Preschool for Kyle

Kyle has been wanting to go to school for some time. Now he finally has a school to call his own. Luckily he is happy to go to school and meet new friends. He even asks me, "Mommy, do I get to learn today?" Let's hope this attitude extends all the way to graduation!

Its really nice that his preschool is only a 5 minute walk from my house. Sweet.

Girl? Girl? Is that possible?? Apparently it is. The Shiflett family will be welcoming a little GIRL into their family at the end of February and we couldn't be more excited. Little Girl Shiflett is already very modest since she intitially refused to give us a glimpse "down there". It took Tiffany (our wonderful tech) a few good pokes to my belly to get her to finally give us a peek.

After the ultrasound we couldn't wait to tell Kyle. Since he found out that I was pregnant, he has been stubbornly insisting that it was a baby sister. He already has a brother, hello! If we tried to tell him it could be a brother he just wouldn't have it. Well, the kid was right. He got all giggly when we told him the good news.

Adam was in a bit of a daze the entire night but he too is excited for this new adventure.

As for myself, I had pretty strong feelings it was a girl but just didn't actually think that my gut could be telling me the truth.

Well, I'm off to go look at something pink!

Bringing It Back

So as Adam and I were getting our blog ready to print, I read a lot of old posts while correcting typos etc. I realized that I had let my weekly post "What's Up With the Shiflett's" fall by the wayside which is sad because they were some of my best posts. Sometimes it's the little things that really matter... or are easy to forget. It was fun to read over them and recall how long it took Noah to crawl AND walk or that Kyle used to call his sandals- "puzzles".

For my memories sake, I am recommiting myself to begin again. No time like the present, right?

...I have finally started feeling little movements in my belly. I am only 14 weeks so it has been a welcome surprise.

...I've been hearing about Bunco parties for years but had never been invited to join one. *sniff* Finally someone deemed me cool enough to join theirs. So I went to my first Bunco party last week and won...well, won along with 4 others. I'm looking forward to next month already.

...I also went to a GNO the night after Bunco. I'm so spoiled but greatful! I have such a fearful...er... I mean, understanding husband. :)

...We went to Rock Springs to see my sweet little neice, Holly, baptized. The WHOLE fam damily was there too. It was great. The quote of the trip comes from a none too pleased 4 year-old after having to leave, "I want to play at Samuel's house FOREVER!!!" repeated 1000 times. Luckily Adam and I were able to have a good laugh over this.

...Noah and Kyle got Superman and Batman jammies which they more or less want to live in. As you can see by the picture below, Kyle is proud....Since my energy and motivation have made some sort of comeback, the boys and I took advantage of $2 Tuesdays at Thanksgving Point. This is a great deal since we got into both the Children's Gardens AND the big garden for a mere four bucks (normally it would be over $25!!) It is absolutely beautiful but once a year is definately plenty. I'll try to get the pics off my phone to post later.

Fun in the Unitas

We had a wonderful trip to the Unitas two weeks ago. Sure it rained like crazy. Sure it got down to 29 degrees at night, but what could be funner? We made the climb up the mountain for Erin's family reunion at Moon Lake. Before that though, Kyle, Tommy and I had a little "reventure" (Kyle's word for adventure). We backpacked in to Aftan Lake (shown in wide angle) and camped over night.

We made our way up to the lake and stopped short of making it to the lake to set up camp... and not a moment too soon. It started raining as I was throwing the rain fly over our tent. The first hour of our tripped started in a tent taking pictures of each other and telling stories.

After the rain we were able to continue the rest of the way to Aftan. Kyle really enjoyed hanging out with everyone. Taylor, Eric, Paul, Newty, Jack (dog), Amy and Ethan were with us which made for a lot of fun.


I had to share this pic as it is one of the only times Tommy did not look doppy.

After an excellent time at Aftan, we drove to Moon Lake and met up with Noah, Erin and the family reunion. The Bros had a sweet moment together by the lake after being apart for a whole day. They both missed each other. After Kyle and I left to go backpacking Erin said that Noah grabbed a backpack, put two apple sauce packages and two spoons in and kept telling Erin "Go camping".


Us hiking around the lake, just before it started to rain (again).

Of course Noah had his cousins to play with too. Noah and Coleman sat around the campfire for hours swapping man stores and how to survive in the wild and still avoid diaper rash.

Kyle snaps a pic of Will in yet another moment of silliness.

Getting together at the Coggle events usually means a few things. 1. food (the dutch oven cook off rocked) 2. fun (everyone had a great time around the camp fire) and 3. NOISE (everyone likes to create packs and talk over each other).

We had a wonderful time, in spite of the weather. Night one we say was the most wild thunderstorm we have ever experienced. Thunder and lighting rattled off in long streaks seemingly with out a gap to take a breath, as we huddled in our tent praying we would not be fried. Night two the temp dropped to below freezing, but thanks to our lumber jack sleeping bags we did not feel even a slight chill (thanks ma).



After years of complaining about the imperfect process of making s'mores, Erin discovered chocolate covered graham crackers. We quickly found that this new invention revolutionizes the s'more building process. Observe:

{Step 1} Roast Marshmallow: Using a rock as a balance for your roasting stick, position your marshmallow at a distance at which the underside begins to turn gold and the turn until all sides are evenly golden.

{Step 2} Mush: Place the marshmallow between two chocolate covered graham crackers and mush.

{Step 3} Enjoy (Stopping to pose for self portrait mid-bite): Eat the entire thing as quickly as possible so you can have "s'more".

{Repeat}

Notice in this process we were able to eliminate the annoying steps of unwrapping chocolate bar, placing on graham cracker and trying to melt the chocolate bar. Brilliant!!!

As far as Tommy goes, he had a wonderful time. Camping is one of the few times we let him really act like a dog. He ran around free as a bird on a number of hikes and had a great time meeting new people. However there was one unfortunate incident where Tommy pooped out Jack (shown here). The two dogs got tangled up and I think they ended up in positions that neither enjoyed.

4th of July

Okay so this is a bit of a catch up post, but we had a wonderful 4th and I wanted to post about it. This year we opted to skip the parade thing in the morning and instead celebrated our independence by sleeping in and having a easy-going morning. We went to Erin's parents house for lunch where the boys had a wonderful time running around and all kinds of craziness.

Most importantly Kyle was able to reunite with Will. Whenever these two get a chance to see each other they are inseparable. The whole time we were at Erin's parents house these two boys ran around with each other and Noah tried to keep up with them.

Noah also got to meet up with Reagan. Point to your brain Reagan... very good.

Noah decided we were not doing a good enough job documenting the family get together, so he took matters into his own hands and stole the camera. Here is a selection of his 4th portfolio:

These last three were taken as Noah ran toward me, Will, Kyle and Coleman which is pretty impressive... I think

After we had our fill of lunch we headed to Murray Park where we met up with my parents and grandmother to enjoy an American feast (including patriotic cupcakes).

Handsome devil...

Fun with glow sticks.

This is actually a pic of a little known superhero "Atomic Grandma".

The fireworks started (not shown) and Erin and I had prepared for the worst with our boys. The week prior we saw fireworks in Taylorsville and both boys were not so impressed. Kyle had us plug his hears the whole time and Noah stuffed his face in Erin's armpit to hide.

Kyle had a repeat performance, but once Noah got past the initial shock he had a great time. He laid on my chest and the rest of the night was filled with "didyouseedat", "thatwasbigone", "wow" and "thatwasloud".

Last but not least: I am proud to be an American. Being able to raise my family in a free country is one of my sweetest blessings. Thank you to all you military service people, government leader (all the ones that aren't crooks or cheating on your wives, that's why "leader" isn't plural) and postal service people (one of the more highly undervalued arms of the federal government, but I thought I'd give you so props while I was at it).

Father's Day Surprise

I decided that since Father's Day was right around the corner, I would take the opportunity and save my wonderful news to surprise Adam. I found out that I was preggers on Tuesday meaning I had to wait until SUNDAY to tell Adam.

I did it! And it was so worth it. I counted on his cluelessness to make this work and boy was he. He never asked me any questions about "Aunt Flo" or anything else. Hello! Wouldn't YOU be a little curious? Ah well. It worked perfectly in my plan.

I gave him a new smaller wallet (he hated his bulky one) and a gift certificate to a golf course (with Christian, Von and my Dad). Tucked in the back was my pee stick. He didn't even know what it was when he saw it. (See what I mean? Clueless. :) When he FINALLY figured it out the look on his face was priceless.

Now if I can just keep it secret from everyone else for another 7 weeks...

Kyle's Super Soccer Season

Sad

Sadder

Saddest

Utterly distraught

Treat time! This, of course, made Kyle smile every time.

Kyle was excited for his new soccer experience but that excitement fizzled quickly... too quickly.

Many and probably most of his games were spent crying for one reason or another. It was kind of sad but sort of funny at the same time. Kyle is a very tender-hearted little boy and just couldn't find the fun in stealing the ball from others, even on the other team.

Kyle has said he would like to try baseball (t-ball) next time and I agree that this just might be a better fit...no fighting over the ball.

Kyle's biggest fan. Actually, he was wishing HE could get out there and wreak havoc.

My sweet Ky-ky

Reuniting...it's a good thing.

2009

What a group. 66 souls to be exact. (67 if you count the one in Alicia's belly.) Its been a long while since we had family reunion let alone a camping one. The rain, of course, played a huge roll in everything. We even had to go to a different campground since people were getting stuck on the slippery, muddy, dirt road climbing up to Camp Timberlane. We ended up at Scofield Reservoir which was a great fit. We lucked out.

Hanging out in the middle of the Hind Family dominated road.

The kids did some fun crafts (provided by us, the Richard Hind Family) including hiking staffs, visors, and also a nature scavenger hunt. Mom also did a bingo game where we learned a lot about our ancestors.

Kyle and Samuel

Noah wondered down to the dock by himself...and up to the road...and I felt like a crappy parent. Rocks DO NOT work well as fetch toys for Tommy. Blood. Lots of blood.

Lessons learned.

We only spent one night due to Kyle's soccer game -that he refused to play- that we wanted to attend. The time spent was well worth it though. Looking forward to it next year!

Logan, Hayley and Mary

Ken Hind Family

Grandma and Matt

The rocket- glad we brought it. The kids LOVED it.

After just two months of "trying" I recently found out that I am pregnant. I did the test by myself thinking since I felt that I probably was pregnant and if it was positive I wanted to wait until Father's Day to tell Adam. I'm on day 3 of knowing and still have about 2 more to go. I keep accidentally wanting to bring it up and then not so accidentally as well. Its hard to keep this kind of a secret! I had to tell my dentist and hygenist the news because of x-rays. They both thought it was pretty funny that they were the only ones I'd told INCLUDING my husband.

I took the test a couple days prior to the final one but it gave me negative reading. So when I got a positive this time I was happy and felt ready to be pregnant. I wanted to hug the test strip. Ew.

I knew I was pregnant because of one thing. I woke up and immediately had to pee. That just doesn't happen to me. I can get up in the morning and not use the toilet for a while. So after this going on for a couple of days ALL day, I had my suspicions. I don't recall this happening with my previous 2 pregnancies either.

I'm so excited. I can't wait to see what we bring into the world this time. Both of our boys are different from each other so could we have yet ANOTHER different one? I guess we'll wait and see... 8 months from now.

Scooch on down to May 19th to read about our Chicago trip!