The past few months

I'm going to sum up the last few months (okay - six).

August
Murray Family Reunion- Aunt Paul and Nancy were incredible hosts, and my family and I went on our first camping trip. We can't wait to go on more.




We found out we were expecting our last child. This is our grand finale and we already know that this is a very amazing kid that is going to bless our family and continue to help me heal from the grief of my dad's passing a few years ago.


September
Kindergarten: Jacki was so excited to start school at Majestic Elementary that I couldn't even feel sad about it. I can't believe how much faster the days go by with her in school everyday- even though it's half day. By the way, short day is so short, we drop her off, exercise with the neighbors, and it's time to pick her up. Tom tom falls asleep almost every day on the way home from picking her up.

Ty is serving as scout master and wanted to check out the Dugway Geode Pits, so we took a family Saturday adventure in the jeep. We rode on the Pony Express Trail. It got bumpy, and the kids liked hearing their voices vibrate. We found a few geodes, and the kids had a good time getting dirty. Ty took his scouts there the week after we went, and they found a ton of geodes. They found the spot that had been dug out by a backhoe.


Tommi is down to one nap, and he takes it whenever he can. His Grandma Paula came over, and dropped something off. She told me to come look at Tomtom.
We are trying to do an annual bike ride around Bear Lake (about 50 miles). I made it halfway this year, and that was plenty. Steve has been biking a lot, and it was fun to go with him. He finished it with Ty after Paula and the kids picked me up. I was grateful that he could do the whole thing with Ty so that I didn't have to this year. With the pregnancy, I wasn't able to train like I wanted to, but I wanted to do something, so it worked out great.

The highlight of my month was a taking a trip down to Fort Worth to stay with the Gibsons. I got to meet baby Jude and spend quality time with Meg, Zach, Andi, Jude, and Rach and Jord. They were so nice to come up from Houston to spend time with us. I started feeling better about this time and ate the biggest hamburger I've ever eaten. We went to their awesome zoo. We got to see Baby Jude get blessed. This is the only picture I have of him in Uncle Parker's blessing outfit. He pooped through it while I was holding him after the blessing. Jord said the poop blended right in with my multi-colored dress. I'm pretty used to things like that by now. I've said many times that we remember the spare outfit for the babies, but should bring one for us too. I really got to connect with Meg and become closer as sisters. We weren't that close growing up, and I really treasure our friendship now. Zach was very kind to me, and they were great hosts. I loved my time with them and cried to leave those babies. Ty took off work to watch my kids. Mom helped one day. I'm so grateful for that trip.


October

We went to Layton to see Parker finish his first marathon. We didn't get to see him do it because he did it faster than we thought (sorry to underestimate you Park.) He was amazing and got an award in his category. He did have trouble walking afterwards. I've included a picture of Tommi napping. Like I said before, he loves his nap.
We went to Bear Lake with the Cravens for conference weekend. We love going up there that time of year and decided to take family pictures with the tripod. That took a long time and was a mission impossible. I've included our best shots.

Halloween- we all went trick or treating. Not too many trick or treaters were coming to our house, and I've missed out going with the kids the last few years as I've stayed home with the baby to hand out candy. We had so much fun. The Craven party is always a blast.


I got to go to my mission reunion. Here are some of my great companions. I loved seeing them. I got to see Seely too, but didn't get her picture. I"m so glad I got to go.


November
Ultrasound- The day before Thanksgiving Ty and I got a babysitter for the kids and went to Utah Imaging to have an ultrasound done. We saw the baby cross her legs (k I just gave away the sex.) But we almost didn't get to find out the sex for sure. I could tell that the Ultrasound technician thought it was a girl because she didn't see boy anatomy, but she couldn't see girl anatomy either until the very end. I am absolutely positive that she is supposed to come to our family. After Tommi, I thought we were done having kids but when he was about six months, I knew there was a little girl still coming to our family. I'm 26 weeks pregnant and have a good belly. We are going to name her Chole or Kasey Rhees. Jord and Park and I were doing some after Christmas shopping at Downeast, and they were selling nice stockings for cheap that had monogrammed names. I have been using Walmart special stockings, so I wanted to get these for the family. I called Ty and asked him to decide which name we were going to use so that I could get stockings for last year. He didn't want to decide right then, so I bought both- not like me to splurge, but Jord talked me into it since it was a dollar. "It's only a dollar Nat, just buy both." We saw some very unique names. Jord is going to name his first born Thonetta!!! Baby is very active, just like her sister.



Thanksgiving- We went to the Craven Family for Thanksgiving. It was delicious. We love to go to the cabin the day after Thanksgiving. (So, you've probably noticed we just love to go to the cabin and are so grateful to have access to it. Thanks Cravens.) There was plenty of snow up there. Ty shoveled while we drank hot chocolate. It was cold. Tommi got to try his first icicle. It was relaxing. We watched old movies. One I had never seen was Who's mining the mint. The roads were bad on the last stretch, but overall not too bad.


My girl pregnancies have been very similar. I got sick with this one too. I stopped exercising for a couple of months and was going to give up until after the baby. I decided that I could do something though. One morning I walked on the treadmill. Ty heard the humming and came down. He thought the furnace had gone out. "I thought you were done exercising until the baby comes," he said. Since then, I have joined some ladies from the stake who exercise at the church. The boys run around the gym. They were fussy at first but have adapted well. I'm very grateful to those ladies. They are very cute with the boys.


December
Temple square- We met up with Cole and Kara. Our sister in law "Aunt Kara" showed us some of the trees she worked on this Christmas season down at temple square and told us about the designers and what goes on behind the scenes....amazing. She helped carry the kids too. We left the stroller in the car in the rush to make the train. Ty really enjoyed hanging out with his brother Cole. We lost Jacki in one of the visitor centers. Cole found her. Actually, she found him. He just sat down until she came to him- good strategy. We also ran into Paula and Steve who were there to see our niece Lauren perform in a dance in the MoTab Christmas concert. We always love to see them, and were amazed that they saw us in the crowd- must have been our height.

Ogden Village- We can't miss seeing all the neat houses at the Ogden Christmas Village. We didn't make it before Christmas, but it was still up, so we went for family home evening on the 26th. We got there early enough that it wasn't freezing yet. When it started to get freezing, we went home and had some spiced chai drink that they make at Ty's work. The kids loved it.

January
We went to the Children's museum for their New Year's Eve Party. They count down to 12 noon. This is my kind of New Years Eve party. We haven't ever gone before. Grandma Judy gave the kids a year membership, and this party was included for free. (A lot of their special events are extra.) The kids had so much fun. The highlight was the magician show. Tom tom loved it. He clapped at everything. He was clapping almost nonstop. Jacki was very into the show. The magician said that he empties his vase once a day, and he would empty it completely. He did that about 10 times, and she really got riled up, "You've already done it four times." She kept track. Wessie was tired, and he sat on my lap, but when Maggie the bunny came out, he perked right up. She was a hand puppet, and the magician interacted and talked with her. Wessie laughed a lot. Ty loved the rings, and the closing act- the magician swapped the umbrella cover with handkerchiefs without even touching the umbrella. It was actually wrapped up in newspaper.



Jacki loves singing at kindergarten. They had a Christmas program. She was so cute- although I didn't get the paper saying they were to wear red and green until a few days later (which is pretty typical. I even asked her if they were supposed to wear anything special.) She did have some red on. The boys are wild ones. Here's a pic of them trying to swing from the light. Jacki and Ty built a gingerbread sled and house. He's so good to do projects with her.

January

The kids have been saying funny things. Jacki is getting quite the vocabulary and asked me what attached meant. I told her, and she said she needed to attach her new ctr ring to her finger. She has some attitude, "How about I do this." "Um, excuse me mom."

Tommi's favorite word is no. Even when he means yes he says no. Right now he just got a cookie and got a happy gleam in his eye.

Wes took all the laundry I put on the couch and threw it. He told me he was having a snow fight with clothes.

They keep me busy. The other day when I got Tom tom out of bed, he was covered in poop. He likes to get into his diaper. He had it in his hair down to his toes, on his bed, wall floor. Wes pointed out, "There's poop everywhere." Dear Trace Adkins, I will not miss this part of having little kids. We survived. I am going to miss a lot of things though. Yesterday Jacki snuggled up to Ty during scriptures, and Wild Wes was sitting by me. It was heaven. I'll miss Tommi's giggle and how excited he is to see normal things like lights. There's a million other moments I'm gonna miss, so I'll put up with the poop.