Oh dear...

I am so far behind that, again, I don't want to blog.  Here it goes anyway.

On February 1, my friend Amy and her husband Jens came to visit us.  They are considering moving to Alaska and came up for a quick weekend trip to have a look around.  I hadn't seen Amy, probably since high school graduation.  It was nice to meet her husband and great to catch up with her in person - not just through blogging or facebook.

February 3 was Nolan's birthday.  My poor mother flew all day and slept all night in an airport to make it here at 5:00 a.m. on Nolan's birthday.

The first gift of the day

Nolan took his gymnastics friends cupcakes.

He had a hard time figuring out hopscotch.

He LOVES the rings.

We found this ice slide at the Soldotna Sports Complex.

It was cold and hurt my tush.

We took my mom for a tourist photograph at the visitor's center.

The eskimo is quickly fading in the sun.

Nolan is in love with Transformers.

My mom gave him a new movie.  He loves it.  

It is the complete first season of the t.v. series from the '80s.

Blowing out the candles.

Pretty much all Nolan got for his birthday was Transformers.  He is totally, utterly, and completely obsessed.  He plays with them from the second he wakes up in the morning until he goes to bed with one at night.  My mom said she had transformer nightmares when she returned home.

On the 5th we went sledding.  After my mom was too cold to stay out any longer, Nolan, Brenden, and I went for a walk through the woods.  Someone had made a trail down to the lake, so we hiked it.

2/6 - This is how Doug looks on a daily basis.  Hey, at least he has boots on and not flip-flops.  The coat is not generally included either.

2/9 we celebrated my birthday before my mom headed home.

2/11 (My actual birthday) My friends took me to Anchorage to the temple and out to lunch.

While I was off having a great time, Doug took Ethan and Nolan ice fishing.

Nolan caught a fish!

(See that tiny black thing? - it's a fish.)

I got an additional calling today at church.  I am now also the Young Women's Camp Director - besides being the Primary Secretary.  It is a calling I have always wanted and I hope I do it justice - and have the time to plan it as well as I would like.  Brenden was reading the Friend today in sacrament meeting and was thrilled to find an article about a boy about his age with a cochlear implant.

We have two extra boys staying with us until Saturday.  They are my friend Tiffany's boys.

Gavin and Nolan have taken sharing to a whole new level.

Connor all ready for church

5 handsome little men

Connor has discovered a love of dinosaurs.

Supermen

The night Gavin arrived, he found Nolan's Superman pajamas folded downstairs waiting to be put away.  He brought them to me, crying - "Nolan says these are HIS pajamas, but they are MINE!"  We had to get both sets out to convince him.

And just because the other boys took a p.j. picture:

This is how Ethan fell asleep last night.  The iPod was all of the way up and he was pushing the headphones into his ears straining to hear.  He seemed to enjoy it though.

I'll leave you with an Ethan update.  I called about Ethan's authorization about 2 weeks ago and was told there was no authorization in the system and then they transferred me to the authorization department.  I waited... and waited... and finally was told that the offices had just closed and I would have to try back another day.  It's hard to remember to do that before noon our time - I usually make any necessary phone calls after I put Ethan down for a nap.  So Tuesday I finally got around to calling again and they really haven't seen an authorization for Ethan - or so they claim.  I called the audiologist's office and asked them to fax it again.  When I called back on Friday I was told that it would take some time to get the authorization in the system, but there was nothing there yet.  Our audiologist is out of town for a family emergency until March, but had called me before she left to tell me she expected the authorization to arrive within a few days and she would make all of the arrangements to have surgery a.s.a.p.  Grrrr...  It will happen someday... hopefully before he is headed out the door for college.