Happy Halloween

so cute

Sophie's first bath - she loved it. John is so good with her. Sometimes he gives a little too much loves, but she'll pull through. What a good little helper
Hello little girl!
He put the hat on his head like this and wore it like that almost all day- he even wore it all through costco.

Happy Fall...

Wait, are you serious? I am excited for fall but wasn't ready for winter...

Birthdays, Weddings, Babies, Oh My!

She's here! Sophie Lynn Dunlap was born on September 16 at 7:54 pm. She was 6 pounds and 18 inches and is beautiful. And I am finally getting some pictures on the blog again. Basically the last few months have been rediculously crazy for us but hopefully now things will get back to normal. Where to start...we bought a new house and got the keys on August 20! It was very exciting and stressful at the same time. All I can say is that moving when you are 8 months pregnant is not very timely. We are making a dent in the boxes in the garage though. You can actually walk through the garage now. Next came John 5's birthday. He's 2! I can't believe it. I didn't realize how big he actually was until Sophie came, but I am jumping ahead. My sister Lindsay got married on September 12. Yay! The wedding was amazing and I am grateful because I didn't give birth at her reception. She got married on a friday and then Sophie decided to come the following Tuesday. My poor mom has been running around like a crazy woman trying to do everything for all her kids. Life has definitely not been slow.

All I can say is that so far she is the best baby ever. Sho only cries for about 2 seconds when she's hungry or poopy. So amazing. Sweetest little girl ever.

Proud daddy in the hospital
All I can say is drug free is not the way to be when having a child. I actually look better than I felt which is not saying much. I started having contractions monday night, they continued sparadically until noon on tuesday. At 2:30 JOhn's sister Katie was driving me from Reno to Auburn because our insurance is with Kaiser. I had contractions 5 min apart the whole car ride. When I got about 15 min from auburn they started lasting 2 minutes and being 3 minutes apart. My mom and I got to the hospital in Sacramento at 6:30, I was dialated to an 8 and she was born at 7:54. John was still in Reno at 6 - needless to say he missed it - he walked in about 2 minutes after my mom cut the cord. I don't recommend this timeline to anyone.
Happy 2nd birthday! What's better than motorcycles to a 2 year old boy? NOTHING

He actually got the concept of opening up presents - it was so fun to watch

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Ode to Slurpee

Slurpee O Slurpee

How I love you so
Your icy cool sweets
Make me so happy, you know

With your cherry red taste

Tell me, what could be better?

So silly of me -

I'll add some cheese, but not cheddar

No, O Slurpee

You deserve the best

Of course only "string"

But will it pass the test?

Alas, I'm a genius!

Quick! Call the store!

A new taste is in town

Bursting with flavors galore!

Truly a feast for the tastebuds

There's no better treat

So let's raise a cup

To the cheesy cherry iced feat

our house in the middle of our street

I cannot tell you all how excited I am! We had a walk-through today and the guy said it should be done end of July/ August. That made me so happy. So here's a few pics of the progress..

Here is the empty lot for our house - we took this pic back in april
this is the sweet view from our house...until they build houses on these lots, then we'll only see this from our upstairs.
Here is what our house looks like as of today! the houses on either side of ours are both 1 story so it is much better.
And I had to throw in some pics of the kid playing in the sprinklers. don't worry it's like 2 in the afternoon and he's still wearing his pajama shirt - he took the pants off long before

San Diego!!

This last weekend we went to San Diego for John's Aunt's wedding. It was so fun. It would have been helpful to realize that the US Open was there before we went then we could have been somwehat prepared for the 3 hours it took for us to get our luggage and get a rental car...shoot me now. But, it was still a good time. AND we got to see Sister Hixson before she left and hear her speak.

B: I know you probably can't check blogs but sisters get away with a lot more than elders, so here's hoping. We had so much fun being with you and the fam - I love you and know you are going to be the best missionary. I will miss you and seriously try my best to send you some letters - I will at least keep you posted on the new kid and the other one, plus I do want to hear about the craziness in Jersey.

Here's some pics from our trip

Fun at the beach. You can guess what came next after he stared at his fistfulls of sand.

John and Courtney - 6 months pregnant. I love this dress, it actually makes it look like I have a chest. Don't be fooled...

Johns 2, 3, 4, and 5. You gotta love it.

it's a real disease!

"Trichotillomania, a hair-pulling disorder, involves an irresistible urge to pull out hair. This behavior occurs to the point of noticeable hair loss. The most common areas for hair pulling are the scalp, eyelashes and eyebrows, but may involve hair anywhere on the body..."

kind of unfortunate that it has to do with my mental health...
For those of you who still don't believe you can read the rest of the article at http://www.webmd.com/anxiety-panic/trichotillomania

And I will confess that I have a bald spot on my lash line because I swear I could feel one of my eyelashes and it was driving me crazy.

go ahead, ridicule me...

Ok so I hear it all the time - "your phone sucks. why don't you get a new one?" or "that's your crappy cell phone?" Listen people, I may have a "crappy" phone by your tech savvy standards - but I would like to point out that I always have service, I can always hear loud and clear and it has a color screen. True no camera, bluetooth, navigation, picture messaging, cool ringtones, speakerphone, walkie-talkie whatever, ability to check my e-mails and control my life through the phone, but what in the crap do you need all that stuff for anyway? Do you know how many times I have dropped it - in the water no less - and it still works. I used someones old flip phone for one week and switched back because my "crappy" phone was better. Plus, as the evidence shows, who in their right mind would spend money on a phone when their 2 year old is bound to get a hold of it and do this...

need i say more?

fun times

we love the sit'n'spin. especially when we have no pants on.

John with my parents' dog Rocko. yes, he's huge and john loveshim

playing catch-up

i love looking at everyone's blogs, but i suck at keeping ours updated...there's always so many other things to do and it takes me 15 years to resize pictures and load them onto the page. there must be an easier way....

here are some fun pictures of what we've been up to. one day when we get a scanner I will scan the ultrasound pics of the new addition. I am 23 weeks along and feeling great - and of course since the legs were closed I don't know what the sex of the new baby is, but since the legs were closed I am thinking it's a girl - so ladylike, don't you think?

here's my out of control child riding the scooter

poop

Unfortunately I have no picture to accompany this, but I thought I would let you all know that my child just pooped on the carpet right by our bed. John was getting out of bed and almost stepped in it. I tried really hard to get a pic, but the battery was dead and then John cleaned it up before I could charge it. so gross. and don't worry, the smell made me gag and go running for the toilet. just another day...

More Easter Fun

Grandma and Grandpa Abel's property is a kids' paradise. We rode quads, tractors, and horses. We played whiffle ball and Baby John mainly went around hitting everything with his little red bat and then everything went down hill when he started hitting his cousins with the bat...typical boy.

happy easter!

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did. CA was a beautiful 70 degrees and so delightful and springy. Baby John didn't get the whole egg thing at first, he just wanted to run up and down the grass hills. Then he got the hang of it. so cute. so fun. It was such a fun weekend with aunts, uncles, grandmas, grandpas, and cousins. We love easter!

sugar high

this was at an old ice cream parlour we visited in Florida when we went to see my sister Wendi and her family. john wasn't even laughing or talking. he was just eating the ice cream as fast as he could.

our first blog

In an attempt to keep friends and family as up to date as possible, i am going to give the blog a try. Since I am pretty new at this whole video posting thing, it took me forever to get it up and the quality is not so great. But, I will keep on trying. Life is pretty normal for us. Baby John is getting so big, I can hardly believe it. Pretty much I don't know what to say so I will probably not be writing a whole lot, but posting pictures. We'll see how it goes...

we love to sing