My birthday

This year I didnt do much for my birthday. Tairel worked most of the day so I just spent all day with the kids. Since we were just hanging out doing whatever, I decided to bring out the camera and just go picture happy :) Here are some pics of us just hanging out at home having fun.

Seth loves to tackle people on the floor, especially Peyton and Tairel

Peyton wanted to "hold him"

They play so cute together

Just hanging out in the kids room

Professional pics

I was bored today so I decided to do professional pics (my own) of the kids. These are the best I could get because the kids were very restless, Peyton didnt want to smile and Seth did not want to just sit there.

Here are Seths 1 year pics. I know it is a bit early but I figured if I was going to take the time to take pics might as well do those too. :)

2 kids in 1 room

Since Seth was born, both him and Peyton have never slept in the same room. With Peyton being too hyper at night and Seth waking up every night still, we were always skeptical about having them sleep in the same room. But last night we attempted it. It actually went well. We waited to put Seth in his crib until after Peyton had fallen asleep so she wouldnt know he was sleeping in there. We put him in, he didnt make a peep which was good. They ended up both sleeping through the entire night without waking up! I was very surprised. Of course, they were both exhausted with having a few very long days, but first day was a success. We will see how it goes from now on. It was so nice to finally have our room back to ourselves.

Trip to Anchorage

This past weekend we made a trip to Anchorage to run some errands. Go shopping for clothes and other items we cant get here, take Peyton for a dentist checkup, and get our car looked at. We were also invited up to someones cabin for the weekend also but we needed to head to Anchorage on Sunday so we decided to go up for Saturday and spend the night then leave Sunday since it was on the way to Anchorage anyways. This is the first time we have taken the kids to spend a night anywhere other than home, someones house, or a hotel. Yes, it was a cabin, but it felt like we were camping. Had to burn wood for heat, use an outhouse, sleep in sleeping bags...etc. They had a snowmachine (they call them snowmachines here instead of snowmobiles) and Peyton just couldnt get enough of riding it. She had to keep going on it, over and over even though it was freezing outside. She is a tough kid. Seth and I mostly stayed inside where it was warm and he could play around on the floor. Night time was hard, -35 degrees outside. Everyone had to sleep in the same room and the kids are not used to that so it took a while for them to go to sleep and then they woke everyone up early. I felt bad. Then after 1 more ride on the snowmachine, we headed to Anchorage.

Here are pictures of our day at the cabin.

Anchorage is 300 miles away from Valdez driving distance. It takes about 5 hours. But since we were already 80 miles away from Valdez, it only took about 3 hours to get to Anchorage on Sunday. The kids were good for that drive. They just slept most of it.

A really big glacier.

Then the next couple of days we did all of our errands. We learned really quickly that being in a bigger city just sucks. Getting in and out of the car to go here or there, traffic, traffic lights, seemed like it took forever to get anywhere. Anchorage is nothing compared to SLC/Provo but its still a lot bigger than here. We were anxious to get home. It didnt feel much like a vacation since we were just so busy and stressed out trying to do all of our errands.

Once we were done, we decided to go out to the ocean and see what it was like. It was all frozen. It looked really cool. The ocean doesnt freeze where we live.

Then Tuesday, after Peytons dentist appointment, we headed back home. The kids did not like the drive back home much. They were exhausted from all of the shopping and late nights and did not want to just sit in the car for 5 hours. They were very happy when we made it back home. :) It was nice to go do something different for a change though.

Nothing new or exciting going on...

Nothing new or exciting has been going on lately. Just the usual. Tairel working, I stay home with the kids, getting sick, going to playdates, running errands...etc. Just wanted to explain more of where we are living. Gas is $3.88 a gallon here right now. Ouch! Im sure it will get more expensive once it warms up and tourists start coming around. There are a ton of trailer parks for RV's here that are closed right now. Pretty soon, they will be completely full. It hasnt snowed here for at least 1-2 weeks now. So, its been cold (20's) but absolutely beautiful. We now have daylight for 10-11 hours now. 2 months ago we only had 5. So its coming back really fast! In June we will have 20-21 hours of daylight. That will be interesting. We doubled our curtains though so hopefully they will make it dark enough to go to sleep with the sun still out.

We only have 1 grocery store (which does NOT have everything) and there are no clothing stores here (besides a store like REI and ones that people just started up themselves and they are expensive!) We do not have a Walmart, Target, Kohls, JCpenney, anything like that. So, we have to order clothes and other random stuff that isnt food, online or drive 300 miles to Anchorage. Which is what we will be doing in 2 weeks. Seth is growing out of his clothes and we dont have any bigger ones for him. We also need some stuff like, carseats, child locks, bowls, spoons...etc and the only place to get that is in Anchorage.

We also need to take Peyton for a dentist check up and there are no kid dentists here so we are doing her appointment the same time we go to Anchorage. Our car has also been having issues and since it is still under warantee we need to take it to a Kia dealership...which is only in Anchorage also!

I love living in a small town, no traffic (half the people here drive their 4wheelers/snowmobiles everywhere), its quiet, fresh air...but not having the convenience of having stores nearby when you need something is kind of annoying. Oh well :)

sledding

cool looking clouds