Time to catch up.

We've been sooo busy these last few months. So, where to begin?

We took a quick last minute trip to Utah for Thanksgiving. Spent time with family. During the fall semester we try to do what traveling we can before the snow begins since it's the semester Joe has off of school. This winter has been great for traveling. The snow really didn't start until about a month ago. Winter usually last close to 6 months around here. Making life super fun!

The kids and I took a trip to Boise around the beginning of December and we met up with my brother Kerry and later, my sister, Tyanna. My dad's house was pretty packed with all the kids there together. We survived. I made Joe take a shuttle out the Boise a few days later because I was in over my head with the kids and I didn't want to face the drive home by myself. :) So, I guess you can say I chickened out, I hate driving in the snow.

For Christmas we drove to Boise and flew the rest of the way to Seattle. We planned ahead this year for bad weather through the pass but turns out this would have been the year to drive. No snow in sight. While in Washington, my sister got the final okay on her new job in Boise and their packing began. Jimmy was accepted to Boise State University and the only thing holding them back was whether Tyanna was accepted for the job in Labor and Delivery. As soon as the Christmas presents were unwrapped, the moving boxes started getting filled. It was that quick. To help them out. Joe and Anderson opted to drive back to Boise, in one of their cars, instead of fly. It all worked out because we were spoiled for Christmas and had no idea how to get all our gifts back home with us on the plane.
Joe learned he's pretty good at driving a stick shift but not so good traveling with a cranky 2 year old, but they made it to Grandpa's house just fine.

The best part of our Christmas vacation is that we all had the 24 hour flu. Fist it was me, then Joe, then Anderson (Christmas eve night), then Kerry, grandma, and Jim. One after the other. It was bad.

When we got back to Rexburg, Uncle Matt was here visiting so that was fun to see him again.

It wasn't long until Anderson slipped and fell on his new 4-wheeler and had to go to the ER. He bit almost all the way through his bottom lip. They would have given him stitches but the doc said it would be so hard to put them in on a kid his age and he'd most likely just pop them open anyways. So Mr. Anderson had a fat lip for a few days. We couldn't possibly end the year without visiting the ER, now could we?

The start of the new year came and went, nothing exciting really.

Anderson has started Toddler lab on Campus at the University. He's loving it! We talk about how neat it is that he goes to the same school that daddy goes to (BYU-Idaho, that is).

Anderson found Joe's gorilla slippers and thought they were the coolest things~

Have I told you how very strange my Anderson is? Well here's proof. If this isn't OCD then I don't know what it is. He likes to organize things. Sometimes his organization doesn't make any sense but other times I can see what he's trying to get at. Here he's organized the chili cans. Go figure!

Joseph is going to school this semester. I wonder what life will be like when we won't refer to the sections of the year in semesters? If all works out Joe will graduate this fall, if he's accepted for Fast Grad. If so, December can't get here soon enough. But what happens after that, who knows? There's so much to think about and universities the apply to in the meantime for a master's program. Yay, more school! I'm thinking Boise State, Joe's thinking somewhere in TN.

Emmett is growing faster than we can keep up. He's crawling everywhere but he looks more like an inch worm when he crawls. It's not an army crawl and it's not a normal on-all-fours kinda crawl. He's strange. He just started pulling himself up to things. This is about the time I start getting nervous about the whole walking idea. He's getting there. He's getting 4 teeth in all at the same time right now, all on top too. He's been kinda cranky but that's expected. I would be too.

Not much is going on with me. In November I went to the doc because I just wasn't feeling right and after quite a few tests, I was diagnosed with Insulin Resistance or Pre-diabetes. I've been meeting with a nutritionist to help me learn how to adapt to my new lifestyle of eating and exercise. It's tough but I'm trying. The hardest part is remembering to eat often to rev-up my metabolism and finding time, with the kids, to exercise. I've always been in good health but after having Emmett my body had a hard time adjusting and that's when my insulin stopped working as well as it should. Diabetes runs in my family and it's been something I'm been watching for my whole life.