Things are great here at the Whiting house...

(By the way, no one try to tell me this was gas--we know for a fact she was simply dreaming of heaven where she just came from!)

We are enjoying the joys of tiny hands being held...

Here's Ella posing after her bath--what a bathing beauty!

Sunny and her had quite a bonding moment together here.

Dad has also taken advantage of the fact that he has some time off work and that our old table had to be put to some use and has gotten the girls to do puzzles with him.

By the way--he is super dad--he can read and feed at the same time!!

Oh, and in other news, Logan lost his first front tooth. I am not a big fan of kids getting the front teeth back in--the grown up ones. It seems like they never have quite the same "little kid look" after that. So, I told him it's good thing that we have a baby now, or Mommy might have cried to think that all her children are loosing their baby teeth!

Oh, and one more item of business--Ella felt the time had come to dawn her adorable new coat from her birth mom. Well, there's an update for ya--Early Merry Christmas to all!!!!

She is here!

Ella Anne was born on December 12, 2007 @ 11:50 P.M. She weighed in at 8 lbs. 11 oz. and was 21 inches long--She is a healthy gal! We all fell in love with her right away and have continued to adore her as the days have gone on.



When Jack and I were able to bring her home from the hospital, the kids were very excited. They had had Grandma help them make signs to welcome her and put them all over the house. Even Logan made one that showed off his new "big brother" statis. What a wonderful day! Adoption is a true miracle, and we very very blessed and humbled to be a part of it. Life is great!

Before you totally get into Christmas--don't forget about...

Thanksgiving! It was very fun this year at my mom and step dad's house. A bunch of family was able to come and the kids got to see their NC cousins. Good eating and good laughs all day long--some great Apples to Apples memories!

Then, of course Aunt Mel got the kids together to do a show--She is the ultimate director of holiday shows--and luckily all the kids in our family are basically hams!
We also went with my mom and Lyle to a really fun fallish old fashioned place called "Oak Glen." Angie got picked to be the Sheriff's deputy at a gun show. She always gets picked for this stuff--at Sea World she kissed the sea lion and at Disneyland she was the assistant to Jafar or something like that. I think it must be her winning smile--or maybe her quick hand up in the air!
The Monday after Thanksgiving my brother Danny had the hookups and got us all into Disneyland for FREE! Yeah, that was cool! And we had a great day with relatively short lines pretty much the whole day--several with no waiting at all. We are sort of becoming Disneyland junkies though--we have gone four times in the last three and a half years! So, we decided we need to lay off the park for at least a few years--hopefully we can last that long!

Oh yeah! Totally cool to meet MARY POPPINS and BERT!
The Christmas decor was FANTASTIC--but of course it was--hello--this is DISNEYLAND we are talking about! (Did I mention we are Disneyland junkies?)
A dream is a wish your heart makes....when you are so tired from walking around all day that you want to go to sleep.... (See if you can fit that into the melody!) So a fun trip with great people--we are so blessed!

Our Hidden Talents

Well, I am actually posting for anyone who wants to see our family doing something really silly. If you do, go to Meghan's site under my "Family and Friends" link--Mom, you will definitely laugh out loud. Thanks Meghan for giving us a giggle! You are such a sweet girl!

Here he is Kari and Corey...

So, we got to have the fun of watching baby Dallin this weekend for Jack's brother Corey and his wife. Kari, the wonderful loving mother that she is, was a little sad to leave her cutie for a weekend while they went to NC to look for apartments. So, I thought I would post some pictures to ease her mind. Lookee here:

Dallin slept!

Dallin ate!

And he absolutely LOVED the cage we kept him in for the rest of the time! (Just joking of course--but he really DID love crawling in and out of Caspian's little kennel!)
We also had fun taking him to all our fun Saturday events with us. We had soccer games in the morning and then we went to an adoption celebration day event at the Scottsdale Train Park. LDS Family Services puts on these fun events to get our kids together and have fun.

Logan made some new friends there...

Dallin still was cute!
The kids had fun exploring the different trains (FYI--this park does a super fun train ride for Christmas--take your kids there to ride it in December at night and see all the lights--there's even some SNOW!)
This is just a cute shot of Ang and Sunny wearing some of the oh so fashionable clothes and accessories that their cool Aunt Melanie gave them.

Leave it to Sunny to make art out of sweeping leaves. She's obviously a future landscaping artist.
Crocheting lessons on a Sunday evening--yes, Jack can do it much better than me!

Halloween

At our kids' school they actually got to dress us for Halloween--sort of. They have a "Literature Parade" where the kids get to dress up as a favorite book character and parade around school. They just "happen" to have it on the same day as Halloween--pretty sneaky way to let the kids have some fun huh?

Here's Sunny as Anne of Green Gables--complete with those seven pesky freckles she could never get rid of!

Angie was "Dora" from The American Sisters series.

Now onto the "real" Halloween costumes--Logan was a pirate obviously!
Angie opted for the clown costume again--an old standby that is always fun.

Sunny decided to make this one up--surprise surprise--and was a "Snow Damsel." I just love how Logan is looking at his goofy siters in this picture!

We had fun at our church's "Trunk or Treat." We did this thing in our trunk where the kids had to feel in different boxes goopy stuff like grapes without skin and oily noodles, and then guess what it was. Then the last box they reached into and good old Uncle Jacob hid in the back of the car for an hour and grabbed the victim's hand. Some kids got wind of what was up and wouldn't do it--but most did and it was pretty funny!

Then we went to my legendary cousin Tammy's house and saw all her cool stuff--she goes all out and also gives great candy! It was a fun night.

P.S. Jack was supposed to be a tourist--the only problem was he couldn't smile because his mustache kept falling off! Well, at least he tried right?

Tag--I'm it.

Okay, so I am supposed to be cutting coupons right now to get ready for shopping tomorrow, but I decided to check out a few blog sites first and I saw that Dustin had tagged me. So, now I have a great excuse to put off making my list and do something else which is much more relaxing! So, here are my 6 facts about me. At the bottom I will "tag" a few others who also need to list six facts about themselves, and tag others and so on and so forth.

FACT #1: I love my husband! (Duh!) But why???? Well, because he’s cute, for one, and ALWAYS thinks of other people. I am constantly impressed with how well he balances his home and church and work responsibilities. Sometimes when he comes home from church I can tell that he is discouraged or upset about something he is dealing with, but he is still ready to help out with whatever I need. He is a great example to me of integrity, hard work, and following the Spirit. He’s also a great dad and a SUPER tickler!

FACT #2: My kids are hilarious, creative, imaginative and easily impressed. They always crack me up with the things they come up with to do and say. This makes for fun vacations because they just really love it all! Hopefully this “easily impressed” part will continue throughout the teenage years…..

FACT #3: (Okay, this is actually about me now): Even though I am 29 years old, I still love to sing in the car and I have often felt rather embarrassed when other strange people who do NOT like to sing in the car have caught me doing it! Stop lights when you're really into a song are the worst!

FACT #4: I (like Dustin) absolutely LOVE reading and someday in my little fantasy world I will have a party and meet all the characters that have become my friends in books!

FACT #5: I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints—yeah, pretty much everyone that reads this blog knows that, but it is a very important fact about me so I had to include it. I am very SO very blessed to have the knowledge of the gospel in my life, to have the guidance, the hope, and the love of our Savior.

FACT #6: I like to cook and I love to bake bread—for me it is almost therapeutic, and oh how I love the smell!

Welp, that’s about it for now. This was definitely different from what I have done before, but pretty fun. Now, it is time for others to have fun. I don’t have many “blogging friends” though, (my sisters-in-law already got tagged) so I am just tagging two people: JOCIE and BROOKE. You have to tell 6 facts about yourself and tag some others if you can. Have fun!!

P.S. No, I did not skip Halloween--just haven't got around to downloading pictures yet. This was much quicker and easier--now onto my shopping list!

Conquering the Canyon--the Grand One!

Yes, Jack and I are a bit crazy--we have actually already done this hike once a few years ago and we decided to go back for more torture--and we got some others to join us as well! (Thank you wonderful Heywood family for watching our kiddos for us!) Actually, this is even my third time doing this crazy hike--Will we ever learn? Probably not! The rush of feeling that you have beaten this awesome site of nature is AMAZING! This first pic is after we got out of the canyon--can you see the fire of adventure in out eyes? Well, we had one...

We started at 8:30 A.M. that morning at the top of South Kaibab trail with Brooke and Pat McBride and three of Jack's brothers--Trevor, Tyler and Jacob. See the smiles--yeah, we are a little clueless at this point.

Brothers bonding

The site of the Colorado river was so cool--we were almost at the bottom!

These studly men felt they had to touch the river to really reach the bottom of the canyon.

We reached the bottom a little before 12:00P.M. Afer some lunch and airing of our feeties, we were back up for the real hike out going up a different trail called The Bright Angel--There's no turning back now!

Gotta love the new skin for helping to prevent blisters--cute shot Brooke! Oh, and lovely sweaty back shot of you Pat! (It's okay--you earned it!)

Hey--the canyon is now getting smaller! The hike back up was sooooo pretty--tons of little streams and waterfalls--and by the way, the weather was really nice--however, we were still pretty tired I tell you! After this spot Jacob and Tyler basically left us in the dust--However, we all got out before 6:00P.M. and we were all out within half an hour of each other.

Even though this is a pretty cheesy, "Wow, look at nature" shot, it really was true that we all felt that way. I firmly believe that the only way to see this place is to at least hike some of it, and why not do it all the way? Well, now with our sore backs, knees, calves and whatnot, we just have to wait a few more years before we forget the pain and do it again! Any takers?????

Ya know...

We have our children in a school this year where they all get home before 1:00P.M. I wondered when I put them in if I would really like it or not, and now I have decided--I really do! Even though there are some times when I would like to have some more time to get things done before they come home, it is so worth it to see them together like this... They have so much more time now to just be kids and play, and I feel they have gotten closer because of it. I personally think that the public school system has our kids for too long and after all the homework and after school activities they just don't have enough down time. So, there is my little soap box and here are my funnies being creative because they have the time to do it!

A blanket, some juice and crackers--what else do you need?
Life is good.

Pumpkins and Parties

Aaagh...the most pleasant part of pumpkin carving--the lovely goopy scoopy part!

But it is worth it for the reward--Jacob and Logan had quite a bonding experience with their "pirate pumpkin."

Cuties!

Well, we had quite a busy, fun weekend. We went up to our ward campout on Friday night, which was actually at a ward member's cabin. Obviously we had too much fun there, because we realized as we left that we forgot to take any pictures! So, after "roughin it" in the woods, we got back into town and ran over to Corey and Kari's for a pumpkin carving party. We had a fabulous time eating and laughing and carving and whatnot. I have a few pics, but if you want to see more, check out Jenny and Trevor's site. Sunday was a very nice day as well with church of course and family and friends over for dinner. Now we are back to Monday at just counting down the days until Halloween!

Pet Drama

Here’s a little insider info on what happens every evening with Caspian (our little poodle) and Hermione (our rather large—dare I say fat?—cat)

Caspian: “Doo doo doo…let’s see…what can I do this evening? Oh, here’s a bone—cool! I think I’ll—chomp chomp—chew for a while.”




Hermione (on entering the scene) “What ARE you doing? Gosh—don’t you even bathe? And by the way, did you know that I was here first? I am the original owner of this family, so just don’t but in on my territory—got it?”

Caspian: “I’m sorry—chomp, chomp, what was that you said? I didn’t quite---chomp chomp—catch it. Did you, uh, want a bone or something. Just ask the big people with your eyes…they’re suckers!”

Hermione: “Oh forget it! I think I will have to get physical for you to understand…Okay, here goes…” (Then there is a slight swipe of Caspian’s nose while Hermione is safely sitting on a higher spot that he can’t get to)

Caspian: “OH! You want to play!! Yes!!! I love playing—let’s go!” (And the chasing, jumping, and rough housing begins)

We figure that sooner or later Hermione will have to loose some pride or Caspian will have to get a bit smarter, and the two will suddenly be the best of friends!

Blog of the Dog

Welp, we finally caved in and got a dog! It was actually Jack's idea--he was over at our nieghbor's house and met this little guy and fell in love. SO, he is home with us now. His name is Prince Caspian, after the character in the Chronicles of Narnia series--so both of our pets are names after characters in our two favorite series--kind of cool! We've had fun with him this week, but dogs are definitely more work than cats! However, they give back a lot more so I think it is worth it.

Here he is after his first bath and attempted haircut--yeah, that was an adventure!

Also, Angie and Sunny got cute new hair cuts from Aunt Mel this week--THANKS for the new looks Melanie!

Sunny, oh so lovely....
Not quite as lovely the next morning....
Here's more dog pics, I promise I won't post this many every week--we are just excited new parents you know?

Caspian and Hermione--you will be friends--whether you want to be or not!
Another after the bath pic--okay, that's all I'll post! But isn't he a cutie! Plus, poodles don't shed either!