Merry Christmas 2006

Dear Family & Friends,

Merry Christmas! Thanks for visiting our site and we hope you enjoy some photos while you're here. Check out the links to the left for photos of our family adventures over the past year.

Here's a little about what we've been up to this year. Wade has been continuing his research in the Peter Flynn lab in the Chemistry Department here at the University of Utah. He hopes to complete his research, begin writing his thesis, and complete his PhD within the next year. He has enjoyed some road cycling, wildlife photographing, and the usual hiking/camping that he loves. He finished his first century in May (that's 100 miles on a road bike for those of us who are not cyclists)! Wade also turned 30 years old! He keeps very busy with his work, hobbies, and family.

I have had some fun over the past year as well. I've been continuing my duties as the Resident Assistant of our apartments here at the University of Utah student housing, as well as serving in a stake primary calling, which ended this month. Both have been a lot of fun and kept me pretty busy. I also started doing a pre-school, switching off weeks with three of our neighbors. Then we found out in July that we were expecting another baby, which we found out in August is actually two babies. So we'll be having identical twin boys sometime in February of next year. I'm already measuring about full term, but we have two more months to wait. It can get uncomfortable, but mostly I just hope that the boys grow to be big and healthy.

Peter turned two last May and is now talking about everything. He asks questions and comments on what he sees all around him. He is so much fun and we never know what he's going to say next. He started pre-school in September with a group of neighborhood kids that he loves. They sing songs, learn useful stuff, eat snacks, play games, dance, and do all the other fun things that 2 and 3 year-olds love to do.

It has been a good year and we would like to wish you and your family a very happy year to come! Merry Christmas.

Love, The Van Horns

October 2006

Peter dressed up as a fireman for Halloween and he loved going trick-or-treating this year with daddy! He definetly got the hang of it quickly and still says trick-or-treat when he knocks on doors occasionally. Everday I hope he forgets about that big bucket full of candy, but he has a one track mind. He asks for candy several times a day and I do all I can to limit it to

one or two pieces a day. Anyway, he is a lot of fun and we're also in the process of potty training (sort of?). He loves preschool, which he attends twice a week with his friends Cory, Kaylee, and Brooklyn.

We also attended the sealing of Brielle to my sister and brother-in-law Corrine & Brandon early this month. They adopted her last January and they were sealed together in the Las Vegas Temple this October. She is such a cute little girl.

Peter got a new big boy bed this month made just for him by Grandpa Danny! It has a shelf for a headboard and three big drawers underneath. Pete sleeps in it every night and loves it. Grandpa Danny drove it up to Salt Lake for him after Brielle's sealing and we had lots of fun together.

We've also had several more ultrasounds and things are looking good with the boys. I am growing larger everyday and feel like I'm already as big as I got with Peter at the very end! I still have 3-4 more months to go!

Wade and I took a trip to Jackson Hole and Grand Teton National Park over the weekend of Oct. 27-29 while Peter stayed with Grandma Carol and His Aunt Amy and Uncle Bob for the whole weekend! We had a nice vacation together and Pete absolutely loved playing with his cousins Colby, Katie, and Trevor! Wade took some great photos of our trip, which you can link to at the right.

Identical Twin Boys!

We found out that our twins are identical and that we'll be adding two more boys to our family. I am excited to have more boys, especially after life with Peter, who we think is adorable and wonderful. The only thing that I have reservations about is the fact that I will be the only girl in our soon to be family of five. I am already the target of some teasing; of course, it's all in fun now, but I dread to think of what I will be faced with when three teenage boys, led by Wade (the king of tease) gang up on their poor mother. Anyway, I am preparing myself to be the brunt of many jokes in our family.

Here is another photo of Peter from preschool. We visited the fire station and he loved the fire trucks of course. They ran the siren and he thought that was great. He is going to be a fireman for Halloween and he is just more fun all the time. He adds more words and sentences to his vocabulary everyday.

Cleanup, Cleanup, Everybody, Everywhere!

Okay, so it's taken me over a month to recover from the latest news and get around to posting again. This past month has been filled with many thoughts of "what do we do now?" We're trying to figure out where to put two new babies in our 3 bedroom apartment and what things we need to get that we didn't think we needed to get. We've also had several more ultrasounds and will be having one about every two weeks.

We have been doing other things as well. We went camping at Great Basin National Park and went to Fallon, NV for my family reunion. Peter loves to camp and he enjoyed playing in the water at Lake Lahontan. Grandma Leslie even took him for a ride on the jet ski! He loved it.

Peter started pre-school this last week too! We had it at our house and Peter was so good about sharing his toys and really just wanted to play with them the whole time. Peter is the youngest of the four kids in our court that are doing it together and he seems to have a hard time sitting and listening, but he is a good helper and learned how to cleanup by singing the Barney cleanup song, "Cleanup, cleanup, everybody everywhere, cleanup, cleanup, everybody do your share." I think he makes messes now, just so he can sing the song while he cleans up. He often comes in to tell mom or dad about the mess he made like he is so proud of it! Then we sing.

Peter's sentence of the month: "Mommy, can I have some more please!" "Daddy, it's weird."

Tweedledee & Tweedledum

"Yes, they are twins, not a singular two-headed mutant." (Wade's caption)

What does Pete have to say about this? When asked if he wants two babies, he says, "Yeah!" He also requested two girls.

What do we think about this? Ask us again in a few weeks.

The due date is March 10, 2007.

My "Job"

As you may know, I am a stay at home mom, which means I don't have a job outside of our home. I don't have to get up at a certain hour and get ready and drive to work and sit at my desk or teach a classroom of children and then drive home at the end of the day. My real job is as a wife and mother and I get to do it in my own home. Usually, I wake up between 6 and 7 am when Peter comes into our room. He says "wake up mommy," or "breakfast," or "covers." If he asks for the covers, that means he wants to get under the covers, so I lift him up into our bed, which I love because it gives me a few more minutes of laying there or maybe even dozing in and out of sleep. Peter might have a car in his hand that he drives over us making the vroom noises, or he picked up the travel alarm clock from the nightstand and pushes the indiglo button over and over. Eventually it's time to get up and get to "work." My "job" as a wife and mother consists of performing the duties of accountant, cook, housekeeper, teacher, and many other things that come up during the day.

The closest I come to a job, in the traditional sense is serving as the Resident Assistant of the 800 court, for which we receive a rent deduction. Each court has it's own RA, and I am responsible for one court, the 800 court with 69 apartments, out of 15 courts and over 1000 apartments. You can see why University Student Apartments is called the "Village." It is a great community of married student and family housing. We live in the West Village which is it's own married student stake. The East Village is in a second married student stake that also includes some other married student housing. Anyway, for my RA "job" I do a weekly check of my court and make sure lights are working and rules are being followed (like no storing items in the stairwells for example). If I find problems I report them to the proper person or talk directly to resdients about it. I submit a weekly report to my supervisor and inspect vacant apartments before residents move in. When new residents move in, I get to meet them and do an orientation about living in the Village. I also deliver flyers to all 69 doors (504 stairs) every week about events and Village business from the main office. I also write a monthly newsletter for the 800 court and hold a monthly court activity. This month we're having a huge international neighborhood dinner. About 1/3 of the residents in our court are from countries other than the US. We have some from Korea, China, Bangladesh, Colombia, Mexico, Georgia, Egypt, and some that I can't remember. Anyway, the residents are making dishes to bring and share, and I am really looking forward to a great spread of food from all over the world.

So, this is my life, and aside from RA stuff, my primary calling, and neighborly duties, I fill my time with the family stuff that makes it all worthwhile!

Pete's Sentence of the week: "I love you mommy (or daddy)." He says this while giving us a hug. You can't beat that!

Mount Timpanogos

These are some of the beautiful wildflowers we saw on the hike up Mount Timpanogos this past Thursday. We hiked about 12 miles in 10 hours including some excursions to find mountain goats, and take photos of wildflowers etc. I think we had to break every two miles or so to snack and rest, but we made it. We got up to the ridgeline and looked down on the whole Utah Valley. It was amazing to look back up towards the mountain and see where we had been. I couldn't believe that I had walked up there! Hiking Timp is kind of a BYU rite of passage for some people, and we just never did it until now, four years later. Wade has hiked Timp several times in the last few years, but this was my first and I don't know if I want to do it again any time soon. I think the hardest part is coming down, especially the last few miles when your whole body aches and you want to sit down and never move, but you're so close to the end and you just want to keep going. Peter stayed with Grandma Carol and had a great time I'm sure. Wade took some nice photos which you can view through a link to the right.

We started hiking at about 8:00am and one mile into the hike we surprised a sleeping bull moose. He was right on the trail and stood up abruptly when we were about 10 feet from him. We didn't see him either since the trail curved sharply and there were large bushes all around. Anyway, the moose just stood there and we just stood there, I was trying to figure out where to run if the moose came after us and Wade was trying to get a better vantage to take some photos of it. After a few minutes it was clear that the moose knew he was bigger than us and had no intention of moving off the trail so we could get by. He continued eating from nearby branches and wasn't about to budge. This is when Wade's moose expertise kicked in. He lifted his trekking poles up in the air and swayed back and forth. This made him look much larger than the young bull and swaying back and forth is how one moose challenges another. It took about two seconds for the young moose to take off down through the bushes. I decided to hold my poles up too for a while until we were a safe distance away. I don't suggest doing this if you encounter a bull moose, but since this was a young bull, and it wasn't mating season, the moose knew it's place and didn't decide to fight us "bigger moose." Had it decided not to back down to Wade's challenge, we would have been in a very unfortunate position.

Cecret Lake

Corrine & Brielle came to visit over the weekend and we hiked to Cecret Lake. It was only a mile each way, but Peter walked the whole way back on his own. He absolutely loves to be outside and play in the dirt and rocks and water. He picks up the dirt and throws it and says "fire." This can only be explained by his unusual obsession with fire ever since the microwave and hot wheels incident (read last weeks post for the full story). Pete also liked baby Brielle. He said her name and tickled her, but wasn't really willing to share his toys with her. The forgotten toys at the bottom of the toy box were suddenly the ones he loved the most when we gave them to Brielle.

Baby Brielle is adorable. She smiles so big and sticks out her very long tongue. She sleeps very well and seems to be happy most of the time. She is also already crawling around at 6 months. I think I'm her favorite aunt (sorry Tirza) because she always smiled at me and let me hold her. It was fun to see Corrine and her baby and we enjoyed the visit together, although we did have to speak in church that Sunday, so we neglected them a little bit on Saturday in preparation.

Pete's Sentence of the week: "Let's do it!" "Thank you mommy."

Red Pine

We hiked to Red Pine Lake last weekend as a family and it was a killer 3.5 mile hike up hill. I thought I was in pretty good shape, but I could only take a few steps at a time up some of the steep parts before needing a little rest! Peter loved it, of course, and Wade took lots of photos, of course. Pete did some hiking on his own two feet (out of the backpack), threw rocks in the water, ate lunch, and got a little bit scared of a squirrel that he thought was being too friendly.

We also went to our ward campout this weekend (just for dinner) at Mormon Flats up Parley's canyon (the last camp before the Mormon Pioneers came into the Salt Lake Valley for the first time). They served a wonderful dutch oven dinner and Peter was so excited to go hiking and see the water. He loves to be outside and go hiking. He says "hiking" whenever he sees a picture of mountains or forests.

Peter also learned how to start a fire in the microwave with a hot wheels car this week. He put it in, pushed some buttons, and before either of us knew it, there was a flaming car in the microwave. Luckily, I was close by and could stop it before any damage was done, but there were some tears of fright, and he had some fire nightmares during the nights that followed. Within a few days his reluctance to approach the microwave turned to interest and his interest has since turned to requests to make fire again. He now talks about fire quite frequently, fire in the sky (fireworks?), fire trucks, and any other flame that he sees is fascinating. He said "I want to touch it," when he saw the campfire at Parley's Canyon.

Peter's sentence of the week: "I did it!" "Daddy, I want to start a fire."

Playing with friends

Here is one of Wade's recent photos from a hike up Bell's Canyon in Salt Lake. He still enjoys taking landscape and wildlife photos and gets out occasionally to do so.
It has been very hot in Salt Lake this week. Pete and I spent several days either at Raging Waters, or playing in the water in our courtyard. He also spent some time with his friend Cory, a neighbor who is about Pete's age. He also loves to see his cousin Andrew, who had a birthday party last Sunday. Peter has enjoyed playing with other children more in the last few months and loves going to other homes, or having friends over to share his toys with. This is a new challenge as sharing, and learning how to play kindly with others is something that we now face.
Pete's sentence of the week: "I want some ice cream."

Fearless

This is Peter climbing several yards up a steep rock by himself. I was up above checking out some pictographs, when Wade called for me to look at my son. Pete got up pretty far up on his own and then turned around and sat down (see more photos from Mesa Verde Trip Photos link to the right). Wade did have to help him get back down again when Peter didn't really know what to do next. I think we have a mountain climber on our hands! This ought to be an interesting next 17 years.

Alternating Pedals

Peter turned 2 on May 16 and is more fun everyday. He talks so much and is interested in everything. He got a bike for his birthday and now we just have to teach him how to ride. Alternating pedals is hard and he just likes to push down with both feet, which just engages the brake!

Wade, Pete, & I went camping and visited Mesa Verde in May. We camped near blanding, Utah and 4wd/hiked to some awesome ruins, pictographs, & petroglyphs near canyonlands as well. Wade rode his first century (100 miles) on May 20 and is looking forward to his second in August.

June is hot here in Salt Lake and we enjoy spending time outside. We planted our garden in May and Peter loves to help me water it with the nozzle he can "squeeze". Peter & I have been spending lots of time at our local Raging Waters with Nancy and Andrew. Pete loves the water.

here is another!!

testing 1,2,3

Welcome to our website!

Hey, thanks for visiting our site. We are currently in the process of organizing everything, so please be pateint with us. You can click on the links to the right and see what we've got so far. Enjoy, and come back again soon!

The Van Horn's