The Johnson Family

Halloween

2009-11-15T09:28:00.000-08:00

We had a lot of fun this Halloween with our Peter Pan themed costumes. Chance was so excited about it, that he talked about it for weeks prior to Halloween. He told everyone over and over what we were going to be for Halloween. So, we were happy to have lots of places to wear our costumes. There were 3 different parties- a ward party, EJ's office party and then a neighborhood party. Plus, we had Halloween night to wear our costumes as well. We definitely got a lot of use out of them!
First was the church party- yummy dinner, and trunk or treating! Then EJ's office threw a party for the families.

Can you tell that the party was right in the middle of nap time...?

Yeah, Gavin was a little bit tired!

Thankfully there were lots of activities (and treats) to keep the kids occupied. Like ring toss.

Gavin did not want to let his ring go!

You can tell by the evidence on Chance's face that we had lots of yummy things to eat and lots of candy from the trick or treating to everyone's desks.

In the conference room there was a wall of glass, Gavin bumped his head into it a few times before realizing that he couldn't get through. Then, as in all things, he had to taste it! Blow fishes on the window must be something innate, because I didn't teach him that. :)

Everyone loved EJ's costume, in fact he won first prize for his costume at work. Several people didn't even recognize him, until they saw that I was with him.

Chance loved his costume, especially the sword! He insisted on fighting captain hook every day for about 2 weeks, until they broke EJ's sword. However, much to the relief of Chance, the story has a happy ending with EJ figuring out a way to fix it.

Trick or treating

Chance loved it, as you can tell by that smile on his face. It's fun to have him interested in it all. Last year he didn't quite understand what was going on, this year, he definitely understood.

Gavin and I came back early from trick or treating so that I could pass out candy, and after about 5 houses, Gavin was done anyway.

As soon as we got home it was so cute to see him start digging into his bag of candy

He's such a happy little guy.

When Chance and EJ arrived home, he only made it a couple steps from the front door before he dumped out his whole bag of candy to admire the contents.

His face shows the different emotions of exhaustion from a very long and eventful day, and the absolute love of candy. Ha ha! :)

Gavin had just started crawling and was still very timid and shaky, but that big pile of candy was some good incentive to get him up on his knees!

Somehow Gavin got a piece of double bubble gum unwrapped and in his mouth before I even noticed! That's a big wad of gum in a little mouth with only 2 teeth!

Chance's introduction to pixie sticks- gotta love the flavored sugar! Costumes, parties, friends, trick or treating, candy... what a great Halloween.

Birthday time!

2009-09-24T14:00:00.000-07:00

Back on September 11th, Chance turned 3 years old!! He had been so excited for his birthday so we decided that this year we would have a friend party for the first time. He talked about it all the time and when the day came for his party he was so excited! As his friends started arriving it was hilarious to watch him get so giddy! Since his favorite thing right now is the movie "Cars" we naturally chose that as our theme. For one of the activities that I planned they got to race their own cars around the yard.

We also played duck duck goose, however, the 2-3 year old version went more like everyone running around like crazy as soon as goose was called. Then, they all regrouped to the circle once we called them back and the next person got a turn. Way better than the normal version if you ask me! I had also planned some dancing, acting out different animals, bubbles, and coloring their own license plate to take home. But I wasn't quite sure what to expect and these kids were done with all the activities a lot faster than I anticipated. But, they weren't disappointed, they were just as happy to play with some toys and play on the swing-set.

When it was time to open presents the whole thing was quite entertaining.

A couple kids thought the presents were for them to open, and then I was warned that a couple kids thought the gift they had bought for Chance was really for themselves.

So, as soon as Chance would open a present, I would quickly slide it out of the way- out of sight out of mind! It seemed to work pretty well, there were only a couple struggles with the opening gifts but other than that, they were all happy to give their gifts away.

Such a cute group of kids!

Hudson, Averi, Russell, Chance, Clair, Reed, Soren and Finn

Giving hugs.

Then it was lunch time.

With all the extra attention that Chance was getting he started to turn into a little bit of a show off! It was actually really funny for me to see him like that.

Gavin was asleep through most of the party, but when he finally woke up he got to enjoy the best seat in the house overlooking it all!

And last but not least his Cars birthday cake!

Trying to get those candles blown out, but he just wasn't getting it.

That's when Soren stepped in and blew them out for him- thank goodness for Soren! Ha ha!

It was a really fun party- we had a great time! Chance was thrilled with the whole thing which of course made it all worth it.

That night we had our own little family celebration- we re-lit the candles on the cake (this time Chance was able to blow them out all by himself!) And Chance opened the presents from the family.

Chance finally got his favorite movie- Cars! Gavin had a great time too- what's not to love about playing in tissue paper!?

Chance is such a delight! He keeps me laughing every day with the things he says or sometimes just the way he says them. He asks "why" after everything I say, he loves to run and play sports, he loves reading books, and is not near as timid as he used to be. He loves his little brother Gavin and likes helping take care of him. The other morning, in fact, I woke up when the boys started making noise, which is when I usually wake up. But, after getting dressed I went in to get Gavin out of his crib and I found Chance in there with him. He had turned on the mobile hanging above the crib, and he was just sitting next to him talking. It was so cute.

A couple of big accomplishments that we implemented the day after his birthday were potty training and no more binky. Saying good-bye to the binky was hard (very hard) at first, but he has completely adjusted now. The only problem I have now is that Chance has decided that without the binky, he no longer needs a nap. I am still implementing a quiet time however, so, he gets a few hours of playing/reading by himself in the afternoon. That is all fine and good, until the evening comes around and he gets completely grumpy! Arrgh!

Potty training has gone very well except for that scary pooping in the potty part! Chance has not gone poop in the potty one single time since we started potty training! He just holds it until I put a pull-up on for nap time and bed time. I'm thinking I need some serious bribing toys- the candy and stickers just aren't doing it. Again... arrgh!

Oh well, all part of the ride I suppose. And it is a ride that I wouldn't trade. I know it sounds cliche, but it's true. I am so happy to have Chance in our family. We love him to pieces!! Happy Birthday sweet boy!

Check out a couple new links...

2009-09-02T09:17:00.000-07:00

Give Hope to Benson and Claire:
I thought I would take a minute to post about the two new links on the sidebar. First of all is Benson and Claire. Their family are our friends and sweet little Benson and Claire both need kidney and liver transplants!! They are the only kids in the family and Claire is worse than Benson, she is being kept alive through dialysis almost every day of the week. Benson was dropped off every morning at a different house, while his mom and Claire went to the hospital for the daily treatments. Benson came to our house every Thursday and Chance loved playing with his buddy Benson! Anyway, as you can imagine, transplants are not cheap and this family can use all the help they can get. So click on the link to find out more of their story and donate a little- every dollar helps!

Six Minutes to Success:
And, one more new link on our side bar is a service that EJ recently discovered. He has taken 2 months off this summer, (which has been wonderful) and while he's been home he's been doing a lot of a different kind of work. You see, EJ would really like to work from home and be financially independent at some point. This service of Six Minutes to Success has been helping him achieve that goal! So, we just thought some of you out there might be interested in it as well. Check it out...

5 years and counting!

2009-09-02T09:00:00.000-07:00

September 2nd, 2004- Happiest. Day. Of. My. Life.

What an adventure the past 5 years have been. Better than I had imagined. I love you now and forever! Happy Anniversary. :)

Racing

2009-09-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

Everyone that EJ goes mountain biking with tells him that he needs to race. Well, after being told that over and over for a few years, he finally decided to enter a race. It was a 25 mile cross country race up in the mountains with an elevation gain of 4,000 feet. So, last weekend we headed up to the ski and biking town of Winter Park for the race. It was fun to see so many bikers all over the place, EJ said seeing that just made him happy. :)

They divide up all the bikers into 4 different classes and several different age groups. The classes start at Pro, Expert, Sport and Beginner. EJ competed in the Sport class or ages 25-29.

The race went perfectly, exactly how EJ had been visualizing it, except for a minor crash that he had. He was on the side of the trail for about 3-5 minutes fixing his bike after that crash. But the only person from his group that passed him also had to stop for a few minutes due to some bike problems. So when EJ got back on the trail, he was able to re-pass that person.

Here is EJ coming in to the finish line.

All done with the race and EJ was feeling great!

And the results are... 1st place! Woo Hoo!

Up on the podium receiving his medal and glass. Don't ask us why they gave a glass as the award!?

All in all, it was a very fun day. EJ had a great time racing and I was very happy to be there cheering him on. We are so proud of him.

I'm back... :)

2009-06-25T20:43:00.000-07:00

Can it really be true? I have let 3 months go by without a single post!!?? Wow, life must have gotten busy or something. Anyway, I might possibly go back someday and catch up with all those posts I have missed, but for now, let's start with this little guy completing half a year of life.

Yup, 6 months old now, my how time flies. He is as sweet and easy going as ever. He cries when he is hungry or tired and that's about it! He and Chance have really started to become buddies and can make each other laugh and giggle just by looking at each other. He is a skinny little guy weighing in at 14 pounds at his 6 month appointment, which came in at the 3rd percentile on their charts. Nothing to worry about though, but the doctor did want me to start pushing the solid foods more. The first few weeks I tried solids, Gavin acted as though he was being tortured, until he discovered squash. He loves squash. But guess what happens when a baby just eats squash?? Constipation, that's what. So, after banning squash from his diet and forcing the natural laxative type foods, we are over that, and he is enjoying eating anything now. As you can tell, he loves grabbing his toes, smiling, sucking on his fingers or binky, studying his hands, being tickled and laying in bed next to Chance for a bedtime story. He does not love tummy time, constipation (thank goodness that's over), the "extra" love that Chance wants to give him sometimes or having his face washed after smearing his food all over.

How could we ever live without this guy- we just love him to pieces.

And such a handsome little devil, don't you think? :)

The Walker

2009-03-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

It was dinner time, I needed both hands but felt bad about putting Gavin in his swing again. So, I ran upstairs and pulled the walker out of the closet for Gavin to try for the 1st time. I thought he might like being a little closer and able to see me while I cooked. Of course, Gavin is way too little to make use of the wheels on the walker, but Chance was quick to help him out with that! It actually became a sort of game for Chance. He was loving pushing Gavin around and around the island.

I think Gavin liked it too. I'm sure he had never seen the kitchen from that view before.

And yes, it was dinner time and Chance is still in his pajamas. It was a pajama day for all of us! Also, notice the nice accessories that Chance is wearing. We went and picked the helmut and pads up that morning from someone giving them away on freecycle. The minute we got home he had to wear them, and not just for a little while, but for the rest of the day. And for the next two days as well!

I love moments like this, when I see these two little boys interacting, maybe because it doesn't happen too often! But they are making connections and memories that will last forever.

Chuck E Cheese

2009-03-20T13:58:00.000-07:00

It had been 2 years since we had been to Chuck E Cheese. This is what Chance looked like the last time (and only time) we went, up until just last week. He's the one in the middle with friends Kayla and Katie on either side of him. So, I guess after such a long drought of not going, it was time to go back and re-experience the grandeur of Chuck E Cheese. When we got there my friend Melanie and her son Russell were shooting hoops. Chance quickly invited himself to play, and he loved it!

Nice form Chance! Don't be fooled by the picture, after he shot the ball, I'm sure it only went 3 inches before falling.

Shooting hoops is the main thing that Chance still talks about and wants to go back for. But he doesn't just say shoot basket ball's, he says I shoot basket balls with Melanie!

Next it was on to Skee Ball.

Alright! Another 10, 000 points! You would think that being so close he could at least get it in the 30,000 points! :) ha ha!
A plea for help... how do I get out of here!?

He was much happier in this smaller truck that was much closer to the ground!

Chance had a fabulous time! And like I said, he talks about going back to shoot baskets with Melanie, I'm pretty sure that was his favorite part. I completely forgot to get a picture of Gavin on this outing, but he was doing his usual, sleeping soundly in his car seat!

Fire Station Tour with the Scouts

2009-03-20T13:18:00.000-07:00

Chance had been excited all day for scouts and even more so that I told him we were going to see a fire truck at the fire station. However, shortly after we arrived and started our tour, it was very apparent that he was not the slightest bit interested in the fire truck or in the tour at all. He had made a new friend, Lexy, who was the little sister of one of our scouts. They are the same age and they had a ball together.

I figured I should snap a couple shots before the tour started so I asked nicely, "Chance can I take your picture?" Can you tell what his answer was? :) Chance, why don't you get a closer look at that fire hose, I'm not quite sure you are close enough!

Gavin enjoying the tour.

Here are some of the scouts. We have got a whole herd of them!

After touring through the inside, Lexy and Chance were excited to get out into the garage and just run.

And run is what they did, back and forth and back and forth and all over!

One fleeting moment where they actually came back to the group.

Checking themselves out in that shiny bumper.... by the way, this is my favorite picture of this post!

They also stopped to say hi to Gavin every once in awhile. That was definitely something that Lexy was more interested in. Then Chance would pull Lexy back to the open side of the garage....

so they could continue their running! It's a good thing I wasn't too set on listening to the tour, because I didn't catch much of it, with watching these two crazy kids. Our tour started with one of the men on the ambulance crew, but early on in the tour, a 911 dispatcher come on the overhead speakers and they had to rush out to an emergency. So, our tour was picked up by one of the ladies on the fire fighting crew. Well, when the tour was almost done a dispatcher came over the loud speaker again and called them out to another emergency. So, we quickly filed out on the sidewalk and watched the fire truck rush away. That was probably the most exciting part of the whole tour! But we were glad that it was right at the end, so we didn't really miss much.

We had a great time! Chance absolutely loved running around that fire station, and I had a great time taking pictures of him doing it! :) Definitely not a typical tour for us, but we'll have to go back when he's a little older and a little more interested.

Date Night

2009-03-18T14:19:00.000-07:00

Every day except Tuesday's and Thursday's, when Chance wakes up in the morning, we have something exciting to look forward to and talk about all day. Sunday- Nursery, Monday- Family Home Evening, Wednesday- playgroup and scouts, Saturday- Daddy's home which is fun in and of itself, and Friday I think is his favorite, it's date night. Since it is a little harder to get out on dates with just EJ and I, we have just started including the boys on our date nights. Chance loves it, and we have a good time doing something special as a family. I think Chance's favorite date night activity was McDonald's, until a couple of weeks ago. EJ planned a fun evening for us by first going to get sandwiches at Subway. Then we drove up to a parking lot for some trails which overlooked the mountains and lights of Denver. We folded the seats down, laid out a couple of pads and blankets and had a picnic. While we ate, Gavin hung out in the car seat just observing.

Chance proudly showing off his toy from his kids meal. I like that Subway is promoting health and exercise even with it's toys. What you do is push the middle button and wait for the light to stop blinking, whichever color it stops on determines what exercise you do out of 4 different exercises. Chance calls it his health watch.

Then after we finished eating, EJ put on a mountain biking movie called Roam. It had been lost for a long time and I recently found it. So both EJ and Chance had been anxious to watch it. By the way, Chance will seriously often ask to watch the biking movie or a skiing movie (warren miller's recorded on DVR.) Gee, I wonder where he gets it?! :) Ha ha!

Chance is still talking about a picnic and movie in the car. We'll definitely have to do this date again! :)

Brothers

2009-03-08T20:16:00.000-07:00

For awhile after Gavin was born I was constantly trying to get a picture of my two little boys together. Typically Chance was uninterested and uncooperative. But I guess after a couple months of my trying, Chance was trained. So whenever he would sit next to Gavin he would say "my two boys, take a picture." Just as I had been saying for months. I of course took full advantage any time he said that and was able to get a few pictures of them together. He has since gotten tired of that, I guess, because he no longer suggests that I take a picture.

It looks like Chance is real fond of Gavin in this picture! He loves him so much he is helping him right off the couch.

It's so fun to have these two little brothers. I just know they will be great friends! :)

Gavin

2009-03-06T14:26:00.001-08:00

Gavin is 3 months old as of 3 days ago. I still feel like he is so little, but when I look back at the newborn pictures, I realize he has already grown so much!

He has been such a great baby. He is very happy, smiles and coos at us a lot, is fine just hanging out in his swing (but maybe that's because he has Chance running around him to keep him entertained), and usually sleeps 8-9 hours at night! What more could we ask for? We love this little guy and are so happy to have him in our family!

Finally- new family photos!

2009-03-05T13:55:00.000-08:00

I have been anxious to get some new family pictures hanging on our walls, and am finally ready to print these few off. I was waiting to get some pictures with Chance and Gavin together and separately as well. So, two weekends ago we finally did our little photo shoot of just those two. It takes a lot of time and energy to get good pictures out of Chance- but after a lot of bribes and many tears, I think we got some winners! :) I have decided to go with sepia, since it matches the tones in our front room, what do you think?

Swimming

2009-02-28T13:50:00.000-08:00

Gavin is almost 3 months old, so we figured, it's time to try swimming! :) We are very grateful for the rec centers that are part of the community, so we have access to several swimming pools. We don't use them as much as we thought, but I'm sure once summer rolls around, we'll be at the pool much more frequently.

Anyway, when we first hopped in the water, it was a little cooler than expected, but Gavin didn't seem to mind too much. His face displayed almost no emotion the whole time, he was just hanging out. Chance on the other hand was very concerned when we made him hold onto the wall instead of daddy's hand for a minute. After we had been there a little while, Chance got a little more comfortable and didn't have to hold on to us every second.

Gavin was pretty impassive with his floating toy as well. Like I said before- he was just hanging out.

Chance really liked having Gavin in the pool though. He thought that was really fun. Everything is more fun when you have a little friend to join you!

Chance and Daddy went down the slide a few times, which he liked, for the most part.

They also played with the steering wheel that would shoot water out into the pool.

Thank goodness for EJ and his willingness to play so much! I know Chance absolutely adores his Daddy!

Gavin was completely pooped by the end, he wasn't used to staying awake for so long. But to attest to what a good baby he is, even though he was so tired, he never cried or even whined once.

Speaking of "pooped" I have to share one little story. At the pool, they blow a whistle every hour which means, all kids have to get out for 5 minutes so the adults can enjoy the pool, splash free. At the end of one of these breaks, I decided to go hop back into the lazy river pool. I was the first one back in with Gavin, and I wondered why none of the kids had gotten back in yet. Well, I soon found out. Within seconds I had a life guard yelling at me to get out of the pool. I started to make my way to the stairs when she sternly told me again to get out of the pool, now! Geez, I wondered aloud, I thought the 5 minutes was up. That's when she said, no, we had to clear the pool because someone has pooped in there. Lovely. And here I am with Gavin in the poop contaminated water! Oh well, I guess that's what the shower is for!

Weekend with Keith and Reva

2009-02-17T17:47:00.000-08:00

The third weekend in January, Eric's parent's came out to visit. Thankfully we had some nice weather, so we could take them over to Roxborough. They loved it! They, like everyone else we've taken there, were surprised to see these types of rocks so close to Denver. It's just a little unexpected.
Here is a recap of our hike in photos.

Chance thought his grandparents needed a little extra push to make it back to the car. :)

Sunday

2009-02-17T16:17:00.000-08:00

After church, we took Keith and Reva over to see the Denver Temple. They have been here before, but it had been awhile. EJ and I love having the temple so close, and it is such a beautiful building.

It is always nice to walk around the temple grounds, to feel the peaceful spirit there. Chance gets excited to look up to the top of the temple and point out Moroni. We read children scriptures with him every night, and for some reason he has taken a real liking to Moroni! :)

As the sun set behind the temple, it just got prettier!

Sweet husband...

2009-02-17T14:49:00.000-08:00

Two nights ago, EJ went to bed early. I stayed up to feed Gavin and then did some dinking around on the computer as Gavin fell asleep in my arms. After a little while I headed upstairs to bed. I tried my hardest to be very quiet as I layed Gavin in his bassinet and started to climb into bed. I couldn't see anything because my eyes hadn't adjusted to the dark room yet, but as I got into bed I immediately realized that I was climbing onto EJ. That of course woke him up! I started to laugh as I slid in next to him and commented on how he was on my side of the bed and that I was sorry for waking him. His response was so cute, which is the reason I am writing about the at all! He scooted over to make room for me and told me that he was sleeping on my side of the bed so that he could make sure that I would snuggle with him when I finally came to bed! I thought that was so sweet, and funny all at the same time. We laughed together as we cuddled up and soon fell asleep. I love this guy! :)

Valentine's

2009-02-17T14:15:00.000-08:00

I didn't take a single picture during our Valentine's celebration, can you believe that!! But I wanted to document it, that way, next year we will be able to look back and know who's turn it is to plan! We take turns every other year planning and we tend to forget who planned it the year before!

EJ started off the week with a little note waiting for me in the kitchen when I woke up. In it he expressed his love and also a little act of service he would be doing that day. The next day I woke up hoping for another note, after looking around a little I found it on the washer, since I was doing laundry that day. Wednesday morning I knew for sure there would be a note, and he was creative in changing our screen saver on the computer to be a note from him. Thursday of course brought another note and Friday morning I couldn't find the note anywhere, until Chance got up. When I went to get him from his room I finally saw the note EJ had left for all of us. He was taking us to McDonald's and planned a movie night afterwards. Of course, this is Chance's favorite "date" to do with mommy and daddy!

On Saturday morning, the day of Valentine's, EJ had a boquet of chocolate dipped strawberries waiting for me, and I gave him a new skiing helmut which is something he has wanted for awhile. It's a bonus for me since it means a little more protection from the crazy stuff he does on the slopes. After he opened up his gift he asked me what I had planned for the day. I was taken back, since in the conversation we had the prior week, I thought it had been decided that it was his turn. But in reality, it was my turn, so I had to do some quick thinking. First thing was to head over to REI to exchange the helmut for a different size. And whenever we step into REI (EJ's favorite store) it always takes longer than planned. It basically took up our whole morning. On our way home, we stopped by Wal-Mart to pick up a few groceries then headed home to put Chance down for his nap, only 1 hour late! While EJ was upstairs getting Chance into bed, I called the cell phone and did my best nervous teenager impression to ask if he and his sons would want to go on a date with me. When EJ posed the question to Chance it was a resounding yes- but I'm sure that's because Chance equates going on a date with McDonald's! I told him I would pick them up at 4:00pm in the basement. Even as I was asking him on this date, I was still unsure as to what we were going to do. But the plan slowly formed in my head as I ran out to do a couple more errands.

When 4:00pm rolled around, EJ and I were working on finances and didn't want to stop in the middle, but Chance was getting anxious. Finally, at 4:30 I went outside on the front porch and knocked on the door to pick up my dates. Our first activity was in the basement, playing "balls" which means, kicking soccer balls, running back and forth making touch downs with the footballs and bating and catching the baseballs. I left the boys alone for about half an hour at 5:00 so I could run up to make dinner. EJ had hinted about a lumberjack type of breakfast which he loves, and we rarely have. So, I made hashbrowns, eggs and sausage with OJ in goblets, and the chocolate dipped strawberries for dessert. We ate dinner picnic style in the front room with the fireplace on and one light for mood lighting. While they were finishing up I ran to set up the "theater" in the family room. I pulled out the hide a bed and put out a couple heart balloons and valentine candy. I also lit a few candles for more of that mood lighting. We finished watching the movie Cars which we had started the night before but were unable to finish. Since the movie ended at 7:00pm and Chance was acting pretty grumpy, he got to go to bed early. Then, EJ and I got to cuddle up on the hide a bed and watch one of our romantic comedy's.

Though Gavin is not mentioned, he was there the whole time, sleeping through most of it, with a couple feeding's and a little awake time. He is such a great baby!!

But I had a great time on the date with my boys and really enjoyed planning things that I thought they would like. I also really enjoyed EJ making the entire week special for me with all his little notes and extra acts of service and love. I have sure got a great Valentine, and an extra two little Valentine's that I just love to pieces. What a great holiday to celebrate the love we share we each other!

Bath time!

2009-02-08T14:15:00.000-08:00

Since somewhere in the middle of January, this has been our bath routine. Thankfully Gavin really enjoys his baths. Chance likes his bath's too, as soon as we're done washing and rinsing his hair. But he really likes having Gavin in there with him, he thinks that's pretty fun. He also enjoys helping bathe Gavin by pouring water into the little tub, or giving toys to Gavin. But actually it is more like pouring water on Gavin and putting the toys on Gavin. So, we have to carefully monitor Chance's "help."

And then after bath's they get to hop into their animal towels made by Grandma Perkins. Chance absolutely loves his duck towel! And we think Gavin's froggy towel is just too cute! My mom makes a towel for every grandchild and has gotten very creative to come up with different animals for the grandkids.

Now we just need an animal towel for Daddy! :)

Park day in January

2009-01-31T13:54:00.000-08:00

We have been pleasantly surprised with our first winter here in Colorado. The weather has been great, though we have been told by many people that this is definitely a milder winter. So, I'm sure sooner or later we'll have one of those winters that is cold and snows all the time, but for now we'll bask in our sunny days!

It was such a great temperature on Jan. 31st that we decided to go for a bike ride to a park near by. Gavin is still too little to ride in our bike trailer, so EJ stuck him in the sling, and zipped up his jacket around him, and just carried him that way. It may have been a little uncomfortable and little more difficult, but EJ will do anything to go for a bike ride! :) Gavin hung out the whole time, snug as a bug and sleeping soundly.

EJ going wild! Yee-haw!

Before we took off to go back home, we laid out a blanket and had a little snack.

But Chance wasn't ready to leave yet, he had to get back to that playground for a few more minutes.

Though he loves his bike trailer, we had to coerce him back into it. He was loving playing outside in such a great temperature! As he pulled away he waved a reluctant good-bye.

Doula

2009-01-24T13:59:00.000-08:00

My doula, Robbie came to visit Gavin and I for the last time on Jan. 22. We had hired her before Gavin was born, just because I was really set on not having another c-section. I figured anything that could help would be worth it. Robbie was a big supporter and strength to me in delivering naturally and even though the delivery happened so fast that she barely made it, it was still nice to have her there. It was also nice meeting with her leading up to the due date. She always brought some good information to share and helped answer any questions. She was so sweet to bring a coloring book and crayons for Chance and a home made blanket, by her mother, for Gavin. It's the blanket that is wrapped around him in the picture. It's funny how most of the time I have to coerce Chance to get in any picture, but this time I think Chance was feeling left out. He was pretty adamant the he really wanted to be in the picture! :)

Cheyenne Mountain Zoo

2009-01-22T20:15:00.000-08:00

During the week that Reva was here, we decided to go to the zoo. I had heard great things about the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and decided to try it out instead of going back to the Denver Zoo.

The very first exhibit that you come to is the giraffe's. As soon as I saw it, I was sold on this zoo. It was by far my favorite exhibit, but unfortunately was not a great way to start out for Chance. He was terrified! I have never been so close to a giraffe in my life, I could have reached out and touched them! But I didn't, I was a little nervous, and I also had a screaming child on my hip, They actually have a little booth set up where you can buy some food to feed them. I think next time I might have to try that.

We loved these guys just lounging in the sun!

This calm little peacock followed us for a little while, or maybe we followed it. But no matter what I did, I couldn't get him to open his feathers. I guess he is too accustomed to being around people all day.

How big is your paw compared to the lions?

Breakfast.

I thought this little monkey was entertaining as he reached through his fence to snag leaves to eat. Notice how the branches close enough for him to reach are all bare?

Wallaby's. Cute little things.

Look Chance, it's tigger!

This fish pond was inside the bear exhibit, though one of the zoo keeper's told us the bear's rarely go in there to fish. I guess when you get dinner delivered to you on a platter, what's the point of catching your own food.

Before we knew it, it was time for lunch, and Gavin was definitely letting us know he was hungry! Thankfully there was a little play area close by which kept Chance entertained while Gavin ate.

There was also a nice eating area with a great view over Colorado Springs. Gavin was such a trooper, just hanging out in his stroller and sleeping almost the entire time.

After lunch we wandered in to see the penguins, but Chance was apparently interested in something else.
Maybe it was this guy- but just looking at him gives me the shivers. I know Chance was definitely not interested in the hippos. They are yet another animal that scare Chance to death, especially when they make their barking noise. I was thrilled that we got to hear their noises again, but Chance couldn't get out of there soon enough.
We read on the sign that a hippo can run up to 30 mph. I would love to see this big guy get up and run, because I just have a really hard time visualizing that.

What is it about babies, of any species, that makes them so intriguing? We sat and watched this little monkey family for awhile.

Who knew orangutan's like to eat snow? I guess that's just one more way that we are like monkey's. :)

He's not intimidating at all....

Chance almost weighs as much as the adult Gorilla, only 325 more pounds to go. According to this scale, Chance weighed about 25 pounds.

It had been a great day so far, but was definitely nearing nap time. I think we were all a little tired. But on the way out, we had to stop to get one more picture of those giraffe's!

Gavin

2009-01-21T14:58:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time coming, but I am finally getting up some pictures to show off our cute little guy. Enjoy! :)

the Chaos of a mom! ;)

2009-01-18T20:23:00.001-08:00

Those of you who have 2 or more kids, how do you do it?!!

When we first brought Gavin home and for the whole month of December things went great. My mom came out, Eric took the whole month off, and we also went to Utah for a week and a half. So, I had a lot of help. Well, Eric had to eventually go back to work at the beginning of January, and about the 3rd day of being a mom of 2 with no extra help in the day, my life had fallen apart. I felt like I was in total chaos!! I couldn't believe how quickly that happened.

Slowly I have started getting used to it, and thankfully, my mother in law is in town right now for a week to help out, but none the less, it is tough! So, I look up to all of you women out there that have made this look so easy. I realize now that it is not! Especially all of you that continue to blog regularly! I will get there... some day. :) If you have any tips to making my life feel less chaotic, let me know- I can use it!!

Cold hike and gorgeous sunset

2009-01-10T19:29:00.000-08:00

The weather felt pretty nice and we were anxious to get outside, so we decided to go for a little hike. EJ always has a hike in mind that he wants to do, so off we went. As we were going up the trail, EJ started to realize that the destination he had in mind was a little further than he thought. We went ahead anyway and made it to the top, which gave a great view of the mountain range. There were little pipes to look through that pointed out the specific peaks with their name written next to it. It was very cool, but also getting very cold at this point. Chance had done really well on the way in, but on the way out, he was getting very cold, tired and hungry. We kept Gavin completely covered in the stroller the entire time, and tried pushing Chance as well in the basket underneath. He only stayed in there for a few minutes, though I can't blame him, it doesn't look very comfortable!

Chance still talks about the hike and says "my hands freezing." It made EJ and I think about the pioneers and an aspect of their trek that we had never thought of. What did they do when their 2 year old was tired, hungry and his hands were freezing? We tried everything to warm up his hands, but he would have none of it, he didn't want us to even touch his hands, therefore, he was also inconsolable. We basically took turns carrying Chance as he wailed and sobbed. At least we knew we had a car near by with a warm heater and trail mix to snack on. On that hike out, it made us even more grateful for the pioneers that settled Utah and their sacrifice!
When the moon started coming up I had to stop to get some pictures. It was a nice shade of red and seemed so large. None of these pictures below have been color enhanced at all- these pictures are exactly as we saw it.

When we got to the car it was perfect timing to crank up the heater and watch the amazing sunset. Like I said, no color enhancement on these shots- they don't need any enchancing! :) The colors were so vibrant, and filled the sky. It started with the orange-pinkish..

then moved into more of a purple

followed by the bright orange and red. Seriously breath taking!

I cry the day when I...

2009-01-10T13:55:00.000-08:00

take the tree down!! Seriously- I would have our Christmas tree up all year if I could. I just love the feeling it creates in the whole house. And I love turning on the tree lights when the rest of the house is dark and quiet. I just can just lay on the couch gazing at the tree completely mesmerized for hours.

What made it even better was that this was our first year having a full sized tree. I was really excited to have a tree taller than myself, but didn't want to pay the high costs, knowing that the day after Christmas they would be 50% off! But thanks to good old Craigslist (where I practically buy everything these days) I found this great tree with pre-strung lights for only $50! I was still a little worried about it looking really bare. Since the tree we had been using previously is probably 1/3 of it's size, we didn't have enough ornaments to cover very much. So, at Thanksgiving I recruited the help of my family in gathering pine cones, we also strung a couple of cranberry strands, but my mom was the real hero. Since she decorates a tree every year for the Festival of Trees, she has ended up with several left over ornaments from years past. When she came out to stay for a week when Gavin was born, she brought all of that with her and basically filled up our tree! I loved it! It turned out better than I was hoping, so a huge thanks to my mom!

However, the morning of Jan. 10th, Chance and I started the sad task of taking it all down. Chance was very proud of the ornament he made in nursery this year. It is so cute with his name on front and glitter and stickers that he put on, and a darling picture on the back.

My sweet little Chancer-bug. Darling as can be, but not very much help in taking down the tree. :)

New Year's

2009-01-03T10:00:00.000-08:00

To celebrate new year's eve, we had a movie night. We watched Kung Fu Panda with Chance, ate popcorn and toasted to the new year with Guarana (a soda drink from Brazil.) We banged pots and pans at 8:00pm and then put Chance down for bed. Then, EJ and I stayed up and watched another movie, Bewitched, and at midnight tuned in to watch the ball drop in Time Square. Unfortunately, our clock must be a minute late, because when we changed the channel, the ball had already dropped and the confetti was flying everywhere. Oh well, at least we've seen the ball drop before. We'll try tuning in again next year, a couple minutes earlier though!

Gavin's Blessing

2008-12-28T13:47:00.000-08:00

We decided to go ahead and bless Gavin while we were in Utah. That way we could have our families all be able to participate. Two years ago, we also blessed Chance in Utah at my parent's house, so, this time we decided to do it at the Johnson's house. My mom and I, well, basically just my mom, made this adorable outfit for Gavin. We used some of the left over fabric that we still have from my wedding dress. And we used the same blessing blanket that my mom and I made a couple years ago when we blessed Chance. Only now we have added Gavin's name to the blanket. The plan is that with every child, we will embroider their name on one of the empty squares on the blanket. When they are older, they will all have their own blessing outfits, but I guess they will have to fight over who gets the blanket!

Anyway- I love how Gavin's little tuxedo turned out, he looked so handsome!

We were able to have most of our family there, except for Dan and Jen because they had to work, Mitch and Alison were still in the hospital from having Jordyn and Jared had flown back to Kansas to drive back with Ashley.

Here's the whole group.

EJ gave a very nice blessing. Among many things, he let Gavin know how much we loved having him in our family. He also let him know that his middle name was given to him after his Grandpa Perkins. He talked about several of the great qualities that his Grandpa Perkins possesses that we would encourage Gavin to seek after. And he also blessed him with many things that we would like for him to have in his life. Gavin was great during the whole blessing- he just slept right through it! :)

Johnson Grandparents

Perkins Grandparents

Our own little family

Chance loves his little brother, and loves giving him kisses!

Not only did Gavin sleep through the blessing, but we couldn't get him to wake up for any pictures right after either.
After the blessing, we all had dinner together, and everyone brought something to share. We had three different kinds of delicious soup, bread sticks, a veggie plate, and desserts. It was a great meal and a really great day, thanks to everyone who participated!

Halle, Hannah, Chance and Jared.

After we finished eating, we all just hung out around the table talking for awhile, and eating chocolate! :)

Grandpa Johnson can always be found tickling a child or two! :)

The week of Christmas in Utah

2008-12-27T13:51:00.000-08:00

As always, we went to Utah for Christmas, and we were able to spend a little over a week and a half there. We had a great time with our families and friends.

One night we were at my sister's house, when it was time for bed, so, in following with our routine, we pulled out the children's Book of Mormon to read the scriptures with Chance. All the other kids decided to join in, it was really cute. But for some reason, we had settled in the hallway, who knows why. There are much bigger and more comfy places we could have chosen! Ha!Reading with all the kids!

And while the family was hanging out, my dad happened to slip away. We found him under the tree taking a nap.
It had been almost a whole month since Twilight came out in theater's and I still hadn't seen it! So, we got the girls in the family together and went to a late showing. We all really liked it. I was completely entertained. It may have helped that some of my friends told me they were disappointed with different aspects of the movie, so I went into it with absolutely no expectations, and I loved it. Can't wait for the next movie to come out. My family has a tradition on Christmas Eve to go to a movie and then out to dinner. It started when we were very little. My mom needed time to wrap and get everything ready for Christmas morning. My Dad would get us kids out of the house for a few hours by taking us to a movie. After a couple of years, my mom decided she wanted to join in the fun and thus began the tradition. When we were little, the theater's used to be empty on Christmas Eve. But now they are always full- I guess there are many other families who have the same tradition that we do!? This year we went and saw Bolt, it was a cute movie, and we had a fun time.

Afterwards we went to the Macaroni Grill for dinner. It is a fun place because you get to color on the table cloths!

Chance didn't know what to do with himself with all that chocolate from his sundae! :)
Then we went over to Temple Square to check out the lights. They never cease to amaze me. It's incredible how many lights they can get on a single tree! It is so beautiful!

Chance loves his cousins, except when one is trying to hold him still for a picture.

Christmas morning started around 8:00am, when Chance woke up. But we didn't make it into see the tree for a little while after that. EJ got up with Chance and fed him breakfast while I fed Gavin. Then we had to wake up Michael! When we finally made it in there, it was well worth the wait. A few of Chance's favorite gifts included a whole bunch of trains and train tracks, with the train table waiting for him back home in Colorado.

He also went crazy for his T-ball set. He wanted to play with it all day, and carry his bat around with him wherever he went. Gavin also had a good time hanging out and watching all the action.

I love the mountain of wrapping paper after all the gifts are opened. I purposefully don't clean it up for a little while, because I just think it is a fun part of Christmas morning to see all the paper. I don't know why I like it, I just do.

Perkins family, minus the father, who is taking the picture.

Later that afternoon, we headed over to the Johnson home for Christmas dinner, and some family time. Here are Chance and Jaycee enjoying their meal together. They were being pretty funny, I don't know how many times they stole food off each other's plates!

Then Grandma and Grandpa took all the grand kids downstairs to play, while all the siblings stayed upstairs and just talked. It was really nice.

The clean up crew.

cousin Ben

cousin Isaac

Uncle Mitch

Chance and Jaycee felt the need to help Ben with his piano solo.

I have no idea what was going on here, but it must have been cute, since we are all getting a picture! We opened up some more gifts after dinner, and Chance got a lot of help opening up his car city from G-ma and G-pa.

Can you note the enthusiasm on his face!? Ha ha!

I had to put this photo in here, just because I love his face in this one. He was definitely sick of pictures.

Soon it was time for bed. Here we are doing the routine scripture reading. The day after Christmas, we took advantage of a night skiing deal at Brighton, and went up with our friends Dave and Jenni Burns. It had been at least one year, maybe two, since I went skiing. So, it was fun to get on the slopes again.

We had a really fun time, even though it was zero degrees (not even joking), and one of the lifts was down- thus longer lines to get on the one remaining lift! Not the optimal conditions, but, like I said, we still had a ton of fun! We love the Burns'- they are great friends!

We also got to see some great friends that were in town from California. They grew up in Bountiful, so it was only a 10 minute drive from my parent's house to Haley's parents. It was so great to see Haley, Bryan and Eli. We miss them tons!

Chance still talks about his buddy Eli, so, it was fun to be able to reunite them for a few hours.
After visiting with the Taylor's we ran over to the Johnson home for the big Johnson family party. We hung out for a little while, before setting off to go sledding. I stayed behind with Gavin since we didn't think he would enjoy the cold too much, plus, I needed to work on his blessing outfit anyway! So, EJ took Chance and said that Chance really wasn't too thrilled with it. He was reluctant to go down the hill every time, and when they would get to the bottom, Chance would always exclaim "scary!"
Chance and Jared hanging out at the top of the hill- stalling perhaps...?

Ang and Steve showing us how it is done.

Chance is ready to go home. Keith brought along this weird contraption, which everyone loved and had to give it a try.

Gavin back at home hanging out with Aunt DebbieAll I can say is- so sweet!!

That night along with celebrating Christmas and doing the family gift exchange, we also celebrated the December and January birthday's. That includes Gavin, Jared Debbie and myself. So, they sang us happy birthday and we got to blow out some candles.

Afterwards was the gift exchange. The kids were all so excited to be unwrapping more presents that they all pretty much helped each other. It was pretty funny. And here is most of the Johnson siblings, except Dan and Jen who had to work, and Mitch and Alison, because they were in the hospital having their new baby girl Jordyn!

It was nice of Mitch and Alison to have their baby a couple days before we had to go home, so that we could go meet her! :) She is very cute and was almost the exact size that Gavin was at birth. She was 20inches long and 6 lbs 15 oz (if I remember right.) There are 3 babies on the Johnson side all born within 4 months of each other.

Here is Gracie the oldest of the three and Jordyn- the youngest.

Gavin is right in the middle of the two girls- lucky boy, we'll have 2 kissing cousins!! :)Then there are three 2 year olds all born within 4 and a half months of each other from the same families. They are really cute together as they have started to interact more and remember each other. I guess Jaycee is the lucky one of these three- when she is older I'm sure she will like having 2 boy cousins that will undoubtedly have cute friends to go out with! :) We had a fun time visiting with Mitch and Alison and meeting their sweet little Jordyn. Chance had a good time playing with his cousins and all of Jaycee's new Christmas toys. It looks like Grandpa had a good time playing with the toys as well!!

As our typical Utah vacations go, it was very fun and very busy! We are grateful for such great families and friends. It is always sad to say goodbye, but also nice to get home and get back into a normal routine- especially for Chance's sake!

Snow Angel

2008-12-24T21:16:00.000-08:00

Is Jared crazy, you may ask...
and I would answer, yes.

Ward Christmas Party

2008-12-13T14:00:00.000-08:00

We were surprised to learn that Santa was at our ward party, since we had heard he would not be attending. So, of course we had to go take the boys to see him again. We thought for sure it would be easier for Chance, since he had just seen Santa a few days earlier. But we were wrong. I guess he was not in as good of a mood, because the second EJ even got close to Santa, Chance started freaking out.

This reminded us more of what he was like last year, he didn't even want to be within a foot of Santa.

Don't take it personally Santa, I'm sure Chance loves you deep down, and will probably even want to sit on your lap, next year....???

Also at our ward party, I was asked to sing Mary's Lullaby as part of the program. Since Gavin was a new born, and the song is Mary singing to her baby Jesus, it seemed fitting for me to sing to Gavin. During the practices I found myself getting emotional. The words in that song are very touching, and the emotions running through a new mom are already a little sensitive! As I held Gavin, I could just imagine how Mary felt. She must have had so much love for her tiny new baby that came to her through the power of God. But maybe she could already sense what lay in store for him, and knew his life would not be an easy one. I'm sure she felt a desire to keep him and protect him from all the hardships, but knew she was powerless to do so. I think watching a child suffer, especially the suffering that Christ went through, must be one of the hardest things a parent can experience.

Needless to say, I had to really not focus on the words, and especially not apply those feelings to myself, so that I wouldn't start crying.

I do enjoy the opportunities to sing, and feel like I need to do it more often to be able to keep that talent. But I always get so nervous and mess up during the performance. This time was no different, I had a very rough beginning, but at least the ending was okay. Some day maybe I will get to the point where I can control my nerves- hopefully!

Gavin's first couple of weeks

2008-12-12T15:00:00.000-08:00

We have loved having Gavin join our family. He is a sweet little boy and so snugly. I'm pretty sure that Gavin has enjoyed being part of the family as well, especially with a big brother who likes to try to pick him up, or uses him as a pillow! Ha ha! I took several pictures to document the first couple weeks of his life, and here are some of the things that we are sure he is loving.

Being burped by daddy.

Being forced to hold his own head up at only a few days old.

Curling up and taking naps in the warm sun spot on the floor.

Being carted all over the house while sleeping in his car seat.

And baths. Oh wait, nope, he didn't like his baths.

But he does like getting his hair washed!

And he definitely enjoys getting wrapped up all warm and cozy in his towel.

Santa

2008-12-11T20:59:00.000-08:00

We took Chance and Gavin to see Santa at our local library. We had been preparing Chance all day by talking about what we were going to do, and trying to get him excited about it. We thought that would help him not be so scared. When we got there, Santa was already telling some stories and answering any questions that the kids had.

Chance was mostly interested, but needed a couple snacks to keep him sitting on Daddy's lap the entire time.

He can always sense when I am taking pictures of him!

Gavin at 8 days old also got to enjoy Santa's stories by sleeping right through them. Gavin did great, of course, being held by Santa,
and we were hoping that this year with the preparation, Chance would be a little more happy about it. But this was out attempt to get him to sit on Santa's lap, as you can see, Chance was not too happy!

At least he let me hold him while we were next to Santa, which is still better than last year.

We even got a hug from Santa, though Chance was somewhat reluctant. But Chance was sure to tell Santa that he wanted "Kung Fu Panda," the movie, for Christmas.

And he was also okay with giving Santa a high five. Even though he seemed very nervous, he still talks about Santa and about the stickers that Santa gave him afterwards. Maybe next year we'll bribe him with stickers! :)

Welcome Gavin!

2008-12-05T16:12:00.000-08:00

So, for those of you who are interested, here's the whole complete story...

It was December 1st, and I was getting a little anxious. My due date was Nov. 30th, and if I went a week overdue then they would perform a c-section. So, after consulting with my doctor, I decided to go ahead and take some Castor oil, 1 tbsp. at 3 different times of the day, in hopes that labor would start. But, much to my disappointment, I only felt a few contractions through out the day, a little bit of diarrhea, and that was it. So on Dec. 2nd I decided to take one more 2 tbsp. dose of Castor oil around noon. Again, just a few contractions, and a little bit of diarrhea- nothing exciting at all. But, around 3:00 to 4:00 I started feeling more contractions, but still was skeptical since they felt pretty mild and very infrequent. They started getting more consistent around 6:00pm, but still felt pretty mild to me. I didn't think much was going on, until I started timing them, and realized they were longer than I thought. So, at about 9:00, we got out a watch and started timing them exactly. We decided to watch a movie and during the movie the contractions were coming every four to five minutes and they lasted from 30 seconds to a minute. Still, I was skeptical because I didn't think the contractions were very strong. So, when the movie ended, we went upstairs, finished packing the last minute things for the hospital, just in case, and then tried to lay down to go to sleep a little after midnight.

But, before we did that, I made EJ take a couple pictures of me, since I didn't have any pics at 40 weeks. So, here I am at 40 weeks and a couple of days. :)

This is me trying to smile, though I am totally exhausted, I hardly ever stay up until midnight! And on top of that I had been having contractions for the last several hours!
So, just a little bit after midnight, we laid down to sleep, and about 5 minutes later I had a very strong contraction. It was by far stronger than the ones I had been feeling previously. I had to get back up and move around to get through it. Then within the next 10-15 minutes I had 2 more contractions like that, and didn't think I could handle a whole lot more, so I woke EJ up around 12:30 and told him it was time to go to the hospital.

Thankfully, my big brother Michael is still here visiting from thanksgiving week, so we were able to leave Chance asleep in his bed and take off to the hospital.

On the way there, I had several more contractions, strong enough that I didn't want to talk. I would close my eyes and had to really focus inward to relax my body. Unbeknownst to me, I was in the transition phase where my body was going through the last steps to get me ready to deliver. We arrived at the hospital around 12:45 and we went through the emergency room entrance since it was after hours, at the front desk they asked several questions and had me sign some stuff, all the while I am still having very strong contractions, and getting annoyed that they don't just send me upstairs already! As we head upstairs, I told EJ that I couldn't handle much more of these kind of contractions, and that if I wasn't dilated very far that I might have to get an epidural (which I didn't want.) Once we got upstairs, since I was so calm they took me to triage for me to change, and then asked me a whole bunch of more questions. During the questions, I all of a sudden feel the need to push. I told the nurse, and her eyes grew very wide. She said "don't push, just breath through it, let me check you." Once she checked me she discovered I was completely dilated and ready to go. They quickly called the doctor and wheeled me into the labor room. I felt like the doctor couldn't get there soon enough, I felt like the baby was going to pop out any second. But, it went a little longer than that. I did have to push for about 20 minutes before Gavin was born at 1:39am on December 3rd. It all felt very surreal since it went so quickly- not how I expected it at all! We were so relieved and happy that I was able to do a VBAC delivery and that I was able to go natural, which I really wanted to do. It was a great experience, and I feel so blessed that it was that way, since my last delivery was not so great. I know there were many prayers offered in our behalf that all would go well, and we are so thankful for that, we feel truly blessed!

Gavin Dean Johnson- born 1:39am on Dec. 3rd, 6 pounds 13 ounces and 20 inches long. He is a tall, skinny little guy with long hands and feet and a full head of dark hair.

Mommy, I have a question, where am I? ;)
Eric was a great support to me through-out the whole process. There were only a few minutes when he wasn't standing by my side, and that's because he was sitting. He got a little faint feeling during the delivery and grew very pale. Once the nurse noticed she told him to sit down, that they couldn't worry about him as well and they went and grabbed him some juice. It was pretty funny, since I thought that I was the one that was probably totally pale since I felt like I was. I mentioned that to the doctor and he said, no, you look great, he's the one that is pale! During my last hospital stay with the first pregnancy, Eric also had a moment where he had to sit down so he wouldn't faint. He says he's not exactly sure what it is, but when it deals with me and my blood he can't handle it so well.

Here we are probably around 3:15am ... very happy!
but completely and totally exhausted. All we wanted to do was go to sleep, but we weren't able to get to our room and totally settled until 5:30am. Then they came in every hour to check my blood pressure and temperature. Talk about a long night/day. December 3rd felt like it lasted 48 hours!

So, even though we were smiling on the outside, this is how we felt on the inside.

Here is our little guy. So far he is the ideal baby. He pretty much just sleeps, eats and poops, and I have to wake him up and force him to eat for that matter. He easily sleeps 5 hours at a time and I think he would go longer, if I would let him.
Such a sweet little angel

The next morning, EJ went home to take care of Chance and bring him and Michael back to the hospital. When Chance first came in the room, his face was full of concern. I'm sure he was wondering what I was doing in that big bed, and what was I holding in my arms.
As you can tell by their faces, these are two very happy boys. I guess they just love having their picture taken!
Chance definitely warmed up to Gavin, but every time we asked him if he wanted to hold him he would say yes. However as soon as we started to put Gavin on Chance's lap, Chance would push him away and say, I don't want it!
But he is willing to give Gavin kisses.

The proud daddy

And our babysitter, uncle Michael
Chance liked climbing up in bed with me and eating his snacks or watching TV but usually both at the same time.
Here are the boys on Dec. 4th, watching Elmo together.
EJ slept over the night of the 3rd, then went and picked up Chance and came back to the hospital for a few hours. They went back home for Chance's nap time, then came back afterward with Michael as well, to pick up Gavin and I to go home. It had only been a day and a half, but it was nice to be going home!

A two year old must always find something to stay entertained. Chance found this footrest and was immediately excited about his new slide!

Here we are all dressed and ready to go.

The whole group

And the newest picture of our little family

So small in comparison to that big car seat. I always forget how little a new born baby is. It is so fun to have him around. I love just holding him in my arms and taking naps with him cuddled next to me. I love when he is awake and will just study me with his eyes and will follow my voice. It is so great to be a mom again. :)

Thanksgiving Week

2008-11-30T12:26:00.000-08:00

We had such a fun Thanksgiving! Since Gavin's due date was so close, we decided to not go anywhere and instead convince our family to come to us. It was the Johnson's turn to have us for thanksgiving, but they couldn't come because it was their year to do an extended family Thanksgiving. They had already committed to go to Uncle Brett's and Aunt Judy's. So, then we invited the Perkins side. We ended up with my Mom, Dad, Michael, Jared and his girlfriend Ashley.

We started off the week by meeting up with my cousin Eric Bushman, his wife Taryn and their little boy Aiden, who live about 45 minutes south of us. We went to Hammond's Candy Store and took a little tour of the candy making process.
Daddy helping Chance stay interested in the tour by explaining what was going on.

What a happy worker! :)

Chance found a little display of a whole town made out of candy, and when the tour had all moved on, he stayed glued to his spot. As far as he was concerned, looking at all the candy was much more interesting than looking at the people making the candy!

Here's the whole group, minus me, the photographer.

We all loved the free samples of candy that were given out. And apparently Jared and Ashley really liked the blue kind.

This is what happens when Jared gets a hold of the camera...

Candy cane, tug-o-war!

Chance was having a hay day! We had to keep a really close eye on him, because anything within reach was in danger of being opened.

Then we went into downtown Denver to check out the 16th street mall and make it over to the library. We had heard they had a really fun children's section, and it did not disappoint. Chance and Aiden had fun playing with the puzzles, animals, games, blocks and even glancing at a few books. My dad and I even found a huge checkers set which we played and he beat me badly! But in my defense, I was making hurried moves without thinking, because I knew we needed to leave soon! So, Dad, I declare a rematch!! :)

On our walk back to the mall area, we walked through a very cool plaza just across from the capitol building. Jared and EJ found a little hole in the ground that they knew just what to do with. The goal was to try and get as far away from it, and then see if you can spit into it!

Hopefully their aim was pretty good, for the sake of the person on the bottom!

Then we stopped by a little cafe on our way home for dinner.

Here we are on Thanksgiving day doing what everyone in the nation is doing.... cooking! Except for Jared of course, who thought a good arts and crafts project would be to paint mom.

The whole group with the table set and food ready to be devoured!

And the funny faces, of course. We had such a yummy dinner, so much good food and great leftovers for the rest of the week. When Jared asked Chance what he thought, they both agreed it was a thumb's up!

In fact, Chance thought it was so good, he decided to get rid of his wimpy little plastic fork, and opted for the serving size turkey fork. Bigger bites that way, you know.

Mom was so proud of the good manners that Jared was displaying! Ha ha! Actually, this was a very tricky shot to try to cover up the spoon, which Jared was actually holding, and make it look like the potatoes were just in his hands. I think it turned out very convincing!

We had several kinds of pie- Apple, Banana Cream, Pecan and here Chance is enjoying the classic Pumpkin pie.

The day after Thanksgiving, we decided to go burn off some of those calories by going on a hike to our nearby, and new found favorite, Roxborough State Park. We just can't get enough of those awesome Red Rocks!
Unfortunately, Michael had to take his truck into the shop on that day to get it fixed, so he wasn't with us on this little excursion.

Chance became quite intrigued with a little hole in a rock which he could stick his fingers through. Fascinating! :)

Since this will be our first year with a normal sized Christmas tree, I was worrying about my lack of ornaments and how pathetic the tree was going to look. So, by my request, the family took it upon themselves to collect pine cones to put on our tree. They collected so many that I not only had enough for the tree, but enough to decorate above the fireplace with them. They turned out looking great, as long as you don't touch them since they are very spiky! Hopefully Ashley is not inspecting her hands because she drew blood... sorry about that Ashley!

It's a good thing we took advantage of the warm weather on Friday, because the next day it snowed and so it was time to make a snowman! Chance, as always was a big helper, offering his snowball to Jared, though, knowing Chance, he was actually probably preparing to throw that at Jared. Chance loves a good snowball fight and surprisingly isn't afraid of getting hit with a snowball either.

The only problem he had was trying to keep those mittens on. Here Ashley is putting them back on for maybe the 2nd time, or 3rd time or who knows, I lost count. When you're that close, your bound to hit your target!

This kid loves playing in the snow... can you tell from that face?

And finally, the end product. A huge snowman with arms and legs (that's what those weeds are that are sticking out) and what appears to be a huge goiter on his neck. Poor guy! Too bad he didn't last very long. Since he was built a little crooked, when the sun came out the next day and started melting him, it didn't take long for him to fall over.

We had a great week and we were very sad when everyone started leaving on Sunday. We started missing them the moment they left!

At the time of Thanksgiving it is always nice to reflect on our blessings, and we can say that we are truly grateful for the wonderful families that we have, both the Perkins' and Johnson's. It is a great blessing to have such supportive parents and siblings. We are also grateful for our new home in which we were able to host and have a place for everyone to stay. We hope to have many more visitors to make use of that extra space!

first snow of the season

2008-11-14T15:14:00.000-08:00

Chance was not very happy as I got him ready to go outside. He was not loving his snow clothes and kept trying to get them off as he exlaimed, "too big!" But as soon as we got outside, he was loving it.

By far, his two favorite things were eating the snow...

And the other favorite thing was building a snowman, or rather, watching mom build the snowman...then knocking it down by jumping on it!

And then trying to build it back up. :)
We had a great time playing in the snow for the first time this season! Can't wait for more snow, so we can make a bigger snowman! :)

Halloween

2008-11-09T13:07:00.000-08:00

Yes, it's true, another post!! ;) Yes, I am still alive, and nope, no baby yet, though I'm only 3 weeks away from my due date now! Wo-hoo! :)

Anyway, I thought I would force myself, and use what little energy I have these days, to get up some pics from Halloween.

We had an awesome Halloween. EJ and I decided that Halloween is so much more fun with kids. It was fun to see everything through Chance's eyes, which is way more exciting. The first time we put Chance's costume on, for our ward party, he wasn't very happy, and we had to distract him with a treat. But after that, we think he started to equate his costume with candy and was pretty excited to put on his costume for the other parties we had.

Like I mentioned, the first party was at the church- dinner, games and trick or treating. And our costumes this year were probably pretty typical of pregnant women every where.

If you can't tell, I was a bun in the oven, EJ was the chef and Chance was a cinnamon roll, and what a cute cinnamon roll!

Our next party was a neighborhood one with dinner, pumpkin carving and a magician! we had a great time and we were grateful to get to know some of our neighbors a little better.

Chance was a great help with the pumpkin carving!

And our last party was EJ's office party for all the employees kids. They did a great job with lots of fun activities and some great trick or treating to the individual offices. Chance got more candy there than we knew what to do with.

They had pumpkin decorating...

which left Chance's hands a nice shade of green,

and they had Halloween tattoo's! Chance couldn't get enough of those and ended up with three.

EJ even got a tattoo.

They had balloon decorating
and of course, as I mentioned the trick or treating. Here Chance is observing the decorations in what looks like wonder and amazement. :) This is also the best picture I have of what Chance's cinnamon roll looked like.

Every child there won a costume award and Chance won the "sweetest costume." Here he is accepting his award.

A better shot of what the bun in the oven looked like,
and one more of the family. Notice that Chance's hands are now red instead of green from decorating his balloon with a red marker.

Right when we got home from the office party, it was time to go trick or treating. Since EJ and I weren't planning on wearing our costume's around the neighborhood, and Chance's costume didn't make any sense without us, we had a costume change. Here is our little cowboy. My mom made this cowboy costume for my older brother when he was 2- so it's been around for awhile.

Chance loved the trick or treating, and we had a lot of fun watching his excitement.

By the end of the night he had accumulated a lot of candy and here he was proudly displaying his goods.

Denver zoo

2008-10-18T14:18:00.000-07:00

Who doesn't love the free day at the zoo?! Well, besides the huge crowds that is. :)

Back in October we decided to take advantage of the free day and Chance loved it! The last time we were at the zoo he was too young and didn't know the names or the sounds of the animals. This time around it was a whole new experience. In fact, after we got home, he talked about the zoo for days.

There were a few animals that he loved watching and the giraffe's were some of those. Unfortunately, the giraffe doesn't make any noises that we're aware of, so we can't ask, "what does the giraffe say?"

Happily watching some ducks and birds in a little pond.

I had never before heard a hippo make noise before until that day. He was swimming around and when he came up for air, his nose came out of the water and he blew bubbles and made a loud barking sort of noise. It startled us at first because it was so loud.

This rhino must have been hungry because he would pace back and forth, then go hit the doors, where his food comes out, with his horn's. They were big heavy duty metal doors and yet the rhino had clearly made large dents in them. Yeah, I would definitely not want to come across an angry rhino!
This is us making monkey noises for the camera in front of one of the monkey exhibits.

And I just loved this shot so I had to throw it in.

We thought this bears positioning was so funny. He was just hanging out there in the tree, though he does look pretty comfortable. Chance roaring at the bears.

All the monkey's were very tranquil, just sitting in one place, except for one who was swinging all over the place and putting on a show.

He was very entertaining.

This monkey had a tiny new born baby in her arms.

Gotta love those big gorillas!

Who knew we had our own plaza at the zoo? Pretty neat. ;)

Autumn

2008-10-10T12:34:00.000-07:00

Last week was absolutely crazy! We had several family members come visit to specifically help us with our house improvements. So, with the extra help, we installed a laminate floor, installed and carpeted an extra stair, painted kitchen cabinets, painted 2 bedrooms, tiled 3 bathrooms and during the whole thing had to keep 4 little kids happy. Yeah, it was exhausting- I will definitely be posting some pictures because everything turned out so great!!

So, on Sunday, Eric, Chance and I took a much needed break from working on our home, and we took a little drive to check out the leaves changing colors. In California, there wasn't much change in the trees during the fall, so we were excited to experience it here, and we were definitely not disappointed!

Here are a couple of shots from the drive.

And in other news, I am 33 weeks pregnant and going strong. With the last pregnancy, Chance would already be 2 weeks old at this point, so I am thrilled to be this far along. It is funny, because I never experienced this part of pregnancy and I am starting to understand when other women talk about the discomforts of pregnancy. It is definitely getting harder to bend over, or to even breath sometimes. I find myself sitting with an arched back at times, to give my lungs a little more room. And I have started feeling those lower back pains. However, even with the added discomforts, we couldn't be happier!!

It is constantly in our prayers that I won't get pre-eclampsia again, even Chance has got it down. When we help him with his prayers we'll say "please bless" and then let him fill in with what he wants to say. Without fail, the first thing he will say is "bless baby mommy's tummy."

Birthday party take two

2008-09-12T13:33:00.000-07:00

When we got back to Colorado, we had another little party for Chance on his actual birthday- September 11th. It was just a small party with only Eric, Chance and I. We took a little bike ride over to the park and played for awhile on the playground.

Eric was giving Chance some underdog's and Chance was loving it. I don't think I have ever seen him enjoy the swings so much.

Then we biked back home to have dinner and the rest of the celebration.

Which of course involved another cake. I decided to keep it simple this time around and did a tres leches from a box. It was yummy!!

And then on to presents.

The big present this year was his tricycle which he was absolutely thrilled about, as you might be able to tell from his face.

We had to go outside right then and try it out.

And then we had to get out his train and try that out too. Needless to say, he was a happy little boy!

So, now we have a two year old in the house, and I am loving it. He has definitely enhanced our lives. He has become so vocal, and I love hearing the new words he learns and how he can put things together in his mind. He makes me laugh all the time and makes my heart melt with his random kisses and his sweet prayers. He truly is a gift to our family.

Chance turned two!

2008-09-09T14:00:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of September, we took another trip to Utah so EJ could do some recruiting for his company at BYU. Chance and I of course had to tag along! It was good timing because it happened to be the weekend before Chance's second birthday, so we threw a family birthday party for him.

If anyone knows my family, they know that my mom and sister have always done awesome cakes for every birthday. Well... Chance's last birthday cake that I made I'm sure was not up to par, so this year Maren helped me create a train for Chance.

After a couple of tastes of the frosting, we realized our tongues were a nice shade of a bluish/grayish color. It was very cute.

Here I am, very proud of the finished project! Thanks Maren for all the help!

Since it was still nice weather and my in-laws have great neighbors that generously share their swimming pool, we decided to do a swimming party. It couldn't have been a better day, it was so warm and sunny, and almost all of our family were there. We were just missing one of Eric's siblings and his family due to work.

Here are the ladies that didn't get in the pool. Everyone else however ventured into the water.

EJ introducing Chance to the water slide

Jared doing a flip of the diving board.

And then EJ and Jared decided to go together. Jared was nice enough to not only plug his nose, but to plug EJ's as well.
Just hanging out

Grandpa Johnson and cousin Jaycee taking a turn at the water slide
Nice form Maren!

EJ's olympic worthy handstand dive... sort of. :)

Chance was really anxious to open his presents, he tried to sneak into them a couple of times. Such a big boy, 2 years already!

Taking a break from all the fun

As soon as we got the food out for lunch these little boys made their way over to the table. They were trying their hardest to reach something, anything, on that table.

And... success!! They were able to snag some chips to sneak while nobody was looking.

This is Chance's look of "mom, do you really need to take more pictures!?"

Enjoying a yummy lunch.

Grandma and Great-grandma Johnson- they were both injured at the time, so this is where they hung out for the entire party. Reva had a broken ankle and Grandma had broken her leg.

It's time for the cake!

He has definitely figured things out and gets very excited to blow out his candles.

And then it was time for the presents

What does the monkey say?

Thanks to our families for making the party so much fun and for all the nice presents. It was a great way to celebrate!

Our flight home from Utah was Chance's last free flight... what a sad day. He really enjoys flying, but on this last flight, the take off was making him really nervous. It made us laugh because he reached over and held my hand, but kept his eyes on the window. Then, the second we were in the air, he dropped my hand and was as happy as could be!

Four Year Ago...

2008-09-02T17:24:00.000-07:00

Four years ago today I made the best decision in my life by choosing to marry Eric. The wedding was everything I could have asked for and the man I was standing next to was and still is the man of my dreams.

Happy Anniversary Honey. I love you even more today than I did four years ago! :)

California fun...

2008-08-20T08:16:00.000-07:00

Ever since moving to Colorado, things have been busy with working on the house, and blogging has been put on the back burner, So, here I go, finally starting the updates- I know this is a big project to take on, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks I will be able to get caught up on all of my posts. So, I have to go back and get a couple of past activities. This post is some of the last things we did in California before moving to Colorado.

Of course, a favorite was swimming at the pool in our apartment complex.

Chance applying his own sun screen

Learning how the water gun works

You gotta love that cute little bum!

Last hike we took with Haley and Eli in the open space

This may look like a tackle, but I'm pretty sure it was meant to be a hug! :)

We went to Tilden Park with some friends- the Mcfadden's, Bauer's and Taylor's, where Chance really enjoyed watching and feeding the animals.

After spending some time at the farm we headed over to ride the train
best buddies :)
One of our very last adventures before moving was the Elder's Quorum camp out on Mount Diablo at the end of June. We had a great time hanging out around the campfire with those friends.

We also enjoyed the beautiful sunset that evening.

The next morning we headed to the top of Mount Diablo to have one last overview look. Here are EJ and Chance checking out the compass on top.

Then EJ rode all the way home from the top of the mountain. Since we don't have many biking pictures of him, we took the opportunity to snap a couple of shots. Whew, What a hottie! :)

We made it to Colorado!

2008-08-08T12:05:00.000-07:00

Wow- we're finally here! One thing is for sure, it is so nice to be done with all that packing!! Talk about a headache. This is what our apartment looked like for several days before we actually loaded up the truck.

Thankfully we had lots of helpers to load the truck... including Chance who loved "helping" daddy lift those heavy boxes. A common phrase we have been hearing from Chance lately is "help you." Which either means- help me, or let me help you. So cute, I love it!

A humongous thank you to Seth Holladay, Mark Meyer, Jason Kelley, Bryan Holt, Rob and Michelle Christiansen! We couldn't have done it without you! Also, thank you to Amanda Coronel for helping me clean the next day!

An awkward and heavy piece of equipment- the elliptical, being taken down the stairs. I was glad it was Rob and Mark and not me!!

Chance was very entertained and enjoyed watching the whole process. Such a cute little packer.

Holding up the cargo!

After the truck was loaded and it was about time to go to bed, Eric and I started asking each other if either one of us had remembered to get out the air mattress as planned.... nope, we hadn't. So, this was our bed that first night in our empty apartment! At least we had kept out a few towels, 2 blankets and some sheets- but they didn't offer much padding. We are grateful for the Bauer's letting us borrow their air mattress for the next night, and for the Dyer's letting us borrow theirs for our first night here in Colorado, before our truck arrived. It definitely made a big difference for our old aching backs!! :)

It was such a weird feeling to be in our completely empty apartment. Chance had a good time running around pretending to be an airplane and kicking a soccer ball.

Our drive out to Colorado was absolutely gorgeous. We took the long way, which happens to be the more scenic way. We figured since we had a little extra time, why not? I think a big contributor was also the fact that we would be staying a night in Grand Junction which has some great mountain biking. So, EJ got up early on Monday morning to hit the trails for a little bit. He can't wait to go back to explore some more.

As we were going into Grand Junction we passed through a little afternoon storm, which made the sky so beautiful. Here are a couple of shots from that.

There were so many other beautiful things we saw, but I didn't have my camera ready, so the next time we drive that way, I am keeping my camera next to me! One of the highlights for the drive was passing through the resort town of Vail. I couldn't help but laugh when EJ told me he was actually getting chills because it was so exciting for him to see it. As soon as the snow flies, I am sure he will start planning a skiing trip!

We arrived on Monday July 28th, dropped Chance off at the Dyer's to be babysat (thank you again Diana!!) And went straight to our new home, did a quick walk through then straight to signing the papers. After that was done and we had picked up Chance, we had to go shopping for a refrigerator! We bought one that night, but unfortunately had to wait 5 days for delivery. It was interesting trying to live out a cooler for the next several days.

Then the next night our truck arrived, and several guys from our ward came out to help us move it all in. Also, that night my cousin Eric Bushman and his wife brought us dinner and helped us unload the truck- it was so great to have a real meal! Thanks you guys! And since then it has just been unpacking, organizing and planning all the home renovations we are going to do. Those will start in a couple of weeks, so I will make sure to have some before and after shots- I can't wait!

So, anyway, this is the new house. We are excited to be here and have enjoyed it so far. I'm sure it will get even better once we actually make some friends! Ha ha! ;)

Goodbye beloved bay area!

2008-07-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

Well, today is the day the truck arrives and we will be loading everything up! It has been busy trying to get everything packed for the last several days, so it will be a relief to finally get it into the truck. I have honestly been missing blogging, so I'm sorry I have been M.I.A. for the past while, hopefully when we arrive in our new place and get unpacked, then I will have more blogging time.

It makes me sad when I think about leaving, we have so many good memories! We are really going to miss this place. Most of all I think we will miss our wonderful friends. It really is hard to say good-bye. We can't thank you enough for the friendships and love we have felt from everyone. I don't think I can ever fully express how much you mean to us and how much we love you.

I thought in remembrance of our 4 years spent here, I would go back through our pictures and pick out a few of our favorites that cover the different things we've experienced. It was really hard to pick just a handful of pictures, I could really go on for pages and each of these pictures brings back a great memory. There are just too many awesome things to see around here, but I really tried my best to narrow it down. :)

Golden Gate Bridge

Walnut Creek Open Space

Sunset off of Fisherman's Wharf

Oakland, San Francisco and the Bay Bridge

Oakland Temple

Yosemite National Park's Half Dome

Point Reyes Lighthouse

Poppy field- California state flower

Tide pooling

Chinese New Year Parade

The Redwoods

Lake Tahoe

Mount Tamalpais

Angels Camp

Sausalito

Backpacking in Utah

2008-07-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

When I was about 4 months pregnant last time, we climbed Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, so, why not go back packing at just over 4 months pregnant this time...?

However, this time we were much more nervous, since the last pregnany didn't last as long as we would have liked. So, I was really pampered. I only carried Chance for a little ways before my father in law took over, leaving his pack hidden on the side of the trail. He and EJ sped ahead to the top, then he turned around and went back to pick up his own pack, while EJ set up camp and watched Chance. The same thing happened on the way down, my father in law took his own pack to the bottom then came back up to carry Chance down. So, basically, I got to go backpacking without hardly ever carrying a pack! It was so nice, and I was very grateful!

We decided to stay close to civilization in case anything happened, and it was just a quick 2 night trip. So, we went up the mountains in Salt Lake behind Brighton ski resort. It was gorgeous! We had a great time, and it was so fun to have both sets of parents with us. I was totally impressed with my mom- it was her first ever backpacking trip at age 60! She did a great job, along with the rest of our parent's. I hope to still be hiking when I am their age.

For the first little while, we were hiking right next to the ski lift. It was a little weird, because when we go backpacking it is usually out in the wilderness somewhere where you don't see anybody. There is EJ and Keith hiking ahead of us. Break time. There's my awesome dad
and wonderful mom and mother in law.

Chance and Grandma Johnson Hanging out around the campfire
Oddly enough, Chance was not too fond of getting his hands dirty
Eating breakfast at our nice kitchen table
Chance didn't sleep very well the first night and was so tired that he just fell asleep while I was holding him. That never happens!! It was nice to just hold my little boy and read a book.

Just haning out in the tent

I love seeing the flowers growing in the most unlikely of places, like being surrounded by snow;

or peeking up right out of rocks! It is amazing.

Dad, holding up the tree so it doesn't slide down the mountain.

We took a little day hike up to Lake Catherine. We really enoyed getting higher up and seeing some great view's.

What appeared to be a small glacier that we passed on the way up

Snow balls, in July?
Here's a great view of Lake Mary and Lake Martha. Our camp was right in between those two lakes. Talk about a great camping spot!

Lake Catherine

Our chipmunk friend that showed up as soon as we pulled out our snack's. He was pretty entertaining.

Unfortunately, even with our flower experts, we did't know the name of this flower, but just had to get a picture because it is so interesting.

This one is called Columbine.

After a long hike, we need to do stretches,

and then show off our muscles!

After our 3 day 2 night stay, it was time to go home. Here we are just starting our hike back down the mountain.

We loved all the beautiful wild flowers. And thank goodness we had my mom and Reva along to tell us the names of all the flowers!

It was a very fun backpacking trip and very beautiful!

July trip to Utah

2008-07-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

At the beginning of July we took a trip to Utah and arrived just in time to drop off Chance at my in-law's to go to bed, and then we went to watch fireworks with my family on the 3rd of July; which happens to also be my big brother's birthday!

We had a lot of fun hanging out with the family and playing with our glow in the dark necklaces.

The whole crew

The next morning we got up and went to the local 4th of July parade.

The whole family enjoying the parade and the hot weather!!

That afternoon we headed over to my sister in laws for an evening celebration... Happy Brithday America! :)

We played some games with water balloons

which the little boys loved. As soon as the bucket of balloons were brought out, they didn't venture far away from that bucket.

We also had a marshmallow fight with little pvc pipes used as the shooters.

Chance wasn't really into it, until he realized what those little white things on the ground were. Then he was busy picking up the marshmallows and putting them in his mouth.

We finished off the night with a home firework show.

The next day we headed over to a local train museum where we got to ride a little train around the park. Needless to say, Chance loved it!
I just had to get a picture of Chance and Brendan, in their overalls.

Since we were watching fireworks on Michael's actual birthday, we celebrated his birthday a couple of nights later.

Unwrapping presents and...

cake!

EJ was lucky because he also got a present to open up on Michael's birthday. I had gone shopping with my mom and sister when we found this flash costume and we had to buy it. The reasoning is because the brother's in my family have given EJ a biking nick-name as "the flash" because he goes so fast on the up hill that he just flashes right past them. As you can tell, EJ loved the gift! :)

One afternoon we went over to my sister's house and played in her little kiddie pool.

Then EJ figured out a way to attach the hose on the trampoline so it was spraying them. Who doesn't love jumping on the tramp with water spraying, on a hot summer day!?

One evening, with EJ's family, we headed up to the mountains for dinner. We roasted hot dogs and s'mores and had a great time!

Chance had to give Jared a kiss and say sorry for hitting. So cute!

Chance hanging out with Grandpa.

With EJ's family we also spent a day boating and playing in the water at Pineview reservoir.

Here are the 3 cousins all the same age.

After lunch was over, we caught these two sneaking back for more watermelon.

Chance and I hanging out on the boatEJ- nice cut!!
Since I was pregnant, there was no water skiing for me :( but at least we had a couple of wave runners that I could play on!

And Chance's favorite place to take nap's- in a pack and play in the great outdoors.

One afternoon with my family we took a bike ride on some back trails that go behind Lagoon. We stopped mid ride and had a little picnic.

When we reached Farmington pond, we stopped to throw rocks in the water, enjoy the scenery and feed the ducks.

The boys weren't too excited about leaving the ducks and getting back into the trailer, thankfully we had a couple of suckers to give them to make that transition easier.

Here's the whole biking family! :)

Kyle was looking behind him and didn't see that the trail turned a little, so he ran right into the grass. It was pretty funny.

We also enjoyed a Salt Lake City "Real" soccer game. It was so fun, even though we lost.

Thank you to the Hubrich's who gave us the tickets!!

I just love watching soccer.

I was able to fit in a lunch to see some of my high school friends. It is always fun to just chat and catch up. I love these girls!

Chance and his cousin Hannah showing off their new hair do's.

And lastly, one of the main reasons for going out to Utah at the time that we did was for EJ's 10 year high school reunion! 10 years already is unbelievable, it just goes so fast. Luckily for me, we went to the same high school, I was just a year younger, so I had just as much fun reconnecting with old friends. On friday night it was just the alumni with spouses for a dinner and some entertainment. Then on Saturday it was a family day for lunch and playing on the big blow up toy. It was a lot of fun, the committee did a really great job at putting the reunion together.

I think EJ had just as much fun as Chance did in the blow up toy! ;)

When EJ took Chance down the slide, another little boy decided to join them. I guess it was less scary with an adult to hold onto.

As you can tell, it was a very busy, action packed little trip to Utah. We had such a great time, but that's not all... next post will be the quick backpacking trip we took while in Utah. :)

Our latest

2008-07-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

So, our latest news, and the reason we have been so busy lately is that we are moving to Colorado at the end of July. As many of you will remember, we planned to move back in January, but it fell through. Since then we have been thinking about it and have decided that it will be a good move for us at this time in our lives. So, we spent hours on the internet looking at different homes to buy and we flew out together twice, the first time just to get a feel of different areas and decide where we wanted to live. The second time we flew out we had narrowed our search to a certain area and we did a marathon house hunting, by looking at about 35 different homes. By the end of the day on the flight home, we were exhausted and our minds were numb. But we were able to narrow it down to our top 3 homes. After making an offer on one house, then deciding we didn't really want it, we made an offer on another house that was immediately accepted. Eric flew out just a few days ago to be at the inspection of the home and our closing date is only a few weeks away! We are so excited, and I am so anxious to get my hands on the home. I have so many ideas and things I want to do, I am excited to start some projects. But one of the main things we are excited about is having a back yard! I can't wait to just send Chance outside to play whenever he wants, he is going to love it! So, I don't have any photos to publish but will be sure to take some once we get out there!

In other news, I am about 19 weeks pregnant and things are going well! The first trimester I was really tired and I had a little bit of nausea in the afternoons to evenings but once I made it to the second trimester I haven't had any of that sickness. Though my energy levels are better than the first trimester, I still find myself getting worn out pretty easy. A nap is almost necessary most days.

So far everything is going great with the baby. All the measurements and heartbeat look great. Here are the latest pictures of our sweet little baby. This is the profile.

A tiny little foot with all 5 toes.

And finally the picture that shows... IT'S A BOY!!

We are very excited about it and we think Chance will love having a little buddy.

Chance's Latest

2008-07-02T13:45:00.000-07:00

I has been awhile since I blogged because things have been a little crazy around here, I will go more into that in the next post, but first Iwanted to get in these updates of Chance.

A week or so ago, Chance went down a slide where the actual sliding part are little roller things, and the sides are metal. It's his favorite slide because it is small and slow, so I don't usually have to help him very much. But one time when he was getting off the slide he grabbed the side to steady himself, but with any movement, the rollers roll. He ended up losing his hand hold and went down, hitting his face right on the metal siding. Well, I thought he had hit his chin and bit his lip a little, so I checked for blood (there was none) and for any other damages, but couldn't see any. It only took a couple minutes for him to stop crying and get back into playing. But later that day I happened to notice that Chance's front tooth was chipped! That's right, he must have hit his tooth, instead of his chin! I feel so bad because now he not only has a crooked smile, but a chipped tooth to boot! Well, at least they are baby teeth.

If you look closely you can see his front right tooth is chipped.
Chance has also taken a real liking to his stuffed animals. He sleeps with at least one and usually two when he goes to bed.

His favorites are his puppy and his bunny which he calls "money." I'm not exactly sure why since he doesn't seem to have a hard time with his b's in other words. But it is so cute, he will walk around the house calling out "money" looking for his bunny. That poor little thing gets so dirty from all his lovin'!

Another favorite thing around here are shoes. Chance will go to our closet and pull out mine or EJ's shoes and put them on. When he gets up from his nap or in the morning, he will often ask for shoes and if mine are laying around the house, he helps me put them on. I think he prefers my shoes to EJ's since he can walk in them a little easier.

A couple of Sunday's ago, I wore these black heels to church and when I took them off that afternoon Chance of course had to try them on. He loved them because they stayed on his feet and he could walk in them pretty well.

These will be good pics for when he is a teenager and gets embarrased easily! Ha ha!

Last but not least, we have moved Chance from a crib to a sort of toddler bed. Basically we just took off the side of the crib. We are planning on going backpacking soon, and felt to need to train him to sleep in a non-crib setting. Hopefully this will help him to sleep okay in a sleeping bag. The first couple of days, he fell out of bed at least once a day, but he seems to be getting the hang of it and hasn't fallen out as often. Though he has gotten close- we thought this sleeping position was so funny that we just had to risk waking him up to take the picture. Thankfully, he didn't even stir when the flash went off!

I still have a fabulous weekend in Carmel to blog about and some fun adventures at Tilden park, but I'm afraid those are going to have to wait awhile because we leave tomorrow for vacation to Utah! Yay! We're excited to see our families and go to Eric's 10 year high school reunion! 10 years, wow!! It just creeps up on you so quickly.

Pixieland

2008-06-19T15:14:00.000-07:00

We went and tried out a little amusement park made especially for young kids. I thought Chance might enjoy the slower, easy going rides, but I was wrong. He was pretty much afraid of everything there. We were able to go on the carousel, but when they stopped it half way through for another reason, Chance wanted off. He did make it through the whole tea-cup ride, but I think that was because Chance was sitting on my lap for half of the ride!

Right before we left the park we watched the older kids ride the roller coaster. Just watching that thing freaked Chance out and by the time we left the park he was quite upset, as you can see in the picture, but as soon as we got to the car he was totally fine. I guess we'll have to wait another year to try an amusement park!

Eric's birthday

2008-06-17T17:03:00.000-07:00

I haven't been able to get up a post yet about Eric's birthday a couple of weeks ago. I took him shopping for some new running shoes and shirts for work. Then I took him to a steak house in town that he has been wanting to visit. It is in the old train station and we actually sat in a train car in our own little compartment. It was really neat, and the restoration of the train car was so beautiful.

Happy 28th!! But I think Eric's favorite gift came the week after his birthday. My family shipped his bike to him. The night it arrived he got it all set up and went for a ride the very next morning! He had really been missing his bike.

Music and Market

2008-06-11T14:58:00.000-07:00

Every Thursday through-out the summer a neighboring city puts on what they call music and market. The venue is the downtown plaza where they erect a large stage for a band to perform, and on the perimiter they put on a farmer's market. We were introduced to this last year by some friends (thanks Mackenzie) and we loved it, who doesn't love live music outdoors?

So, last week we went for the first time this year. We had a great time- we loved the band, it was a cover band so they were playing all the hits from every era. And we got some delicious produce. It's amazing the taste difference from fresh to store bought fruit!!

(For some reason I just liked this picture better in black and white)

Chance enjoyed dancing and clapping along to the music.

He also enjoyed playing around with daddy.

Yet another hike :)

2008-06-10T20:23:00.000-07:00

Seeing as how we are going backpacking in one month, and I need to be in shape to do it, any hike I can get in is great! Thankfully, my friend Haley wants to go on hikes whenever she can, which gets me going as well. So, last week we went on a good one, past a couple of ponds.

This pond was called Bull Frog pond for good reason. As we got close to the pond we heard what we thought was a cow. It sounded just like a deep "moo." However, once we studied the water closer and heard the noise again, we realized the noise was coming from the bull frogs, and the pond was covered with them. It was hard to spot them at first with all the algae and moss on the water, but we started noticing the little eyes poking out of the water. It was pretty cool. I think Haley and I enjoyed it more than the boys did, since they couldn't seem to spot the frogs and didn't seem too interested anyway. They were just excited when we sat down for some snacks! I had to post some pictures from this hike just because it was so pretty. I know it's just weeds, but it is so golden and they are so tall right now that it really is breathtaking!

Haley and Eli- they make a great hiking team! :)

Redwoods

2008-06-09T08:03:00.000-07:00

Over Memorial Day weekend we played it very low key. It was actually very nice to not go any where and just have a few days of relaxing and catching up at home. We did go on a beautiful hike in some redwoods that are only about 20 minutes from us.

Chance was a big fan of the crunchy leaves, though usually he stomps on them, at this moment he wanted to swat at them I guess.
They had tons of groupings of these sweet little blue flowers growing under the trees.

And of course the trees were absolutely magnificent. I am always amazed at the redwood trees and how tall and big they can get.

Chance and his buddy

2008-06-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

Chance loves it when we get to babysit his friend Eli! :) You can't tell very well, but here they are holding hands- so cute!

We took the boys downtown to throw pennies into the fountain. While we were there a couple of ladies asked us if the boys were twins, they were really surprised to learn that they aren't even related.
Chance was all about throwing the pennies, Eli on the other hand did not want to let his pennies go, I guess he is learning how to save already. But once Chance was out of his pennies, he quickly took care of Eli's extra pennies that were laying there, and into the water they went. Big hugs!

Moab

2008-06-01T13:55:00.001-07:00

We had so much fun camping with my family in Moab a few weekends ago. It was toasty warm down there, but not too bad. So we enjoyed some hanging out around the camp fire, eating, playing at the park... but most of all biking.

So, the boys in the family went biking every possible minute they could. My sister and I joined them on one bike trip to the world renowned "Slick Rock." Before I talk about this ride, let me give a little history first...

I was introduced to mountain biking in 2004 when Eric and I were engaged- it was a pretty bad introduction seeing as how I was scared to death most of the ride and I fell several times, which included some good cuts and scrapes And cracking my helmet (not an easy thing to do.) And since then, my biking has been very limited. Since Eric sold his old bike that I was using, awhile ago, I haven't even had a bike to ride- not that it really mattered with all the biking I did in the first place. But in Moab, we knew that I needed a bike, I had to go biking at least once- Moab is one of the biking Mecca's of the world! So, we had planned that I was going to borrow one of my brother's bike's- even though it wasn't really going to fit me.

On the other hand, Eric had a new bike waiting for him when we got to Utah. His bike had been stolen in April from the parking garage in his office building. He had rode it in to work one day, and when he went to get it to go home, it was gone. But with the help of our renter's insurance, we were able to order him a new bike for a great deal because my big brother works in a bike shop and gets great discounts.

When we arrived at my brother's on our way down to Moab, I was watching Eric happily test out his new ride, when I noticed a really cute purple bike laying in the grass. I thought it looked just perfect for me, and I asked aloud if this was the bike I got to borrow, as I picked it up and sat on the seat. No one said anything until Eric came back around the lawn on his new bike. When he saw me sitting on the cute purple bike he asked my siblings if I had figured it out. I sat there in confusion for a minute as to what in the world he was talking about, when my sister said, "yup, it's the bike you get to borrow, for forever!" Eric had surprised me and had ordered this sweet new bike for me, from my brother. I was so excited, even with my limited biking. But with such a sweet ride, I feel more inclined to go biking now.

So, with our new bikes, off to Moab and Slick rock we went!

It's tradition to always take a picture holding your bike in the air. But by the way I'm holding my bike, it looks like I'm a total wimp and struggling under the weight, but really I just didn't want to lift it too high to cover my brother's face! I'm actually really strong... honest. :)

I felt so much more comfortable on this bike than I have ever felt, and by the end of the ride I was much more daring and willing to go down steeper terrain. Because my new bike is especially made for a woman, it fit me much better than Eric's old bike that I was riding. It is a lot more comfortable, and on top of that I totally love the paint job- it is purple and white. the purple matches my helmet! I know, such a girly thing to think about, but I just can't help it!

Even though I did get braver, I never got to the point that I was willing to go off jumps. Instead, I opted to take pictures of the boys doing the jumps!

Here's my honey.

Aren't we such a cute couple! :) ha ha!

Here's my little bro near the end of the trail- "We did it!"

When we weren't biking we enjoyed a nice picnic in the park

hanging out on the hammock with Elise, or "leese" as Chance says it

the little boys enjoyed squishing in the 2 seater bike trailer and going for walks

It didn't matter to them who was pushing!

And they loved swinging at the play ground which was conveniently located in our camp ground

When it was time to pack up and head home, it was right during Chance's nap. Fortuantely, we have a child that will sleep anywhere, so we set up the pack and play outside and just covered it with a blanket. A few times I walked by, I could see him peeking out the mesh underneath the blanket, but soon enough, he was sound asleep.

I had forgotten to get a shot of our camp site before we tore down the tents, so just imagine this plot with four tents set up. Thankfully we had that one tree for shade.

On the drive home, we stopped by a park to have a picnic lunch and get a picture of the whole family before we went our seperate ways... until next time.

Utah

2008-05-30T16:22:00.000-07:00

While we were in Utah we got in some good family time. We were happy to be able to see all of the Johnson siblings, and excited to hear that there are 3 other couples that are pregnant, and all are due within 4 months of each other! It will be a lot of fun!

We also had a really good time going camping with my family down in Moab (pictures coming soon.) But a highlight for Chance was playing with his cousins and jumping on the trampoline at my sister's house. It was so funny because he would run full on into his cousins and tackle them. He is normally so shy that it seemed very out of character for him. But as he is getting older I can tell that he is coming out of his shell little by little.

Mother's Day Surprise

2008-05-24T12:35:00.000-07:00

Chance had a fun time making garden stepping stones for his Grandma's for Mother's Day. We gave him some colorful stones to drop into the wet cement, but the first thing he did was stick both hands straight in and squish it between his fingers! And we actually thought that we could possibly get a hand print... yeah right. Every time his hand got close to the cement, he just wanted to squish it- we could tell he was having a good time.

He also wanted to see what the cement tasted like, so, up to the mouth went his little hands. For the most part I was able to successfully keep them out of his mouth, but I think he might have snuck a little while I was looking down.

Then on Mother's Day, we flew out to Utah to spend a week. We were excited to be able to be with our Mother's on Mother's Day. And they were excited when Chance showed up in this shirt!

My family got it right away, except for my Dad, we had to point it out to him. :) It took the Johnson family a little longer to notice, it was fun watching and waiting for the realization to take place. It was a fun way to announce. And we are very excited for baby #2- Due Nov. 30th.

Hiking with Rothstein Kass

2008-05-23T08:13:00.000-07:00

Eric's office planned a company hike up on Mount Diablo which is very close to home. There were two different hikes, the moderate and the easy one. We went on the easy hike so that Chance could walk most the time, and he actually did. The company also hired professional guides to take us on our hikes. Our guides were two older gentlemen that knew just about everything there is to know about our surroundings. When they said the hike would be easy, they weren't kidding. It seemed like we would walk a few feet, then we would stop and our guide would tell us the name of a plant or a flower or show us a rock formation, etc. It was really easy going, but very informative as well! We really enjoyed it!

Throughout this whole post you may notice that Chance is holding his sippy in every picture. We gave him some Gatorade and once he had a taste we wouldn't put it down, or let anyone else carry it. So we found out that this boy loves Gatorade!

Thanks to our guide, we learned that this flower is called the Fairy's Lantern- I thought that was such a cute name and totally fitting.

And of course we have some Indian Paintbrush, which seems to be on every mountain side. We felt pretty smart because we already knew the name of this flower! ;)
Chance wanted to be like the big boys and tried climbing after them.

We went to rock city where there were obviously a lot of rocks along with lots of fun places to climb around on and a great view from the top.

So, as I mentioned before, Chance went crazy for that Gatorade. By the end of the hike he had drunk almost 3 cups of it. So, at the end of the hike we sat down for a very delicious catered lunch. Once Chance finished eating we lifted him up off the bench, and we found a huge wet spot underneath him. He had peed through his diaper and his pants were completely soaked! So, he got a diaper change and ran around the rest of the time without pants! I think Eric's co-workers got a good laugh from seeing Chance run around like that!

American Idol

2008-05-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

A few Sunday's ago, the singing director in primary asked if we would play the part of the judges in singing time, and judge the children on their singing. The kids were practicing for their mother's day program, so they sang their songs all together, no solos (in case you were wondering how it worked.) We tried to act just as the real judges do and say the things they say, which was really funny and the kids totally got into it. Can you tell who is who? I know, Eric really should have gone tanning a few times to get into character! Ha!
So, while we're on the topic of American Idol... David Cook! I have always liked him, and really enjoy his singing and his style, but when the announcement was made, I was a little disappointed, and it seemed very anti-climatic to me. I guess I didn't realize that deep down in my heart I really wanted our home town Utah boy, David Archuleta, to win. But nonetheless, I'm sure he will have a career and do well, and continue to be the heart throb to millions of teens out there!! :)

Feliz Cinco de Mayo... un poco tarde!

2008-05-21T07:36:00.000-07:00

On May 3rd, a friend of ours planned an excellent Cinco de Mayo party. It was lots of fun with so much good Mexican food and good friends to hang out with.
The party was at the pool in our apartment complex. I had asked that the water be turned up to somewhere around 90 degrees, but unfortunately it only made it to 85 degrees. I know, so sad for us.

Chance loves to sit on the edge of the pool and then scoot his way into the awaiting arms of mom or dad.

We have tried to get him to stand up on the edge and jump in, but he is still way too scared to try that.

After some swimming there was a pinata for all the kids to take a swing at. This made Chance a little nervous and after holding onto the stick for about a second, he was done and didn't want anything to do with trying to hit the pinata again.

We did have one child in the group that was old enough to finish off the job.

And then of course, Chance was a little more interested. :)

The Pinnacles

2008-05-20T07:16:00.000-07:00

So, I'm just doing a little catch up here from a couple of weekends ago- May 2nd to be exact. Eric had his first day off work since the beginning of January, which means his busy season is officially over and everyone in the firm got an employee appreciation holiday.

So, we spent the day in an area called the Pinnacles. We went for a meandering hike (meandering because we let Chance walk for the first half of it) through some caves and up to a resevoir. Here we had stopped to smell the flowers. I'm not sure Chance quite gets it yet, since half the time when he smells flowers he exhales instead of inhaling. Pretty funny.
There were a lot of really cool rock formations and just really pretty scenery.

And there was also some wldlife. When we ran into this guy we walked as far away from his as we could get.

The trail eventually opens up into some caves and in some parts it is so dark we had to use our flashlights. That was possibly the coolest part of the whole trail.

At the end of the caves it opens up once again and you can see the huge rocks that are stacked right above your head.

And eventually you end up at this beautiful little reservoir.

We stopped here to eat lunch and throw rocks in the water.

On the hike back down, Chance was completely exhausted and didn't last long before he crashed.

Once we made it to the bottom, we set up his pack and play for nap time and then layed out a blanket for ourselves to take a nap.

Chance slept really well, and for a few hours, so by the time he got up we didn't have a lot of time left before we needed to be back. We have a cousin that was starring in his high school musical "Pippin" and we had planned to go see the show that same night. So, we did one last quick little hike to just get a better look at the actual tops of the Pinnacles.