More antics from Gabriel...

Gabe is starting to get really good at writing his name, as well as other letters of the alphabet. In fact, he takes every opportunity to draw or write that he can...

With a sharpie. Thankfully, only with dry-erase markers.

Out Patient Procedure

Colby had a simple eye surgery yesterday. In the past, he has had these small bumps appear on his eyelids, and it is not a stye. They are called Chalazions. He had 2 removed in 2006. Well, lately he had a major one appear on his good eye, he is legally blind in his right eye, and it was impairing his vision although he said it didn't hurt. We finally got insurance set up on Feb 1st, and now we have the cards in hand, so we scheduled the removal on the "bump". It was a simple procedure, although uncomfortable. This one was so large it took the same amount of time to remove as the previous two. As of last night, he looks a lot better.

Happy Birthday Colby!

I'm posting this late, but that's because I was spending time with him instead of blogging. Wednesday was Colby's 27th birthday.

(The drive to move Colby to California, March 2000)

I took the boys to get him a present, they decided on an Indiana Jone's Lego set for their dad to build and display in his office. But, as soon as we got home from the store and Gabe saw Colby, he told him the surprise. So, unfortunately we didn't get to wrap it and watch him open it. But, he did sit down with the boy's and let them help him build it. He even let them play with it, before putting it in his office for safe keeping. I bought him a cake (I don't cook, I'm terrible.), and my parent's took us out to our favorite Mexican restaurant in Layton, Garcia's. Mmmmm.....flautas, pina coladas, chips and salsa, and churros for dessert. Love it! His parent's gave him some spending money for our Vegas trip this weekend, he always asks for money as a gift and they gave in this time. We had our first day on his 16th birthday, 11 years ago. His family and I went to Pizza Hut, then bowling. Over dinner I clearly remember his mom telling me that I was robbing the cradle, I was 18.

(Our first dance, girls' choice of course!)

Good times! I am so grateful to have a younger man in my life.

(Braxton and Colby, Toone home, spring 2003)

He keeps me laughing when I get too serious and stressed out over the little things in life.

(Engaged May 28th, 2000.)

He also keeps us in touch with old friends and new, because it's a priority in his life, and he has impressed on me to do the same. He is cheap and determined to fix anything in our home that breaks himself. Though I complain at the time, I am extremely grateful for this. We save money by him learning a new technique, and he will never stop and give up, he will finish until the job is completed and whatever was broken is back to normal again. Though we have MANY differences that we argue about daily, I am so grateful that I fell in love with my younger sister's friend, and snatched him up those 11 years ago. Happy birthday Colby, I love ya!

Marriage Tag

For all you married people out there! Tag your married friends that you want to know about!(Don't forget to tag the person who tagged you!)

1. When was your "engagement" anniversary? May 28th, 2000 (2 years exactly from our first kiss).

2. When is your "marriage" anniversary? August 24th, 2000.

3. How long have you known your spouse? Since fall of 1997, so almost 12 years.

4. How long did you date/court before you were engaged? Two years.

5. Where did you meet your spouse for the first time? He was one of my younger sister's friends, and a bunch of them were sitting on our front lawn. I didn't recognize them, so...rudely I said,"Who are you?".

6. What is your spouses full name? Colby Robert Koch

7. Do you have any children yet? Yes

8. How many? Three boys.

9. Do you have any house pets? Two cats.

10. Do you own a house or rent? Own.

11. Do you live in the country or town/city? City.

12. What is one of your favorite activities together? Hanging out with friends and going on vacation.

13. Do you have a favorite vacation spot? We love to go to Las Vegas alone, and to Southern California with our kids.

14. How many siblings (including in-laws) do you have? 2 brothers, 2 sister-in-laws, 2 sisters and one brother-in-law. Colby only has a brother.

15. What church do you attend? LDS - North Ogden 23rd Ward.

16. Is this the church you were married in? Yes, although we were married in Pleasant View, and then sealed in the San Diego Temple.

17. What town is your current address at? North Ogden, UT.

18. Do you work or stay at home? Stay at home mom/Domestic Goddess.

19. Where did you go on your honeymoon? We moved me from North Ogden, UT to Thousand Oaks, CA. It wasn't very exciting, we still need to make up for that....no money back then.

20. Leave a piece of advice for the other couples: I agree with my sister, no one tells you it's so much work, you have to constantly work at it and compromise for each other. Don't stop the dating process, especially after you have children, that's when you need it the most.

Las Vegas here we come!

Colby and I have been so stressed lately with things breaking, other people's things breaking so we have to fix them, and the kids all acting out against each other as well as at us. We need a getaway, and soon. So, we called up some friends and planned a Las Vegas trip scheduled in two weeks. We leave the 22nd and come home the 24th of this month, we are counting the days, hours and minutes. Don't you ever just need to get away from your house, kids and family to appreciate them more. Well, we do! We are also sooo... done with the cold and snow, it's depressing and everyone in our home has cabin fever and therefore at each other's throats constantly. After living somewhere that is warm and sunny most of the year for 6 years, you have a hard time adjusting to such gloomy long winters. I used to be able to take the kids to the park to play by January or February, I miss it. Yes, I do love being back in Utah closer to family and old friends, and creating new friends. But I really wish the weather and climate of Southern California could have followed me here. Sorry for the complaining, I'll stop now. Colby found a great deal at The Palms in Vegas, I was so excited to stay where so many celebrities take their weekend excursions(Yes, I am a celebrity nut.). We are trying to see what shows we can see on the lower end of the price range. Blackjack, shopping, sleeping in, no bedtime routines to struggle with, maybe a trip to the spa, a ride or two on a roller coaster and wonderful food; doesn't that sound wonderful right now? YES! We are putting a small portion of our tax return to a much needed escape. I'll let you know how the trip goes in a couple of weeks.

First Tooth.

We are excited to announce that Braxton lost his first tooth today. This is exciting because he is about the last kid his age in the entire world to loose his first tooth. Or so it seems. His friends and cousins have all lost their first or more teeth, so he was ecstatic. He told us it was loose before church, and an hour after church he had worked it out with one of his favorite food items: an apple.

Before.

After.

I'll have to have a conversation with the tooth fairy to see what the going rate for a tooth is nowadays.

Some call it seepage, we call it flooding...

So here is what we have been up to these past 2 weeks...

We came down to the basement two weeks ago today to find 1-2 inches of water in our food storage room, half the hallway, holiday decoration area under the stairs, Colby's spare computer parts closet and 1/3 of his office. I guess with all of the rain/snow and melt off, it was too much for our soil to hold, and therefore decided that our home needed to take some responsibility for it. It seeped up through the concrete. We cleared out all the wet areas, borrowed a wet vac and got to work with that and about a million towels. A friend came over when it was dry and sealed the concrete for us, and we are slowly working on getting everything organized and back into place.

(This was all in between our couch and TV downstairs. We made it a priority to clear an area to watch Biggest Loser and Heroes.)

Luckily, none of our food storage was ruined, and nothing in Colby's office was affected by the incident. I did finally get the food rotation system that I have been asking for out of this, so...wahoo!

It's that time of Year again...

Hey girls! (You know who you are.) You better go and eat some Mongolian BBQ at Wok 'n' South and have a slice of Dulce de Leche Cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory for me tomorrow. I miss all of you that would celebrate this day of the year with me. For those of you who know me, you've heard that Colby is not that into Birthdays. And I whine and complain each year about it, so I started celebrating it with the ladies who put up with me whining. Thanks to all of you, and thanks to those who are going out with me this year. Tomorrow it's the big "29", watch out "30" here I come. Sorry, I'm not usually one to be quiet about my birthday, the day should be celebrated and not hidden from others.

A Visit to Chuck E. Cheese.

So, I think that we can finally say that IT IS DONE! Gabe is potty trained! And only 1 month shy of a year in the making. He has kept his pants dry 2-3 nights/naps now. And during the day has been accident free for a couple of months. We are very excited about this. I thought Braxton was hard, but Gabe was much harder. I don't blame it all on his stubbornness, some of it was both of his parents not keeping on top of asking him to go on time. Well, we have been telling him that we will renew our Dinosaur Park pass when he kept his pants dry while sleeping. So, sometime this week we will do that. But I had been wanting to take the boys to the new Layton Chuck E. Cheese for some time now. However it's never much fun for me to struggle with my three boys alone in an overly crowded area. So, I excused Braxton from school today and we went down and played. Now, I am usually one who doesn't like to take my kids out of school for anything: no vacations, and they have to be really sick for me to keep them home, no faking! But, lately Colby has been trying to convince me to relax and enjoy the time with my boys while they are young. When they are teenagers they might now want to do things with me/us. Also, Braxton has been getting burnt out on homework, and routines and schedules, complaining he doesn't have enough time to play what he wants to play and get enough sleep. Seriously, he told me I kept waking him up too early for school(7:30am), so I told him to go to bed earlier the next night(bedtime is at 8pm). Also, my parents just arrived home last night from a 17 day Book of Mormon Tour in Guatemala and Mexico. So, we wanted to meet up with her and visit with Aunt Heidi (my younger sister). So, again here's the rundown: Gabe needed a reward, Braxton needed a break from school and routine, we needed a visit with Aunt Heidi and Grandma Miller, and Tristan had a great time as well as I. I don't know why I feel that I have to explain myself to you all, but I was trained that the kids don't stay home from school unless they are sick with something worse than a cold. So there you are, we had a lot of fun. I had a ton of different coupons to use there, so we got drinks, pizza, salad bar, dessert pizza, and a bazillion tokens. We came home with prizes, full tummies, 2 sleeping boys and smiles on Braxton and my faces. It was a pretty clean place, but about 1/3 of the games were already broken. That was frustrating since that place hasn't been open too long. All in all, our tokens all got spent, and we had a lot of fun together.

Gabe and I trying to pop all of the bubbles on the screen.


Tristan playing a broken Whack-a-mole.

Tristan, Aunt Heidi and Braxton riding his favorite ride/game there.

Mmm... lunch!

I think Gabe spent his entire load of tokens on this bowling game. People were still playing it when we left, because it has about 39 games in it.

They rode this for about 2 seconds, enough for a picture. Neither liked the way it rode.

All out of tokens, but he can pretend it's moving.


We earned 500 tickets as a family. Wahoo!

Hello 2009!

Happy New Year! Colby and I took the boys to the mall for some lunch and playtime. We were going to attend the "Countdown to Noon" at the Treehouse Museum. But it seems that everyone else in Weber County had the same plan. So we opted out of that idea. They still got some well needed jumping and running around time in the mall.

We actually did something this year in the evening. Usually all of our friends are busy with other people's parties, and we would rather stay home than bother looking for a babysitter. But this year, people came to us. I'll tell you something, it's so much easier celebrating holidays with kids when you can do it in your own home. You just put them to bed like normal and keep partying. I don't know how long we will be able to pull that off. Our friends through Colby are now getting to the point in life of starting families, soon they will be in the same place we have been for years. It was nice because Braxton slept over at his cousin Xavier's house, so as late as Gabe and Tristan stayed up, there was very minimal arguing. We munched on many goodies, and even had a game and movie set aside to entertain us, but we all just ended up visiting from 7pm to 3:30 am.

We had the opportunity to have our friends baby girl join us. Hopefully, I got my fill of cuddles in with her, and it will keep the yearning for a daughter at bay. Colby wanted to hold her so bad, but he is getting over a cold. Because she was such an early preemie, she is too prone to RSV and other illnesses. We enjoyed her latest antics, then setup the port-a-crib downstairs for her.

We hope you all spent New Year's doing something fun. And wish the best for you in 2009. Happy January!