Boy to Young Man

Dallin's first shave. Todd was on top of things and remembered to take pictures.

Gavin and Alaina's Birthday

Sunday Gavin, Alaina and I celebrated are birthday with the Hogman clan. This is my little girl who is surrounded by so many boys. Gavin's gift was the storm trooper gear, Alaina's was the snow white dress of course and as soon as she got the chance she combined the two.

Gavin currently loves lego's and he spent about a 1/2 hr. that night putting them together.

Alaina also got this adorable bear that sneezes and coughs and carried it around for days.
Alaina's cousins surrounding her and making sure she knows how everything goes.

I'm Baaack

So I don't know what my problem has been in posting, just procrastinating I guess. This was Gideon a little over a week ago in Florida the day he went to Disney World. Only kid in the Kestner household to go to a Disney Park. Too bad he won't remember any of it.

Pelicans perched on an old pier. No matter the day or the time you could always see them here.
View from the back porch of the house I stayed in. The back of the house was mostly windows as well so I would just sit and read and occasionally glance up and look at the beautiful scenery.
A picture taken at manatee springs. Yes I did get to see manatees and there is no way they were mistaken for mermaids. Even a love sick sailors couldn't possibly go as far as to see a beautiful women from a manatee. I also got to see a crocodile. Notice the turtles on the log.

Colds

Gideon has come down with his first cold. He is only the second of seven that made it two months before getting his first cold. Not bad considering he is the only child I've had during winter flu season. Of course I am now coming down with his cold, bummer.

Chores

So with the new baby I'm having a harder time keeping on top of the housework. Amazingly the new baby seems to have the same effect on my boys because they just can't seem to do anything either. I'm sure the Wii has nothing to do with it.

After much thought I decided to give the boys two options. First they could opt out of doing chores and spend every waking moment in their room so as not to mess up the house for the rest of us or second they could do the chores assigned them and do them well and get an allowance for their effort.

Today they all unanimously decided on the second option. I am currently sitting in a clean vacuumed house and all I needed to do was take care of baby, clean kitchen, fold laundry and make dinner. Success! We will see how long it lasts and if we can afford to continue to give them an allowance.

Gideon's blessing

We had Gideon blessed today. It was a beautiful blessing. Ingela came over a couple days before to take some blessing pictures. I thought she did an amazing job!! I will post some of the other pictures later.

Hangover Scramble

January 1st Todd participated in a fun event at the Washougal Motorcross Track. He got very muddy and spent about an hour and a half going around a 3 mile track twice.

Clean bikes.
Prepped and ready for the mud.
Dirty bike, dirty Todd.