Easter '09

For Easter we did our traditional stuff. On Saturday we dyed eggs and had an Easter egg hunt in the backyard for plastic eggs with candy in them. The kids really enjoyed both of these activities and Nathan held his own this year in the egg hunt and just needed a little help.




Nathan and Sarah wanted pictures with two of the eggs that they dyed. They were really sad when we ate them for lunch on Sunday.

They enjoyed helping each other on the egg hunt and it was sweet to see how excited they both were for each other's finds.

Sunday morning we went to church and enjoyed a great service. I spoke for a little bit as I was released from my calling in the Bishopric (I'm now serving in the Young Men's organization... for the first time! Fun!) After church we delivered some goodies to some friends down the street and then when we were walking back home there was a lady walking her ponies down the street of our neighborhood (yes, I'm in Idaho). The kids enjoyed seeing them but didn't feel like getting too close.

The kids always get a basket with candy, a chocolate easter bunny, something fun and something spiritual. They enjoyed their treats for a number of days and enjoy their spiritual things at church on Sunday during Sacrament meeting each week. After the baskets, we had a special family testimony meetings where we each shared our testimonies about the Gospel and the impact of Christ and His teachings on us. It's a nice tradition and the kids (mostly Sarah) seem to enjoy it.

I usually get up early on Sunday mornings for meetings but since it was Easter and I was getting released we just had one meeting briefly before sacrament meeting. I woke up extra early (because my back hurt and sleeping was futile) and read the portion of Christ's resurrection from each of the four Gospel's and then read Elder Bruce R. McConkie's concluding talk in General Conference titled "The Purifying Power of Gethsemane" from 1985, which is an amazing talk. Anyway, it was a great morning and I am so thankful for the Resurrection of my Lord and Savior and for the living effects of the Atonement that He wrought for everyone.

Green Eggs for the Hamm's

We had an enjoyable St. Patrick's Day this year. We enjoy making green food and talking about how lucky we are.

For dinner, we made Fritatta and added a good amount of food coloring. It turned out to have quiet a neon-green looking color. The kids were excited to eat this and they actually really enjoy this meal, one of the all-around family favorites. We also had cucumbers, grapes and a lemon-lime soda with extra limes in the drink. Jane even joined in on the fun and ate some avocado.

Christmas '08

So, this is obviously long overdue, but if timeliness was a requirement I would've had to stop blogging long ago. Anyway, the kids didn't get up earlier than normal, which was nice... in fact I think they didn't get up until after 7 am (we'll enjoy this while it lasts). The tradition in my family growing up was to take a picture of the kids just before they got to run down the hall and open the presents. We have continued this tradition so here is our little trio together for Christmas for the first time. It was a beautiful morning, having snowed much of the night and it continued to snow for much of the day.

Nathan's Christmas was all about Thomas the Tank Engine stuff. He got this little interactive book (pic below) from his Nanu and Bumpa (Mary's parents) as well as Thomas PJ's, another book and a bunch of the trains that you'll see below. He also got a Disney Characters "I Spy" book that he really enjoys as well. He got a Dinoco (CARS) helicopter from Uncle Kris and some art supply stuff from his Aunt Jenny's family. The kid was in heaven! Thanks for all the wonderful gifts everyone.

Could this reaction be any more excited! Sarah got some first readers books from her Oma and Opa (my parents) and has really enjoyed them (if only she'd read them instead of trying to memorize the story and then just quoting it almost word for word after a couple of reads!). She got some My Little Ponies from her Uncle Kris, some play food stuff from Nanu and Bumpa, and some art supply stuff from Aunt Jenny's family. She also received a hat and glove set from her cousin Ruby. Thanks again for everything.

My Mom made this adorable skirt for Sarah and a matching one for Jane that they both should be able to wear in a few months. Adorable... Sarah is really excited and both of her matching outfits with Jane have come from her Oma and Opa and they look so cute together.

As mentioned above, Nathan got a bunch of Thomas the Tank Engine stuff. The pic above is of the stuff that he got from his Oma and Opa. Mary and I were so particularly excited for Nathan's Christmas because he's at the age where we know (sometimes) what he wants (and this year it was SO obvious) but he's not to the point where he's really asking for it. So we knew it would be (and it was) a totally, unexpected surprise of pure delight! It's so fun to be a parent at Christmas and seeing your kids get so excited over their presents. Anyway, so Nathan got this James and Rickety combo pictured above. As soon as he gets it he says "James" and takes them and runs into the toy room where his brio train tracks are (we've had a bunch of this for a while but we haven't really had any Thomas pieces to go with it) and starts playing. After a bit we go in and tell him that there are more presents to open. So he comes back in and opens the large set that we had gotten him with a bunch more Thomas characters and some more track. As soon as he opens this up he says "Huh! James!" and runs into the toy room to retrieve James where he had left it and bring them all together. The kid could not have been happier and it was so fun because, for the most part, he woke up that morning not expecting much of anything. So cute! Here he is below after his Dad totally loved using some of the new pieces to build a really cool train-track.
When we were younger (I don't even remember actually doing it) we all designed our own plates and then they were somehow laminated or something so we had them for a number of years. I know we did these at Christmas at some point because we always thought my Dad's plate was the coolest and it had some kind of a Santa on it, or something. Anyway, my parents got us this plate set for Sarah and Nathan and Jane to do some plates. Sarah was the only one that really did one on her own and it was pretty adorable as you can see above (it's a "kitty cat"). Nathan's was his hand traced, a little bird, and some clouds in the middle and then around the outside of the plate was some train track and then a bunch of the Thomas character's names as Nathan announced them. Jane's was cute too as it just had some stats about her being born and what she was currently doing (crawling, eating, nursing every three hours, getting bit by Nathan, talking, and some other stuff I can't remember). Anyway, we were really excited about these and the kids were excited to use them. However, unfortunately, it apparently wasn't a very good product as the dishwasher destroyed the finish on the plates the first time we ran them. We were really disappointed as we had carefully followed the directions :^( It was a really cute idea though!

The rest of our day was just spent with Mary and I playing some games and just enjoying relaxing. Last year we had these grand plans to cook this great dinner and then never got out of our jammies. So this year we changed course a bit and just did a whole bunch of appetizers. We made some really good stuffed mushrooms, had little smokies, cheese logs, wassail, and some other stuff. We just let the kids play all day and really enjoyed the day, though we terribly missed not being in W. WA with my family. However, we were grateful that we didn't plan on going because the weather certainly would've kept us at home. Anyway, we hope everyone had a wonderfully Merry Christmas! God Bless!

Thanksgiving 2008

Thanksgiving this year was so great! This is our second Thanksgiving/Christmas as a family away from our family and it was SO nice to have family visit us. We had my parents come from Seattle as well as my brother Braden, his wife, Amanda, and their son, Mason, from Utah. This is the first time we've been able to host a holiday like this since we've been married and we were so excited to have family visit and stay for a while. Oma and Opa arrived late Monday evening and stayed until Sat afternoon. Braden and Amanda came Wed evening and left late Sat morning. The food was wonderful, the conversation was great, the company was so fun... it was great. Here are some pics with some explanations if needed.



Here is a cute little decoration that Sarah made at a friends birthday party the other day.
Nathan loved cuddling with his Opa.

Nathan only gets his pacifier now if he is going to sleep or going to have his own quiet time with his blanket and bear either by himself or cuddling with someone. Opa was the perfect willing target! For the first couple of days after Oma and Opa left, whenever Nathan would wake up from a nap or bed he would ask "where's Opa?" or "cuddle with Opa". Opa you're welcome back anytime.

Sarah enjoyed helping Oma make the Multi-Berry pie and it's topping. I enjoyed eating it with ice-cream! [I'm not a big pie fan at all, but with ice-cream, I can enjoy berry or apple pie anytime... especially warm... mmmmmm!]

Oma and Opa giving the kids some animal rides (the actual type of animal changes from moment-to-moment and I'm not really sure what they are at this moment)

It was cute to see Mason and Jane together. They are four months apart, but Mason is actually heavier then Jane. It was funny to see Mason laying there as a 3-month old and Jane full-on crawling around the house. Yes, Jane is full-on crawling. It was fun because she was just starting to crawl decently when Oma and Opa first got here and by the time they left she was going from one side of the house (Sarah's room) to the other (toy room). It's cute to have her just show up in a room behind us now.

Last year I was disappointed when I found out that the ward here doesn't do a "Turkey Bowl". But this year I was excited when our new Young Men's President issued a challenge between the Young Men and the adults. I was really glad that Dad and Braden came and played with me. The weather was amazing and we had a great time. I'm ashamed to admit that I was still noticeably sore on Sunday.

These are Sarah's Thanksgiving pictures that she colored (except for the one on the top-right which Mary did at Sarah's insistence). One of our friends asked if we were going to put Thanksgiving pics in the frames and we thought that was a great idea, so Sarah was excited to color them! They're really cute and she does such a good job!

Here is the spread: [L->R] Turkey, Mashed Potatoes, rolls, fruit-filled cool-whip salad, stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, gravy, pickle-olive tray and green bean casserole. Good stuff and it all tasted wonderful!

Here is our Thanksgiving table, with Sarah and Nathan just out of reach. They enjoyed having their own table, but didn't eat much of anything.

In spite of being a great daddy himself, Braden also made time to be a great Uncle for Nathan and Sarah as well. The kids enjoyed having them read books for them and play with them in other ways as well.

On Friday afternoon we headed over to my Aunt and Uncles house in Fruitland and had a grand old time with many of my cousins and other family members.

Mom made some of her amazing salsa. I wish that you could have an understanding of how big that bowl of salsa is. I'll just say that even though there were over 50 people there, it didn't all get eaten by the time we left. We still got to take some back with us and left some there with them. Mom was literally making this salsa for like three hours (while also doing other Oma things here and there). Amanda made some delicious guacamole and we made some yummy bean dip.

Here are Sarah and her cousin (2nd cousin? or something) Eli playing in the castle at the Farmer's house.

There was a big group of people that played flag football at the Farmer's on Friday evening as well. I was too sore to play but I enjoyed watching from the balcony pictured. We had a great time and it was great to see so many relatives.

We look forward to the Christmas gathering we are planning!

Easter Fun

Most other bloggers are able to get their posts up more quickly then I am... for me Sundays are the best times to get these posts on here, so my Easter post is a week later. Here you go:
We have church from 9 AM 'til noon so we did Easter baskets after church. The kids were plenty excited about finding them and then getting into the candy. We included a gift that they received in the mail from their great-Grandma (Mary's grandmother) in their baskets, they received a small bunny. They also got some candy, a new pair of jammies, and a small packet of pictures of temples for them to look at during church.
One of our Easter traditions is to have a little family meeting where we have a little "testimony meeting" wherein we talk to each other about what feel about Jesus Christ and his gospel. This was very enjoyable and Sarah was very proud of herself as she talked to us about how she knew that Jesus died for us and that he was resurrected. It was also nice to have a set apart family time where Mary and I could share with each other and with our kids (Nathan was in and out of the room) how we feel about Christ and his gospel.
We spent the rest of Sunday afternoon and early evening at a friends house having a nice Easter dinner with Turkey and all the other fixings. It was some good stuff and we enjoyed our time over there.

Here is Sarah after she found her Easter basket... she's pretty excited about it!
Here's Nathan and Sarah in their new jammies with their respective bunnies from their great-Grandmother. This is also a sneak peak at the new-improved Sarah and Jane room that Mary has been working on, which I will post about when she's finished.

We did Easter eggs on Saturday and Sarah enjoyed doing this. We did it while Nathan was napping.
Here is Nathan climbing up on his bed and discovering what this basket is doing and why everyone else is so excited.
He soon discovered what the excitement was about and dove right in!
Here is Sarah again, showing off her Easter basket!
Nathan is still digging in and really enjoying this situation.

St. Patty's Day

So here are some pics of our St. Patrick's Day dinner. We have dyed green spaghetti noodles (this pic is before the red spaghetti sauce was applied), green grapes, some green juice, cucumbers, green jello (no carrots), and green peas. The kids enjoyed the food and the fun!

Valentines Day

Even though Mary and I don't generally get into Valentines Day (see below), Sarah was greatly anticipating it, counting down the days for about two weeks. She knew that she had pre-school on Valentines Day and that she was going to be making Valentines for all of her classmates and was ecstatic enough about that, but then when her friend invited her to her Birthday Party (where they were supposed to dress up like Princesses!) on Valentines Day, Sarah could hardly wait. So we got a few little things and added them in with the little things that Oma and Opa had sent for Sarah and Nathan and that made for a fun little surprise for the both of them toward the end of the day. They both got coloring books and some candy from us as well as individually mailed cards and some candy from their Oma and Opa.

Nathan's t-shirt says "Li'l Heartbreaker"... so true!

After receiving the coloring book, Sarah went right to work and was plenty occupied for the next 1.5 hours, busily coloring pictures and showing them to us. She is getting quite good!

V-Day from Mary

Neither Mary or I are really that in to Valentines Day for each other, which means one of us often surprises the other. This year Mary surprised me, even though we had talked about not doing anything for each other. It was simple, inexpensive, and creative (all Mary hallmarks). By the time I decided to take a picture of this the orange slices had already been eaten so there are only strawberries in the picture. It was a nice little gift to come home to.

I'm really blessed to have such an amazing and loving wife who does SO much for me. Thanks Honey!

Pumpkin Carving

Okay, I'm figuring out what our adoring fans want: pics of the kids. As I looked through the blog today I noticed that only one post had comments (5 of them as of this publication) and it was also the only post that had pics of Sarah and Nathan. Coincidence? I think not! So, to please our obviously growing fan base here are some more pics and info on the real "Stars" of the family.

As one of our Halloween traditions we carve pumpkins for a family night. This year we got one pumpkin when Sarah went to the pumpkin patch with her Preschool and someone from Church gave us one out of her garden. We had a fun time carving the pumpkins! It was cute to see Nathan's face once we put a candle in the pumpkins and turned off the lights. He seemed so amazed and intrigued as he looked at his pumpkin that now looked strangely like it was some kind of animal or something. I really enjoyed watching him look at the pumpkins and he was pretty excited about the pumpkins once he saw what they could do. Sarah was pretty excited and could hardly wait to get the candles in the pumpkins. She was also excited about being able to stick her tongue out like her snake-o-lantern. Real cute Sarah! We also enjoyed sliced apples and caramel. Mmmmmmm.