she's got personality!

I just wanted to post some of my favorite pictures of Macie that show what a fun personality she has. She is such a fun and happy little girl. Her vocabulary increases every day and she is our personal tape recorder--she will repeat just about anything that we say. She has become a little poser. Anytime she sees a camera this is what we get.

She is very independent and wants to do everything by herself, including helping herself to the food in the fridge. I am seriously thinking about strapping it closed.

She is becoming a daddy's girl more and more each day and Ryan loves it!

"CHEEEESE!"

I have to stop myself from laughing when she pouts. She can pout with the best of them.

She has been waking us up nice and early this past week but it is hard to get mad at this face.

Happy Halloween

Halloween was so much fun this year. We celebrated for almost an entire week! My parents left the morning of Halloween to visit my brother in Hawaii so they decided to have a Halloween party on Monday the 26th for all the grandkids. It was so much fun, a little crazy but still a lot of fun!

On Wednesday I took the kids to the clinic where Ryan works for trick or treating. The residents had decorated a bunch of the exam rooms and the kids went from room to room filling up on candy. It was a lot of fun to see the kids of the residents all dressed up in their costumes. We left the doctor's office with both kids happy and smiling, which is a first!

Friday Jack had his own little Halloween party at preschool. I am not sure of all the fun things that they did but he came home with a good amount of candy.

We had such a great weekend! On Saturday we were able to have Ryan's sister Katie come and spend the day with us. We made sugar cookies, had monster dogs and chili, and of course went trick or treating. The kids did really well. It was a little cold but there were no complaints--people were handing out candy for free! We went around the neighborhood with our new best friends the McCarty's. Jack and Jackson have so much fun together and Macie and Miley are like 2 peas in a pod with a whole lot of crazy! It topped off a great week of Halloween and now we are trying to come down from our sugar highs. We LOVE Halloween!!!

How cute are these 3 little girls?

Wow--that's some bright pink hair!

Jack and Jocelyn after their fun little preschool Halloween party.

Have you ever seen a lion riding a scooter?

Wow! Check out that pumpkin!

Jack loves helping in the kitchen, especially when he gets to eat cookie dough!

Frosting cookies with Katie.

Macie and Miley---these 2 where hilarious the entire night! They definitely had way too much sugar.

All dressed and ready to go out for some candy!

Macie can't get enough of Ryan when he is home.

Let's Ride!

Helmet? . . . . . check!
Knee pads?. . . .check!
Training wheels? . . . . not anymore!

Jack has been more than ready to take the training wheels off his bike for some time now. He has been begging to ride a two-wheeler and the only thing holding him back was me (actually, more Ryan.) I told him once we got him a helmet we could take the training wheels off. You know me, safety first! About a month ago we finally got the helmet and the knee pads were just a bonus.

It was a little harder than Jack thought it was going to be at first. He had to learn that it was harder to keep his balance when he went slow. But as soon as he figured that out he took off. Ryan was very surprised and impressed at how quickly Jack picked it up - probably because it took him forever to learn. Jack obviously got my balance! Now we can't slow him down. He can go wherever he wants as fast as he wants - always with a big grin on his face! Maybe soon he can get a paper route and start pulling his own weight. We really are so proud of him!

Jack padded up and ready to go!

Overly concerned Dad doing some coaching.

He's starting to get it.

And there he goes!

4yr Olds playing Soccer....not Much else To say!

This video is a little long but I love it! Jack has started to get a little more feisty while playing soccer. I don't think that there is anything better than watching the pure joy that he shows after scoring a goal. His team has struggled a little but he is having fun and really that is what it's all about.

A Big Day for Jack

Jack is so happy to have his cousin Jocelyn in his class. They have so much fun together. Hopefully they won't cause too much trouble for their teacher.

Jack walking to his 1st day of preschool.

I have been terrible at blogging since moving but we had a really big event happen today and I couldn't not blog about it. Jack had his first day of preschool today! He has been looking forward to starting preschool for weeks now. As we prepared for the beginning of school I wanted to take Jack to go and find a new school outfit. He told me that "he didn't need any new clothes!" So I figured that I wouldn't fight it and so we didn't go shopping. Of course being a 4 year old that can't seem to make up his mind, this morning as I was getting him ready for school he said that he needed new clothes for school. Lucky for me I found some shorts in his drawer that still had a tag on them and we also had some new tennis shoes that we got a couple months ago that he hadn't worn yet. Needless to say his outfit was pretty much new just for school---kind of. Once we got the outfit decided on he couldn't wait to find his "Thomas" backpack and get out the door. It is so fun to see how excited he is about school. He was a little disappointed that he wasn't going to be riding a bus and going to a big school but he got over that pretty quick. He loved his 1st day of school!

Celebrating the 4th

There are so many traditions that my family does for the 4th and it is so nice being able to join them again. Growing up the 4th was always a huge holiday. Not only is it Independence Day but lucky for me it is my birthday as well--it's great to always have a big party on your birthday! So every year since I can remember we have always gone to the parade in Provo. Many nights were spent on the streets of Provo just to make sure that we had a good spot for the parade. That tradition has continued--now my parents are the ones that end up spending the night on the streets. The kids absolutely loved the parade---fire trucks, horses, balloons, motorcycle cops...what's not to love. After the parade we went to my parents for a nice, low key BBQ.
Jack, Macie and Cate, one of my cute little nieces enjoying the parade.
Check out the umbrella. In all the years that I have been to the parade I never remember it raining. Here we are trying to stay dry while watching the parade. Luckily the rain didn't last long.

Here is the group at the parade. My parents, my brother and his family and us. My brother Mike and his son Hans ran the 5K this year. Maybe I will give it a try next year, we'll see.

I love the flag cake that my mom makes for me every year. Check out all the candles--I am getting so old.

My sister had a few extra tickets to the Stadium of Fire and invited us to tag along. This is Jack walking to the stadium with his cousins Luke and Jocelyn.

I love the expression on Jack's face. He absolutely loved the fireworks!

Macie was so exhausted. Look at those tired eyes. We didn't think that we would be able to find a babysitter with such short notice so we decided to take her with us to the stadium. She would not sit still. She just wanted to lay on the floor which was disgusting. Finally Ryan took her down to a quiet place and she finally fell asleep until a group of screaming girls came in talking about how much they loved the Jonas Brothers. Next time I think we will try a little harder to find a babysitter---if there is a next time.

Even though Macie made it a little difficult to enjoy the show, all in all we had a ton of fun. Thank you Cristen for inviting us to come with you and your boys.

With my birthday being on the 4th of July, Ryan feels like he doesn't really get to do much for me for my birthday. This year he decided that he wanted to have our own little family birthday celebration. He did dinner and with a little help from Jack made a cake for me. As you can see from Jack and Macie's faces they were very excited for some cake. Thanks Ry, it was a great birthday!

Ryan's Graduation

I know that I am a little behind in posting this but we FINALLY got the internet. On June 5th, 2009 Ryan graduated from the University of Toledo College of Medicine---he's now Dr. Slater, weird! We have had a lot of support from our families through out medical school. Ryan's older brother Rod was able to come out and hood him and that was very special for Ryan. Both my parents and Ryan's parents came out along with his younger brother Travis and his wife Courtney. It really meant a lot to us for all of them to be there.

We Are Here!

Hello again! I feel like I have been cut off from the world. Since Ryan's graduation and our move to Utah we have been without access to tv and internet. We are still working on getting this stuff worked out so I promise once it is worked out we will have some really good pictures of graduation and the big move.
A little update on the house and residency. We are still unpacking boxes and getting things settled but things are finally looking like they are coming together. Have I mentioned how much I hate to move. We are thinking that maybe we will just stay in this house forever so we don't have to worry about moving again---it is such a pain!! Ryan started orientation on the 16th and will start on labor and delivery on July 1st---wish him luck!

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

We knew that before we left Toledo we had to go to one last Mudhens game. On Thursday night we headed for the ballpark hoping that it wouldn't rain. We have been in Toledo for almost 4 years and had yet to try the famous Tony Packo's and Ryan couldn't leave until he had one of their famous hot dogs and some fried pickles. So before the game we decided to try it out. The verdict was 2 thumbs up!
The game was So much fun!! There was no rain and the kids loved it! Macie made new friends with everyone around us and Jack loved to watch all the foul balls fly super high in the air.

Check out the photography! I just wanted to get an action shot and it turned out that this hit was a home-run!

The game went into extra innings but the kids had had it so we had to leave before the end of the game. Unfortunately the Mudhens lost but it was a great game and we had a lot of fun!

Detroit Temple

We were lucky enough last night to make a final trip to the Detroit Temple. We dropped the kids off at our friends, the Eckel's and headed up to Detroit. Unfortunately we forgot that in Michigan they like to do construction on all of their roads at the same time. But fortunately for us we made it to the temple with plenty of time to spare. There is something special about the smaller temples and it was great to be able to go one last time. So the temple was great but as soon as we got in the car and headed for home the real fun began. We found out that not only do they close roads but they like to close the on-ramps to the freeway----ALL of them! Despite all the Michigan lefts and closed roads we were still able to find our way home. The babysitting report wasn't much better. Usually our kids are good sleepers but they must have been completely thrown off being in a different place because Jack was still awake when we got home at MIDNIGHT!! And Macie screamed every time they tried to lay her down! But of course as soon as we picked them up and put them in the car they both crashed hard.

What we learned from this is that things rarely go as you plan.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!!!!!

On Saturday, Jack had his last soccer game of the season. It has been great especially considering this was his first year playing. We would have liked to have seen him be a little more aggressive at times. Jack was often found running in the wrong direction with his eyes closed and a big smile on his face. But he definitely had fun, and that really is what we wanted the most. We had so much fun watching Jack and his teammates chase the ball and sometimes score a few goals. Can't wait until next year!

Half-way through the season, Jack scored his first goal. He dribbled the ball around 3 defenders (which is pretty impressive since there's only 4 on the field at a time), took his aim, and fired a perfect strike into the upper-left corner of the goal. Well, not really. As you can see in the picture there's not really any "corners" in the goals. But for Candace and me, it might as well have been the world cup. We both jumped up in the air with our arms up in celebration. I don't think I've ever been so excited. I seriously had to stop myself from crying. After the game Jack asked me why I was jumping up and down during the game. I guess I'm going to have to teach him how to celebrate - just a little.

Jack in action - and in his own little world. Which is where he spent most of the time while he was playing. During the off-season I was thinking we might work on keeping our eyes on the ball, but first we're going to have to master keeping our eyes open.

Jack with some of his teammates and his coach. If Jack looks a little small, it's because he is. The soccer league is for 4 and 5 year-olds, and Jack turned 4 just after the deadline. But I guess he needs to get used to playing with kids that are a little older than him.

After the final game, Jack got his first trophy. He was so excited and is still very proud of it. He can't wait to put his trophy on the shelf in his new room after we move.

Great Trip!

With our time running out here in Ohio we decided that we really wanted to do a mini church history trip. We headed to Kirtland and Hiram on Tuesday, Palmyra on Wednesday and Niagara Falls on Thursday. Thanks to Laney and Taylor for letting us crash at their place in Buffalo. On our way home we stopped off in Erie,PA and visited with Ryan's best friend from high school. Here are some pictures of the highlights of our trip.

The John Johnson farm in Hiram, Ohio. There were some amazing events that happened here. The steps we are standing on are the original steps where the Prophet Joseph Smith preached after being tarred and feathered.

The kids were little troopers. Their sleep schedule was completely out of wack. They spent a ton of time in the car--just over 18 hours according to mapquest. All I have to say is that we are lucky to have two great kids that travel so well. I just hope they keep it up for the drive to Utah.
The Sacred Grove was amazing. Macie was so exhausted! As soon as we entered the grove she was out. It was so nice and peaceful to walk through the grove without worrying about keeping Macie entertained and from wandering off the path. We were able to spend about 30 minutes walking through the grove.

Jack was so sweet. As we were walking through the Sacred Grove he would ask us where Heavenly Father and Jesus were and as we left he was concerned because we had not seen Them. I love the questions and comments that this sweet little boy has. He truly has an amazing spirit.

Visitors Center at the Hill Cumorah

Jack at the top of the Hill Cumorah

The Peter Whitmer Farm where the Church was organized.

Jack was so excited to see Niagara Falls. I think this was the highlight of the trip for him.

Jack loved the beach! It was so good to see him playing at the beach. The last time we were at the beach Jack freaked out having stuff in between his toes. But now he can't wait to go back.

At the beach in Erie with the Call's. It was really great to see them.