Christmas

Here are a few of the pictures we took on Christmas morning. Todd filled my stocking with lots of goodies. Sewing scissors, skittles, markers, a game, etc.
Todd and I both got Phase 10 dice for each other, it was pretty funny.
These are the presents from my parents.
For this picture I made Todd open up his eyes as much as possible. As we all know when the Dow boys smile, they tend to close their eyes. This was as good as it gets.

Todd and I had a good Christmas this year. Because we bought a video camera for ourselves this year, we decided that our budget for presents would be pretty small. Even with the tight budget we found some pretty good presents that were great for each other. We also got some good gifts from others. My mom and Dad got us a Book of Mormon for Latter-day Saint Families and Catch Phrase. Mum and Dad got us a gift card to Amazon which we bought the Lord of the Rings trilogy with. Gram bought us a board book for the baby. Between the two of us we got 12 puzzles - I'm very serious. Todd bought me a collection that has 10 puzzles in it.

Month Number 4

Todd took this picture of my on December 18. I was exactly 18 weeks along that day. My bump is getting bigger and bigger. I am glad to say that all the nausea and most of the pains from my first trimester are gone. I've been feeling much better and this truly is the best time of pregnancy for me.

Visitors

These are a few of our visitors over the Thanksgiving holiday. The top one is our nephew Brody.
This is Ian. I can't believe how big he has grown since I've seen him last.
This is our little SPOILED princess Gracee. She is way more tough than her older brother.
This is my mom and our niece McKenna. We were so excited because we all got to see her crawl over Thanksgiving.

My Awesome Husband

Sometimes I take Todd for granted and how great he is to me. But in the past few weeks since I've been sick and I can't do as much cooking and other things as I used to, I've really seen how lucky I am that we found each other. Even though I get frustrated with him sometimes because he doesn't think exactly like I do, I really am grateful for all he does for me. He cleans the house the majority of the time, he brings me things when I feel like I can't move, and he even cooks now. When before he always told me he didn't know how. He has taken on quite a few different cooking experiences. I guess all in all I really just want to say how much I love him and how much I've appreciated his attitude during this pregnancy. I'm so blessed to have him in my life.

A Short Visit

Well my dad came for the weekend. He was at a conference in Las Vegas and decided to make a detour on the way home. McKenna, just like all the other grandchildren, has Papa wrapped around her finger and he is totally enthralled by her. She is getting so big and gets closer and closer to crawling every day. She fell asleep in that position by the way. After we got her up and put her in a bed my dad looked like he had ran a marathon. Kenna sweats really bad when she sleeps so my dad looked like he needed a little deodarant.

News

Well I'm pregnant. I announced it today in Relief Society because I thought I could only hide it for a little longer. At least this way it was a surprise to everyone. I usually don't wear tight shirts and this is why. I was talking to Mandy a few weeks ago (before anyone knew I was pregnant) and I was telling her how unfair it was that she was like 6 months pregnant and still not very big. I told her then that it wasn't going to be like that for me. Knowing my family history and also my own body shape, I knew that I would start showing long before she had. I mean being this short, where else would the baby have any room to grow but out. I do have solace in the fact that I haven't gained very much weight though. Hopefully all of the weight that I do gain will be concentrated in a very small area and it will be easy enough to lose. Even if it is not, Todd and I are very excited for the outcome of the weight gain. The due date as of now is May 21, 2008. We'll see when the baby really comes. Everyone I teach with compliments me on the perfectness of our timing. I get out of school on the 23rd so I won't really have to miss too much school. We also get to hear the heartbeat on Tuesday. We've been looking forward to this and feel like it will make it seem even more real to the both of us.

SEPs

Well for all of those who don't know, SEP stands for Student Education Plan - basically a parent/teacher conference. This week I had my first of the year. I am so dead tired because of this that I had to lay down in my classroom at lunch today. They did go relatively well so that I am glad of. But being on the road and at school for 13 hours two days in a row wasn't exactly my favorite thing to do. I hope all of you parents out there realize the time we teachers put in sometimes...I'm sure you do. Anyway so I'm very excited that this is conference weekend and I get to relax and watch conference at home. Hope you all are doing well and know that we love ya.

Love Weekends

I absolutely love coming home from school on Friday nights. It means I have two whole days ahead of me without too much to worry about. Tonight we have our stake BBQ. I don't know how exciting it will be, but at least it's free food. Something we can all use. I've been very diligent in trying to keep up with my planning for school, so I might even get to sew this weekend or something fun like that. (The real reason I'm blogging today is because Mandy said that she would update her blog whenever I do. Although I think it's a little unfair because she will at least have a baby to blog about, when I have nothing. But oh well we'll see if she updates now.)

Come On

First of all, in answer to Mum's question - yes I've had my hair this short before. I've had it much shorter than this as well. I like a bit of change once in awhile. Secondly this blog is dedicated to those in this family who aren't posting anything lately. ;) Todd and I, as I'm sure Rheanna as well would like to see some updates on your blog. I check blogs faithfully each day and am always sad to see when no one posts. I'm the type of person who likes to get mail, even if it's just junk. I'm not trying to be mean, we just want to know what is going on in your lives. It doesn't have to be every day or anything, just once in awhile.

Haircut

Here is the picture you've been waiting for. Sorry my head is cut off at the top, but I figure you can still see the result. I'm wearing my beautiful orange Event Staff shirt. We had fun doing that, but man do my feet hurt. I took tickets, and Todd got to be on the field right behind BYU players. I think he enjoyed it, but he is burnt. It's funny seeing the line.

Haircut

Well this is me with my "long" hair. I got my haircut on Saturday - it was a whim. I haven't taken any pictures yet, so you'll have to patiently wait for that. Just a thought for the day for everyone "Teachers can only do so much, as a parent you are your child's first and best teacher."

Brody

I just really wanted to try this video thing. This one is fun.

Wakeboarding

On Wednesday Todd and I went to a camp on the lake. We got to swim at their private beach, we swung on a rope swing, ate some lunch, and we got to go wakeboarding. This was Todd's first time trying to wakeboard so he didn't actually get up. He got very close one time, but he looked like the bottom picture most of the time.

I've been wakeboarding before so this is what I looked like, however I'm not that good so I didn't stay up to long. It is a lot easier for a lighter person to get up as well.

Magnet Letters

While we were in Maine we stayed at Gram's house. She was such a great hostess. She even did our laundry for us. When we were up at Mum and Dad's house and would get ready to go down to Gram's, Hyrum (before the "cousins" came) and Payton would ask if they could go too. So they would often walk with us and get to play for a few minutes at Grammy Call's house. Payton did this more often than Hyrum, and she would play with Gram's magnet letters. It was funny because she would dump them all out in the living room and then she would take one at a time out to the refrigerator. I guess it didn't occur to her to dump them out in the kitchen or to take more than one.

Bar Harbor and Sandy Beach

I love seafood and so does Todd so one of our main priorities when going to Maine was going to the coast. So we drove up on Thursday and started off at Sandy Beach. Hyrum had to decide if he really wanted to get in or not.

The boys all decided to get in right away even though the water was freezing. I didn't think I was going to until I pretty much got soaked taking Payton out in the water. So I went and changed into my swimsuit.


After the beach we went to The Fish House Grill and had dinner. Todd and I of course ordered the most expensive items, but it was very good. I took a picture of Payton and then Hyrum wanted a picture and then I took one of Todd in his new bib.

Boston

When we flew to the East coast for my first Dow family reunion we planned it so that we could do a little sightseeing in Boston with Eric and Mandy. We really just got to do the Freedom Trail, but I thought it was really cool. Here is us in front of the Paul Revere statue.
This was the one thing Todd wanted to see the most - the U.S.S. Constitution. It was the very last stop for us on the Freedom Trail and it took quite a while to get there. I think we were all pretty hot from the humid weather, and Mandy was probably the worst off due to her "condition". Todd was pretty happy though so we're really glad she didn't complain a bit.
Here's the big boat in all her glory.

WARD CAMPOUT!!

Todd looks so awake.
At least Mandy looks good in the morning.

Last night we went to a ward campout which of course happened to be on the same night as Logan and Zachary's birthday party. Sorry guys. Anyway it was pretty fun. We set up our awesome tent and then laid out our beds. Todd and I bought some pool rafts ($1.50 bargain) and used them as our air mattresses. I think we all had a pretty fun time, we played Phase 10 with another couple for about 3 hours. Then we pretty much all just hung out together, Todd would occasionally chat with someone else. When I commented on how we were at a ward campout but we were only talking to Eric and Mandy, Todd brought up the point that our family relationships are the most important. Good point. Anyway that is a picture of Eric in our sweet tent, and the other two are in the morning after we woke up. I don't know if I can really say woke up, we didn't really sleep. There was an awesome wind storm that we thought was going to blow the tent over that I think kept most of us up all night. It was a good time though.

Harry Potter Fanatics

Last night we went to see Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix with Eric, Mandy, and Amanda. The show was at 12:10 but we got there around 9:30ish. We played Phase 10 in the theater to pass the time. It was a good movie, although it does leave quite a bit out. Understandable when an almost 900 page book is being condensed to a two hour movie. The discussion afterward got Todd curious enough that he is going to start reading the books. So we are going to start buying them, YEAH!!! Because of our wait time in line, we had a pretty interesting run in with a group of girls at the ticket taker. They just sort of walked up and expected to get in line then. I said "Excuse me, we've been waiting in line for a long time." They didn't like that very much and tried to make excuses for cutting in line, but I wasn't going to let them do it in front of us. It was pretty interesting, and I don't think they like me very much.

Birthday Party

These are a few pictures from Brody's birthday party. His birthday is the same day as Payton's. Gracee loved the cupcakes and we all loved the slip and slide. I even went on it this time. Dylan was giving a cheesy smile so I thought I would capture it.

Fun Pictures

This is a picture of Gracee sharing her Freezee with Haylee.
Haylee decided it was time to get in the pool before it was finished filling up, so as you can see the kids had fun anyway.
This is Brody with his dirtbike. We are trying to keep the training wheels on as long as possible.
Ian is such a sweet baby boy. We love to cuddle with him all the time.

World's of Fun

These are some pictures I took when we went down to Worlds of Fun (an amusement park that is a little bigger than Lagoon). I wish I would have taken more. I went with my Mom and Dad, Alisha, Chad, Brody, Gracee, Ian, Megan, Jim McKenna, Dylan, and Brianna. We had so much fun, besides the fact that we had to wait for 45 minutes for them to find the tickets we bought before hand. It was a little challenging with 3 toddlers and 2 infants, but we got to go on a lot of rides. I think I went on all of the roller coasters 2 or 3 times. The lines were awesome. The only time we waited more than 10 minutes was when we wanted to get in the front on the Patriot. It is one of those rides where your feet are dangling, so we wanted to be able to see everything a little better. I'm glad we were able to go, and we sure did wear out the kids.

The top picture is McKenna, then my dad and mom, then Dylan and Brody, then a group of us on the carousel.

Memorial Day

When we went to Justin and Rheanna's house for Memorial Day, Payton and Hyrum took a bath and then they had to show Todd and I their towels. It was so cute. I know I don't look that good in a towel.

McKenna's Blessing

On June 3rd, my family came out for a quick weekend to help celebrate McKenna's Blessing. We had a fun weekend but it was pretty quick.

Last Day

Friday was my last day of school. It was such a fun day and these are my crazy kids. I'm gonna miss them but I look forward to having a new class next year.

Amateur

We took a few family pics with our cameras in our backyard. It is the first time we've all been together since the wedding. It was really a fun trip. I took so many pictures, so sorry if you get bored of seeing them all. By the way that spot on my shoulder in the top picture is Ian's drool. Yummy. I can't believe how big Brody is getting. His personality is just so sweet most of the time. Right before we left on Sunday to drive back, he came up to me with a sad little face and said "Katie I don't want you to go. Why can't you stay here?" It broke my heart to hear him say that. It can be pretty hard sometimes not being close to all of the family that we have. But we love it when we do get to see everyone.