February Happenings

To celebrate Valentine's Day Liz put hearts in Sarah's and Whitney's hair.  They helped decorate our table for breakfast with lots of Valentine flair.  Even cold cereal tastes better when you have great table decorations.

We "heart" Sarah!

We "heart" Whitney too!

Our Valentine's Day breakfast feast

Sarah and Whitney both participated in Junior Nuggets basketball this year and had a blast.  The Denver Nuggets are Colorado's NBA basketball team, so the Junior Nuggets are the teams geared towards kids.  After the season ended, we were given free tickets to see a real Nuggets came in Denver!  We turned it into a weekend trip with our friends the Baileys.  The dads took the older kids to the Nuggets game Friday evening while the moms stayed at the hotel with the younger kids.  The next day we again swapped watching the kids so the adults could visit the Denver Temple and the kids could swim at the hotel pool.

Sarah teaching Michael some basketball moves

Whitney loved socializing with her friends before, after, and even during games.  During one game she had a friend on the opposing team, and they spend the whole time "guarding" each other as they chatted and ran back and forth across the court.

Sarah is growing up more each day.  She got her braces put on recently and enjoyed picking out fun colors for her bands.

Sarah looks as cute as ever in her braces

Brooklyn got a scab on her chin and kept picking at it and wouldn't leave it alone.  Spencer did the same thing when he was her age, so we tried the same trick with her that we did with him.  Namely, we put gloves on her hands whenever we laid her down to sleep, and strapped them into place with duct tape.  Within a week or so her chin finally healed.

If the gloves didn't work our next step would be to use a straight jacket. :-)

Spencer was Brooklyn's age when we had to do the same thing for him.  His case was a little more complicated since he was a major thumb sucker.  We cut thumb holes in his gloves so he could suck his thumb at night.  We covered his scab with a bandaid and duct tape.  It seemed to take forever before it finally healed!

Lately we've been alternating between warm sunshine one day...

...and snow the next.

But regardless of the weather outside, indoor board games are always fun.

Twins

A few weeks ago we went in for the 20 week ultrasound of our little girl.  The ultrasound tech said she rarely gets images this perfect, that everything looked like what you'd see in a textbook.  The baby appears to be very healthy, in spite of Liz's "advanced maternal age".  That's what the doctors call it, her paperwork more bluntly listed her as "elderly multigravida".  Did they really just call her elderly?  She's still in her 30s for crying out loud!

Fortunately, and in spite of the title of this post, the ultrasound tech did NOT discover that we're having twins.  However, lately Spencer and Michael have tried acting like twins.  Spencer will sometimes try to walk like Michael by taking a few drunken steps and falling down.  He tries to talk like Michael by speaking in a halting monotone.  He likes to put on Michael's coat and backpack.  Whenever he can he tries to dress the same as Michael, including wearing their matching Sunday clothes.

Can you tell these twin boys apart?

A few weeks ago it was nice having a day off work for Martin Luther King Day.  This is the first year Intel has given us the holiday off of work.  It's one of their ways of trying to be more diverse and celebrating people of different races and colors.  That day in our bathroom I came upon Brooklyn celebrating people of color in her own way:

I'm pretty sure this is how mommy puts on her lipstick

Don't I look so pretty?

A week ago Sarah and Whitney had a school choir performance at the upscale Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs.  This is the first time their elementary school has been invited to perform.  They took the bus down to Colorado Springs that morning, and the rest of us drove down later so we could spend a few hours there and pick them up when it was over.  The room they performed in was small and we weren't able to get tickets to see it, but fortunately we saw the performance a week earlier when they performed here in Fort Collins.

While we were in Colorado Springs we went to one of our favorite places, Garden of the Gods.  Although it was a sunny January day, the wind was ferocious and the dirt and sand blew hard at us.  So we didn't get to stay as long as we would have liked, but it was certainly an adventure!

Michael and Brooklyn taking shelter from the wind at Garden of the Gods

A really nice Brazilian family moved in just a few doors down from us.  They go to our church and we've enjoyed meeting them and starting to get to know them.  I served a 2 year mission in Brazil, so it's been fun to brush up on my Portuguese with them.  Right now it's summer in Brazil and winter here, so they're still getting acclimated.  We received over a foot of snow this last week, and we saw their 12 year old son out there shoveling snow from their driveway with some of his new friends from church.  He came by the next day and helped us with our driveway as well.  Our kids tried to "help" too, but mostly they just enjoyed getting sprayed with snow from our snow blower.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Years Baby

We had a great Christmas and New Years spending time together as a family.  We tried to keep things pretty low key and didn't travel any where this time around.  I think this was a real blessing as we've talked to numerous friends these last few weeks who got stranded on I-80 in Wyoming traveling to Utah due to blizzard conditions and road closures.  We couldn't help but remember last New Years making it as far as Rawlins, Wyoming on our way back to Colorado from Utah before having to turn around and drive back to Utah.  We successfully made it back to Colorado on our second attempt the next day.

This Christmas we had a special beautifully wrapped package for the children to open as the last present.  Inside they found a sleeping baby doll, with a note that they'll be getting a new baby sister in June!  Whitney excitedly asked, "So mom, are you starting to get pregnant?"  Spencer's reaction took the cake when he asked in all sincerity, "Is this (toy) truck over here Michael's?"

For New Years we were fortunate to have Tim's sister Becky and her boys over for a few days.  The cousins loved playing together as always, and it was wonderful to spend part of the holidays with extended family.  Becky's kids and Sarah and Spencer managed to stay awake all the way until midnight, but despite Whitney's valiant efforts, she conked out on the family room floor around 11pm and slept through the whole thing.

Although you could consider our baby announcement on Christmas morning as our "Christmas Baby", we actually have a New Year's Baby tradition where the New Year's Baby leaves a single small gift for each child on New Year's morning.  (This stemmed from a Bellamy tradition when sometimes not all of the Christmas gifts made it on time for December 25th!)  Almost all our children received a puzzle for New Years, which we enjoyed helping them put together over the next few days.

Our kids love the tradition of sleeping by the Christmas tree one of the first nights of the Christmas season

Our annual Christmas letter assembly line

Using the same assembly line for folding clothes.  We typically sort each child's clean clothes into their own basket.  They thought it would be fun to climb into their basket first, which admittedly makes it easy to remember which basket belongs to which child. :-)

Michael strumming some Christmas carols on his guitar to help us get into the Christmas spirit

On Christmas Eve the kids get to open one gift from Grandma and Grandpa.  Michael and Spencer were thrilled with their new Super Why and ninja costumes.

On Christmas morning it's time to line up on the stairs before heading to the Christmas tree!

Here's the sight that greeted them this year

Playing with Christmas legos

Brooklyn and the "Christmas Baby"

Let's make some noise for 2016!

After waving around sparklers in 10 degree weather, the kids warmed up in front of the fire with some Oreos.  Whitney is laying under the blanket on the right, fast asleep and unaware that it's now 2016

Fun in the Snow

Winter time is upon us.  Although we haven't received a ton of snow, there's been plenty of it to play in!  We've also had unusually cold temperatures, which has let the snow stick around much longer than usual.

Spencer giving Michael a ride in the sled

Quick--take a picture before Brooklyn takes off all her cute snow gear!

Spencer heading downhill fast!

Whitney going down face first

Sarah doing some knee tubing

Three kids + one sled = wipeout!

Harry Potter Birthday Party

For Sarah's 10th birthday in November we threw her a big Harry Potter themed birthday party.  Fortunately we had a lot of help to be able to pull it off.  First of all, one of Sarah's best friends recently had a Harry Potter party and lent us many of the props she had used.  Liz's parents happened to be in town for the weekend, and they are masters at throwing parties.  We also invited a few older girls from church to help things run smoothly during the party.

The Great Hall

Potions Class with Professor Snape (Liz's dad in a wig!)

Charms Class with Professor McGonagal (Liz)

Divination--do you possess the inner eye?  The kids had to try to guess what each of the pictures were.  They're the 3D pictures where you sort of have to cross your eyes to view them. 

Olivander's Wand Shop

Quality Quidditch Supplies

Sweet Halloween

We had 3 nights of trick-or-treating this year, the ward trunk-or-treat, Intel which was on Friday and then the neighborhood on Saturday.   Brooklyn only got to trick-or-treat around Intel, but the other kids and especially Michael had a great time going all three times.  On Saturday night when we would get to someone's door he would say, "Okay everyone, here we go!!!"  Then when he got candy in his bucket he would say, "Oh WOW!  This is so awe-some.  This is so cool," in his broken monotone voice said with as much enthusiasm as his little body could get out.  He would shake and jiggle and become very animated every single door we went too.   Now that makes trick-or-treating fun with kids!  Our costumes we kept very simple this year and used whatever we had around the house or in storage.  I just didn't feel the desire this year to put out the cash for any new costumes, and I think we did pretty well.  It made Halloween feel old-fashioned and authentic, almost a Charlie Brown kind of feel.  However, we have been blasted with candy around here with 5 kids and 3 nights of trick-or-treating, but it has been fun.

Hermione Granger, Storm Shadow, Super Why, and Ravenclaw Student #3 showed up at our house this week!

Getting ready for trick-or-treating at Intel joined by the fairy princess

Daddy needs a bigger cubicle!

The Great Outdoors

We love fall in Colorado!  In September I took Sarah and Whitney on a ward daddy daughter campout.  I'd rather do just about anything than go camping, but Sarah and Whitney wanted to go so badly.  I finally decided that I love my girls more than I hate camping, so we went up to Red Feather Lakes.  We brought up a lot of fun food to eat and tried to make the tent as comfortable as possible.  We were fortunate to have beautiful weather, and went on a fun hike the next day with some of the other dads and their daughters.

Our campsite at Red Feather Lakes

Hiking through the aspens as they're starting to change colors

In October we took advantage of a few days off school for Fall break and spent them in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Again we were blessed with fantastic weather and gorgeous scenery.   We stayed at a home in Estes Park that had a nice creek running behind it in the backyard.  Almost exactly two years ago, that tiny creek became a raging river that destroyed homes and washed out roads.  Fortunately the house we stayed in didn't sustain any damage in the flood, but we could see the signs that the area is still recovering, such as newly built roads and areas where plants and grass had been reseeded.  The kids loved playing in the creek behind the house, which fortunately was only a few inches deep when we were there.

Scenic Vista

One of our kids favorite things about these trips is playing in the water, such as here at the Alluvial Fan

Their other favorite thing is climbing on the rocks

Hardy adventurers

Sprague Lake.  It was a flat trail so we could take the jogging stroller with Michael. 
The reflection of the mountains and sky on the lake was breathtaking.

Spencer is thrilled that he learned to ride a bike a few weeks ago.  The poor guy had to choose between a pink hand-me-down bike from his sisters, or a boy bike that was too big we recently got at a garage sale.  Unaware of Spencer's plight, a friend of ours had a bike their boy had outgrown and offered it to us.  It was just the right size for Spencer.  We took the pedals off for him to practice, and after a few days when he got the hang of coasting on it, we put the pedals back on and he mastered pedaling.  He still hasn't mastered staying out of the middle of the road and away from incoming traffic.  Sigh.  But he's proud to be able to ride his bike to school with his sisters now rather than ride his scooter.

Michael is still making incredible strides.  He went in for an annual eye exam a week ago.  The last three times he did this he ended up needing eye surgery to pull his eyes straight again.  This time his eyes were perfect, no surgery needed!

He's talking more and is becoming easier to understand.  He still really struggles with J's and Q's, but other sounds we thought he'd never be able to make (such as B's) he does great now.  He read the scripture in Primary at church for the first time today and people could understand him pretty well.  He even has a small speaking part in the Primary program in sacrament meeting coming up in a few weeks, which would have been impossible only a few short months ago.

He cruises around furniture a lot, and even can take a step or two now without holding on to anything before he falls.  Also, he's becoming a much better eater.  For a long time all he'd drink is milk, and maybe he'd eat some bread and cheese.  That was basically his diet for a long long time.  It's slowly gotten better, but not by much.  This year his preschool is requiring (they call it "strongly encouraging") all families to pay for school lunch for the kids so they can work with them on trying new foods.  It's really expensive so we didn't want to do it at first, but decided we'd try it for a month.  The teachers require the kids to take at least one bite of everything on their plate.  It's amazing to see the magic they've worked on Michael.  He's eating all kinds of foods now that he wouldn't have touched before, or would have immediately spit out.

Another amazing miracle is that he's grown 2 inches in the last six months.  At his last meeting with his doctors, they told us he's deficient in growth hormone and would need daily hormone shots.  We were told we didn't need to start immediately, so we opted to hold off for now.  Seeing him grow that much, which is on par with his other siblings, is really great, and we're hoping we can continue to postpone having to give him daily shots for as long as possible!

Whitney's Baptism

Whitney was baptized on Saturday!  We've enjoyed having lots of family in town, including my parents and sister Becky, Liz's parents and sisters, as well as spouses and children.  Most of them have been staying in our home, but even with all the craziness it's been wonderful and everybody has been such a huge help.

A few months ago Whitney had asked if she could wear her swim mask when she was baptized.  She HATES putting her face in the water, and it's been a huge ordeal for her during swim lessons and swim team.  We told her she couldn't.  Then she asked about wearing swim goggles.  She couldn't wear those either.  We all wondered whether she'd have the courage to put her face in the water when she was baptized.

Fortunately, during our sabbatical we stayed with my brother's family in Rocklin, CA, and they have a swimming pool in their backyard.  Whitney spent a lot of time swimming in the swimming pool and practicing putting her face in the water without any masks or goggles.  We didn't ask her to, the determination came from within.  By the end of our stay she proudly showed us how she could put her head in the water without anything on her face!

During the baptism service, Whitney's Aunt Julie spoke about the purpose of baptism.  She did a terrific job and targeted her remarks directly to Whitney.  I had the privilege of baptizing Whitney, she was very brave and she did a terrific job.  She gave me a great big hug afterwards and was just beaming.

Grandma Wheeler gave a talk about the Holy Ghost.  Similar to Sarah's baptism, she shared the book "The Holy Ghost is Like a Blanket" and gave Whitney a soft warm blanket.  She told a few additional stories as well of how the Holy Ghost has been a blessing in her life.  After the talk, Whitney was surrounded by family and friends who hold the Priesthood as we confirmed her a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and received the gift of the Holy Ghost.  Lastly, Whitney was given a warm welcome into the ward by Brother Huff, who was presiding at the baptism in behalf of Bishop Cleverly as our bishop was traveling with his family that weekend.

The baptism service was short and sweet.  We're so grateful to the family and friends who came to help us share Whitney's special day.  We're particularly grateful to Liz's mom who took care of Brooklyn during the service.  She can be such a handful during church meetings, and Whitney's baptism was no exception.  After the baptism we held a simple reception in our home, limiting it to family members and a few close friends.

Whitney in her white baptism dress a few weeks before her baptism

We decorated a table for Whitney at her baptism

Whitney and her proud parents

Lots of love from Whitney's family!  Unfortunately we didn't get all the family members in the picture who was there, but we sure appreciate the effort everyone made who was able to attend the baptism.