He usually gets too frustrated and just quits, so it's been fun to watch him struggle through it. He got lots of cool stuff...a bug "vaccuum" with a house for the bugs to live in once he catches them, an ant farm, a new suit for church (which he looks like a P.I.M.P. in), movies, new clothes (which surprisingly he needed more than I thought he did--that kid has hit a growth spurt).

McKinlee is super independent these days. She wants to do everything by herself and will let you know LOUDLY if you're not letting her do it her way. Her hair is getting longer and is still curly at the end, but I'm afraid once we cut off the curls it'll be gone. :( It's wavey on top, but not super curly like the bottom is. We've been putting it in pigtails lately and you should see her!!! What a babe! She got spoiled at Christmas as well as loves her new stuff. She got a purple/pink trike, a doll stroller with a doll that sucks on a binky and makes baby sounds (it's the craziest thing...seriously...all the adults played with it just as much as she did), movie, clothes (the CUTEST white vest w/fur on the collar) and a new church dress.

There's our update...other than that not much has changed at our house. Yates is still a School Resource Officer and loves it way more than he initially thought he would. There's an opening with the Wash. Co. Drug Task Force this summer and he's hoping that he'll have a good shot at getting a position with them. He's wanted to be involved in narcotics or SWAT since he first started out in law enforcement.