Missing you!

I wasn't a blogger when my darling parents came to visit us during Christmas from Alaska. We are missing them! Calvin was in heaven when his golfing idol, Pop-Pop Novakovich, took him golfing not once, twice, or three times...but four! He then surprised Calvin with a much needed new set of golf clubs for Christmas. Thankfully the weather during December was warm enough for golfing. We were able to drop off Pop-pop at Grandpa daycare (a.k.a. the golf course) while my mom and I would shop, hang with the kids and goof around. It was so fun for the kids to get to know their fab grandparents better that unforunately live so far away. We are missing you!

Twelve Years in the Making...

Twelve years and four younger brothers later, Sommer is an official babysitter! She took a fabulous babysitting course last week at the hospital. The 6 hour course, covered everything from choking to behavior management and InfantChils CPR to Safety for the Sitter. I was thrilled to see the "behavior management" portion and took a moment to go over it for a few of our "problem children." Great stuff. She looks like she is really prepared to take on this important responsibility. She was so excited on a couple of her first jobs, that she made her own babysitting bag, full of books, toys and other helps for entertaining the troops! Her little brothers absolutely love when she babysits them!

Going on "Adventures"

Sommer took this picture high above of Ashton, Joey and the loveable parents!
The "tree house" where we kept our fingers crossed they wouldn't fall out!

We gathered up the entire family and ventured out to one of our favorite spots, a small National Forest trail only a few miles from our house.

My favorite moment was when Garth found a large tree hanging over the trail. He felt it was his duty to pull the whole tree down and set it safely to the side of the trail. I was pleased to capture a play by play of his heroic behavior...if only his dream of being a forest ranger would come true!

It is really sad we don't do this more often with the kids with the amount of fun they all have. For 2 hours they all got along great, exercised their imaginations, and had the time of their lives! We found an abandoned deer hunting perch and the kids had a blast climbing high into the trees (Garth did have to help two of them back down). We found old bottles (Calvin thinks he discovered an old glass Pepsi bottle worth millions), great walking sticks, odd shaped rocks and were all given Indian names on our Indian trail (trail of tears...after two falls created some crying).

The kids were all worried about ticks! Yeah, ticks. We had just found a random tick on Ethan Sunday morning...what's up with that kind of nonsense! Everyone came home tick free!

Becometh as a Child...

Ethan was baptized on Saturday! The day before, he kept asking me how many more minutes until his big day would come...

It was a very humbling experience to see a child have such a strong desire to take this important step...to see his willingness to gain a testimony of the truth for himself and follow through with total excitment. It reminded me of the scripture in the Book of Mormon when Jesus had appeared as the resurrected Savior to the Nephites on the American Continent to increase their understanding of our Heavenly Father's Plan for all of us. He speaks to the people saying, "And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God." -3 Nephi 11:38

We know the miraculous quality of a child as they uncondtionaly obey, follow, love, submit, trust, and forgive us, the parent/teacher/grown-up. Why do we lose those most cherished qualities as adults? I think we simply just forget and that is why we are blessed with children, to remind us to "becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." -Mosiah 3:19

We so appreciate the love and support so many of you gave to Ethan during special day! It meant so much...

Music to My Ears

I wouldn't go as far as to call us the Partridge Family, but I think we might just have a few musicians in our future. Adding to our current pianists, Sommer, Cal and Ethan, we now have a banjo player, bass, and guitarist!

Garth loves his new guitar that he received from Santa at Christmas. After knowing him for over 15 years, I had no idea he could play so well.

Ethan has been wanting to take banjo lessons from Pop-Pop Gair since he first laid eyes on his Grandpa's Golden Banjo. His fingers are now just long enough to hold the basic chords...so he finally gets to take lessons!

As many of you already know, Calvin is really cool. So is his Grandma Gair. After seeing her play many times, he knew if he were to keep up with his coolness, he needed to add the bass as one of his talents. And our new bass player was born. Doesn't hurt to have his teacher a cool cat.

Sommer has asked Dad to teach her Guitar.

I think tamberine is the only thing left for me...anyone know a good teacher!

75 degrees = park

Me and my two youngin's...
Love this picture so much I put it in twice...

You gotta love Ashton tearing around the corner...

Pure joy...
Happy....

If it is January and the temperature is 75 degrees, everyone knows that it becomes a park day! I took Ashton and Tate to the most wonderful park in Virginia, called Clemyjontri in Langley on my way to "This is the Place" bookstore in Maryland (I needed to get Ethan's new set of scriptures for his big baptism day on Saturday).

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/clemyjontri/

I was actually feeling a bit too warm in the balmy weather in only a t-shirt (and pants of course...come on). We had a blast running from monkey bars to see-saws, swings to bridges wildly checking out all this park has to offer. It made it almost impossible to peel the boys away to head home! Enjoy the pictures!

Thanks Grandma and Pop-Pop

It is an unfair advantage when both parents get sick at the same time. It happened to us this weekend. Luckily, I didn't have a fever like Garth (104 at times), so I was at least able to come downstairs and wonder how the house could keep getting so messy in such short periods of time.

Grandma brought Sommer over a super soft and snuggly blanket which she proceeded to cuddle with the entire weekend...it looked great over her head as well (see picture)! Pop-pop and Grandma then took care of lunch for the boys (who were all feeling fine and full of tons of energy after having the flu earlier in the week) and stocked our house with fruit!

Grandma and I took two of the three basketball shifts to watch Ethan and Calvin play this weekend.

Ethan could only play for about five minutes and asked the coach to take him out. He proclaimed that he couldn't breathe and was going to throw up. He is known for being dramatic so luckily he didn't actually give us all a heave ho show. Their team lost again. Ethan wants to win badly and said as we were driving away, "I wish we could move to Chicago." I asked him why. He replied, "So Michael Jordon could be on our team."

Calvin is a superstar basketball player and on a great team. They have a 4-1 record. It is a blast to watch him play. He usually scores more than half his teams points and is amazing at reading the ball and where it is going to go...it makes for some great steals!

I took poor little Ashton to the doctor today after he was up all night with aching ears. He had a double ear infection. Garth and I are hoping that this crummy flu will be a distant memory!