My shutterfly book of Alaska

Here is a small book of what our trip looked like... there were 1558 pictures to choose from. I narrowed it down to 20 pages of pictures.

Click here to view this photo book larger

Shutterfly allows you to customize your photo book just the way you want.

First trip to the dentist

Ahh the Dentist... technically it was the third visit, but it was the first time he had his teeth cleaned, and the first time he actually had more than just his teeth looked at. 

A few weeks back Kellen bonked heads with his cousin at grandma's house and a previous injury to his tooth started to bother him. We took him to our dentist, Derek Hauser, and they took an x-ray of the tooth. He recommended a kid dentist in Temecula, we call him Dr. Mick. Unfortunately there hasn't been much they can do for his damaged tooth, however, keeping the rest of the teeth clean is obviously a top priority. 

He had his teeth cleaned and did pretty well. Here are some photos of event. He was a little nervous, with the usual fingers in his mouth. They let him sit on dad's lap to complete the cleaning.

 

He quickly calmed down and let Dr. Mick look at his teeth. As you can see daddy is trying to coach him with his mouth open too! Ha ha!

  

Dr. Mick has a dental hygienist that cleans the kiddos teeth, just like we have Erin at Dr. Hauser's office. Kellen was quick to let her take a look at his teeth like a good patient. 

They were kind enough to make sure that the light didn't shine in his eyes. :-) He also liked it when they moved the chair down. Colin may fall asleep!

 She quickly got to work scraping and polishing. He liked the water and suction tube too!

 The whole thing was done really quickly... making me less nervous too. :-)

 After his cleaning they took some old school x-rays. Kellen was very still. Apparently the old style x-ray is better to get a good look at kids teeth. That or Dr. Mick likes the old school one because it is cheaper than buying a new one so he can use all his extra money for fishing! Ha ha, if it ain't broke...

 

It was a successful visit. Kellen got two "prizes," toys from the toy box, and we scheduled an appointment to put a Serum on his back top molars. Those are the hardest to keep clean on a kid, and he has deep groves in them. The serum helps prevent cavities, since he will need to keep those particular teeth for another 9+ years. We scheduled both that appointment and his next cleaning in November. The whole process was very quick. 

** His second appointment went real well. They were not sure if he would sit through the entire procedure, placing the serum on his teeth, sucking all the extra stuff out, using the laser light to dry them, and then repeating on the other tooth. It was just Kellen and I for that trip and he didn't even have to sit on my lap. And, the whole procedure was super fast!! 

All in all some great visits to the dentist with little Kellen Lee. Hopefully helping to make him not fear the dentist, and to take good care of his teeth (so that he doesn't have to visit for anything other than cleanings). Good Job Buddy!

All moved In...

Last Wednesday, we had a pleasant and slightly nerve wrecking phone call from the property manager at the Rock Point house. I assumed they were calling to let us know they had some possible tenants that wanted to look at the house. However, the phone call was to let us know that a renter was all set up and wanted to know if we could be out of the house by Saturday. That way they could have it ready for the new tenants by February 1st. I was happy and freaking out at the same time! We would be moving on the date we wanted to, but we would have 3 days to do it! Of course as soon as I got off the phone with her, I called Colin to let him know. And then I started calling all the utility companies to cancel water, electricity, gas etc. And then I started packing right away! I had 3 days, and Thursday we would be gone for our Financial Peace University class, and Friday Colin had a soccer game. I figured, I get as much stuff packed as I could so that Saturday it was just a matter of moving everything.Saturday came quick, and Colin's brother Tymon (pic below)

and our friend Renee were GOD SENT!!! I don't know what we would have done without them! The photo of Renee is a photo of her wittiness with STUFFING a car with as much as you can. She had the massage chair underneath her while she drove, and I had the TV on my lap! Mind you since we only had 3 days to move, we didn't have much time to get boxes. The locations I usually hunt out to find boxes (furniture stores, grocery stores etc) did not have ANY boxes at all!! We moved everything in one day because of their help! Brian Henderson also showed up at our new place to help unload. It then took me about 4 days to get everything the way I wanted it.

Here are some photos of the house. Picture number one is part of our bathroom. We have a nice size tub, with a shower, 2 sinks and a toilet.

 

 

This photo is the VANITY area in the master bathroom. I get a place for all my stuff!

 

I needed two pictures to show you how large the closet is! It's pretty sweet. We have ALL our clothes in here, including some extra stuff to store, and all our jackets that are usually in a jacket closet elsewhere. 

 

This is the bedroom. The drapes were already there and they completely block out the light at night time when we go to sleep. Pretty nice.

 

This is Rudy... Kellen's new best friend!

 

This is the kitchen, most of our stuff is in the 4 cabinets farthest in the photo. 

 

This is the office, all our stuff fits nicely... and there is an elliptical in the corner that Lori, our room mate, lets us use. 

 

This is a 3 car garage so the area for the third car is where we store all the things we don't need at the moment (some kitchen stuff, my scrap book stuff, Christmas decorations and our regular garage stuff.)

 

A closer view of the pool, I mean tub. Kellen takes a bath in it, and we barely fill it. I think because of the shape, we actually use less water than we did at the old house!

 

This is the living room, no TV in here, still trying to figure out how to arrange some things. Kellen eats his meals at the little yellow table, courtesy of Aunt Carroll. 

 

Kellen decided to get a work out in before breakfast this morning! :-) 

 

This is a picture of Kellen's room. He is sleeping very well, and usually wakes up around 7:30 every morning now. And his first question usually is, "Where is Rudy?" 

We have settled in nicely. Cheaper rent and already gazelle intense on our last two debts! (Plus, no utility bills, praise the Lord!) I also have all kinds of new terrain to explore! I am looking forward to some new runs. My first run was down to the shell station to return a Red box. It was the infamous Tuscany "Hill." The one you can see from the freeway (and just about anywhere in Lake Elsinore) It wasn't so bad, and I think the change in elevation is actually less than the hill at our old house. Thank you for your prayers and advice everyone! We'll keep you posted.

Janurary and stuff...

After all the craziness of 2010, I am starting to see the blessings in disguise. God has been preparing my heart for some amazing things in 2011. Including an Elizabeth George Bible study, church membership class, and much more. Everything from losing our home to learning new budgets in Financial Peace University (and all the other stuff in between) taught us a lot about trusting God in the big and small and has brought me closer to Christ and deeper into his Word daily. I am finding pure joy in my time with God every morning, and sharing it throughout my day with my son and husband has made me blessed. I have also found a new love for scripture memory! "Behold, I make all things new..." (Rev. 21:5) has been a reminder for January and 2011 that each day can be new and better (in Him). As you check out our pictures, I hope that God brings you blessings and joy this year.

We had to move in November, and we now live in a nice little house at the top of a hill overlooking Lake Elsinore. I wasn't real excited when we first had to move, but it is starting to become home. Here is a picture of our back yard view on a foggy morning. (Where the clouds are is usually where you can see the water, but it's hiding).

January was a speedy month. We took our first trip to the Wild Animal Park, (Safari Zoo) and we went to visit Nana, Papa and Uncle Bobby. We also cheered on daddy at some of his soccer matches. Here are some photos to wrap up the month. (Even though February has already begun.)

So, Grandpa decided Kellen needed a Nerf gun for Christmas. (oh geeze) and it didn't take him long to figure out how to shoot us with it!! Thankfully we are already starting to loose the bullets in the house (ha ha). Here are a few pictures of Colin and Kellen "playing."

Uncle Tymon and Aunt Brittani bought Kellen his very own Cars couch bed for his  birthday, he LOVES it and watches his new Veggie Tales movies in it all the time. He constantly "rolls" around and tries to get comfy (or silly) here are some fun pics. The blanket was made by Nana and matches perfectly, when they are not being used they are folded up together and sit nicely next to the other couches.

Also, you may notice that Kellen got a some hairs cut... mommy cut his hair (badly) but at least it isn't in his eyes anymore. It is already growing out and it is CRAZY. He likes to wear my shoes, good choice...comfy slippers.

Kellen has a favorite stuffed animal that MUST sleep with him and his red blanket every night, his name is "Bunny." I found him sleeping one morning like the picture below and had to snap a shot! So cute!

Unfortunately Kellen is not without his boo boos. He added another one to his poor face in January. He fell in the back yard right on his face. He just didn't get his hands down in time. Thankfully, all is well and healed, but the scabs haunted him for a few days. :-(

To get his mind off his new face injuries we played with bubbles for about an hour one day. Here are some of my favorites. (The one with the light in the background is my ultimate favorite).

My Favorite Pic

Kellen has a love of farts, just like his dad, uncle, and well... any man on the planet. I had to video him playing with the machine that we have. It is dying, or broken. Regardless, each fart sounds pretty darn funny. I posted this on face book a while back, but it was just too funny to not add it to the blog too. His laugh was pretty funny too.

We had a quick visit in San Diego to say good bye to Grandma and Grandpa McDonough. They were heading to their next destination, Yuma, the next day so we went to my dad's house for one last visit. Kellen was a little sleepy (and so was Brian) so they cuddled on the couch.

We went to the Safari Zoo, a first for Kellen to check out all the animals with Aunt Jenn, and cousins Taylor and McKenzie. This was Kellen's face after he saw the elephants. :-) If there is a grandparent (or great grandparent) that wants to hook us up with an annual zoo pass, I think Kellen would accept.

 On the tram... to check out the wild.

 This lion was taking a nap, wish we could have saw the front.

 Feeding the birds... I actually had one on my shoulder too, but the picture is dorky! Kellen LOVED the petting coral, and I am pretty sure he pet every single deer that was in the area. They were so gentle. :-)

 This picture pretty much summed up the end of the day... everyone was tired and ready to go home. It was really warm that day. Kellen slept the entire way home in the car. :-)

That same week we headed to Sparks Nevada to visit Nana, Papa and Uncle Bobby. They just recently moved, so it was our first time visiting their new home. Of course you couldn't tell that they just moved because my mom is pro at getting everything super "homey."

Nolan and Kellen sharing some cheerios for breakfast.

 We stopped by Papa's work and we had to take pictures on the TRACTORS!!! They were pretty stinkin' huge.

Kellen wanted to "drive" as always with anything that has a steering wheel. He is completely content moving it back and forth without actually going anywhere.

 We went to the biggest sporting good store on the planet, Scheels, and in the entry way they have a LARGE fish tank. We were a little alarmed at first when we saw scuba divers inside the tank cleaning the glass! It was pretty cool. Kellen, Nolan and Uncle Bobby went on the Ferris wheel INSIDE the store!

Ready to ride!

 Taking a break to watch a Veggie Tales in Nana and Papa's bed.

Another first for Kellen. SNOW! The picture on the left he isn't so happy with mommy putting so many layers on him, including gloves. However, once he was ready to go and climbing up the hill he was glad he had on so many layers. They played for quite a while!

 This was a common view of the two boys. Falling down or sitting down and then struggling to get back up. The snow was not icy, it was actually nice and powder like. Which made for big footprints and falling down a lot.

I also got a pretty good video of Nolan body skiing down the hill. I didn't get him going belly first which was pretty sweet, but I was able to get him on video.

 They worked up appetites (well, at least Nolan did). Kellen just got sweaty I think. He was glad when I took off the snow gear. It was pretty warm outside.

 He looked so cute with the boots on, especially because they went up so high on his knees, I had to take a picture! By then he warmed up pretty well to my parents dog, Duke... (Chocolate Lab) seriously the best dog. If I ever had a dog, I would want him.

 After a day of fun in the snow he even took a few seconds to pose with mommy (my cutie pie!). We had a nice visit. Since coming home Kellen has said, "I want to go in the spa." Nana and Papa have a spa in their back yard, and they sat in it each day for a little while with Uncle Bobby and papa. It was really relaxing.

January came and went, fast. I'm glad I was able to capture some memories with the camera! Hope you enjoyed the pictures!

Love,

Mindie