Monsoon Season in AZ

Ah....the monsoon season has started in AZ.  Nothing like going for a walk with Baby Kakes and getting caught in the rain.  It is a nice break from the heat but.....no longer is it a dry heat!  For AZ we have a lot of humidity.

We spent a week up in Utah (PJ, Amy, Elli, Patrick and Kate - Mary was in Iowa at her Aunts).  Amy and I were working and Patrick was attending the School of Rock Rock Band Boot Camp in Sandy.  He had a blast.  He sang four songs (Ice Cream Man, Burning Down the House, Were Not Going to Take It and You got Another Thing Coming).  He did a great job!  The whole Firth Family was there to watch and that was very nice.

We went boating with our friends (and customers) Steve Wilkinson, his fiance' Lisa, and Dustin and Falesha Cooper.  We went to East Canyon Reservoir.  Nothing like Air Chairing at 6,500 feet!  It was a great night.  Patrick even tried to Air Chair (he had a great 360 wipe out!).  Dustin and I also did a bike ride up to  East Canyon Lake.  Great Ride.  Nice Climbing.

We did some great family stuff at the Firth's, including attending their Ward Ice Cream Social.  Kathryn's Home Made Ice Cream was the hit of the social!  We also went to see Ralph and Kathryn at the Conference Center and got a tour.  Man, that green roof is so cool.  We walked around the Salt Lake City Cemetery.  That was very cool.  Lots of history there.

When we drove home, we were sans Elli.  She is still up in UT having a lot of fun.  She may stay until we go back for our nephew's wedding on the 10th.  I think she goes to her second water park tomorrow. She has also gone to Lagoon (bum!  I want to go to Lagoon).

When we got back from UT, we got the news that a young man we had been working with decided to get baptized.  So on Saturday, Michael Logan Davis got baptized.

We also had Kate's 1 year check up. She has a new nickname  - Big Baby.  She looks like the baby in Toy Story Three!  She is huge - 97 percentile in height and 84 percentile in weight.  She is just a hoot.  She went for a big ride tonight.  She is even starting to dig wearing her helmet I got her.  It has a big pink Mohawk on it!

My Buddy BoBo had surgery today to repair a broken collar bone.  I hope it heals fast, he is doing the WI Ironman with our friend Ken Sherman this fall.  On a sad note, two of my friends (Karen & Joe and John and Monica) both lost a parent last week.  That is tough.

Both Amy and I are keeping our weight off - though both of us would like to take off more.  I am helped by riding every morning with my friend Joe at 5:30 in the morning.  It is nice to be riding, specially when it is not alone.  Joe and I solve all the world's problems on those rides.  I really enjoy them.  Joe and Karen are on vacation this week with Joe's family in Tahoe and boy it is hard to ride without him being there to push me.

Hope all is well.

PJ

Easter Happenings

What a beautiful day in Scottsdale, Arizona.  It is only made better by three things...1) It's Easter, so we are able to relax and think about our Savior. 2) It is General Conference so we are blessed that even though we don't reside in Utah, we are able to watch and hear the leaders of our church give us guidance from the sanctity of our home. 3) All of our children are here with us and being somewhat...peaceful.

So the first session of conference is over and as tradition holds in our family, each of us have taken notes ( I wish to say that the notetaking was because all of the kids were so intent on hearing the words of the prophet, but alas...no.  It is because the prize for passing the quiz this time is $20 each.) and we are now relaxing and enjoying this time.  Each preparing for the second session in their own way.

First there is Patrick who is exhasuted from his morning workout on Wii Fit. So he is kicking back reading his guitar mag, waiting for the right moment to break out into song on his guitar.

Then there is Elli and Mary.  Elli trying to work on her moves as the master hula hooper on the Fit. While Mary so empathetically eats her ice cream.

Our snuggly Kate is as happy as ever that all her family is home just waiting on her every cute move.  She loves the whole "the world is my oyster" concept and as you can see oysters aren't the only thing that she is being fed!

Lastly, my sweetheart PJ.  Worked so hard to make us a wonderful Easter breakfast (better for those who are not perpetually on a diet) and followed by an interesting plate of deviled eggs all while helping Mary with her GC notetaking.  He deserved his General Conference interlude nap.

What a wonderful day. 

Kate Pictures 1/27/10

 

  

  

  

  

  

 

Been a while...

Since we got hooked on Facebook we seem to do more of our posting there.  Kate has fully integrated herself into our family.  She is just our little pumpkin!  We just love her.  If only she slept a little better at night! We are blessed to have Aunt Sarah to watch her during the week.  The whole Reinstein family just loves Kate and take such good care of her. 

Speaking of the Reinsteins, we will be having Thanksgiving Dinner with them at our house.  We will have Turkey, Ham, Cornbread/sausage/apple dressing, a corn souffle, seven layer jello salad, Sarah's homemade bread and who knows what else.  Maybe a Dutch Apple Pie and Pumpkin cheesecake. 

This is the girls at our Neice's wedding in August

The Saturday after Thanksgiving my sister MaryK will come to our house. My nephew Mark and his new Bride Carolyn will be in Tucson or the holiday. We are exicted to see them and for them all to meet Kate. 

Ellison is going to UT with her Dad for the holiday (BYU v. Utah) game.

We went to Disney for my Birthday. 

Speaking of football - GO STATE  Beat Missery tomorrow.

Kate with her friend Lexi

Kathryn Ann Harrigan Has Arrived

At 2:51 pm on Tuesday June 30th Kathryn Ann (Kate) Harrigan joined us. Amy's water broke at 10:30 on Monday night and at 1:30 we headed to the Hospital. After a couple of hours of walking circles around the Maternity Ward they moved us into a birthing room. At 7:30 they gave Amy an epidural and started her on a pitocan drip. Everything was great. She progressed to a 6 at about noon and they ramped up the drip. She got checked again at 2:00 and was still a 6. At 2:15 she got checked again and she was a 1o and then told her the relax and they would get the doctor there ASAP! Dr. Martin arrived at about 2:35 and at 2:40 Amy started pushing. After 15 pushes Baby Kate joined us. Big Siblings Patrick, Mary and Ellison were waiting outside the door to meet her.

She is just an angel. She is perfect and sweet. She is doing a great job nursing. She has been on a couple of walks around the maternity ward and enjoyed them (slept the whole time). She has a fair amount of dark hair and blue eyes (but who knows what color they will end up).

She has had very little time to lay in her little bassinet. When Elli and Mary are around they hold her! They are both just gaga over her. They got to help her get her feet prints done last night and Mary helped her with her first sponge bath also.

Amy is recovering well. The Epidural really helped her. Up until about 2:15 she really felt nothing. At 2:15 Kate was ready to get the show going so the pressure started to build up. The good news was Amy had less than 15 minutes of hard labor. She only had to push about 15 times. Amy is sore for sure.

Sounds like we are going home tomorrow morning.

We are so happy to have Kathryn. She completes our family circle. Thank you for all your prayers!

Love PJ

We moved!

Well, what has happened lately...

We have sold my house (we hope). It should close next month. But with that, we moved to Amy's house and are neck deep in boxes and can not find anything. Thankfully I had help from friends from Church because we would not have gotten it done with out them!

The kid's rooms are pretty much done (Patrick has to share his closet with me and we do not have that done yet). We have a ton of stuff for sale on Craig's list and hope to have a big garage sale sometime after Kate arrives. Tonx is not sure about the move. He is a bit out of sorts not having his normal places to lay and watch the birds.

Amy is miserable....she was hoping they were going to tell her to go straight to the hospital on Tuesday when we had our appointment. We start going weekly now. She still swears she will deliver before the month of July. Her back is hurting and she has trouble sleeping. Kate likes to move around a lot at night. We moved the recliner in our room and that has been a savior for her. We did finally go out and buy a crib, stroller, car seat, pack-n-play and some other baby stuff. The Relief Society held a shower for Amy and invited some of her work friends. The gifts she received was overwhelming! It was pretty incredible.

Kids are good. We had a piano recital for Elli a three weeks ago and a guitar recital for Patrick two weeks ago. Both did outstanding (I will post Patrick's performance on Face Book). Mary is going to go to a day camp next week at the Boys & Girls Club by our house. Ellis is doing gymnastics one day a week. Patrick is being a bum :). Patrick and Mary are spending some time with us these two next weeks which is fun for me. Though, because work is so busy I have not been able to do as much with them. We have done some bike rides and gone to the park. That is the great thing about the Grayhawk house - the community is really geared to families (that and we are so much closer to our friends like the Reinsteins).

This weekend Elli will be with her Dad and her Cousins from California for Fathers Day. We used some of my hotel points to get a room at a nice hotel in Scottsdale with a water park. We are going to go to a Zoo with a new Aquarium on Friday afternoon and then just hang by the pool on Saturday. It will be fun (we just hope the rainy season does not start on Saturday!).

Amy and I are both swamped at work. It is good to be busy but both of us are pretty stressed with the work load. Amy has a couple of classes she is teaching this week and then is going to start backing down her work load. She has hired a young man we met through the class at ASU we teach to help her out. He is an amazing guy. Today he spent the afternoon correcting all the issues with our home wireless network I created when I swapped out the cable modem. He has been doing all types of things for Amy to make her life easier at work and he gets to learn the mortgage business from a great teacher. He and his wife also expecting a baby.

That is about it for now. I am sure there is tons of stuff I am missing. I have started riding my bike again (another benefit of Grayhawk) three or four days a week and it has helped me connect with some old friends who I use to ride with who live up this way.

I hope you all are well. We miss you all.

PJ

Easter and the Spring Show

fatty here...

As much as I tried to get away from the commercialization of the Easter celebration, it is tough to do when you have such great kids! Easter weekend PJ and I decided to spend some individual quality time with our kid(s). PJ and Patrick spent some time at the bookstore while Mary was in vision therapy and he got the book he had wanted. PJ brought Patrick home to stay with Elli and I, then took Mary to go see Hannah Montana the Movie...seriously what a great dad. He even admitted that he liked it. On Saturday, it was Elli and my turn.

Elli for months had been trying to earn a chance to go to Build a Bear Workshop. We used to go there a lot when she was younger, but it had been a long time. When I gave her a basket full of plastic Easter eggs with the secret message "Let's go to Build a Bear", I was very surprised with how excited she was. Her day had been made!

She was so excited to get her Elephant, "Elowise". She just loved every minute of that day!

Sunday , the Easter Bunny suprised all of us with baskets full of candy and little gifts. PJ even got a replacement shirt for the one he ruined with his "fancy Levenger pen". My gift was best of all. Elli made me a beautiful card with a Poem and gave me a necklace that she had from Chicago and PJ actually gave me the gift certificate for the Pregnancy Massage that he gave me for Valentine's Day! (I am just teasing PJ...it was exactly what I had been needing since the charleyhorses in my legs were getting severe!) I can't thank him enough, it was wonderful.

Elli here...
She was right,it was fun.
But today something was also a lot of fun...MY SPRING SHOW! (if you don't know what a spring show is , it is where each and every class does a singing and dancing performance) On Wednesday, we got to see the builders build the gigantic stage. We even got to see them to use the jackhammer! Friday, the stage was ready for business. Then, the big day came! It was so much fun! There was a snow cone shack and dip n dots! Jumpy house and a carnival! what a fun day! Here are some pictures of me and some of my friends...