and then there was one.....

Wahoo!!!!! Gwyn is officially potty trained!! She has had two perfect accident free days!!! Gil is now the only one in diapers at our house. (thank goodness) We started out on Monday and she did pretty well. She was about half and half with the accidents and successes. Who knew after all of the sophisticated ways I tried to teach her, that stickers and Laffy Taffy would be the trick. By Tuesday she had only two accidents and only when it was close to bed time. Wednesday and Thursday have been great and accident free. I love when your child is finally potty trained and they change. Their is a new indepenence and confidence about them. She is so happy and so very proud of herself. She announced to everyone while at Target, Michaels, and the Library that she was potty trained. I loved all of those mothers who smiled so big at her and told her she was a big girl. (thanks to all you mothers out there) Ahhhh, great week for miss Gwynnie. Awesome week for my diaper bill:)

isms.....

I just have to document of few of the things Gwyn and Gil have been saying lately:

Gwyn

• scream cheese (string cheese)
• I broke Jesus. (After breaking a picture of Jesus the boys had on their night stand. She tells everyone this.)
• I need some lisptick.
• everything is really "dangerous" or "difficult" ie; "Gil has a cough, it's really dangerous."
• "it's so darling"
• "ohhhh...she's just like Minie" (her baby cousin.)
• "When I get bigger......... I'm gonna go to school" (or whatever she might think she can do later on in life)."
• "When my dad gets home he's gonna hug me and love me."
• "I have a baby in my tummy, it's moving." Umm, I am not pregnant and the last time I was she was fifteen months old. Where does she get this stuff?
• Gwyn, where are your socks? "they died"
  

Gil is the stuff boys are made of. He LOVES balls, any one will do. He has taken to sleep with his football. I can honestly say that this is the first one of my boys to be so crazy about balls! He will stand beneath the big basketball hoop and try to make baskets. He also squats a lot, he squats while walking. and dancing, and trying to jump. He give the impression of a Samoan doing some Maori dance. Bob calls him the gorilla. He is huge! He is tall but I am pretty sure his shoulders are as broad as he is tall. To top it all off he has the face of an angel! (maybe not in this picture) He is a funny little man.

Gilbert Odin

• "i wannnnna go outside"
• "daddy"
• "mama"
• "tou-CH"
• "BALL"
• "NO!"
• "Mine"
• "Pees"
• "i wannna bite"

Pine Wood Derby, baby........

This was Tucker's first time making his own car for the pine wood derby. I am proud to say that he came up with the idea all on his own. Bob helped him along the way but this was Tucker's moment. I have no idea where the cheese idea came from but both Bob and I thought it was very clever! Thanks to Miss Debbie for the mouse:)
Tucker named his car "the big cheese" and was very excited to reveal it to his friends. I am sad to say that he did not win first place but he did pretty well. His prize was for the "speedy Swiss."
I was very proud of him! He was fine with not winning and just happy to finally get to be apart of the "PINE WOOD DERBY!!" He had a great time racing his car down the track again again. He already has big plans for next years race!

It was a Sensational trip on the Elation! (in my best australian accent)

For Christmas my parents gave all of their children a Cruise to Mexico. Brad and Vanessa couldn't go because her immigration papers had lapsed. So they are heading to Hawaii on Monday instead. January 12, 2008 we all left from different places in the US and met in San Diego, to board the cruise ship. Imagine our surprise when we walked up to the cruise line to see this was our ship! The Black Pearl.....cool huh? A little small though.
Oh whoops, I guess if I looked the other way I would have seen this monstrous ship....The Elation!
After setting sail and getting situated and eating anything and everything. We went to bed early and slept in. (wahoo!!)
Our first real day on the boat we enjoyed beautiful weather, food, sunshine, massages, and music. We had our formal dinner that night and here are a few pictures of us all dressed up.
It was great to see Bryce and Lisa. I haven't' seen them in a year and it was really fun to spend time with them.

The lovely ladies after dinner. (yes, I do wear this dress a lot.)
My dad, Trevan, Bob and Bryce. Nate and Dustin had already taken off too the casino.
Trevan and Kennan
Doesn't she look great for being 7 months pregnant?
Bob and I
Mom and Dad....I love this little fifties dress my mom was wearing.

After dinner many nights we hit the hot tub. One night Bryce bet Trevan $50 if he would wear Brooke's swimsuit to the hot tub. Dustin had already said he wasn't going to the hot tub until he saw Trev. Without a bet he put on Brooke's other swimsuit bottoms and joined in. Oh, Dustin.....
Trevy baby.....who wouldn't pay 50 bucks?
How can I not mention our lovely towel friends? Who didn't love going into your room to find one of these little gems? Wii, our stateroom steward made this one special for pregnant Kennan.
As it turns out Wii, has worked for the cruise line for 19 years and he was the actual person to start the towel creatures. He told us how he use to get in trouble for making them and using all the towels; but after so many people sent comments about loving them they asked him to teach everyone.

~Cabo San Lucas~

Kennan and Trevan rented a wave runner and followed us around while Brooke & Dustin and Bob & I Para-Sailed. Yes, Kennan did fall off once not being that balanced with her belly. Trevan rode wave runners for the first time ever.

After we hit land in Cabo, a man with an Iguana walked over to us and handed Bob the reptile. He then looked at Bob and said "two dollar". Yes, we were taken at every turn!
My personal favorite is the sweet little Mexican hat the Iguana is wearing.
Brooke was determined that she and Dustin were going to Para-Sail. Me, Bob, and my dad decided that we were going to ride along and watch.
After seeing how much fun it looked Bob and I decided to try it out also.
My Dad, just hanging out. (He doesn't do that much.)

Here we are para-sailing. It was so fun. We watched as Manta ray's jumped out of the water. It was great.
Yeah, we were up pretty high.
Here is the famous arch right off of "Lover's Beach".
We took some little tour that showed you all around the cove and here was the ledge where all the Seals were hanging out. Our tour boat took us about five feet from them, they were REALLY stinky.
Here are Brooke and Dustin Snorkeling.....Brooke had to snorkel! Don't mind that the boat they took out was nasty, the man didn't even have life jackets for them and he was throwing food around them so the fish would come right up to them. If you can see Brooke's face she is FREAKING out. We just giggled as we drove past.

*On a side note: Apparently, you are not supposed to take these little adventures unless it is through the cruise. It is supposedly really dangerous and a real "no no". We didn't know this until after our little adventure and we could actually see the Cruise Line point. Oh well, Brooke and Dustin lived. We also spent half the money we would have if we went through the cruise.

Bryce and Lisa had a little less luck and were stung by jelly fish....


~Ensenada~

La Boufadora (the blow hole)
Once again we took the tour that was local....we like to live dangerously. My mom and dad went with Bob and I on the tour and we had a lovely time.
It was really neat to see this, I guess there are only 2 others like this through out the whole world.
We hit the flea market while we were their and found Tucker an awesomely disgusting real shark head.....what 8 year old wouldn't love that. Also a great Nacho Libre mask for Abe. It got kind of chilly the last 2 days on the cruise....that was a little sad but we brought jackets....anything seems warmer than where my parents live.

Okay, I know that you can't see this very well but it says Carnival Legends. As you know most of my family does not drink so we kept to a few places at night. The most popular being the Karaoke Room. Well, Kennan is quite the performer so she did a few numbers, Brooke also joined her for a little Back Street Boys number. I might add it was Awesome! Bob even performed a little Garth Brooks and made twenty bucks from Dustin who dared him to do it. Lisa, who did do a little drinking, performed a moving rendition of a Madonna's La Isla Bonita. It turned out that she was in a competition with a few other ladies, Kennan being one of them, and she won. So the last night of the Cruise she had to perform Madonna's Like a Virgin.
Here she is....a few drinks later.
Don't mind that they made her have a rehearsal, gave her a costume and an MP3 player to practice her song. She was stressing out, saying "how did I get myself into this?" She was great and we all had a fabulous time watching her. She was our claim to fame the whole trip......"Madonna's my sister-in-law!"
Bryce and Lisa.....After the show. Doesn't he look proud? He was, it was cute.(ahhh...I know)
Mike and Pam with the super star.

Our cruise was a great time. Bob picked up three new accents...Australian, Mexican , and eastern European. It made my dad laugh so hard every time Bob would use any of these accent. He especially LOVED when he quoted our Australian Cruise director. Dad made him say it to everyone, even if they had heard him 20 times. My family is so funny. I have to say, if you only know me and you think I am out of control you need to meet the rest of my family. I am one of the most reserved of them. I have to say that our parties are never dull, and you are guaranteed to laugh your head off. I cannot tell you how funny it was to see everyone Karaoke, I swear they should all be in movies. We missed Brad and Vanessa but we still managed to have a good time. I had hoped to relax and not worry about anything and that definitely was achieved. Thanks Mom and Dad for the great time and creating a sensational environment for us to hang out in. I am so glad you two decided to have 6 kids! I count them as my biggest blessing.

Sunday Fast

I just found a dear friend from high schools blog and I can't help but urge you to check it out. Harmony Ivins Saunders is one of the funnest people I know. Her family is so cute and just an all around great family. I was so sad to read that her son was just diagnosed with Leukemia. Join the fast on Sunday, we are.

Welcome Home!

I should be sleeping, but I just have to write down a few words tonight. We got home tonight around 6:45 from our Cruise with my parents and siblings. We had such a fun, relaxing, wonderful time. That being said, the best part of the trip was coming home to our beautiful children. To see Gil and his absolute recognition and huge "hhhiiii" about made my heart explode. Gwyn was in my arms the moment she saw us. She kept saying, "mommy, I missed you." Tucker and Abe were chatter boxes with all kinds of stories to tell.

I was so grateful to be able to get away with Bob and my family. It was a MUCH needed break. I feel so refreshed and ready to "mom" again. Seeing my kids again was like falling in love all over. I seriously can't sleep because I want to scoop them all up out of their beds and put them in my bed so I can just hold them all.

My neighbor/friend told me that Gwyn had a melancholy Tuesday. Her daughter Geena had been playing with her and was helping her put on a helmet. Jen walked over to help Geena snap the helmet on when Gwyn said to Jen, "I have a mom." Which Jen replied,"I know you do sweet heart." Gwyn then said,"Her name is Robyn." Jen said she said it like she was just hoping that was still true...that we were really going to come home. ummmm....breaks my heart.

It was really hard for me to leave our kids, and I promised Bob and myself I wouldn't be miserable the whole time(like I was when we went to Georgia when Abe was only 18 months and Tucker was almost 3yrs old.) That was the last time we left the kids for more than overnight. Once we reached the airport I tried really hard to switch that part of my brain off. When we touched base I made Bob talk to Laura because I knew that I would start the worrying. I did a really good job of it, until we touched ground coming home. Then we couldn't get here fast enough. I really felt like my heart was going to explode when I saw them all. Sometimes it is so nice to feel that so intensely. Makes you remember why you do this everyday.

Laura did a fantastic job of watching our kids. What an awesome sister. I don't know that words can express my gratitude for her kindness in watching them. I hope when she has a house full of children I can repay the favor. I don't think I even understood how much I needed a "mom" break. Thank you Laura.... My house was clean, my children were happy, loved, and clean too. I love you! I was at ease because they were in such good hands. I know that it is not easy to have to be in charge of everyone all by your self. Thanks to you Dillon and for playing with boys last weekend and for sharing your wife and son. What a wonderful welcome home.

An Aunt Paige Orginal.....

For Christmas Aunt Paige made Miss Gwynnie an orginal outfit! Gwyn thought that the sleeves were very much like a "princess shirt." She got MANY compliments and she told everyone, "Paige made it." Then followed by a quick "I love Uncle Nate."
A view from the back.....
So who thinks Paige should forget about graduate school in the fall...and start her own children's line? How many of you would pay for an orginal?

This is why I LOVE my husband.....

Here they are....the pictures many of you have been waiting for.

I love my husband for many reasons, but mainly for how hard he makes me laugh. This quality is so important in marriage and he just makes the journey worth while. Thank you babe for being so dang much fun!

Sarah and Mark had their annual New Years Eve Party and you had to come with a Karaoke song ready. I fully admit we stole the Aladdin idea from Kennan and Trev's lip sync last year.....but we used a little of our own interpretation, and we had to really sing (ugh)!
I am pretty sure that we shocked everyone with how prepared we were. Let's just say that the laughter never stopped while we were performing and we did win the entire contest. I was good, I stayed in character, but my husband stole the show, he had me crying I was laughing so hard. We had practiced all day and kept singing to each other all day long. Gwyn knew the song "A Whole New World " better than we did by the end of the day. It was Bob's idea to cut leg holes in our magic carpet.....which I think was the magic touch. We performed it for our kids before we left and Tucker looked at us and said "I am kinda embarrassed." You know you have prepared to the best of your ability if your 8 year old tells you that. It was a fun night. The Weston's always throw a great party!
Sorry this is blurry....I took my old camera? why? who knows?

The Broughs did a great interpretation of Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers.

Mike and Mary Ann and his Ding-a-ling
The Westons did a great BNL Song....If I Had A Million Dollars
Sara and Steve did a great impression from High School Musical. Who knew Steve could move like he did. I did not know he had it in him.
Anne and Travis as Dead or Alive!!!!!Hilarious....A side of Travis I have never seen.
The Schicks did a song from Hair Spray.

My camera died before I could take anymore pictures.....curse my old camera. This was a great night!!!! Thanks Weston's....We love to hang out with you guys.