Mark's 30th birthday.

We got back from Oklahoma on Sat. afternoon and Monday was Mark's 30th birthday.  We managed to get through Sunday with some freezer meals I made before Davey was born but by Monday morning we had no milk, eggs, bread, produce....you get the picture.  Mark had requested crepes with Thomas filling, and chicken tacos with limes, cilantro, and fresh salsa for dinner.  So 5am Monday morning found me wandering the aisles of walmart with Davey in the moby wrap. (I couldn't risk him waking Mark up - it was his birthday after all!)  I am here to tell you that 5am in the morning is my new favorite time to go grocery shopping.  I'm serious.  It's really difficult to coordinate with Mark's schedule and I often find myself in the grocery store with all 4 kids.  No longer my friends.  No longer.  :)

Mark invited us to the hospital to have lunch with him at the Sky cafe.  The kids loved it.  Especially when we let them ride the elevator twice! Haha.  While eating lunch Mark decided he wanted coconut cheesecake for his birthday cake.  So....I ended up going to the store with all four kids anyways.  Oh well.  At least the birthday dinner was a great success.  The lime coconut cheesecake was SO worth the extra trip.  Seriously, I'm salivating just thinking about it.

For his birthday we got Mark 24 bags of his favorite tortilla chips.  He discovered them right before we moved from UT and they don't sell them in Michigan.  So we ordered them straight from Juanita herself. :)  Shipping 24 bags of chips was not cheap.  But we are all enjoying it now - the boxes say "crazy good chips" on them and I have to admit they are really good especially when toasted a bit in the toaster oven.  Should we ever have to live off our food storage we will have plenty of chips and salsa. 

:)

Zina and Wilson made 30 hearts with reasons they love their dad written on them.  Then when he got home they decided they should be taped all over Mark.....so funny and cute!

I had Wilson take pictures.  He was pleased he got one of Dad blowing out his candles. 

The kids have been working on a birthday song for Mark for about 2mths now.  It was so cute to watch them sing it.  After I recorded it Mark's phone said it didn't have enough space to save it. Bummer. 

When I get around to it I will make them sing it again for history's sake!

Welcome to the 30 club honey!

We love you!

Oklahoma Thanksgiving

We drove 13 hours this thanksgiving to spend the holiday with the Thomas family.  Wells and Emily were super gracious to host us all. (Joel/Angela & Co., us, and Grandma Judy).  The kids had a fantastic time reuniting with their cousins and they all played really well together.  We ended up driving through the night and pulling in Sunday morning around 11.  Mark was trying to battle strep throat (that we didn't know he had till later) so I drove a lot of the way.  Our children were angels.  Davey slept while we drove, and nursed while we got gas.  Doesn't get better than that!

Sunday night we had an Arizona reunion with our friends the Larsons.  Love them!  Kyle and Wells went to Thunderbird together and the Larsons were in our ward in Glendale.  

Charlie being a very prepared ninja. haha.

Zina, Ellie, & Ellie. These girls had a great reunion with lots of giggles as you can see. :)

Everyone!  Man we have a lot of kids! That's just 3 families folks. (and one little extra cousin from Utah. :)

I love this girl.  

Seriously every time I hang out with her I come away feeling like I'm the most amazing person ever.

She is so positive and and makes everyone feel like a million bucks!

Thanks for being so great Tiff.  Now go ahead and move to Indy in approximately 6mths. :)  

Grandma Judy getting acquainted with Davey J. for the first time.

My poor poor boy. Mark only gets sick about once a year.  To bad it happened on his vacation. :( He thought he was getting better when we left for our trip but it was just the beginning.  His throat hurt so bad he couldn't even swallow his own saliva. He spent the first couple days laying in bed with blankets piled on top shivering away. Luckily when your a dr. you can diagnose and prescribe your own medicine.  So he called it in and Grandma Judy picked it up.  Doesn't get much easier than that.  After a  few days he was feeling more like himself and able to have a little fun.  He also managed to get Dylan, Kurty, Ellie, and Isaac sick.  Way to go honey.  At least he could make things a little better by prescribing their meds to.  

These two little boys were SO adorable.  My favorite moment was when Isaac came out carrying two (very large and heavy) adult baseball mitts and said, "Sammy, want to play catch with me?"  Sammy replies, "Yeah!" and they head outside to play catch.  On his way out the door I hear Sammy say with great effort, "Dis one's a wittle heavy."  

Our boys against girls soccer game.  I let Kurty(the youngest player on the boys team) make the winning goal and boy was I in trouble.  I guess I should have made it a little less obvious because Zina could not understand why I would let the other team win when we were playing so hard and doing so good.  Her poor little heart could not handle it or understand it.   

The three 2 1/2 yr olds.  They were so cute and played so so well together.

While we were there we blessed Davey.  Such a sweet boy.  I cannot get enough of this baby.  I never want to be done having babies.  I feel like life is passing by way to quickly.  How can this be my 4th baby?!  I want to go back and have them all over again!

Gotta love Movember.

We blessed Davey the same night that Ellie was baptized.  It was really nice to be there.  Sometimes its hard living away from family and missing all these special moments.  We were so glad to share Ellie's day with her.

Everyone that made it to Davey's blessing and Ellie's baptism.

Our medium-sized family. :)

And finally Thanksgiving!

Zina and Ellie were good little table setters.

While we cooked dinner the little boys played catch in the backyard.

Brothers!  

The girls did manage the annual 7hr shopping spree on black friday.  We didn't head out until 7am friday morning so things were fairly quiet and we still managed to get a few good deals.

I love these pictures.  Mark getting a turkey carving lesson from Joel.

Yum! And yes, I put on all the weight back on that I worked so hard to get off in the last 6wks!

With 6 little boys there was plenty of wrestling.  

My camera couldn't quite catch the action and Wilson looks like he's been dismembered.

Dylan loved baby Davey.  She will be such a good big sister.

And last but not least a little xbox kinect.  sorry their heads are cut off. :)

If you are wondering Wells is on the ground and Mark is in the air.

Thanks Wells and Emily for hosting, and cooking and cleaning and everything else!  We had a great time.

November Randoms

The first couple weeks of November were pretty quiet around here.  We just enjoyed each other and especially our sweet baby Davey J.   I love have a new baby in the house.  My new babies make me giddy - they're just so stink'n cute!  Mark has been doing Sports Medicine this month and got some free tickets to watch Western Michigan University play hockey.  (They are ranked #10 this yr and are really good!)  Zina and Wilson were excited to go watch a hockey game.  Zina's favorite part, "Watching that thing zoom back and forth on the ice" (that "thing" being the hockey puck).  Wilson's favorite part, "playing games on Papa's phone..."  

Mark's attending was going to be out of town so he asked Mark to cover for him as the team Dr. for the Women's Basketball game.  It was on a Sat. afternoon so we all headed over.  It was a pretty close game, but kind of boring for Dr. Thomas.  He didn't have to do anything but sit back and enjoy the game.

Sammy's favorite outfit!  Every time I turn around this boy is taking his clothes off.  Yesterday while I was folding laundry he said to me, "Mom, I'm going to be a spider so I have to take mine shirt and underwear off."  

Dinner time anyone?  

Naked boys, headless dad's. Yep, we've got it all.

We enjoyed having Aware & Ruth over for dinner.  Mark worked with Aware who is an internal med. resident from Ghana.  Ruth, his wife, had only been in the U.S. for about 10 days.  We really enjoyed having them over.  Aware complimented us on being ahead of everyone else and completing our family.  I laughed and told him thanks but that it wasn't complete yet!!  Most residents think we're crazy!  I love my crazy family.  (if you're wondering where Wilson was he was to shy to be in the picture - my Sammy and Wilson are so different!)

Zina caught this baby with an almost smile.  His big gummy smile is SO adorable.  He just melts all our hearts.  He loves to coo and talk to anyone, but especially Momma.  I love adoring and being adored by my babies.

One of Sammy's favorite puzzles.  The week before Thanksgiving he kept wanting to show us where Oklahoma was because we were going to Isaacs house!

Wilson's latest passions.  Lego's and Photography. 

 I love these pictures he took of his own creations.

And last but not least a glimpse of our school mornings.  I love gathering my kids around the table for scriptures.  I think Wilson took this picture too. :)

Halloween 2012

Halloween around here was kind of a last minute affair.  I think Mark and I were both to tired to think about it any sooner.  We finally gave into the kid's pleadings on the Sunday before Halloween and carved pumpkins.  We usually do this way earlier so we can actually enjoy them sitting on the front step.  oh well.

It was still a fun night!

Well, mostly fun. ;)

6 pumpkins for a family of 6!

Papa's, Mama's, Zina's, Wilson's, Sammy's & Davey's.  (Sammy requested that Davey's be a sad one. :)

Zina and Wilson decided on the Friday before Halloween that they wanted to be Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker.  So Zina and I ran to target only to find that a skywalker costume was $35. Ya, not going to happen.  So we went next door and bought some fabric instead.  They were pretty thrown together but you couldn't really tell unless you looked close.  And they were super happy about it so I chalked it up as a couple of hours well spent. :)

And it's a good thing my new baby was new baby enough to still sleep 24/7 (he's not anymore - now he likes to sleep during the day instead of at night.) :)

Sammy went through a couple of costumes.  Pumpkin, Peter Pan and finally decided on Spiderman which we already had. Hurray!

And when Darth Vader came knocking on the door after work everyone was pretty darn excited. (except Sam who was super worried and kept saying, "Don't hurt me, don't hurt me."

Our little Star Wars/Spiderman clad was a hit at the village trick-or-treat. Then we headed over to trick-or-treat with the Christiansen's and Condie's.  It was wet, rainy, and freezing cold, but the kids held out for quite a while.   We ended up at the Christiansen's for hot chocolate while the kids watched Scooby Doo and ate their candy.   No pictures of that :(  but it was pretty funny handing out candy.  As soon as someone knocked all the lights went out and Darth Vaders theme song started up nice and loud.  Then Darth Vader answered the door.  Some little kids were pretty wide eyed. 

:)

And now Sammy's candy is ALL gone.  He stayed home from church yesterday sick.  I wonder why?

Happy Halloween. :)