Can you handle it....this many pictures in an update?

Instead of doing lots of updates I'm just going to get it done all at one time. Sorry if you don't like long posts or lots of pix, but since this is the only form of a journal we do lately, this is just how it is going to be :-)

In December we got something we have been looking forward to and evaluating for a while...a new camera. We got the Canon 40D, and with how few pictures we actually have taken you wouldn't think we were that excited about it, but seriously, we love it. Below is Marisa when I surprised her with it while doing dishes.


This is her testing out the new lens. We went for one that had the best aperture we could get with good glass in our price range.



The boys have had a lot of fun with all the snow we have gotten this winter. I thought one of the benefits of leaving Utah for the PNW was mild winters with only 1-2 snow falls, not true this year I guess.


We've had lots of parties and unfortuantely we didn't take many pictures. We've had family (Kristin, cousin John with his wife and daughter) and friends (Rehrers, Chapmans) come over for lots of fun, but never remember to take pictures.







We had our annual white elephant Christmas party and after finally being stuck with "GiGi" last year we were happy to have it passed off to the Deckers as the very FIRST gift to be picked of the night!

We had lots of fun with the Ponds for Christmas and lots of family birthdays (four total).


I have been trying to mess around with the camera and doing some night photography.





One night while taking pictures Trey and I stayed out late and made a snow fort.


We've tried very hard to get some cute pictures of the boys, but that never happened. Cute always gets immediately pushed to the side by the big bully of crazy fun. Here are some examples of that...We told the boys to slowly fall forward so the we could get an action shot of them right before they hit the bed. Caeden immediately jumped, not quite understanding the word slowly.

Here we tried to get them all giving us a thumbs up, but again Caeden was the odd man out, not quite able to pull the "thumb up, all other digits down" trick.

Here Caeden thinks he's got it, but Trey is bored of thumbs up and moved on to the robot (to match the PJs).


Proof that there is sunshine in Seattle in the winter.


Marisa said that part of the reason we have been so crazy is because of things like the following. She pointed out that only nerds will spend the small amount of free time reading the entire instruction manual for their camera and lens.


Caeden's personality is really starting to come out. Trey is our creative scientist, Bex is our althletic people pleaser, and Caeden is our center of attention class clown. He's always trying to get us to laugh. We don't know how that little body can keep all that personality inside.



On Jan 9th he turned 2 years old. Since he asks to watch Nemo every day he inevitably chose Nemo as his bday theme when going over the options. (BTW Trey chose Pokemon and Bex chose sports for the second time).



Belinda did a great job on the Nemo cake!


Trey's WT genes have been pushing me to take him to a Monster Truck Rally for years. Since about the age of 2 he started to ask for Grave Digger when at the toy store. Trying to keep things that entice crazyiness to an absolute minimum we never got that for him, but as luck would have it, Grave Digger won and now all three boys are big fans.



Another glimpse into the personality of the older two boys. After we finished walking around the pit and looking at the trucks Bex started dancing to some music and telling everybody that he was a rock star.


Trey was looking for pieces of metal for his dream...to build a robot.

There are two very important things you have to know about Caeden. Despite getting his hand slapped, time out and frequently being told forcefully that it is a NO, NO to take off all your clothes, especially in public, he keeps doing it. The second important thing is that he doesn't actually take all of his clothes off. He has had an obsession for a few months with his Spiderman snow boots. If we say go get ready to go, he comes back just wearing his boots. And, if he takes off all of his clothes, he always puts his boots back on.


We have been playing a ton of Rock Band. The boys love it. This is Trey jamin' to his favorite songs, "Wanted, Dead or Alive," by Bon Jovi and "In Bloom" by Nirvana.



Sometimes we stay up so late playing that this is all we see...

Last, but not least...we had a bday part for Bex with all his friends on Saturday in between my church ball, Trey's bball, Bex's bball, dinner with the family at the Rainforest Cafe and an early Valentine's Day party with some friends. Crazy, busy life, but fun, especially with these three boys.