What We've Been Doing

It's been a while since I have given an update of what we all have been doing:

Austin: He is just getting to be such a big, smart and fun little boy.  He is really into being silly right now and loves to give goofy faces and make up words.  He still loves cars, trucks, and trains and loves to play traffic (setting up cars in a big long line bumper to bumper).  He has just transitioned to stop taking naps.  This has definitely been hard for me! Without that little time to myself I feel like by the end of the day I get very impatient quickly and run out of things to entertain him. But we will adjust.  He is such a good big brother and loves to play with Kensley.

Austin's preschool group.

Kensley: She is also transitioning with naps She is doing down to one nap instead of two.  This has been much easier for me since now we have our mornings available to do anything! At her recent check up we learned she is 90% for height and 50% for weight.  She usually just wants to be doing whatever Austin is doing.  This girl can also eat!  She usually out eats Austin during dinner and always takes snacks as if she hasn't eaten in days!  She is such a fast crawler but hasn't even thought about taking a step on her own.

Loves the iPad

 Loved the water painting at the children's museum

Matthew:  He is in rotations right now.  Most of them have been podiatry but he has also been in a neurology  rotation and currently he is in a general medicine.  These have given him lots of experience and he is learning lots but it's also quite draining for him.  Sometimes he has long hours and other times he surprises us by coming home early.  His 4th year rotations start in May.  These month long rotations are an even bigger deal than this past year of rotations because these will basically be month long interviews for where we want to go to residency. And they are also nationwide. We are preparing for a crazy 4th year of med school.

Shanna:  Keeping busy with 2 cute kids, daily cleaning and to-do lists and a calling in young womens. I have also been doing some crafting and sewing when I can fit it in at night.   And no pictures of myself because I am usually the one behind the camera!

Some of our recent events:

Getting stickers while grocery shopping

Playing with iPads one morning

Valentines Day.  Matthew's parents happened to be in town for that one day and Matthew had a later shift. We were able to go out on a nice morning date and then he came home with flowers. :)

Went to the pool for the first time this season.   The water was quite chilly so we played in the sand instead.

 Snack time at the little table.  Austin loves to help feed Kensley and she loves to be involved in whatever he is doing. 

Going for a walk. This is a daily event. We all love to get outside right now while it is so nice out.

Nothing too exciting but that is what we have been up to.

Birthday Girl

Kensley turned one on January 29th.  I can't believe my little baby girl is one now! Matthew was still out of town for her birthday but Austin and I celebrated with her.  Austin helped her open presents in the morning and then later in the day we made cupcakes together and decorated them with frosting and sprinkles.  We sang happy birthday to Kensley and let her have her very first one.  She really had not had any type of sweets until then so I wasn't sure what she was going to do with it.  At first she just poked at the frosting but once she realized she could eat it she dug in.  She loved it and wanted more once hers was finished!

 I feel like she has just grown up so fast these last few weeks.  Here are some of the things we love about her right now:
-She's always willing to give us hugs.
-She loves books and always begs us to read to her
-She has the craziest baby teeth I have ever seen. They are all so crooked! I mean really crooked. And I'm not sure if she has 7 or 8 teeth because two of them are conjoined. Two of her bottom teeth are connected. The dentist says he sees that in babies about once a month or so.  It could mean that she might only have 3 permanent bottom teeth instead of 4.  When she gets a little older we will be able to tell in an xray.
-She has been learning sign language and can sign more, all done, water, ball, sleepy and cat.
-She is a super fast crawler. She loves to walk along furniture but hasn't even thought of trying to let go and walk by herself.
-However, she is a climber! Austin wasn't much of a climber but this little girl can get up on anything.
-Some of her favorite things to do are peekaboo, dancing to songs, and putting things into a bowl.
-She gives a cute cheesy smile that we all love!
-She takes two naps during the day and is sleeping through the night perfectly!
-Most of the time her priority is to get whatever Austin is holding or playing with.  Poor guy, always trying to play until she comes and wrecks it all.
-She loves ducks and always points them out when she sees them.
-Her first words are duck and dada.
-She always giggles when we take off her clothes and crawls to the bathtub. She loves bath time and is a splasher.

Pointing to the ducks

 So glad this little ball of joy is part of our family!

January

For the whole month of January, Matthew was in Washington doing a podiatry rotation. So with me and the kids being in Texas for New Years, we decided to stay awhile.  I am not a fan of being a single parent so staying with my family was a great distraction.  Austin loved having new and different toys to play with, Kensley mastered going up and down the stairs, and I got to hang out with my parents and little sister.  We were able to chat on facetime with Matthew most nights.  I really didn't take that many pictures, but really we mostly played and enjoyed our time with family.  My parents were so nice to help out when I needed it.

A couple of days it warmed up enough to go and jump on the trampoline

 If that wasn't fun enough, we then got to fly to Kansas to spend some time with Jenna and her family. We, of course, had a great time and the cousins had a blast.

 Making sugar cookies!

 Practicing some baseball with Jenna

Then after a month of being gone we finally came back home.  The process however was not a fun day.  Two flights with a layover in between and flying alone with two kids was not my favorite.  Kensley screamed and fussed the whole first flight and Austin had an accident on the airplane right as we were landing.  I had extra underwear on hand but no pants and he was wet to the knees. My only saving grace was that our layover was in Dallas and my dad planned on meeting us there to bring us some dinner.  Thank goodness for my dad. He saved the day.  He helped us get to our new terminal, got us dinner and found Austin some new pants at a Dallas Cowboys gift shop.   With two tired kids, I was dreading the next flight.  But luckily both kids fell asleep for most of the flight.  When we finally got home around midnight, Austin saw all his Christmas toys and decided that he needed to play with them right now!  

We still spent about 10 days or so without Matthew, but tried to keep busy and distracted.  We were all so happy to have our Daddy back!  The kids definitely missed him and Austin would ask almost every day when Daddy would be coming home.  I don't even want to think about this summer when he will be gone for 3 months straight but for now we are all glad to be together.

Black Family Pictures

Over the holidays when we were all together we took some family pictures!  My good friend Alexi took them and we love them so much!

 Original Black Family

My how we have grown! 

 Grandparents with grandkids

 Had to throw one of these in here!

Sistas!

*Notice a new guy face in some of them? My sister Ciera is recently engaged to Adam.  Woohoo! Welcome to the family.

New Years 2013

The day after Christmas we left for Texas to spend New Years with my family.  All the siblings were there and it was so nice to see and spend time with everyone!   Matthew was able to be with us for about 3 days and then he had to fly back to Arizona.  He had a month long rotation in Washington state for the month of January. He had to be there January 1st and was driving so he had to get back to start his drive.

This is us with sparking juice on New Years.  We actually had a small group with kids in bed, my younger sister at a youth dance, my dad having to be a chaperone at the dance, my other sister at the young singles dance, and Matthew en route to Washington.  But it was fun anyway!  About 5 minutes later we were all in bed!

We did some fun activities together like watched Bob Ross paint and try to copy everything he did. It was so interesting to see how different everyone picture turned out even though we all copied the same artist!

A couple people (ahem, Cole) went a little their own creative direction!  

We also split up into teams and made bottle rockets. Then we went into the backyard and shot them off!  Here are the finished products:

My dad shooting them off

 I can't even remember whose flew the highest but they all did eventually fly with some adjustments made to a couple of them!

Last, as a tradition we always go bowling on New Years day.

So fun to be with so much family over New Years!

Christmas 2012

(I know, way behind) We had a great Christmas season this year and I wanted to make sure it got documented. We stayed in Arizona for Christmas this year.  Christmas Eve we spend with my good friend Melissa and her family. We had a wonderful dinner, played minute to win it games and ate yummy treats!

 Ruloph noses!

Christmas morning is getting more fun as Austin really knows what is going on and is excited about it.  I think his favorite gift was this Doc car that he is holding!

This was Kensley's first Christmas! She didn't really know what was going on but she sure loves her new dolly!

About a week before Christmas we went to the Scottsdale Train Park.  We went last Christmas and had so much fun that we wanted to make sure we did it again.  The line to ride the train gets soo long so we had Matthew go right after he got off work and that saved us about an hour of waiting.  The train ride has tons of lights scenes set up and Austin just loves it!  We also rode the merry go round, got hot chocolate and walked through a little train museum.  

Pictures with Santa went much better this year! Austin did so great and actually told Santa what he wanted (a dump truck and a scooper truck) and Kensley just stared at him until she finally got a scared, pouty face. 

Such a great time of year! 

Thanksgiving Week (now with pictures!)

We spent the week of Thanksgiving in Utah this year.  With Matthew now in rotations we didn't think we would get enough time off to travel but luckily it worked out and we had such a great time.  We stayed with Matthew's parents who had just moved to a new house and had lots of cousin time and Nonna Pa time.

We went to he Hogle Zoo for the first time.  In all the time I have spent in Utah I had never been to the zoo but we all went and loved it.  Lots of cool animals.  Kensley loved the baby giraffe and Austin loved the polar bear and the sea otters.  It was a great family outing.

Fun times with cousins!

 Black girls with the Allens

We were able to hit two Thanksgiving dinners.  First at my Grandma Black's house we were able to visit with my two sisters who attend BYU and my 2 of my aunt and uncles and several cousins.  I don't get to see them that often so it was nice to catch up.  Next we had dinner with the Graffs. All of Matthew's siblings were able to be there which was nice.  All the food at both dinners was amazing.  My favorite part is the pie. :)  Later that night, my little sister and I had a fun night of Black Friday shopping at a new outlet mall.

Austin and Kensley were both thoroughly entertained by cousins and toys the whole time.  They actually were great the whole trip. However the day we were suppose to drive home Matthew got really sick. So sick that he really couldn't drive home.  So we stayed another day, got him some antibiotics and were able to get home a day late.

 Thanksgiving at the Blacks

 Hogle Zoo

 The Swings at Nonna's house

Black Friday shopping with Kayla!

Overall, I am so glad we were able to travel to spend Thanksgiving with family. It was well worth the trip!