Goodbye 2011, Hello 2012!

We didn't get a pictures or a newsletter out at Christmas time, but January's not too late right? Last year was  a great and crazy year! In January Ray started school at ECPI where he was training to become a medical assistant on the road to eventually become a physician's assistant.
February is always a big month because along with Valentines Day we have Ray's birthday and my birthday. Ray went all out for Valentines and sent me on a scavenger hunt that involved going to the mall and getting Godiva chocolate and earrings, going to Ruth's to get a teddy bear and coming home to Canilones for supper, that he had made from scratch, sweet guy.
Then in April Raegan had her first birthday, the poor girl had a fever and cried when we tried to get her to eat some cake. She felt better after a couple bites, a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down! Raegan and I had a great time out at Liz's wedding with everyone else, and we were so happy to see that Tanner and Ray were taken care of by friends.

The Summer brought a move to a new apartment and a new ward, which we're pretty much used too. It was fun having Liz and Jess live here for a couple months. Even though it was rough for them we were glad to get to spend time with them. We went on lots of adventures over the Summer, the biggest of which was a camping trip to Hanging Rock National Park for the Fourth of July. The best parts: hiking to see waterfalls and the view of a beautiful valley, eating s'mores, helping daddy put up the tent, and watching the kids get super dirty! The not so fun parts: sleeping in a hot tent with a toddler, taking an hour to make breakfast, and having to pack up after a morning of hiking.

In August Ray decided being a physician's assistant was not what he wanted, so he finished at ECPI and we applied to BYU and BYU-I. At the end of September was Tanner's third birthday and we had a big fire truck party complete with a tour of a fire station and a really cool (if I may say so myself) fire truck cake. We enjoyed the rest of the Fall with things like Ethan's Baptism, going on walks, Halloween and visits from Dave and his roommate Mike.

Thanksgiving was pretty good until Ray got sick halfway through the day and we ended our night in the emergency room because of his extreme pain and vomiting. We've known since March 2010 that he has Crohn's disease and our working on getting him in to see a specialist. He has being doing okay since then. 

We ended the year with a going home for Christmas to Mom and Dad's in Pennsylvania. With Liz's help and their hard work the house looks great, and they have more changes planned for the future. It was fun to be home and have a small, quiet Christmas; just what the doctor ordered.
We still are waiting to hear if Ray got into BYU, and should know by the end of February. We are making plans to move to Provo in April. We love you all very much and miss you. We will be sad to leave Ruth and Adam, but grateful as well to live closer to everyone out west. We hope you all have a wonderful 2012 and we'll see you soon!

Tanner's 3rd Birthday

So we had a blast throwing Tanner a fire truck themed party for his third birthday. I really like to plan parties and events so I started preparing for the party three weeks out. I was just as excited as Tanner for this party...Ok may be a little more so, because I had set up a tour at our local fire station and a party at the park afterwards. I lost a little of that excitement as the day for his party got closer and we had to move the party back to our house because of rain. I also decided to make a somewhat ambitious cake that would would take some time to make, which I was planning to spread out over a couple nights. But that didn't happen, so Ray and I stayed up till 2am the night before that party decorating and making the cake.

I got the idea and design for the cake from coolest-birthday-cakes.com. I started with an 11' by 15' cake that I cut down the middle and then cut two inches off the one end.

 I stacked the two big halves on top of each other and then placed the two inches pieces side by side to make the cab of the truck.

 While I worked on the cake, Ray blew up fifty balloons, just for fun!

 I had to do two layers of red frosting, a crumb coat, and then a cleaner one on top. I made two batches of red colored butter cream , two white and one white that I made black, gray and yellow out of.

 I had some major hands cramps when I finally decided tp put it in the fridge and put the rest of the details on in the morning.

 Here's our "Pin the Tail on The Dalmation" poster that we used for one of our games.

 Ray put up lots of streamers, he kept himself busy so he could stay up with me. Sweet guy.

We started the tour in the lobby where they had the kids watch a funny fire safety video. Then the firemen had them play some "Stop, Drop and Roll".

 As the firemen started showing us his gear he casually added that if we had any questions to just raise our hands. Well Tanner did, several times, lol just to ask "he and his friends have the fire man stuff now". Well that's what I understood, the fireman barely caught a word.

 Tanner and some of his friends who wanted to be in the picture.

That was one heavy coat.

 Kayla almost kneeing Tanner in his fire hose ;)

 Surprisingly not many firemen fit in the cab, even the little ones.

 The whole gang in front of the big fire truck.

 At the end of the tour they all got hats and badge stickers. Tanner was one happy guy!

 Then it started pouring down rain, so we all rushed back to our house.

 It was hot dogs, chips, cheese, carrots and apples for lunch.

After taking ten minutes to arrange the kiddie in a circle lol we had a couple rounds of hot potato before we lost their attention.

 Tanner's first reaction to the cake was to touch it.

 His little face says it all! It was a complete surprise!

 He got a fire truck, some cars, puzzles and other toys. I he didn't know what to play with first.

The best present was his first real Lightening McQueen Bike complete with a shark helmet that he picked out himself. We took him out for a bike ride the later that day and he got the hang of it right away. It was a really fun day and we're so happy Tanner is a part of our Family!

Labor Day

 I've been wanting to take an updated family picture for a little while but we just haven't had the time. So we went on Labor Day to the NC University Gardens. It was around noon and we hadn't eaten lunch yet, Raegan was ready for a nap, and it was really muggy outside. We tried taking the pictures ourselves since Ray has a nice camera with a tripod, but the whole back running to get in the picture thing didn't really work. So it wasn't the funniest family outing, nor did we get really great pictures but it's okay. We'll probably try again at Christmas time.

Where's August Gone?

Did anyone else feel like this month just flew by? Not that I'm complaining, I'm very ready to say goodbye to the heat and say hello to my favorite season of all...the Fall. It has the best weather, activities, holidays, food, clothes and my favorite memories from Pennsylvania.
Tanner's birthday is also in the Fall, we want to get him a real bike, that way he can stop just scooting himself along on his tricycle and learn how to pedal. I think once he gets the hang of it we want be able to get him off of it. He's very excited about his birthday and talks about wanting a fire truck party, a party at the park or riding on roller-coasters. I'm not sure where he got the roller-coasters from...

Hey Family and Friends

I thought I would start a blog to let you all keep in touch with our family. I will try to keep up with postings and pictures and I hope you will all share your thoughts with us. We love you and hope you enjoy it!