Football Fans Thru and Thu

Well, in my family there has always been a love for football and since my mom's Birthday is Feb 5th, it usually s right around the Super Bowl! So, my mom being as much of a party girl as I am, nearly insists on having a Super Bowl party every year. Her parties are ALWAYS a blast and everyone wishes they were invited....no joke. So lucky me, not only do I get to be here in NM for another of her famous parties, the chances are REAL good that Peyton Manning and the Colt's (my team) are going to be playing in the Super Bowl this year. I am SO excited!!! I found these jerseys at Wal-Mart for $5 and i couldn't resist. My brother Nathan plays for a semi-pro team and he let us borrow his helmet and his favorite football for some pics. Thanks Nathan.

The good and the bad!!!

Alright, bad news first. Leave it to my sweet little girl to be the one who slips in the tub and busts her chin open! Call me crazy, but I would so much rather it was one of my boys ending up with this scar for the rest of their lives. I just don't like it on her pretty face. Ok, that does make me horrible! I would never wish this on anyone!

These were taken about 10 minutes after she fell. I was able to get the bleeding to stop for a bit, at least long enough to get a picture for Clayton. I knew he would want to see. This is also the point where I was able to see that we definately needed to go to Urgent Care and get some stitches!

Leaving the Urgent Care center. She was a real trooper during the stitches. They strapped her completely down of coarse but she still fought for her life. Anyone who really knows Hannah (Claire), knows she's a squirmy fighter!!! Finally the nurses asked her if she could hold still just for a sec. She said, "Ok, sorry." Then the doc went to stitch her up and she flipped out!!! Moving, wiggling, screaming...all the while she is apologizing for moving. She did this like 6 or 7 times in a row before they were finally able to get 3 stitches in. They called it quits after that even though they would have liked 1 or 2 more. Overall, she did great. I couldn't have asked for more.

She has bandaid phobias so of coarse the bandaid didn't last very long. Here she is showing off her new "owie". Please ignore the awesome photography, like I said she is a wiggler. This is one of the few that weren't blurry.

Grin and bare it, just grin and bare it....

Good news time! Her hair is officially growing!!! This is such a huge step especially since she is a couple of weeks away from being 2. I had to show her curls off too. I love how they are forming into little ringlets. So beautiful!!!!

Oh, and she FINALLY smiles for a picture instead of winces! I am so, SO happy about that too!!

I know, I know....it's been 2 months!!!!! Well, apparently a lot happens in 2 months! To save a whole lot of time and space I am going to try to keep it short! After Clayton deployed we got on a hop to the best place in the world! Fairchild, WA. Wow! I loved it there. We were able to fly out on Nov. 2nd to WA, and then stayed there for 5 days with my good friend Cassie and her family. Above is Weston ready to land the plane in the cockpit with the pilots. He was beyond excited!
Below is Kaiden. Oh this kid.....he is ALWAYS cold! As we flew he mostly sat here attached to this heater. These tubes stream down throughout the plane and blow nice, hot air. Most people might keep it on their feet to warm up their toes. Not Kaiden.....he still wonders why we have to live in Alaska?! My poor Guam baby. If only he knew how much we love it there!!!!

Here is Hannah looking out the window for her daddy. She is positive that since he got on a plane the last time she saw him, he would be on this plane. It took her a while to figure out that he wasn't on our flight so then she began to look out the windows. She wasn't all that happy to see clouds. Go figure.

I don't have any pictures with my friend Cassie or her kids :( so now we move on to New Mexico at my parents house. This is all the kids with my dad just happy to watch "old man" tv. My dad was pretty happy to have them all right there!

We stayed in NM all the way thru Thanksgiving and had an awesome time. My older sister and her family of 8 came down from Utah to pig out with us. I left on December 1st to go and see 2 more of my most favorite people alive. First I went to Colorado Springs to see my friends Toni from Guam. i got to spend 4 days with her beautiful family. We had so much fun just being together! I loved it. Oh, did I mention I didn't have any of my kids with me???? Oh yes! I was a single and irresponsible person!! It was SO weird!

After Toni's I went to see my best friend from Jr. High and up, Melissa. Oh we had a blast too. Here are 2 pictures of us just being dorks.

After I spent 4 more days in Wyoming with Melissa, I flew back to reality and got to be a mom again. Believe it or not, I totally missed it. When I flew into the airport my parents, sister and kids picked me up at the airport and we drove straight from there to Utah. While we were there we had a birthday party for my recent 4 year old, kaiden. He was so happy to have a party with is cousins!

In Utah we also went to our extended families Christmas parties, we went sledding, did lots of Christmas shopping,.....and many other fabulous things!

Not too long after we got home Weston lost his first tooth! What the heck?!?!?! I was so excited for him, but at the same time so sad. he is just a baby.....

Kaiden and Grandpa Bodkin at the ward Christmas party.

Grandma Bodkin and Aunt Lilly (Clayton's beautiful baby sister!)-0Kaiden got a Birthday present in the mail from daddy! It was a remote control dune buggy! He thought it was the coolest thing EVER!!!!Claire helping to put up Christmas decorations. She was awfuly proud of herself can you tell??

And last but not least....Kaiden is just SO excited for Santa to come he can hardly stand it!!! I just love ths picture.

So this is almost everything leading up to our wonderful Christmas, I am going to have to make that a whole different post! We did have an awesome Christmas though. We got to Skype with Clayton so he was able to be apart of our morning. That meant a lot to me and the kids and I am sure it meant the world to him.

Our Halloween was "OUT OF THIS WORLD"

Well, we had a great time at our ward Halloween party. I am so proud of my kids costumes. I was having such a hard time thinking of just the right thing. My boys wanted to be knights again for the 3rd time ina row, and I didn't really want to go with that again. I knew if I didn't come up with something super awesome, it just wouldn't fly! Well, luckily I found Weston's astronaut costume and knew that this had to be his. Even if we didn't go with a family theme, he still had to be an astronaut. Then I thought of the space ship and with the help of Cindy it was sewn together just the way that I had imagined! Sorry, Kaiden. I didn't have a good shot of your costume all by yourself. I wish you could see the back of it! It has a tail fin and these really adorable "blast-off's" with fire coming out! SO COOL! Now Hannah I wanted to still be girly, but what a moon or a star?....boring! I decided an alien was the best way to go! I loved her little outfit. Notice her knobby bows too. I thought those were awesome! Cindy also whipped out her purple jumpsuit in a matter of an hour! She is so amazing!!! Thanks Cindy for your help. So really now, aren't my kids costumes just out of this world?!?!

Here is a video of them "gettin down". Poor Weston is SO not flexible, but hey, you can see Kaiden's full costume in it! Hannah wanted to, but I think she got scared and bailed right at the last moment.

Clayton is officially deployed!

On Wednesday, the 21st Clayton took his first flight of many to leave for his deployment. We all of coarse went to the airport and they check-in counter employees were so kind. They offered to give my kids and I all a visitors pass to go past security to the gate with Clayton, so we could wait with him and spend that last little bit of time with him. It was so sweet and so special. I am mostly posting these pictures so Clayton can see them so I hope you like them too. I just find moments like these perfect. Yeah, there is the sadness and tears, but the power behind each hug and kiss captured in a picture seems to make it all ok. I love to see my husband holding our children like he never wants to let them go. That is just so sweet to me and so intimate too.
He would have taken Hannah in his back pocket if he could have. Not that he wouldn't have taken us all, but Hannah just loves and adores him and it is heartbreaking to know what pain she is going to face with out her special daddy. He is her world and her life and he is the only one that brings out her true happiness. I am totally ok with that, I have 2 boys, I understand their connection.

Clinging on to Kaiden and Kaiden holding on so tight right back. He is taking this the worst out of all of us so far. As far as Kaiden understands and knows, daddy is going to help out in the war. War to him is Lamanite Armies, Stripling Warriors, Nephites and all the battles that we read about and the Living Scripture movies that we let them watch. Kaiden just doesn't understand that his daddy won't have a sword or a gun and be on the front line defending his life. Clayton is going to be in an office doing his everyday contracting job with all the paperwork that it entails. I bet he would rather be holding the sword and shield though, probably a whole lot more fun!

Weston on the other hand does understand that he won't see his daddy for a LONG time. He is a lot like me in the sense that when something inside his heart is hurting, he doesn't want to face it. He pulls away and turns his head and tries not to think about it. Clayton and him have had a HUGE bonding experience recently so I think this was super tough on poor Weston. I am just waiting for his meltdown.

Daddy and the kids right before it was time for him to board. He was showing them his plane out the window.

Clayton we love you and miss you and hope that you have tons of fun! We can't wait to be all together again and have you back in our arms and in our home. See you in 6 months!

Family Pictures in the Fall

I think they turned out almost PERFECT. I would love to have a cute, smiley one of Hannah, but that is an impossible task so....I am thrilled with these pictures. I didn't really know I wanted "fall" family pictures, but it seemed to be the cool thing going on around here so I jumped in on the band wagon and I am so happy that we did. Thanks again Karla for such an awesome photo shoot. We love looking at these memories already :).

Positive, happy memories of this past summer

We woke up this morning to a nice and beautiful blanket of snow. I am beyond sad when it comes to the snow. I do love snow, it is beautiful and it reminds me of Christmas time, but I am just not ready for it yet. It is only the middle of September for crying out loud! Either way, I found myself reminising of this summer. I had such an amazing summer! I haven't been able to share much because of my camera (or lack there of), so I thought I would go down memory lane for a bit. Maybe give you something to wish for next summer!
I am apologizing now for the order of the pics. I have been uploading for over an hour and I am just ready for bed.

Some pics of white water rafting. I went alone on a weekend getaway to Denali with a group of girls. It was SO much fun. This is a raft "high five" and we are "drifting" in glacial meltoff. I think the water temp was just above freezing. Yes, it WAS cold.

My kid-os love playing at the park. We have the best park on base across the street from my house, it is perfect.

Girls camp. Oh these are some of my Mia Maids. I miss them. I am now the Primary Chorister, which I do love too, but this pic just makes me miss my girls.

Mmmmm, popsicles.

More Denali rafting pics. These are all the girls that went and stayed over night.

My first REAL run. It is the midnight sunrun which is a 10k. My time was 58:09!

Clayton dipnetting for some salmon! Go, baby GO!

The first of MANY!!!!!!

Park time in Valdez, AK when we went camping with the Gerwig family.

What 1 year old can do this by themselves? She climbed all the way up there over and over and over again. She is fearless. She scares the living tar out of me too! Apparently I must have been pretty bad as a child to deserve this kind of stuff.

bubbles, definately a summer time treat.

Our family at a minor league hockey game. I sang the National Anthem for it.

Valdez pictures. Most were taken on our glacier and wildlife cruise we went on,

Clayton deep sea fishing for Halibut.

Valdez's Bridal Veil waterfall.

We spent at least 2 days a week at the "fake beach" this summer. My kids got VERY tan for being Alaskans.

Clayton and I went canoeing with the ward.

I had baby birds living in my dead plant. It hung right in front of my front door, but I couldn't move it because of the nest. I was SO thrilled to watch my babies grow. The went from hatched to flying in about 3 weeks. It was much faster than I would have expected.

googles. only in the summertime.

mmmm, corn on the cob. it's the best in the summer

train rides.

beach bum

ice cream

more park time

chitina river. a.k.a. the best salmon fishing spot!all the hard work payed off! this is the best food ever.

RASPBERRIES!

riding bikes on 2 or 4 wheels

Denali National Park

Clayton and his dads moose hunting spot. Hmmm, I forgot a picture of the moose. That is another good thing about the summers! And of coarse, 4 wheeler rides.