Noah's 1st Birthday!

How has the past year gone by so fast? Today we celebrated Noah's 1st birthday! We have absolutely loved having this little guy in our lives this past year. He's been such a fun baby, we all adore him! We had a fun birthday with him. The girls were so excited to give him the little presents they picked out for him and Myra talked me into making him a Spiderman cake. It didn't turn out great. I couldn't get the cake out of the pan, so I wasn't able to decorate it much. But Noah seemed to enjoy it. Happy Birthday Noah!



And now for a look at Noah over the past year! It is so amazing how much they change in 12 months!

Kindergarten 2010-2011

Myra started Kindergarten today. I can't believe my oldest is in school now! Crazy! She has been so excited to go and all morning she was constantly asking if it was time yet. Then the time came, we walked to school and she began her public school career with a big hug and a kiss good-bye to me. We'll see how long that lasts! =) (Hopefully a while still!) When I picked her up, she was the first one out, in front of the line behind the teacher. She's done nothing this afternoon but talk about all that she did. And she can't wait to go back tomorrow. I'm so excited for her!

Kindergarten Stats

Age: 5 years 3 months

Height: 45 inches (3ft. 9in.)

Weight: 41 lbs.

Hair color: Blonde

Favorites

Animal: Dog, Giraffe, Cougar, Elephant

Food: 7-Layer Bean Dip and Cafe Sabor

Game: Hopscotch and Soccer Ball (She's not really played either, but she's hopeful they will be her favorites. )

Toy: White Dog, Parrot and Wolf

Thing to do: Build forts, watch movies, play, clean my bedroom, make my brother happy, play with my friends and do things, and I love coloring. That's it!

Book: Short Puppy Book

Color: All of them, I can't choose a color, it's kind of tricky for me

Movie: Strawberry Shortcake, Dragonland and The Berenstain Bears

Primary Song: I love to see the Temple

My best friend is: Lexi

Other friends I like to play with: All of my friends

Things I like to do with my friends: Play dress-up

If I had a pet it would be a: dog

named: Ariel

What people like about me: Fun to play with and that I'm cool and awesome. They like a lot of things about me!

Things I can do really well: Entertain my brother and have fun with my mom, dad and Lexi. And I like school!

Cherry Tomatoes

We planted our little garden box this year with potatoes, peppers and tomatoes. The peppers haven't done anything, the potatoes are looking great and our tomato plants look amazing. We planted 2 different types, roma's and beefsteak. I was very excited to see all the little tomatoes start growing, but I was equally dismayed when the Beefsteak tomatoes suddenly started changing colors when they were only the size of cherry tomatoes. Wait, I guess they are cherry tomatoes, only they are orange! I'm not sure what happened. The seller we bought the starts from must have gotten them mixed up, but we now have 4 huge orange cherry tomato plants with 100's of little tomatoes coming. They are very sweet, but I'm thinking in a couple of weeks, I will have more than I know what to do with. Any ideas for cherry tomatoes?

Oh Lexi Lou

Last night we rode our bikes to the Library and while I was headed over to check out, Lexi tripped, fell and hit her head on a metal cart. She had about a 1 inch gash just above her left eye that definitely needed stitches. So, Chad jumped on his bike, rode home as fast as he could and came back with the car. I ended up staying at the ER with Lexi for about 3 hours while they prepped her, gave her a sedative and sewed her up. She was mostly brave. During the IV though, she really started screaming. She's got a good set of lungs on her! They put a movie on for her and that relaxed her quite a bit and she was completely out of it while they sewed her up. They gave us the option of just holding her down and doing a local anesthetic, but I felt that she would handle the knock-you-out sedative much better. I think I made the right choice! Anyway, Lexi ended up with 9 stitches! Poor girl! She's been pretty sad today, alternating between crying about how bad it hurts and staring at herself in the mirror. Then at about 11:30, she went back upstairs to her room and fell asleep again. It does look a little more puffy and bruised today, but not as bad as I expected. Anyway, as a side note, I've been to the Emergency Room with all 3 kids this past year! I hope we are done now!
Last night the meds hadn't quite worn off yet. She was much happier than this morning.

Keyser Family Reunion

Last week, we headed out to Winter Park Colorado for a Keyser Family Reunion. I always picture huge, extended families at reunions, so I'm not sure if it's the most correct word to describe our get together since it was just Chad's immediate family. Anyway, it's been a while since we've all been together. We've added 3 more kids since last time! We were lucky that Doug's family has a cabin in Winter Park and we were able to stay there. It was great, although sleeping on the bottom bunk with only a foot of maneuverability leaves much to be desired! =) Last Saturday, we put the kids to bed, finished packing the car and got an hour of sleep ourselves before heading out at Midnight. We had to drop Nena off at my parent's house and my mom was such a good sport to allow our arrival at 2 in the morning! I slept for about 20 minutes while we were driving, then Chad had to pull over because he was tired. This woke me right up, so I ended up switching him and driving for a while, so we didn't have to stop much on the way out. The kids were great! We arrived around 10:30. Sunday was a nice day of getting settled, taking a nap and relaxing. On Monday, we headed up to Grand Lake. We hiked up to Adams Falls. The girl's favorite part was taking their shoes off and playing in the water.
After the Fall's, we headed down into Grand Lake and had lunch by the lake, then the kids changed into their swimsuits and played in the lake. It was SO cold! Not just the water, but the weather was kind of yucky. The kids didn't last long in the water, but longer than I would have. Poor Lexi was shivering like crazy once she was ready to get out. After getting dried off and changed, we started to walk around the shops at Grand Lake, but we didn't make it too far with tired and cranky kids.


On Tuesday, the women headed back up to Grand Lake for a little outing of shopping and eating. We found a yummy crepe shop that made a delicious Asparagus crepe, yum! Judi also ordered a sample cheese plate for us to try. It was such strange cheese. Not a fan! When we got back, the guys were so anxious to get out the door, we practically had to run after then for updates on what the kids were up to! They headed out for 6 hours of golfing! When I asked Chad after the trip, what his favorite part was, he said it was the Golf trip! Kent won, of course, but Chad came in second. Good Job!

On Wednesday we headed out early to Rocky Mountain National Park! I think this was the day I was most looking forward to. I love National Parks and I'd never been to this one and had always wanted to go. We stopped early on and hiked a little ways down the Colorado River Trailhead. Of course there was water and of course the kids had to get their feet wet. I love wearing water shoes, I can just plow right in! It was VERY cold water, but we still had a great time.

Everywhere we went we came across tons of mushrooms. We've taken the kids mushroom hunting before and they were quick to point out every single one they came across. (They are very good to not touch them.) Anyway, I was surprised at the huge variety of mushrooms we came across. I think Chad got some good pictures!

As we continued into the park, we drove over the Trail Ridge Road. It travels up to the Alpine Visitor Center that is 11,796 feet in elevation! A note of interest - the road was built in the 1920's, the visitor center in 1963. It is the highest visitor center of the national park system and is completely self-sustaining. They use a generator to power it, carry out all waste and no telephone lines! It was so cold up top! The road was amazing. Not many people probably know this about me, but I'm terrified of heights while in a car. I can walk to the edge of a cliff and be just fine, but driving on a road that's high up, as a passenger, is so scary to me. And Myra has the same phobia! Anyway, it was a scary road! But, wow, incredibly beautiful. They were doing a lot of construction on the road and we weren't able to stop much, so I just took picture after picture out the window as we drove. Right at the top, we even saw a large group of Elk!

Picking Raspberries off the side of the road while stopped in traffic.

After coming down the Trail Ridge Road, we stopped for lunch. The kids enjoyed feeding the squirrels and then we headed back down to the river and played there for a while. Oops, no pictures of that! It was much warmer than the river we were in earlier. After that, we headed out to Estes Park for some shopping and dinner. It was great fun! Then, we rushed back in and headed back over the road in the dark. At least I didn't have to see the terrifying heights, but I knew they were there, just feet away. Which was worse?

On Thursday, we spent a lazy morning, just relaxing around the house. Some of the group went and played mini golf, while some of stayed back with sleeping babies. After, we headed up to hike Devil's Thumb. It was a 4+ mile hike one way, so a few people took off ahead of us, while Kent, Judi, Chad and I and the kids wandered leisurely up the trail.
We stopped and took plenty of pictures, admired the view and I beat the guys at a slingshot contest! We ended up hiking up about 1.75 miles to a waterfall before heading back down. The girls were awesome, although I ended up carrying Lexi a good portion of the way just because she was so slow! I think this was one of my favorite activities of the trip. It was a beautiful hike! I don't have any pictures of the "Devil's Thumb", but the other group made it all the way to it!

On Friday, we headed back up to the Devil's Thumb trail head to take family pictures. We had thought it was so pretty, that it would be perfect for pictures, but we didn't have a little difficulty finding a good place to pose such a large group. Our photographer is a family friend and she did such an awesome job getting us posed and all the kids smiling and happy! After the pictures, we goofed around for a while, at the water, of course!

After pictures, we headed back to the cabin and by then a bunch more friends arrived. The Smith family is also from Colorado so, they came out to play with us the last day. It was such a blast! We spent a long time slack-lining. I tried to get pictures of everyone falling off, but I didn't really get any great ones. After that we went over to the YMCA to play mini golf and eat free snow cones! It was pretty fun. Myra made a little friend there and hung out with him most of the time. Lexi sat by herself at the edge of the course most of the time and the rest of us enjoyed a fun game of golf. That night we BBQ'd hamburgers and played a game called Minute to Win It. It was so hilarious! What a fun end to a fun week! Saturday morning, we hurried and cleaned up then headed out. The kids all fell asleep right away but after a couple of hours, they were all awake and Noah seriously cried almost the entire way home. We kept stopping and he was fine, but the second he was back in his car seat, he was so angry. I guess now that he can move around so much, he doesn't want to hold still. We were just about at wits end when he finally fell asleep. We picked Nena up and arrived back home, safe and sound at around 11:00. It was a great vacation.

Ogden Train Museum

On the 6th, I headed down to the Ogden Train Museum with the kids to meet up with my BFF Lisa and her kids. She lives in Texas and I haven't seen much of her the past few years, so we jumped at the opportunity to get together while she was here visiting family. It was as if we hadn't been apart at all. I had a wonderful time chatting with her while our kids ran amok in the museum. All too soon, our time came to an end, but I'm glad that we were able to see one another.

My New Bike

We went down to Kaysville last night to pick up the bike I won at the Pedal Away Parkinson's bike ride. The mountain bike they had for me was actually worth $350! (not $250 like they originally said) I decided to pay a little extra and upgrade to a hybrid bike and ended up with this one. It's a CannonDale Q5 and is most certainly the nicest bike I've ever owned! I can't wait to get on it and rack up some miles! Oh, and I'll be selling my old bike, if anyone's interested. It's a Trek 3700.

Drumroll, Please!

It's finally happened! At 11 months, Noah has become mobile! Just a month ago, Noah wasn't even really rolling around. Just about 3 days ago, he suddenly got up and started crawling. He didn't even do any of the typical hands and knees rocking. He just got up and crawled. He has also mastered cruising along the couch and I even saw him go from laying on his back to a sitting position. It's fun to see him moving around, but at the same time, it's a little alarming to have him moving all over the place. I definitely need to baby proof better. I'm sure walking is just around the corner!

Newman Family Campout

This past week we went camping in Idaho with my family - my Mom and Dad, Sister Breanne, her husband Danny and our niece, Kenzie. We went to a campground called Summit View just above Georgetown, ID. After a lot of packing and preparation, we headed out Monday afternoon. We made it to Georgetown Canyon and after driving around for 1 1/2 hours, realized that we were in the wrong "side" of the canyon. I was pretty frustrated since we had told my parents that we would be there sooner, but at least it was a pretty drive. Once there we got settled in, had dinner and roasted marshmallows around the campfire. I was a little nervous about bedtime. We had never taken Noah camping and I wasn't sure how he'd do. We set up the playpen in the tent and he actually slept pretty well. That night he woke up with a dirty diaper and went back to sleep in my sleeping bag with me for a while. I eventually put him back in his bed and he slept the rest of the night. Lexi woke up early to go to the bathroom, but besides that, the girls slept really well. It was a relief, because I like my sleep! The next day, we got up and had hot chocolate. I love that part of camping, sitting around the campfire, drinking hot chocolate, trying to avoid the smoke. Anyway, it warmed up really quickly and we ended up in shorts and in the shade very quickly! We spent most of the day just kind of hanging around camp, doing a little exploring, geocaching, slacklining and visiting with each other. The kids LOVED being able to run around and get dirty. They especially enjoyed the water faucet. Myra was very quick to offer to go get water, etc. We all brought our bikes, so Myra and Lexi rode their bikes around while Chad and I went off looking for a trail to ride on. We found a four-wheeler trail that went down and down. That night, we rode down it for about 5 minutes, but were deterred by it going continually downhill and how late it was getting. That night, Chad and I made Dutch Oven Lasagna. It was so yummy! Although the meal had a bit of a damper on it when I got stung by a wasp! Owie! It hurt so bad! By the next day though, it was completely healed! We were all very tired that night and headed to bed pretty early. And we all slept great. The kids all slept through the entire night! The next morning started out mostly the same. We made pancakes and bacon over the fire for breakfast. While we were doing that, we discovered that there was a wasp nest under the bench I was sitting on when I got stung the night before. I'm so glad I was the one to get stung and none of the kids! Chad took care of it for us!
Later, Chad and I decided to take off the four-wheel trail to see where it went. I was a little worried after all the down-hill travel, but it was a beautiful ride and eventually came out to the main road. Which we decided to ride up instead of taking the trail back. It was very steep, but we finally made it. It took me forever to recover. It was so much fun though. I haven't ridden my bike much the past few years until this summer, so I still feel somewhat hesitant on it, but I'm getting better. I think I could really get into the biking thing! Anyway, that afternoon we spent some time doing crafts and reading. It was very relaxing to just be outside, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. We had a super fun time playing Bocce Ball and Badminton with Bre and Danny. That night, the kids slept wonderfully again. We were so lucky! Thursday morning, we started packing up again and Chad and I decided to go down the trail again on our bikes. Chad drove the car down to where the trail came out at so we wouldn't have to go up the hill again. We made it down the trail in about 30 minutes. It was such a beautiful area we were in! We were sad to leave. We stopped by in Garden City for ice cream on the way home and now, I'm still unpacking and cleaning. It was a great vacation!