Alot of friends and family have been asking for some more pictures, so I decided to upload a few more to the family blog.

Cami is now just over 2 wks old. She is up to 9# now and growing everyday.

Her older sisters are still very much in love with her and will fight over who gets to hold the little munchkin.

Cami, so far, is the most relaxed baby we've had. She loves to take baths. Nora also liked to take baths but Nora would try to swim the whole time. This baby likes to just relax in the bath and hasn't cried in the bath, yet. When she is done with a bath, she is even more relaxed than when she went in, if that is possible to be more relaxed. :)

The pictures above are of Nora and Cami after a bath. Nora likes to take baths with the baby. The last picture is of Cami at 2 wks.

Sunday, August 1st, our newest addition, Cami Belle, came to the world. She weighed 7#12oz, 20" long. She came 1 day after her due date. That sounds pretty good but that is the longest Tracy has ever been pregnant and this is the largest baby she has had. With the other girls, Tracy delivered them 1 week before their due date. Naturally, we thought the same thing would happen this time and so we made small plans for things for the week after the date we thought the baby would be born. We were told by the OB doctor that every pregnancy was different and she proved, to our dismay, to be correct.

Tracy was having very regular contractions, down to 3 minutes apart 2 weeks before the due date, so we took her to the hospital. She hadn't progressed enough so we went home. Again 1 week before her due date, she was down to every 3 min contractions that were pretty hard so we went to the hospital only to be turned away. On Sunday morning about 1:30, Tracy was having alot of pain and regular contractions. We went in and she really hadn't progressed much since her last OB appt. But because her blood pressure was elevated and she was scheduled for induction on Monday, they kept her and induced her that morning.

Tracy got an epidural. That may not sound like a big deal but it was to Tracy since she had done the other births the old fashioned way. She was scared to do it but in the end she was glad and she feels her recuperation is going alot better.

Both Mom and Baby are doing well and are going to be coming home from the hospital today. Our oldest left for girls camp today so she won't be here for the homecoming but at least the baby was born before she left. We look forward to having our family all together.

A busy month

December is always so busy!! So far this month, we've been treated to McKayela's choir concert. She did really good in it. She really loves to be in the choir.

We took the girls to see the broadway show, the Lion King. We got dressed up and made a grand evening of it all. Before the theater, we went to eat at Schilo's German Deli down by the riverwalk. Schilo's has the best homebrewed rootbeer, complete with the frosted mug (so tastey). We had a speedy meal there and then walked to the Majestic Theater.

Our trip to AZ - October 2009

Our Trip to AZ started with a surprise for Tracy. She celebrated her birthday before we went home but no one called her. A few days later when one of her sisters called, I razzed her about not calling. So, when we got home, Tracy had this lovely poster waiting for her. I'm sure she loved it...

One of the reasons we went home was to send Tracy's little brother, Jay, off on a mission. He was called to serve in the Peru Lima South mission. It'll be nice to have another bro-in-law that can speak Spanish. It's hard to believe that Jay was only 5 yrs old when Tracy and I got married and he actually had to miss his first day of school for the wedding. My how time flies!

Before we left San Antonio for AZ, we had heard my in-laws had seen a few rattlesnakes and had killed 4 of them at their new house. We told the girls to let us know if they saw anything while outside. There were a few false alarms as the girls saw an occassional stick laying around. Then one morning, Halee was lifting a porch swing that had blown over during the wind storm the previous night. When lifting it, she heard the ominous sound of crotalid death. She dropped the swing and came running to me in hysterics screaming "snake, snake, snake." I asked her where the snake was and she pointed to the downed swing. I looked under the swing but I couldn't see anything so I decided to lift it and sure enough, there was a large rattlesnake.

Halee made a mad dash around to the back of the house and began pounding on the door for Tracy to let her in. I stayed out front, watching the snake and keeping my in-laws dog from getting too close to it. Meanwhile, I called to Tracy to bring me a shovel.

I grabbed the shovel, got on the top step of my in-laws porch and with a swift downward thrust, I chopped the head off the slithering beast. The End....

Afterward, I burried the head and had Halee and Nora pose for the picture. Halee refused to touch the snake and Nora was pretty good about holding it until the body of the snake started to coil up. That was the end of that - Nora and Halee both shot out of there like a couple of bullets.

Here's a pose of my girls in my Jeep. The Jeep was my first car when I was 16, so it has a special place in my heart. I love taking the Jeep on rides when I go home and so do the girls. The last 2 few times I've been home, the Jeep hasn't broken down on me which makes it even better!

Another thing we went home for was the wedding of my youngest sister, Valayne. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the blessed event. But, when I do, I will post some. She married a great guy named Pierce (also from AZ). We had a great time visiting with family and being involved in her wedding. They were married in the Mesa AZ Temple and had a reception at my oldest sister's house (Renee).

It was a truly fulfilling trip home. I look forward to the next trip, whenever that may be.

Our Make A Wish trip to Florida

Our wish trip started with a send off party at Chick-Fil-A. Nora told the wish grantors that she liked Chick-Fil-A, so that's where we partied! We had the Asay family there with us playing games, eating chicken sandwiches and just relaxing. We had a great time there.


Here's a picture of the girls before we left the house for the airport. We were ready to have a great time. The Make A Wish foundation made arrangements for us to stay at a place called Give Kids the World Village. This place was designed for children with life threatening diseases - to give them a chance to see some of Florida's attractions. We had heard lots of great things about the village before we left - and we were not disappointed! The village was great. They had parties every night, had an all you want Ice Cream Palace that was open from 7a-10p. They also had a couple of different choices of places to eat our meals. Did I mention that everything on the trip was free? What a blast!

We were given theme park tickets to Disney, SeaWorld, and Universal Studios. We were also given tickets to many other Orlando area attractions like the swamp boat ride that we took. We spent 3 days at the Disney parks and that was about enough theme park for us. We went to Universal for 1 day but we were so tired we decided to leave after about 2 hours. We were given preferential parking at the parks and we had guest assistance passes which allowed us to cut to the front of any lines - including character lines at Disney. That came in very handy since the parks were loaded with people in August when we went. We also had access to various VIP lounges at Disney, which came in really handy since it rained on us every day we were there. It was nice to go indoors, sip on some sodas and wait for the weather to improve. They thought of everything to make our trip wonderful.

The last pictures are of the characters from Give Kids the World Village. The male bunny's name is Mayor Clayton, the mayor of the village. His girlfriend bunny is named Miss Mary. The village was like a theme park by itself with many characters there. Some of the Disney, SeaWorld and Universal characters also came and roamed around the village for the families to meet. One of the fun things they did at the village was have Mayor Clayton tuck your kids in at night. Our kids thought that was really fun.

The trip lasted 7 days, which was too short for all the stuff that we could have done there. We had a great time, came home totally tired and have a ton of great memories that should last us a lifetime.

Spring Dance Recital 2009

Here's a couple of pictures and videos from Halee's and Nora's dance recital this past weekend. The girls thoroughly enjoyed entertaining us for the evening. It was a lot of fun seeing our girls in action once again.

Special thanks to Cassie White for teaching and for the great pics of the girls!

The fishing trip

We are trying to be involved with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society here in TX. This month, they had a picnic dinner at a little pond. The activities there included fishing, eating and pony rides.

Nora and Halee enjoyed the rides while McKayela enjoyed the fishing. She caught 3 crappie and was totally excited about doing it. She wasn't so happy to bait her hook with the worms or taking the fish off the hook, but that's what dad is for, right?

We really had a good time there. A big thanks to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and to the man who let us have fun on his property!

Ugly Sweater Party 2009

Tracy and I recently went to an ugly sweater party at one of our friend's house. What a hoot that was! When we found out about the party we hot-footed it down to the Goodwill and found some winners. My sweater - black turtle neck with rainbow stitching. Tracy's sweater was a Kindergarden-teachers nightmare - complete with crocheted sheep for buttons. Both of our sweaters won prizes. Both of our outfits were complimented by my old BCG's - military issued glasses called Birth Control Glasses that I knocked the lenses out of.

I won the Scariest Sweater prize probably because my sweater was not only ugly but when I pulled up the neck, I looked like some kind of gay ninja. Tracy's sweater won the "what were you thinking?" prize.

We had a great time and are keeping our sweaters handy for the 2nd annual ugly sweater party!

Our 11 year old

Yesterday, Feb 7, was the 11th birthday of our oldest child - Miss McKayela. It is amazing to me that she is getting as old as she is. The older she gets, it makes me realize how old Tracy and I are now getting, which is strange to me since I don't feel like I am that much older than the day I graduated from high school, but I digress.

Since McKayela was born, we have moved 7 times and lived in 4 different states. No doubt we will move several more times before she is able to go off to college and experience life by herself. I know she hates moving, which she reminds me of each time we do move. We have learned alot and continue to learn alot by raising McKayela. I appreciate her flexibility and her willingness to learn, grow, and experience life. Altough she can be trying at times, I can't imagine what our lives would be like without her.

Our Christmas and New Year

Our Christmas was a little different than most we have had since joining the military. We usually go to AZ and spend it there with both my family and Tracy's family. We decided, for the second time in our married life, to stay put for the holidays. It seems like an easy decision, but it wasn't. We love going home and being with family! I love seeing my siblings and parents. When I'm home, I love tinkering around on my Jeep and then taking it behind town and shooting my neglected guns. I also very much enjoy being with Tracy's family and I know the kids love it, too.

That being said, we stayed in TX because it is getting harder to travel and take Christmas with us. Packing Christmas to AZ and then bringing all that stuff back plus more is very difficult. We contemplated how we could make it work right up to the last minute. Staying in TX wasn't a bad thing. We have made lots of new friends that made the stay nice. We also had terrific weather - I think we had to turn our AC on the day after Christmas because it was 80 degrees in our room when we went to bed that night!

The girls made a big haul this year. Each got a video/MP3 player. Nora's MP3 player has already come in handy as she had to make a trip to the ER on New Years Day. The girls also got a battery powered scooter, which they all enjoy riding, including me. The girls have had alot of fun on the scooter and have been good about sharing it with the neighbor kids. So far, we have only had one accident when one of the friends fell off the scooter and scraped her leg.

New Years Eve was pretty low-key. We spent the evening at a pizza joint followed by board games at our house.

How we spent a Christmas gift

Last week, Tracy and I were talking about how we needed to have the missionaries over more often. Then on Sunday, while I was sitting in church (Tracy wasn't with me since she stayed home with Nora), the missionaries' meal schedule happened to end-up in my hands. I noticed that there was an opening on Thursday night. I knew this was more than a coincidence since we were just talking about feeding these guys and I happened to have that day off of work.

I promptly signed up for the day. When I got home, proud of my accomplishments, I told Tracy what I had done. She then, gently, reminded me that she and the other two girls had a previous engagement and that we would have to cancel the missionaries meal. I told her not to worry, and that Nora and I would go ahead and entertain.

When Tracy was leaving on Thursday night, I still hadn't formulated a meal plan (go figure). I told her not to worry, that I would take them out for some fast Mexican food at Taco Cabana. She then reminded me of a gift certificate I had gotten for Christmas from my youngest sister, Valayne (that would be sister #8, or child #12, however you want to look at it). So, Nora and I took the missionaries out for dinner. We had a great time with them. What's cool is that one of the missionaries is from Vallejo, CA - close to where we lived at Travis AFB. One of the waiters told us he had just received his mission call and would be leaving in January.

We had some good ol' Mormon style fun. I know the missionaries appreciated the meal since both told me they hadn't been to Olive Garden for a few years.

Our night of caroling at the River Walk

Tonight was an awesome FHE event. We went down to the River Walk, in down town San Antonio. We started the evening by taking a picture of our family in front of the Alamo, followed by a great dinner to include homemade rootbeer at a German deli called Schilo's. Later, we joined some friends down at the river boats and rode along and carolled the night away. The girls all agreed that this will have to be our family tradition while we are here in TX. It was a fantastic night for everything since the weather was nice and warm. It was a lot of fun and a great way to get the Christmas spirit going!