Carson's Baptism

We were back in Iowa for Palm Sunday to celebrate the baptism of our nephew and godson Carson James Thomas. We also got to spend some quality time with Brian and Katie as well as Opa and Oma. Jayne and Jerry came out Sat night to play a little. We also had a bunch of Thomases and Fuersts come out for the main event on Sunday.

This is how our kids entertain themselves in the airport. This was actually taken in Chicago which wasn't our original layover. We were supposed to go to Saint Louis but our plane was going to be 3 or 4 hours late into Denver so they routed us through Chicago which put us into Cedar Rapids, IA at 10pm instead of 9pm.


This is Bryce in his PJs in Opa and Oma's front window.


Sydney loves to play dress up at Opa and Oma's house.


This is us with our nephew Carson. You might not be able to see it, but that is a Green Bay Packers symbol on my shirt.


I brought along Settlers of Catan and Brian and I put in many games. We tried starting one with the girls but couldn't keep them interested long enough to finish. It's actually an awesome game if you haven't tried it.


The Thomas cousins sitting on the couch. I don't know what Bryce thought was so funny but at least he was smiling!


Sydney and Grandma Jayne got some playtime on Sat night. The more I look at Sydney's smile the more I'm freaked out.


More game playing but this time it was Citidels. No one told Brian we were taking a picture, that's just his normal game playing face.


Finally a picture of Brian without a goofy face. Aren't the new parents so cute!


Here is the happy family after the baptism. Carson actually did great during the actual event. I (Jason) was holding him the whole time and he didn't even cry when I leaned him forward for the baptism. Then I got to parade him around the church for everyone to look at him. What can I say ... I'm the Godfather.


Sydney got to hold Carson briefly after church was over. You can barely see Melissa's blue sweater in the background ready to grab Carson if Sydney suddenly decided she was done holding him.


This is a classic shot of us trying to control our kids for a picture. They were both mad for unknown reasons and they certainly did not want to take a picture.


Amazingly, we managed to calm them down long enough for this shot which turned out pretty good.


Here are the god parents and uncle and aunt of Carson.


Brian and Bryce enjoyed a little round of WWF in the basement. I can't remember if the ballon survived the impact but Bryce did anyway.


This is what Bryce did basically non-stop while he was at Opa and Oma's house. Matchbox cars and more matchbox cars. It was fun to see all that stuff again that we used to play with.


Sydney mainly played with the little people stuff and did dress up with whoever she could rope into it.


We finally decided to get a picture of Opa and Oma with the grandkids right when Carson was feeling grumpy. Oh well, if you don't look close enough you can convince yourself that he is smiling, not crying.


Katie and Carson sporting one of his classic toothless grins.


The Thomas cousins sitting together long enough for a decent picture! Yeah!


Brian had Carson doing all kinds of crazy moves and Sydney thought the whole thing was hillarious. This was at the Cedar Rapids airport. We ended up saying goodbye, making everyone cry, going through security, until we reached our gate and they said "Who wants to be bumped because we're overbooked?" I said sure and they gave us two $200 vouchers and let us fly out anytime we wanted the next day. I would have paid them to stay an extra day ... suckers!


Opa and Oma saying goodbye to Sydney and Bryce at the Cedar Rapids Airport. This was before the crying that took place between Oma and Sydney. Then we had about another hour of "I miss Oma" from Sydney. I think this was our second attempt at leaving because our first attempt was thwarted by fog in Cedar Rapids and bad weather all across the midwest. Luckily American put us on a direct flight to Denver on United so we totally lucked out.


Melissa and Sydney on the plane.


Bryce and I on the plane. He was pretty excited by the carmel corn on his tray.


Last picture of us on the bus to the long term parking place where we left our car. I only posted this one because I think Bryce looks so funny. He was totally wiped out and he's got the best blank stare going. He pretty much feel asleep instantly once I started the car.

March happenings

So once again I find myself in the position of not posting for an entire month. Where did March go?! No excuses except laziness I suppose so here is the month in review (with pictures).

This was actually from February but it's a cool picture of a monster truck so I had to include it.



Sydney had swimming lessons once a month and while she is making progress, she's still not really swimming on her own. We're trying to prepare for this summer so she's signed up for more lessons in April!



The Moffits came out to visit at the end of February and we had a lot of fun hosting them at our house (even though Jason wasn't nice enough to let me win ping pong on my own table).

Here I'm playing a high stakes game of Sequence with the kids.

Bed time with everyone ready on the top bunk of Sydney's bed. Then it was off to separate beds for everyone.


This is sort of a random picture of Bryce doing his car lineup. He likes to take all his cars out and line them up all over the place. He's very neat about it (Melissa) and gets completely absorbed doing it (Jason).


A classic bath time picture which they'll both hate to see a few years from now. I can't wait to put pictures like this in a slideshow when they graduate from high school.


We recently went to the Denver Science Museum and toured the Gold exhibit which was all about ... wait for it ... Gold! I found it quite interesting but it wasn't really for kids. So we then headed to the kids part of the museum which they really enjoyed. Here's a pictures of Bryce trying to get soaked making bubbles.


This is Sydney and Bryce babysitting Ethan which is our friends the Meltons. Sydney loved reading them both books although Ethan and Bryce seemed to enjoy staring and laughing at each other better.

Sydney also gave Ethan a bottle. Babysitting for friends is a breeze when you have your 4 year old do all the work! Just kidding Meltons!

Toy Parade

Bryce has really been into lining up his cars and trucks on the fireplace and the couch lately. Sydney usually joins him and pretty soon they have everything out of the toy bin and onto the fireplace and couch. This is super fun (apparently) but the easy part of simply throwing it back into the boxes from whence it came is arduous (apparently) and is usually met with all kinds of groans. Well one day while I was at work Melissa just decided to be a fun cool mom and let them go nuts. Here are a few pictures from the toy "parade" which stretched all the way from our family room, through the kitchen, through the dining room, through the living room, and back to the family room, a good 60 to 70 feet. Somehow Melissa got them to pick it up because it was all gone when I got home but these pictures documented the event.

This is looking down the hallway to our front door.



This is looking down the same hallway but to our back patio door.



This is looking through our dining room to our living room. It appears they weren't done because they look like they're still hard at work. Basically Sydney just sends Bryce after toys and she lines them up. She's got a pretty good gig going with him.

Bryce's First Birthday

Ok, here are the final pictures from Bryce's first birthday. These were of the actual party we threw for him. We invited just the kids around his age (which for the most part is Sydney's friend's younger siblings).

Here are a couple shots of the party goers.




Once we brought out the cake Bryce sort of froze and then got a little crabby. Here is a nice shot of him rethinking the whole birthday thing.



Then his stomach got the better of him (which happens all the time) and he started digging into his cake. That made it ALLL better!



Here is Bryce and his friends. Hey Katie, we can still see you back there! :-)



Here is Bryce trying to open his presents with Sydney keeping a watchful eye and always eager to "help" him get everything open. I'm not sure who that nerd is with the video camera.



We took a quick family photo on his birthday after every one left and the kids were already in their PJs. Also note the little montage Melissa put together on the fireplace mantle for him. Awwww.



Yep, this is our goofy two year old. He thinks everything is pretty funny these days, especially when he's running away from us doing something he knows he is not supposed to do. This kid is all boy and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Jayne & Jerry's Visit for Bryce's Birthday

So just last weekend (I'm almost caught up!) Jayne and Jerry came out for Bryce's birthday. We also enjoyed watching the Super Bowl with them. Who would have thought the Giants would go all the way? I guess that just proves that the Packers are the #2 team in the nation because it took overtime for the Giants to win that game. If only it was warmer and Favre wouldn't have played like the bad Favre. Anyway, I digress. Here are the pictures.


Jayne and the grandkids. I'm not sure what kind of expression Sydney was making there.


A high stakes game of kids Sequence that Brian and Katie got Sydney for Christmas. She really enjoys the game and ropes us all into playing with her.


Bryce and Jayne blowing out the candles on their birthday cake. I think Jayne was even more excited than Bryce to blow out candles!


While it may look like Jayne was blowing out ALL the candles, she did let Bryce get a few (just kidding Jayne).


Whose crazy kids are these?


Bryce was quite capable of opening his presents but it was a constant struggle to get Sydney to let him. She was always trying to help "just a little bit" which annoyed us more than Bryce.


A restful afternoon with Jayne, Sydney, and Kozmo on the couch. Kozmo will pretty much snuggle up with anyone on the couch so be warned if you ever visit!

Opa and Oma's Visit for Bryce's Birthday

Bryce was pretty lucky this year because he had three separate birthday parties. First was back on Jan 18th when Opa and Oma came to visit. I posted earlier how Melissa and I took Sydney skiing at Loveland while there were here. We also had a party for Bryce where we took the following pictures.


This was actually earlier in the day. I think Oma was genuinely sleeping but I don't believe Sydney was.


Here is Bryce with his huge Safeway cake. He actually blew both candles out by himself so we were pretty impressed.


Of course blowing out candles is the boring part compared to chowing down on cake!


Bryce got a wooden train set from Opa and Oma which I dutifully put together. It's fun having a boy and getting to play with all that stuff again.


I really got into setting up that train set as you maybe can tell. Bryce was happy just to hold the train cars.


Of course Sydney suckered Oma into getting her a present too even though it was Bryce's birthday. Here she is proudly displaying her new Barbie.

Denver Stock Show

We attended the Denver Stock Show and actually went to the rodeo as well as the petting zoo. I thought it was pretty cool although Melissa didn't like the calf roping. We didn't realize how long it was going to be so we left before the bull riding at the end but we did get to see the mutton busting which was pretty hilarious. Here's a couple of pictures at the rodeo and the petting zoo.


We weren't sitting very close but we were right by the chutes for the bronco riding.


Bryce loved sitting on the John Deere tractors.


Sydney and Bryce got to feed the goats.


Some of the animals got a little excited when you had food in your hand.


We were standing in front of the grand prize winning long horn although I can't tell the difference between last and first place. Ironically we ate at McDonalds after the show.


Tourist alert! Nice camera bag around my neck.