Holidays

Ok, so what can I say. We (I) have been slacking at updating the blog so I am going to throw a ton of stuff up here, so here it goes.....

In the beginning of December we had Kaleb's baby blessing. Pris and I decided that we would have a luncheon after the blessing. We were trying to decide on how much work we wanted to put into it. We decided to buy food from Sam's. When we went to Sam's to pick out the food we decided at first to get a deli tray and some croissants and let everyone build their own sandwiches. When we got to the meat section to order the meat tray, Pris saw the already-made sandwiches. She was sold on those and changed the order. The sandwiches were a hit and I could not get enough of them. Scott and Natalie brought chips, Derek and Kesley brought an awesome pasta salad with pecans in it (yummy!!), and Dad and Dixie brought jello. The pasta salad was a hit for our kids. Kelsey even made two bowls of it and we took the extra because it was so good. I love these special times we have to gather as family and friends. They bring us so much happiness and make the troubles of life easier.




Christmas was a special time. We had Julie and the girls with us. One tradition that we have always had is getting new pajamas on Christmas Eve. So Grandma Julie and Grandpa Randy sent all the kids pajamas. They had so much fun opening up and seeing what they had sent. We had some secret Santas come and drop off stuff for Julie and the girls. They even left us with a movie package with Kung Fu Panda as the movie. The kids loved watching that movie; of course there were parts that we fast forwarded. James really loved the part where Panda was fighting the bad guy and they were rolling down the steps and Panda landed on the leopard's hard. He laughed so hard. Pris and I laughed when they were walking up the mountain and Panda said "I know you're trying to be all mystical and kung fueee, but...". We laughed so hard. We also had a Finlayson family Christmas party. Eveyone had a great time. Here are some pics from it.


Scott and Jason. Of course Jason loves to be a ham when pictures are being taken.

Christmas with the chipmunks.

I thought everyone would like to see this. They love this music as much as mommy did when she listened to it growing up.

Halloween Continued

My guess is that you were waiting for pictures from Halloween. So now I am adding these in this morning. Alexandra wanted to be Minnie Mouse, Joshua a Dalmation, and James a Jedi Knight. They got all dress up and Pris brought them to work. Once again Novell made it really easy to get as much candy as possible in one single place. It was like Heaven for the kids. Julie and her girls came as well. As you can tell the girls were really cute in their costumes. Unfortunately the adults did not dress up! No Halloween spirit from them. We have a costume contest at work and there were some great costumes. A couple of the employees dressed up lik Sarah Palin and John McCain. It was pretty good. They also had a salsa contest. Work also had a drawing for the kids when they got to work. We won some bath toys for the kids.

You are all probably wondering what Kaleb was and so here he is. He was a beautiful bumblebee. I am not sure if I would have chosen that but at least we dressed him up. I think him and Joshua were the most miserable since those are very hot costumes and we did all the trick or treating indoors and not outside.

Halloween 2008

Doesn't Joshua look a little like Casper?

After Kaleb was born, Priscilla's parents decided to come and visit. It took them a couple of days, but they got is safely. They stayed with John and Tiffany, but drove back and forth between us. As you can see we decided to go Vineyard Nursery and pick out pumpkins and go through the corn maze. Grandpa Harman is always making silly faces when he gets to pose in pictures.

Grandma and Grandpa brought Maddy and Eve with them. Julie was out taking care of other business.As you can see we are a little bit behind. Time is flying by really fast having additional ones living in the house. Everyone had a great time there. It was very hard to try and get Joshua to look at the camera.



This corn maze also had a ton of blow up toys that the kids could play on. The had animals as well that the children could look at. They even saw little mice running around the rabbit pens, and drinking water from the rabbit's water trough. They really had a great time, and I think Grandpa had a ton of fun too.



Alexandra and Eve holding hands as they came out of a little blue barn.



James and Maddy coming out of the corn maze.

Kaleb has come!!

He has finally arrived at the Finlayson household. Kaleb Joseph was born on October 11, 2008 at 5:42 PM in the MT Timpanogeous Hospital in Orem Utah. He weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces and was 20 1/2 inches long. It was a surprise for us since he came 4 days early which included an emergency c section. Both Pris and Kaleb are doing well. I will post some more pictures soon. He is definetely a miracle baby.

Summer has ended!

Since I last wrote there has been a lot of things that have transpired. The 4th of July was spent at the parade with the Beckers. They have a family outing every year and end up saving a spot for us. The children have so much fun. It was nice and cool under the trees that the Beckers reserved for the whole family. The kids loved the candy that was thrown to them. We had to keep that under control or we would have sugar rushes on our hands.


James had his 6th birthday and invited all of his friends over for a pool party. It was quite fun. They even got to throw water balloons at each other. They were the high point of the party. They had a blast just filling up the balloons. I could not make them fast enough. Priscilla made cupcakes for the cake and James loved all of the gifts from his friends. James loves to be around his friends and hates for the time when they have to go home.

One of his favorite gifts he got for his birthday was the Game Boy Color. He does not play it often, but he has it around him all the time. It is amazing to see how fast they grow up. Sometimes I think they grow up too fast.

Well it is a tradition at Novell to go to Lagoon every year during the summer. And this year was no exception. James could not contain himself when I told him that we would once again be going there. He talked about it all week long. So when the day finally arrived he was so excited we could not get driving soon enough. We did not leave until about 3 in the afternoon, since we have kids that still need to take naps. We made it in time for the dinner that Novell provided. Then the fun began. This was Joshua's first ride at Lagoon, and boy was he excited to be on a boat in the water. Priscilla's sister, Julie, brought her kids and Julie got a great video clip of Joshua being very crazy in the boat. Let's just say he was very animated. It was quite hot and so we decided to go on Rattlesnake rapids. We waiting in line for quite a while and when we got to the front, Joshua was too short so I ended up taking him back to wait while, Priscilla, James, Alexanda, and Maddy went on the ride. Boy did they get wet at the end of the ride where there is a huge water fall.
The kids could just not get enough of the rides and wanted to stay for ever.
Before we left, Julie and I went on wicked since Priscilla does not like the scary rides. So while we were waiting in line to do that she took care of all the kids.

This past week was James' first day of school. Unfortunately I was not able to be here for it since I was in North Carolina fixing issues a customer was having with one of Novell's software products. Priscilla told me that he was so excited to be going once again. His new teacher is Mrs. Blackhurst. She will be having a baby soon so James will have a substitute for part of the first year. Hopefully I have caught you up on all of the happenings. Hope to write more soon.

That Time of Year

As you can see it's that time of year for the children to have fun in the sun. Pris and I signed up the children for swimming lessons. We set it up so that all the kids had it at the same time. This made it easy for me to leave work and come and help. Joshua and Alexandra had the 'Parent and Me' class. So we each took a child and had a great time singing songs and teaching them how to swim. It took Joshua no time to jump in without any coaxing. Alexandra of course, is like a fish in the water and enjoyed every minute of it. You do not see James in the picture, but he was off with his teacher learning how to hold his breath longer underwater. He has even learned how to open his eyes under there as well. Boy does that burn daddy's eyes. I need to use goggles to do that!. He also was learning how to float on his back. Another thing that he did was put on a life jacket and then jump off the side by himself into the water. You can tell that he had so much fun in the water. After the two weeks of swimming, he wanted to go back and just play. And of course we did. It is so amazing to watch them learn and grow. Especially when it is learning something for the first time. Joshua went down the water slide for the first time as well. He was a little scared going down the first time. Once the slide was over, he said, "again, again, again". There was no stopping him then. He wanted me to take him over and over again.