Noah's other party (and a little camera-happy)

I'm adding these a little late, but I finally got them to upload from my camera (our hard drive is overloaded :( )


I just thought Luke looked funny in this one :)

the proud big sister :)

is it just me or is that a strange thing to try to cover up your face with???

This was picture I took from a video clip (my camera is so cool! I keep finding new little tricks that it can do!)

On Saturday the 17th we had Noah's other birthday party. With the Hatch side.

okay is this not the cutest face ever!


We had Steve, Nana and Grandma Hatch there to celebrate with us.

Nana gave Noah this frog and I think he may have held it for a little over 3 seconds before it was torn from his grasp and of course ruined by his older brothers....ya gotta love that! It said it was a choking hazard anyway though, so I think we're okay :)

I love this face too :) He's so adorable.

Here is the part where everyone opened his presents for him. He really doesn't seem to care...

And here is Bradley taking away the present he gave Noah the minute after it was revealed through his special wrapping job. Back on Monday I took the kids to All-A-Dollar to pick out presents for Noah with their own money....Bradley was very proud of his and excited to give it to him.

NOW he can hold it :) He really made Bradley feel good with how much he liked the toy.

AWWW!!!

AWWW at another angle...

watching his present be opened

Daddy stepping in to help Noah open his own...

I love this...after he opened the little gloworm and the music started, Noah's fingers were instantly sucked into his mouth...very soothing for him I guess. It was cute.

This was way cute too....Charity made a little card for Noah (if you can't read it) it says: Dear Noah, I like you I think you are the cutest little brother ever. Love, your big sister Charity. Almost makes me cry just typing it out! So cute. And then the cutest part---she taped a little pocket onto the card and put her very own dollar bill in there for him to spend for something he wanted :) I LOVE it!! Very cute. She also got him a balloon at ALL-A-Dollar and made him a cute little bday sign that I don't think I got a picture of.

Here's the back of the card.

And the candle moment :) Again, I LOVE that everyone is all huddled around him....too bad I couldn't get EVERYONE in the shot. But how cute is that!!

Here's his cute cake. We thought the marshmellow cream would look more like snow than regular frosting :) And just for something different....so that's why it looks like it's melting :) I thought his cake turned out pretty cute :) (if I may say so myself)

Steve entertained us with his music. If only the clip of Noah dancing to it wasn't so long and full of other crap....it was way cute... he was totally bobbing to the music :)

We headed on upstairs after the cake and ice cream so that Nana and Nate could watch the Jazz Game. The other kids and Grandma stayed downstairs to play and watch a movie.

I was just sitting there with my camera in my hand..... bored apparently.....

Brent and Sarah showed up after their Stake Conference meeting. That was very nice of them.

It still hasn't hit me that he's 1.

UMMMM.....WEIRD!

K, so I am not sure why I am posting this on my blog, but it was weird to me! Today when we went to the school to register Charity and Kelly (yes, I'm really slow at registering them), they were bringing all the kids in from outside (the first bell hadn't rang yet), and sending them all into the cafeteria. Do you want to know WHY? It was because the "AIR QUALITY WAS BAD"!!!!!! Is that not the weirdest thing EVER!!! Now don't get me wrong. I'm not questioning the authority or claiming to know more than anyone about what is in the air or how bad it is. The air is clearly NOT CLEAR...that's obvious to me even. I just can't believe it is so bad the kids can't be breathing it in at recess and before the bell rings!!! HOLY MOLY!! Reminds me of some futuristic show where they make everything all drastic and dramatic ya know. Like the air is yellow and stuff. So crazy! Who would have thought! It does make miss the ever-so-clear air in Alaska.... you could see Mt. McKinley from Earthquake park!! And that's another good thing going for Eagle Mountain.... never had "bad air" out there. I have to admit that when I walked outside I was coughing even more knowing that it was "bad air". Kinda made me want a gas mask or something (now that's probably from my 24 obsession). Then when I was picking up Nate from work there was a sign on the freeway saying that the air quality was bad and to reduce driving tomorrow!! Is this like a new thing in Utah or something?? It was all just SO WEIRD to me!!! K, now I'm done.

Draper Temple Open House in the middle of our crazy week

On Thursday the 15th, we had the privilege of attending the Draper Temple Open House. Chris and Stephanie got us the tickets....thank you very much! And we were able to take our kids to see the inside of the temple. I was really excited for them to see it all, and Charity and Kelly were pretty excited too. We met at the Chapel and watched the short little video before shuttling on a bus (I think this was my kids' favorite part) up to the temple. I have to say that I really loved the video! I LOVED the part where Elder Holland says that to him he could not picture Heaven without his wife. How could it even be called "Heaven" if you couldn't be with the people you love. I cannot imagine eternity without Nate and without my sweet kids. It just wouldn't be Heaven. So anyway. I really loved being there with our whole family. And while I know it's not quite the same without it being dedicated yet, the Spirit was so strong there, and I really loved the experience. This temple is really special to me just for the fact that it's right by where I grew up. I can't believe there is a temple there now! SO neat. I used to ride up on those hills with my dad on his motorcycle. He would drive really close to the edge to scare me :) But anyway... just a really sentimental spot (what else is new?!).

Here's Lukey on the bus :) He really loved riding the bus. So did Bradley and the girls.....it was a pretty tight fit on the way back though, and this was the only picture I took the whole time (how sad is that!)


After the temple open house we had to drive up to the old house for one last cleaning. Nate got that place SO CLEAN!!! It was spotless! The kids had fun running around in the empty space.


We all ate pizza on the floor while Daddy busted his butt.

I'm really going to miss that place. It was a nice house, a nice ward, and really fun yard. Hopefully we can be so lucky again.

Here's Charity warming her bumb.

It was a crazy week....we had our walk through Friday night and signed it away. We are glad to have that done and out of the way. We spent most of the week unpacking at the new place, cleaning at the old one, and being sick.....but it is all over now. Kind of funny, but Wednesday when we were trying to drive out to Eagle Mountain, Nate's car broke down. It was totally smoking!! We ended up towing it ourselves to Chris and Stephanie's house for safe keeping, it is not usable right now. But it was a total blessing that the kids and I had taken longer to get on the road because we were right behind Nate when it happened. Not having a cell phone with him could have made that a complete nightmare of an experience, but as it was, we were right there and able to buy the tow rope and get it all taken care of pretty quickly without much trouble. Funny how the Lord can bless us in those situations. And it's really nice that his car waited until we lived only 20 minutes away from his work rather than an hour....makes taking him to work in the mornings a lot easier. Hopefully we can just get it fixed and have 2 cars again, but whatever happens I guess.....

Those kind of weeks always make me lazy during the next one....I keep excusing all the sitting around :) So lazy.

Not a Moose....not an antelope (pronghorn)....but a DEER!

Just because we don't live in Alaska or Eagle Mountain doesn't mean we don't encounter wildlife :) It's really funny because back in High Schoool I totally stopped caring about the deer up here. Ya know how when you see one as you're driving down the road it can sometimes make your heart jump...well, it stopped doing that for me when I was in High School. I totally thought the deer were annoying. So this is one more thing that Alaska did for me. I've learned to appreciate the deer up here in Bountiful. It was really neat this day because we just kept seeing the deer everywhere. And right after this one (after my camera battery died as well) we came upon a whole herd of them! Probably like 10 deer just wandering around someone's yard, munching on the dead bushes. It was neat. The kids totally loved it too. And I totally looked like a nerd taking a picture of a deer in Bountiful, but how cool are these animals?!

My Little Man is ONE!!

Noah's birthday was Sunday! Since we were at Nate's parents' house for the family meeting we thought we would celebrate Noah's birthday with everyone there. I made him a little cake to eat, and got a little crazy with the food coloring...it turned out to be a really strange color :) The girls covered the top with mini chocolate chips.

Ashlyn was a sweetie with Noah and helped him to the counter to be sung to and blow out his candle, which he had a lot of help with from Luke :)


Here he is digging in. He sure took a long time to finally figure out what it was he was supposed to do with the cake :) At first he just picked the little chocolate chips off one at a time and ate them, then he finally got interested in the frosting and the cake.

I took a lot of pictures- as you can see :). But I really loved this one because of how you can just barely see his family members around him, supporting him and loving him. Nate's hand is over on the left, my hand is on his right leg, Luke's hand is on his left knee, and Charity is standing behind him....sorry if that's cheesy, but I love it.

Again, a very strange color of frosting- kind of blended in well with his boogers and eye crusties though :)

It really is crazy to me that Noah is one already (I guess that's why it's taken me so long to post). It weirds me out. It really feels too recently that we were in the hospital all oohing and ahhing over him. He sure is a fun little kid though. He's been such a blessing in my life. I know that he was meant to come to our family and that we have all been blessed by his being here. He's very special to me. We all enjoy watching him and seeing what he does next. Right now he is crawling a ton. He pulls himself up to the couches and furniture pretty well, but it's not his favorite place to be for too long. He also just barely learned how to crawl up the stairs....may or may not have anything to do with who lives upstairs :) It's still scary when he does though...the whole teetering on the edge of each step thing....kinda makes me crazy to be honest. It really surprised us all though that he could do it though! He's very much into just about everything. He likes to play with Luke, and make Luke laugh. He loves his big brothers and sisters and the attention they give him. It amazes me how much he will let them do with him. He rarely complains about them and enjoys their company most of the time. He is really quite content with Kelly holding him and loving him...he lets her be the one to cuddle him when he's sad and Mommy can't be there. He is very easy going, very laid back. He likes to eat just about everything....just not too much of any one thing. He is onto a bottle now, and doesn't even miss his Mommy-moo juice anymore. I really can't believe how much he's grown and how old he is! My cute little man is growing up! Happy Birthday little Noah! We love you!

Charity's UNOFFICIAL last day

This is probably Charity's favorite friend....they were in the same Primary class too. They sure were cute with each other and I LOVED Maia's good influence.


Cute little Emma....she was so sad!! Charity will miss Emma I'm sure.



This was really cute...they didn't want to stand too close to each other much less putting their arms around each other like I suggested :) We started trading babysitting with his family a few months before we decided to move :( so sad to leave that too!!



These four returned from their Spanish class just in time to get a picture....they were lucky they got to miss out on the Sub and his freakishness.....

So, technically Friday was Charity's last day of school too. But it was SO not good enough

for me. Everyone's been using their blogs to vent lately, so I am going to do just that for a minute. I had arranged with her teacher to come and take pictures of her class. Well, when I showed up there was a substituted. Poor Miss Groom had gotten sick and gone home for the day (which I do not blame her for any of this, just to make that clear). So I walk in and the stressed out male Sub looks up and asks me what I need. I looked at the class and then explained that I was there to check out Charity and get some pictures of the class as I had previously arranged with the teacher. Now I have to point out that ALL of the kids are sitting perfectly (for a picture) on the floor in front of the calendar. Would have been a perfect moment to just snap a picture. Well, apparently the sub didn't notice the perfectness and he says to me, "Well, we are just about to do calendar, and then Math, so if you want to just have a seat and wait a few minutes..." DUH!!! No, I don't want to wait...and WHY? They're in the perfect position. Well, it seemed really tense between he and I, and I felt like he was really annoyed that I was there, so I just told him I would be back. So I went down to the office to get the forms I had forgotten that I needed to have the teachers sign. So the office ladies gave me the forms and told me I needed to get signatures from the lunch clerk and the librarian before they could be withdrawn from the school (to make sure we didn't have any outstanding fines). Which to me was really funny since neither one of my kids had ever brought a book home from the library and were actually on free lunch....ANYWAY! So, I head down the hall to the cafeteria and the lunch clerk is no where to be found. Then I go to the library and it's locked and all the lights are turned off. Granted this was at 12:00 (lunch time). So I go back to the office, explain that no one is around, and THEN they decide to check the schedule and see where they are...of course these ladies are at lunch. So the office Secretary tells me that they will be back in an hour if I want to wait.....WHAT?? No, I don't want to wait! an HOUR!! (We were in the middle of loading up our moving truck!) You can tell I was already a little overwhelmed because as I am typing this I realize how silly it is that I was stressed out, but just humor me for a minute. So then I decide to try Charity's class one more time. When I walk in the sub is even more stressed out....and more irritated. Now all the kids are at their desks working on a math assignment. He consented to letting me go around the room and take a picture of Charity with each kid, ONE AT A TIME.....do I need to explain how LAME this is??? So I proceeded to go from table to table with Charity while she picked the person she liked most first (and made the rest feel bad that they weren't chosen first...bla bla bla), then of course kids were walking around and being disruptive...seriously, this was NOT the most efficient way to do this, and I was really done. So then some of the kids started to cry. Poor, cute little Eric had his head on his desk, buried in his arms and wouldn't stand up to get a picture with Charity for me. He said he was too sad that she was leaving. Then Emma started to cry. By this time I had decided it was going to be better to just come back the following week (when we are cleaning the house) to get a picture of the whole class WITH Miss Groom especially, and I was starting to lose interest in the whole thing. Not to mention the Sub was totally FREAKING OUT!! He was yelling and getting mad at all the kids who were not in their seats....it was just a mess. The mom that was there helping seemed to be on my side and thought the Sub was losing it for no reason. He kept telling me that they had a lot to get done on the list of things the teacher had left and I had to keep from laughing. Sorry, but seriously...what will happen if you don't get it all done??? And isn't me taking a class picture of my daughter's class WAY more important :) HA! jk. I think I just kept thinking about last year, and how special that last day at Nunaka was. And how much of a big deal Mrs. Nyholm made of it all. She was so sweet and bawled with us all. It was just so different.....and I wanted it to be more special....spoil my cute little girl more.....

Yeah, so anyway. I was really annoyed with it all. I know I shouldn't have been, but whatever. I am going to go back and get a picture of the whole class (rather than having 25 individual pictures of each person in her class that I would have no room to save!) and her teacher. I'm too sentimental for this mess!! So anyway....there, now i feel like a dork for venting about something so lame. But it's my blog and I'll vent if I want to :)

Kelly's last day

Kelly and Mrs. Davis. She LOVES Mrs. Davis. She liked her so much she picked out matching glasses!!


She was pretty cute with her friends, and I was able to snap a few pictures even though she made the rounds giving hugs pretty quickly.



Here she is with Abby. She is really going to miss Abby. They were such cute friends. I'M going to miss having a friend so close by. Sure was nice that they could just walk to each other's houses to play (all day long :)).


And here's the whole class. Hopefully Kelly likes her new teacher and class just as well....

When I went to pick up Kelly on Friday, I was able to get a few pictures of her class and Kelly with some of her friends and teacher. I totally HATE this part! I didn't cry although it was very difficult. Kelly seemed really okay with it all, and almost like she didn't grasp the concept, or maybe just had gotten past it all. She had spent several afternoons crying about it previously, so maybe she's just quicker than me. It felt like she was okay with it though and that was nice.

Dinner

Thursday night I got to go out to Olive Garden with a few of my old friends from Sandy. I had so much fun!! I seriously laughed ALL NIGHT LONG!! We stayed up way past my bedtime, but it really was so fun. I loved being able to catch up on everyone and it's fun to hear what everyone was up to. Thanks again for the fun night girls. We'll have to do it again soon! Kristen if you ever need a blog to make fun of...mine's always here :) HA! jk.

Can you tell I took these pictures with my timer and just sat the camera on the tv stand. Not the best, but I needed pictures!!

School lunch

Charity's teacher let her be the spotlight last week. As the spotlight she got to take a poster filled with things about her....hopefully I get that back sometime because it was really fun to see what she wrote on it. She got to take her favorite book to school for the teacher to read. The whole class made her a book of pictures and letters. AND she got to have her Mom come to lunch at school with her. (again the date in this one is wrong as well....it was Thursday) It sure was fun to walk down the hall to the lunch room, holding her hand, with her telling all her friends that I was her mom (not embarrassed by me at all- which I am cherishing since I know that will eventually come to an end). She showed me how to get my tray and food. She was a little goof ball most of the time and couldn't stop bouncing of the walls, but I love that about Charity. I wish I had HALF the energy she does. But anyway. We had such a good time. Drinking our chocolate milk (Charity's most FAVORITE thing about school lunch :)) Charity showed off some of her cute playground moves, and then I had to leave to go get the boys. It sure was fun though. I love the moments I get to spend, one on one, with my kids. Very fun.

Alaska Snow Trees

I call these trees "Alaska Snow Trees" because the first time I ever saw trees all covered in snow (or frost or whatever you want to call it) like this was in Alaska. Granted I thought it only happened in Alaska, so maybe it happened all the while I was growing up here in Utah too, I just never noticed it. Well, and in Alaska the trees are MUCH thicker, so it's even more fascinating. But anyway. The trees in Eagle Mountain do it too! I totally loved it when I would pull out of the garage and see the fuzzy, white trees everywhere. I think it's beautiful. Someone told me they think it's because of the river nearby? Not sure, but I love it and had to get a picture of them before we moved in case it's only something that happens in Alaska and Eagle Mountain (ha ha). (and just for the record, I believe this picture was taken on Thursday the 8th, not the ninth- still don't know how to set the date on my camera apparently! darn it....I'll have to try again)

Bradley's last day of Joy School :(

I love all their cute smiles in this one. And Brad has his arm around Olivia who he once said was "a cute little girl" :) How cute is THAT! jk. I am really not big on the whole flirting at age 4 thing....I know he's not.

Wednesday was Brad's last day of Joy School. We had had a few talks about how when we move he will have to be really friendly and make new friends really fast. So I am not sure if he was just practicing, or just didn't quite understand what I was saying, but I was told that he kept "making new friends" the whole time. He would go up to his already friends and ask them if they would be friends with thim :) Funny kid. Then for his "goal" that he had on his chart it said "To help people and make new friends". What a cutie. I'm going to miss Joy School. I would love to do one in our new place, but I'm told there aren't too many little kids in the neighborhood. So I will just have to look around a lot I guess. We'll see. But it's definitely been fun for him here. I've loved working with the moms and I love the kids. I'll miss it. Brad will too. I went and took pictures of his class and I had to post both of them because the bottom one was just too funny (even though it's blurry-sorry Jen- and nobody's really ready). I LOVE that Caden has the little viewer thing in front of his face because he's busy looking at it :)! lol These kids totally crack me up. And look how cute they are with their arms around each other!! Love it.

A baptism, Body Worlds, Discovery Museum, and a loose tooth

Last Saturday was a big day for us! In the morning we got to attend my neice Sydney's baptism. I just LOVE going to baptisms!! It's obviously the Spirit that is there, but it's just so neat for me! I loved that it was the day after the 21st anniversary of my baptism, and I loved being reminded of the covenants that I made. It was especially neat because Sydney was the last grandkid to be born before Nate and I got married. I guess it was kind of sentimental to me to have been there for her blessing and now her baptism. The first grandkid for me to have done this. I just love Sydney too, I think she's such a sweet girl. She's always so generous and loving toward Charity and Kelly, she'd do just about anything for them I think. She's been such a good example for them as well. Charity felt really privileged to be able to witness her baptism as well. I'm so glad my kids have so many cousins to look to and experience these things with them so that they know how things go. What a neat experience.
After the baptism we all went to Chuck-A-Rama and Jen treated us to lunch (so nice!). My kids were in heaven with the food choices, and with the endless icecream and treats....I don't think I've ever seen them eat that much food all at once. Bradley went from "I'm hungry. I'm starving. I'm hungry." to "I'm full. My tummy hurts." to "I'm bored." in under an hour! We were going to try and stay till dinner but....no, jk.
So after lunch we headed on up to the Gateway where we were going to meet Stephanie at the Discovery Museum. Stephanie and Chris (Nate's friends from school and OK and now our future game night buddies and work out pal) got me tickets to Body Worlds for my birthday AND offered to tend our kids while we went. So then Saturday Stephanie decided that she wanted to take the kids to the Discovery Museum at the Gateway (WAY NICE!!!) and then ended up getting us a membership since it "wasn't that much more"!!! So we left the kids with her and her mom, and walked, yes, WALKED up to the Body Worlds!!! It was like FOREVER AWAY!!! :) Nate's idea :) he didn't think it was too far. My husband is so optimistic :) The walk was actually really nice, and although we were shivering most of the way there, was really a pleasant break from the norm. So if you haven't seen Body Worlds (you probably won't since it's over in a few days and sold out) but if you haven't, let me just tell you....it was INCREDIBLE!!!! WAY BETTER than I had even imagined it would be! I don't know if anyone knows how obsessed I am with the human body and how much I enjoyed studying it in school, but this was like Christmas all over again. I was seriously just in awe at the whole thing. They had different "plastinates" (you'll have to look up what these are, or ask Nate, I couldn't explain it right) arranged in just really artistic poses to represent which muscles and organs are being used....then they had casts of the blood vessels in different organs and in a while body and in a CHICKEN!! JUST the blood vessels, nothing else!! Do you realize how incredible that is!!! And I think my most favorite thing was the embryos and fetus'. They show an embryo at I think the first one was 4 weeks and then had the following weeks. They had the beginning of the 7th, middle of the 7th and end of the 7th week and they all looked SO DIFFERENT!!! SO MUCH HAPPENS in such a short time in that first trimester. You could see teeny tiny little fingers in just the second month!!! They were so tiny and so cute!! Heavenly Father does some pretty amazing things....pretty miraculous. Totally made me want to have another baby......what else is new though! They also had the fetus' up to like 32 weeks which I thought interesting since that was the gestational age that both my nephews Marshall and Charlie were delivered at. Pretty crazy to think how small and helpless they are at that age and yet still have enough to survive. Just miraculous. The whole body is just so miraculous. It really gave me a greater appreciation for it again. Anyway...enough rambling, sorry. I just thought it was very impressive. I hope it comes to Utah again and that I get to see it again sometime. Very cool.
So then we walked back to the Discovery Museum and Stephanie and taken our kids over to McD's. She totally spoiled us rotten that day!! Thanks again Stephanie, if you're reading!! The kids totally loved the museum. They talked about it all on the way home. Along with Charity giving us minute by minute updates on the status of her loose tooth. I had been begging her to pull it (only because she kept crying about it hurting) for at least a week. And it was more than ready. I am not sure what we said that night, maybe it was Stephanie's influence as well (thanks for that too), but she wanted me to pull it when we got home. So first thing after we walked in the door and she had her jammies on, Charity came to me with a paper towel and her mouth wide open. I pulled her tooth! Crazy as that is. Kinda took me back to the days when I would wiggle my teeth and pull them. She was very brave, didn't even flinch, just got all excited for the tooth fairy to come :) So now she has lost 3 teeth!! I guess that's just how it's suppsoed to be, but I want her to stay little and the teeth pulling thing isn't helping with that. So anyway..... What a fun day for all of us.

Happy New Year!!

This was actually around 8:00 pm on New Year's Eve, apparently I didn't know how to set the date/time on my camera, but it's fixed now. The kids all fell asleep and took a nice little nap in the car on the way to the party....thankfully!


All of my boys (and Uncle Rob) waiting for the New Year.



I think Brad had to hold his head up to keep it from falling off, he was so tired.


Awww!!!! Noah didn't quite make it to midnight with the rest of us.

2008 is over. We had a fun time celebrating. I got to spend the day hanging out with my good friend Sherry. Then I got some packing done. And THEN it was time for the much awaited Maynes family party. My kids seriously get SO excited for the family parties. I love it. We were a little late, but not too late to load up on all the food. The kids spent most of their time downstairs but came up frequently for drinks and food and to watch Mommy play games :) I had a really good time playing games with all the moms. Charity joined us too- she was so cute playing the Oodles of Doodles game with us (fun game btw). At about 5 minutes to midnight we turned off Wall-E show that everyone was glued to, to watch the ball drop. I totally thought it was fun that EVERYONE was gathered around and counting down the last 10 seconds together. Charity and Kelly were smiling, so I think they got a kick out of it too :) And Lukey.
2008 has definitely been a good one. Lots of things happened, and lots of things didn't (I'm grateful for that). We've been very blessed. I look forward to 2009 and what it holds.


On New Year's Day we headed on up to Grandpa's to get things ready to move in...I took this picture while the boys were walking back to the car from the store....aren't my boys the cutest!! (I think Luke has my ears. lol.)
2009 HERE WE COME!!!!

Charity Marie 2009

Charity is 6, turning 7 on March 9th. She is very excited for her birthday and she always talks about how she only has one more year before she is baptized. She loves to rollerblade, ride her bike, read, write letters to friends and family, and hang out with Grandpa Hatch. She is learning to play the piano and wants to start gymnastics soon. She is way above the reading level that she needs to be as a First Grader and constantly surprises us with how well she can read and understand what she's reading. It's fun to watch her progress and learn so much. She loves to learn. She's a fun big sister and is always so helpful to her parents and brothers and sister. Charity is a huge part of our family and adds a nice little burst of energy to our lives.