Our BIG 4 year old

Kyler turned 4 years old on December 27th 2009! He is getting to be such a big boy. He is all into Super Hero's these days, so he picked a batman cake and wore his wolverine costume (from Santa) all day. His birthday was on a Sunday, so we went to church and when we got home we opened presents and had cake and ice cream. He got a new piece to his Geo Trax from Grandma and Grandpa Stowell, a superman cape and super heros from Grandma and Grandpa Anderson, money from Grandma and Grandpa Wankier, which he spent on wolverine claws, and a leapster from Bryn, mom and dad! Thanks everyone for helping to make it a wonderful day for him. We wish we could have had all our family with us to help celebrate, but the phone calls and gifts were wonderful.


Kyler,
We want you to know how important you are to our family. We love you so much and appreciate all your energy and love for life. Right now you LOVE all the super heros. Especially Wolverine, Spiderman, Batman, and Superman. You love to watch the TV shows and movies and the super hero squad toys are your favorite. You LOVE to dress up and fight the "bad guys". You love to wrestle with your dad, especially in the morning, and every time I walk in the room or pass you, you say, "Mom, I love you so much." You always rub my kisses in, and love to give BIG hugs. You miss Bryn so much while she is at school, and love when she gets home and you get to play with her. You love sports, especially basketball, soccer and tennis. You have learned lots of new words (mostly from your dad), and we love to hear you say them: Frustrated, "This is so frustrating", Good Grief, "Oh my grief"(you forgets the word "good"), Give me a chance, "come on, give me a chance"(You say this anytime you want something), ridiculous, "Don't be ridiculous" GPS, "GPRS" And anytime you are telling a story you start out with , "Just so you know," You still have your friend Joseph Smith, however a couple days ago you told me that he was no longer a super hero. Apparently someone stole his cape! Joseph Smith goes everywhere with us, and now when you talk to him, you use another voice to answer for Joseph Smith. This has made it easier for me to know what he is saying! You love the color blue and red, mostly because you call them the spiderman colors, so any color you see or have you associate with a super hero. Green is the Hulk, yellow is Wolverine, and Red is Iron Man.
Kyler, you are such a good boy and help remind me to laugh everyday. You talk about non-stop all day, and I LOVE to hear all your stories! We love you so much!
Love,
Mom

Thanksgiving/Niagara Falls

I know I already posted about Thanksgiving, but I just found these pictures and wanted to post them along with the untold story of my previous post about Thanksgiving!!
Like I said before we had an AWESOME time. The kids had so much fun playing together and being able to see each other again as well as being able to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa. Thanks Lee and Jandi for letting us come and spend the weekend!
We did some sightseeing while we were there. One trip as I mentioned was to Niagara Falls. We took two cars so we could all fit. In one car was Grandma and Grandpa and Bryn and Mason. In Lee and Jandi's van was starting in the third row: Jandi, Ethan and Kyler, middle row: Erick and Lincoln, and I was shotgun with Lee driving. We were following the GPS and it actually took us to the Canada side of Niagara Falls. This wouldn't have been a problem if we had a passport for everyone, or better yet if Lee would have had his Drivers License!
So we were following the GPS and by the time we figured out we were headed into Canada we couldn't turn around. So we waited in the line to get to the booth where you show your passport. We tried to explain we didn't want to go to Canada and we just needed to turn around. However, they wouldn't let us just turn around. After lecturing Lee for about 5 minutes about not having his drivers license, he sent us through and into the immigration office. There we explained again what had happened and they wanted to see everyone's ID. They were very quick and filled out a paper listing all the riders in each vehicle. They told us to give the paper to the US officer as we exited. So we get in the lane to leave Canada and hand in our paper. Then the lecture comes again about why Lee doesn't have his license. However, this time I am driving, so we aren't getting the lecture about driving without an ID, just not having it with us. In the car next to us, the officer was very confused as to why my mom and dad had Bryn and Mason, and where their parents were. It was a little stressful for a few minutes, but makes for a great story :) And we can all feel safe in knowing that they don't just let anyone through!



It was a little chilly as you can tell! There were actually a few snow flakes falling right when we got out of the car.

Gingerbread Train

This year for Christmas we decided to start a tradition of making a ginger bread "something"! We found this idea for a train and thought it was perfect since it had 4 cars. We each picked a car and assembled and decorated it. It was a lot of fun. Kyler wanted to use ALL the M&M's and Bryn loved the starlight mints. It took about two days since the ginger bread needed to be refrigerated overnight and then we cut out all the pieces and baked them the next day and then still had to let them cool. It was a challenge of our patience, but worth the time!

Christmas

WE had a wonderful Christmas this year. Kyler asked for a ladder and a Wolverine Costume and Bryn asked for jewelry and a radio. We were able to go sit on Santa's lap at a store in Frankenmuth. It is about 20 minutes from Saginaw and they have the World's Largest Christmas store that is open almost everyday of the year except Christmas day. We went down with Craig and Ralna and their family. It was a really fun night. Santa was a little on the skinny side, so on the way home Kyler wanted to know why he wasn't a "fat Santa" we decided we should have plenty of cookies and milk for santa because he needed to plump up a little bit.
The kids were so excited on Christmas Eve, we went over to the Wade's house and had a great time. we spent most of the evening with them and then headed home to our traditional movie on Christmas Eve. Kyler got his ladder and Wolverine Costume, and Bryn got an idog to go with her ipod which was the perfect radio for her. She also got some Jewelry and a desk with scrapbook supplies. They were both so excited and had such a great day.

'Let's Climb That Mountain and Sleigh'

According to the big man in our house, Kyler, we have a HUGE mountain in our backyard. It's not one of those with base camp, but it is large (at least 4 feet high). Currently, there is about 3 inches of snow/ ice on it which makes it a perfect place to play. Bryn and Kyler both love it outside, even in a blizzard, just like their Dad, but on this day, it was only Kyler that made the trek to the summit of our mountain.

ARE YOUR FINGERS PRUNY YET?

Bryn's second swim meet was a lot of fun. She did the 25 and 50 meter freestyle again and the 25 meter backstroke. She is definitely not as competitive as her dad, but her form is great! She is still the youngest swimmer on her team, and loves it. She has worked really hard on her start, again form is incredible. We are so proud of her.

Our BIG announcement and a quick update

We are very excited to announce that baby number 3 is on the way!!!

The due date is June 11th, and as of now we are not planning to find out the sex, however, we'll see what happens when we have the ultrasound ;)
I am 14 weeks along and have been pretty sick again.
This time around I have not been able to drink anything with carbonation, or eat anything with beef. I haven't really craved anything, at least not yet, I am still just trying to eat anything that doesn't make me run to the bathroom.
The kids have been great, Kyler prays every night that I will feel better soon, and Bryn is always asking me if she can help me so I can go rest.

By way of an update:
Erick has now finished 5th semester and is preparing for the first set of National Board Exams. We are just planning to stay here in Michigan while he prepares for the exam and while we wait for the results. At this point it doesn't look like we will be able to stay here in Michigan as we had originally hoped. The program here only begins every September, and we can't wait for September before we get started on the next phase.
So, after Erick gets the results from his Step Exam, we will find out where we will be living for the next two years during which time Erick will complete the third and fourth year of medical school which consists of rotations in family medicine, pediatrics, psychology, surgery, internal medicine, OB-GYN, and then any electives that he is interested in exploring. This is the point where students try to narrow down the different areas of medicine and try to figure out what they want to go into.
The kids are doing great, Bryn had her second swim meet on Saturday ( stay tuned for video of that soon!) Kyler is signed up for basketball and is VERY excited for that to start. Bryn has started an accelerated reading program at school, she gets a book at the beginning of the week and she reads it every night until Thursday and then she takes a test on it. Last week was her first week doing it, and she got 100% on the test. She was so excited when she got home from school to show us.
We have had the swine flu as well as the regular flu at our house, so we are hoping to avoid any other bugs this season.
We also had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We drove over the Pennsylvania to Lee and Jandi's house. My parents were able to come out and we had a great time. Thanksgiving was great, and then we drove to Niagara Falls and did some sightseeing in Erie. The kids had so much fun playing with cousins and getting to see Grandma and Grandpa again. My parent took ALL the kids to have a sleep over one of the nights and Lee, Jandi, Erick and I played Guitar Hero most of the night. It was so fun to have a night like that, thanks mom and dad!
Things have been busy, and now we are just getting ready for Christmas!