August 2009: I think that sometime in this month we found out we were pregnant. Now we are about four weeks away from our fourth kid (3rd girl). We are unsure on names at this point. We went to McCall and spent about a week with my family up there... it was a relaxing and enjoyable time. One of the things that I enjoyed the most was the time that I spent each morning with Sarah and Nathan. Our kids, compared to my nieces and nephews, get up early (around 7 am, if not before), so I knew that we needed to figure something out each morning because I didn't want our kids waking up others. So, once the kids woke up (the two oldest at least), typically simultaneously, I would take them outside, get them a warm jacket and we'd go do something fun. We would head out with full sippy cups and a little snack (sometimes picked up a doughnut, which the kids loved). We went to the river that flows into the upper Payette lake and had fun throwing rocks in the river/stream and watching sticks float down it. Some of the mornings we just had a fire outside of the cabin in the little fire-pit and had breakfast on the picnic table. One morning we waited a bit and then went fishing with the other older cousins with my brother Robb, and my Dad. This was a lot of fun! One morning we went down to the Payette River below Payette Lake (McCall) and threw rocks in the river and tried to see who could make the biggest splash. This was a fun time as well. One morning we just walked down to Davis Beach and swung on the little bench swing down there and watched the lake come alive with boats. This was a lot of fun and the kids really enjoyed it and it made a positive time out of a typically difficult time where I would have normally been shushing the kids endlessly to keep them quiet. Overall, we had a great time in McCall and it's so fun just to hang out on the beach with the family. Our kids have so much fun with their cousins and the beach just provides almost endless play for the kiddos. Great times. I turned 31 in August.
I was called to serve as the YM's President in our ward, which was/is overwhelming but enjoyable.
September 2009: We took a road-trip home to W. WA and visited Mary's parents in Leavenworth and then visited with my parents in Bothell for a few days. Then I went with my brothers and dad for our annual men's hike to Hyas Lake up outside of Roslyn. This was a fun year as it was the first year that I had all of my brothers with us. We had a great time! I think it was this month that Mary started Homeschooling Sarah. This was a big step but it is going wonderfully. Sarah is thriving in this environment and is learning to love learning, which is one of the main reasons we chose this route for Sarah's education.
October 2009: I was laid off on October 8th, which was devastating! Fortunately, I was only out of work for one month and returned to work on Nov. 9th with my previous job. This was a difficult and stressful month job-searching, soul-searching and being grateful for blessings and preparation. We felt fortunate that in 2008 we had set a goal to have a year-supply of food and clothing, which we were able to do. This significantly took the edge off of some of the difficulty, though we never really had to use that. With my little severance and using the vacation I had accrued, we were able to bridge the time that I was laid off. But it was definitely a time of uncertainty for us. I applied for probably 50-60 jobs in my field and probably only heard back from 5 or so, and I didn't have a single interview. It was discouraging, but a good wake-up call. We learned a lot of things in this brief period of time.
November 2009: Mary and I celebrated our 8th anniversary by going out to Bruneau Canyon to see the sunset and then out to dinner here locally. A week later, Mary's parents and his brother and his wife came to visit us for Thanksgiving. This was a really fun weekend! We enjoyed great food and enjoyed staying up talking and playing card and dice games. Thanksgiving morning my Father-in-law and brother-in-law went with me to play football (the annual Turkey Bowl) at a local park with people from our ward. I think people suspect me of bringing ringers every year, as last year my brother and dad joined us. My brother-in-law, Kris, scored the winning touchdown for our team... it was a lot of fun. We always appreciate it when family goes out of their way to join us for Holidays or just visits us.
December 2009: We enjoyed preparing for the Christmas season. Things were crazy at work trying to get everything done for the month before we left for the last 8 days or so for Christmas. Before that, though, me and some of Mary's friends (most of the work was done by the latter! Thanks Rachelle and Kristin!) pulled off a great surprise birthday party for Mary's 30th b-day. This was a lot of fun, and was completely unexpected by Mary due to the craziness of this month and getting ready to leave to Washington for Christmas. On the morning of the 23rd, we woke the kids up and told them that we had to get ready because we were leaving to go on an airplane to go to Washington for Christmas. This was a complete surprise to the kids and they were so excited! This was the first airplane ride for these kids and they did great. They loved being able to go on an airplane and they did great! This was also a surprise (I can't believe we actually pulled this off!) for my mom. She was completely caught off-guard when she came out of the house to find us there as we said "SURPRISE". She was literally speechless with her hands over her mouth. We had a great time in Washington for Christmas and enjoyed seeing extended family and spending a lot of time with our immediate family. We were also able to see some friends as well. We spent the Saturday after Christmas with Mary's family in Tacoma at her sister's house. This was a lot of fun and the kids got some fun home-made gifts from Nanu and Bumpa. This trip went by too quickly, but was such a great time. We enjoyed it immensely!
January 2010: We went to Utah toward the end of January for a job interview that didn't pan out. We enjoyed spending a lot of time with our friends, the Bergeson's (who hosted us wondefully on extremely short notice!) and also spending some time with Mary's brother and his wife. We had a great quick trip and the kids had fun with their friends and Aunt and Uncle. Nathan turned four the next week. What a cute kid! I think it was this month that we found out that we are having a girl (we had a failed attempt in December).
February 2010: We enjoyed celebrating Valentines Day with our family. Sarah really enjoys making signs, posters, notes for people, and she has continued to do this. She regularly asks when the next holiday is, so she can start to make some decorations. Don't really remember much else about this month.
March 2010: Mary and I celebrated 100 months of being married. This was kind of cool and it's something that I/we like to do each month. I think this continued when we had Sarah as you always say how old kids are in months until they turn like two or something. So, I decided to start keeping track of this. Occasionally, Mary will remember before I do, but this is fairly rare. Typically, I send an email or make a call home telling her "Happy __ Month Anniversary", she laughs at me, then thanks me and we go on with our normal conversation. I actually surprised Mary this month by setting up a sitter so we could go out to dinner together. It was fun. On 3/5-6, I took Sarah and Nathan for our first camping trip of the year. It had been unseasonably warm and it was supposed to be a nice weekend, so I decided to head out with them. We went to the Bruneau Sand Dunes. While it was nice when the sun was out, it got cold quick. Fortunately, I had brought a space heater. It stayed on all night in our tent. The kids had a blast, even though they were cold at times. They had fun roasting hot dogs over the fire for dinner and then marshmallows for dessert. We drove out to Bruneau Canyon on Sat morning cause the kids were bored of being in the tent and it was too cold to be outside of it. So we drove the 20 mins or so to the canyon. The kids had fun throwing rocks and sticks over the ledges and listening for it to hit the bottom/side of the canyon. The kids ate doughnuts on the way out there for breakfast. When we got back we had a little fire while I did some cleaning up. We then went to the Dunes. Here’s a funny story. So, apparently on Friday morning while Mary was shopping for stuff for us to go camping at a local grocery store (Paul’s) the kids were telling everybody that they were going camping with their daddy to the sand dunes. When they were checking out of the store, the cashier told Sarah and Nathan to “be careful, last time I was there I saw a rattle snake!” This apparently stuck with Nathan. When we parked at the bottom of one of the dunes, he refused to come out because he was scared of rattle snakes. I assured him that we wouldn’t see any this time of year and that I would stay with him. He would have none of it! He chose to stay in the car, but it was close enough where he could see us from the car go up and down the dunes. So he stayed behind in the car. Sarah and I walked to the end of the dune and then climbed up it’s spine, rather then hike straight up. The sand was cold on our feet underneath. We got to the top and Sarah enjoyed repeatedly jumping down “like a bunny – hop hop” the dune and then climbing back up. She also said that she felt like she was walking on the moon… she seemed to really enjoy this. After about 30-45 minutes of us playing on the dunes (I jumped down them several times with her as well). I went down to check on Nathan. He was fairly distraught and it looked like he had been crying/upset for a little while. Poor kid! He still did not want to come out and go on the dunes, he just wanted to go back to the campsite. So we went back there when Sarah was done playing on the dunes.
I think that catches me up. This is a thin description of our last six months plus. Hopefully I'll be better in the coming months.
Jane got this cute "My first Doll" from my folks and she really loves hugging it and has sometimes given it a "kiss".
The 1st Birthday Cake is always my favorite part, and frankly I have higher expectations then I should for this event. Most kids approach it timidly, which was Jane's experience. But once we got her an adult fork (she's always preferred adult spoons to kid spoons when being fed) she dove in a little more heartily.
But once her foot made contact with the cake, she was much less interested and it was pretty funny to see how she would suspend her foot in the air and announce her displeasure with the whole cake experience. Then it was on to bath time with her cousin, which she thoroughly enjoyed. 
Nathan got a lot of wonderful presents. In addition to the other pics below, he received his own Book of Mormon, PJ's, and a movie from Oma and Opa. He got a Pirate Ship flip book from my sister's family, a train and a train book from Kris and Chelsea and a whole bunch more Thomas the Tank Engine characters from Mary, Sarah, Jane and I. He was thrilled about all of the stuff and enjoyed meticulously tearing the wrapping paper off of the boxes.
