Jed is 1! ..... and 2 months...

So I started writing this earlier on my ipod - earlier meaning the week after it happened, but me being my usual self didn't save it, and then lost my ipod (it fell under the glider cushion in the nursery) for a few days, so I lost what I written. So I'm going to start again... here it goes...

For Jed's first birthday party we had a 

Bear in the Big Blue House Birthday Bash! 

Grandma and Papa Lewis; Grandma and Papa McCann; and Uncle Jason, Aunt Kylee, and Cousin Ashton all came to celebrate with us! We had Pip and Pop's Chocolate covered clams (Madeleine cookies covered in chocolate), Ojo's Bear Cub Trail mix (teddy grams, rasins, chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, and peanuts), Tutter's Cheese plate, and Trilo's pineapple. My mom brought chicken salad to put in croissant sandwiches, Barb brought minestrone soup, and Jason and Kylee brought deviled eggs. It was a pretty delicious lunch.

This is him eating his (gigantic) "first" cake.

Brian put together this awesome video (it's long, but I'll post it anyway in case you want to watch):

I made Jed an activity book for his birthday. He loves zippers and drawstrings and keys so I made him a book that he can take to church and play with on my lap. He just now started to get interested in it. He sat on my lap for a good 5 minutes to play with it (he is too busy of a boy to sit still during sacrament).

Jason and Kylee got him a shape sorter. Barb and Dan bought him a board book that he loves to flip the pages and walk around with it looking like he is reading it, and a big sit and stand rock out set - which he is afraid of. Every time he pushes a button and it plays music, he freaks out. I think he will love it when he is a bit older.

My mom made him a castle fort to go over a card table. They had a lot of fun with that. Since we have had it, every member in the family has played in it (including Brian!).

We also bought him 2 Bear DVDs because we were tired of watching the same ones on youtube - now we are tired of these ones, it might be time to buy him another one (maybe for his Easter basket). There were many other gifts, but I thought I would just highlight some.

Some things about Jed and being 1:

• The week after his birthday he started walking pretty consistently, and now he laughs when he chooses to crawl.
• He loves his older brother and sister and is excited when they come home from school
• He loves to play with cars... and trucks...and trains...and anything that has wheels. 
• The words that he loves to say over and over again are "zis, zis" (this) and "vat" (that)
• The words that he likes to randomly say are "woah" and "wow!" I love it when he says these because they are at choice moments as oppose to when he continually repeats this and that.
• He has started to point at everything.
• When he tries to wink at people, it looks like he is glaring at you, and then he laughs.
• He loves his Daddy. When he comes home, Jed can't wait for Brian to pick him up.
• He loves the kitchen drawers. If I let him, he will empty (and sometimes fill them back up) each and every drawer in the kitchen and dining room whether it be utensils, paper for the printer, dishes, electronics, you name it. About a week ago, he emptied out the warmer drawer of the oven (which has cookie sheets and bread pans in it), climbed in and then started putting the stuff back in the drawer - while he was in it. This morning he tried to climb into the second drawer from the bottom. 
• He likes to climb up on the dishwasher door and "help" empty it out. No matter how many times I take him off, he climbs back on. Now I try to empty it while he's asleep or occupied by one of the kids

• He LOVES the snow. Elijah took him out in it last month and he scooted around every where. They had a lot of laughs together. Jed like to stick his face in it and lift it up real quickly, then do it over and over again. But when it got too cold, he would cry and I'd pick him up, dust him off and then he'd be off again. I'm hoping we will get some good snow at Zarahemla next weekend when we go to the lodge with my family. I think he will love to play with the cousins.

Here are tons of pictures of their snow adventure:

See! He loves it!

Crawling through the snow

This is them sticking their faces in it

Jed's snow beard after dipping his head in it.

In other news:

Valentines Day

We had a fun Valentine's Party. Every year, Brian and I celebrate valentines day on a different day. It started when he had to work on the 14, and so we found out that restaurants aren't as busy on the 13th, so we decided to celebrate together on a different day, and then as a family on the 14th. I like having a family party. It gives us a reason to go all out on good food, get our fancy dishware out, and play silly games. In years past we made love letters with conversational hearts, unscrambled valentine words and other fun stuff. This year we ate our traditional sweet and sour chicken (because it's red), egg rolls, rice, and candied red hot apple sauce (super yummy). We also played some mad lib games and then finished the evening with watching a couple of episodes of Once Upon a Time - because it's a "romance" show. For dessert we had chocolate pudding with cherry pie filling and oreo crumbs. It was delicious! I took white chocolate and wrote our names for the top.

Elijah

Elijah had his priesthood preview, because he turns 12 this year! The Bishop has a fireside at his house with all the boys that will be 12 in the year. In our church, boys receive the priest hood at the age of 12 and become a deacon. They pass the sacrament, collect fast offerings, and serve the ward. In the special meeting, the parents and the boys go and talk about the significance of having the authority to do the Lord's work. It was really a cool and spiritual evening. I had meant to get a picture of Brian and Elijah when we got home, but it was so cold that night they changed into their pjs as soon as we got inside.

Eijah also had his first strings concert of the year. It was at Ferris High School. The 6th graders played, then the middle schoolers, then the high schoolers. It was fun to see the improvement through out the years.

Quianna
Quianna was in charge of the meals for 2 whole weeks! She did a great job. The challenge was to feed our family of 5 for 2 weeks under $125. It's a hard challenge, and it has taken me along time to figure out that science, but she did great! She also has started golf! She was completely outfitted this weekend. We went shopping for some Khakis and some polos, she is borrowing clubs from Grandma Barbara, and shoes from Aunt Kylee (thanks ladies!). It was fun watching her check stuff out with Papa.

She is so stoked for tomorrow's golf practice!

Introducing "Theo"

Short for Theodoros, meaning Gift from God. It's greek - which the van is an Oddyssey, and it was a gift from God, so I think it's perfect. 

Here are the pics:

It has seat warmers, a navigation system, a DVD player (and you can hook up your wii to it too), and 6 disc CD changer. The middle windows roll down (Elijah was so excited for that), it has a sun/moon roof, Lazy Suzanne storage between the first and second row, an additional glove compartment, and a place to hold my water bottle in my door. 

We love it!

And the hunt is on!

So a few weeks ago, on Friday the thirteenth as Elijah likes to point out, when I was coming home from dropping off Quianna at school our van was hit by a transit bus. Yup, I was hit by a bus.

Let me see if I can explain this clearly. I was going west on 37th ave. It was icy out so I wanted to make sure I had plenty of time to slow down and stop if the light I was approaching turned yellow. I kept my eye on that light and it stayed green. As I was coming closer the green signal light that was also on in the lane beside me turned from a green arrow to a green circle. I double checked my light and saw it was still green. Then I saw across the intersection a bus facing east and stopped in the turning lane. This was all happening while I was going 30ish miles per hour. As I was just about to go trough the intersection, I saw the bus pull forward, but I thought he was just pulling forward so he could get in the intersection before turning after I went through. As I was about half way through he intersection, he turned left - right into my driver's door! Talk about creepy! I saw a bus coming at me and I couldn't do anything about it. I felt/heard the crunch and felt our van being pushed into another lane. Jed was right behind me covered with a blanket in his carseat. He thankfully slept through the whole thing. I know angels were watching over him because the blanket was securely over the whole carseat so glass didn't cut him and he was perfectly safe!

ok... so I wrote that first part a few weeks ago. Since then - lots have happened and I need to update (that's usually what my blog posts are about).
Here are the pictures of the van. Yes it was totaled.

My window was completely shattered! Notice the side mirror missing? 

There it is! Yup, it flew  across the van. I'm so lucky I didn't get hit by it.  

So, the van was totaled and we ended up getting more money than what we paid. I love getting good deals for vehicles when we buy them. We had a rental van for a couple of weeks while things were getting settled with the insurance and such. We looked and looked and couldn't find another honda in our price range. Finally, on our way (or I guess, out of our way) to the Tri-Cities, we went to Wenatchee to go look at 3 vans. We liked all of them, unfortunately the dealership didn't want to play ball with the price. They pretty much laughed in our faces, and when they wanted to charge us top dollar for the oldest one, we just left town. That usually is not our experience. Yes, we offer them a ridiculous offer, but then we always start the negotiations from there. My dad said it's because they are a small town dealer with very little competition. 

We spent our vacation in the Tri-Cities looking for another van. Brian did his usual daily 1-1 1/2 hour search on craigslist and dealers from Missoula to Seattle. We almost went over to Auburn on New Years day, but we called the day before and found out they would be closed. I'm very surprised that we made it home from Christmas in the Subaru with all our stuff. Brian is a wiz at packing. Car top carriers help too.

Last week we kept up with the usual searches and found a van in Priest River, Id. They were a very nice family who actually just came from Thailand. They were there for a few years because "God told them to." I put that phrase in quotes, because we heard it a lot. She even said that's why they put it on Craigslist because she felt that God was telling her. She just knew that a family needed it. The van was in great condition and they kept trying to make sure everything was perfect for us (cleaning the tires and windows, changing a light bulb, etc). The van has a DVD system, a 6 disc changer, leather heated seats, back up camera, and navigational system! It's a 2005, which Brian and I had been looking for because we like the newer body style and feel like the sliding doors were better manufactured. 

We ended up buying it - including the set of snow tires that were on it! We love the van and Brian wants to call it "TightyWhitie" because it's tight and it's white. I'm going to come up with a better name. Maybe Hercules - because Carrie's 2014 Honda odyssey is called Zeus. I think it needs a Greek name since it is an odyssey, but I think I might find a name that means "gift from God" because we really feel like this family that sold us the van was an answer to our prayers.