So much excitement in the past three months! We'll start in Oct. and work our way forward.

Halloween, just had to show how cute everybody was in their costumes. Our ward doesn't do a Trunk -or- Treat so we did it the old fashioned way. The kids loved it, it even rained for a little bit but they refused to quit!

We went to Kenny & Michele's for Thanksgiving. The kids had a great time playing with all their cousins, and of course the food was delicious. We played guitar hero on the wii. Here's Jaxon singing his little heart out.

December, we love Christmas!

January: the birth of our sweet baby boy. Easton Miles Welling, December 29, 2008. 8 lbs. 7 oz., 20 in. Isn't he cute! The kids all love him and, so far, are all very nice to him. However we have our doubts about the little girl (Calista). She looks sweet, but has an evil side. She believes she is charge of everything. We're glad he's finally here and Tiff is especially glad she's not pregnant anymore.

Summer Memories

Since many of you have come to expect a post from us once a quarter, we would hate to let you down. In our defense we are comforted by the fact that LeAnne has gone even longer than us. Prepare to be dazzled by the oh-so-exciting lives of the Wellings.

July - We always head out of town for the 4th, this year we decided to stay in Idaho Falls to see the famous fireworks show. We knew everyone went, but we did't anticipate how crazy it was going to be. We found out later that most people camp out all day to resrve the "good" spots. We ended up with the not-so-good spot, the kids were tired and less than impressed so we cut out early and went home to bed. Luckily we had a great block party the next night with some cool (illegal) fireworks that we all enjoyed.

We partied with the rest of the Wellings at the family reunion. Lots of family togetherness and bonding that naturally comes with locking ourselves in a cabin in the middle of nowhere wth no cable, internet, or phone service. The cabin was great and we had lots of fun, thanks to all of LeAnne and Dave's hard work.

August - Ryan and Tiffanie got to go to Las Vegas! The kids had fun with Aunt Beth and Aunt Steph and Grandma Beck. We got to fly down and stayed in a suite at the Ritz Carlton over looking Lake Las Vegas. We have never experienced that kind of living, but we like it very much.

Kamron went back to school and was very excited to go all day because that means she gets 3 recesses. Jaxon started pre-school and we are pleased to announce he is enjoying it very much. I'm not sure how many of you are aware but Jaxon is a preschool drop out, we pulled him out of his 3-year-old class last year. So far he loves it and his teacher says he's doing great.

September - Our baby is 2. I guess it's time to stop caling her "our baby". She had a great day, Tiff's family was able to come up to celebrate with her. Her favorite gift of all is a baby doll Grandma Beck gave her. She will spend all day cuddling and feeding her the bottle, and takes her everywhere we go. It's way too cute.

For those who haven't heard we are having a boy! We are awfully proud we've been able to maintain our pattern. For those of you who have strong opinions about finding out what we're having, nobody asked you. We are currently in negotiations over the name, but figure we still have a while to think about it.

So there it is, we are confident it was worth the wait.

Again, the time has completely gotten away from us, apparently it's been 3 months since our last update, so we have some catching up to do.

First, let's talk about Kamron's birthday. She turned 6, which freaks her parents out if we think about it too much, so we won't. She had a pajama party with her friends, there were 7 little girls running around squealing, giggling, and singing. The noise level was a bit much, even for us. Kamron and friends had a great time and it was over within a few hours, so it all turned out, good thing birthdays only come around once a year.

Jaxon is his usual crazy self. When he brushes his teeth he stands on the toilet so he can reach the sink better. One particular day he failed to look before attempting to jump on, the lid just happened to be up, he stepped right in the toilet. Stunned, he ran around the house yelling cause his leg was wet. All we could do was laugh hysterically. Poor Jaxon - it seems that all we do is laugh at him. Fortunately, he doesn't seem to realize it yet. Actually, Jaxon happens to be quite sensitive, his feelings get hurt easily.(Which we hear he gets from his father.) Of course, even when he's upset he's funny. A favorite of ours was when he recently yelled at his Dad, "Don't talk to me when you're saying something!"

We got a trampoline, as you can imagine, it's the hit of the neighborhood. It's been great for the kids, even Calista loves it. It's got an enclosure so we jut zip it up and let her run around. They love to put the sprinkler underneath and ask almost every day if they can sleep on it. Maybe when it warms up. It has been so cold and rainy and windy here. It's kind of annoying that my kids are wearing their winter clothes during summer vacation.

Here's Calista, she's a little kooky, but we like her! Her siblings have taught her to pull faces, which just looks cute. This little number she did all on her own. She's in that stage where she thinks taking her clothes off is cool. Then she put on the lei and the crown and danced around the room with her Dora doll, and her binky in sideways.

At her 18 month check-up the Dr. recommended we take her to the Child Development Center for some testing. Calista is about 7 months behind in her language skills and about 6 months behind in Memory/Attention and in Cognitive skills. So we get to begin working a few times a week with a developmental therapist. They tell us it's better to start earlier and think it shouldn't take too long to get her caught up.

As for Ryan & Tiff, we both have the opportunity to spend some time at Girls Camp this next week. Then Dave & LeAnne and the boys are coming to stay for awhile. We're excited to see the Woods Family, not sure yet how we feel about Girls Camp, guess we'll have to see.

Another week/month/two months/whatever of work, meetings, callings, sick kids, cleaning, cooking, and all the glamour that comes with it. We realize it's been awhile since we posted and are convinced you have been sitting on the edge of your seat dying to know what's going down in Idaho Falls. So here it is:

Kamron continues to love school, we're beginning to realize this is mostly for the social aspect. She's becoming quite the social butterfly. We are blessed to have tons of kids on our street, there is a constant stream of kids in and out of the house. Boys are no longer the enemy, she's realizing they can be fun fun to play with too. Secretly we were hoping this wouldn't change until she was 30, but what can you do? On the bus the other day a boy told her she was "hot". She looked at him in annoyance and said, "do I know you?" Later he told her she was hot again, this time she said thanks, to which he replied "you're welcome hot girl." I don't know who this kid thinks he is trying to hit on MY little kindergartener, but it has to stop, we are not prepared to deal with such things at his time. Luckily she seemed mostly annoyed by the conversation. Her latest and greatest news is that she lost her first tooth. She wanted to show Grandma & Grandpa, so here she is. She now has two more loose teeth, she can hardly stand the anticipation as it can be quite a lucrative business.

Here a few Jaxon quotes for your entertainment.

"I only like spaghetti with candy in it."



After using the toilet he peered inside and exclaimed,"Mom, there's two in there! This just keeps getting better and better!"

Here's a classic: We are on our way to Utah when Jaxon decides he has to pee NOW. He's squirming in his seat and starting to panic. Ryan begins yelling, "Get him a cup!" Luckily we were close to an exit. We pull off and into the gas station. Of coarse his shoes are off so Tiff grabs him out of the car, knocking out some papers. She quickly sets Jaxon down, picks up the papers and throws them back in the car. She turns around to find Jaxon with his pants around his ankles relieving himself on the sidewalk in front of the store. Mortified she climbs back in the car and waits for him to finish.

Jaxon woke up one morning after wetting the bed.
His dad asks, "Jaxon, why did you wet the bed?"
"I didn't Dad, I wet my pants."
"Yes, but feel the bed it's wet right here."
"Yeah, but feel my pants they're wet right here."

Calista is way too cute. She doesn't talk much - mama, daddy, shoes, and banana. Hey, what more do you need really? She is very animated, has the cutest facial expressions. We can usually tell what she wants by her grunts, pointing, and faces. She babbles constantly, but no actual real words, we think it's adorable and feel she's growing up too fast, so we don't really mind if she needs to be a baby a bit longer. She's been going to nursery for awhile now. I wouldn't say she loves it, but she tolerates it well. We just dump her off and go, several times when we've come to pick her up she's been asleep. Which is great for the nursery leaders, but means Mom's not getting a nap later.

Ryan and Tiff - we feel like we're constantly crazy busy, but don't really know what we do. Besides the 50 hours a week that are dedicated to Wal-Mart, Tiff's involvement in the Young Womens, Ryan's calling in the Elders Quorum Presidency, volunteering at Kamron's school, working our business, visiting family, and hanging out with our friends, we just don't know where our time goes. Tiff has decided the only way to keep the house from falling to pieces around us is to hire a maid. Since that's not happening anytime soon, there will be crumbs on the floor, dishes in the sink, and dirty clothes in the hamper. Just counting down the days until the kids are old enough to take on all household responsibilities.

A rather eventful week for the Wellings. As mentioned before our street is a dead end and therefore never sees a snowplow. We had 6-8 inches of solid ice covering the entire road. Earlier in the week it started to warm up and all turned to slush. That night it froze again leaving deep ruts. If you happen to get in one of these ruts it throws you around causing you to slide all over the road. This is what happened on Wednesday, we got caught down in a rut, spun a 180 and slid into a parked pick-up. Don't confuse this with earlier discussions of drifting for fun, this was purely unintentional. No one was hurt, we were coming home from an early Valentines dinner and luckily didn't have the kids with us, or it might have been a different story. We hit the pick-up on the passenger side smashing the sliding door in. The truck suffered a small dent on the bumper, but the van was pretty smashed. The auto body shop told us that was the worst possible place we cold have hit, in fact it ended up being totaled. Now running into one car would ruin anybody's day, however our story doesn't end there. The neighbor we ran into has 4 cars, one in the driveway, the other 3 lined up bumper to bumper on the street in front of the house. We ran into the pick-up causing it to hit the Geo Metro in front of it, which then hit a Subaru. Now the Geo is totaled and the Subaru's hood is dented. To top it off, because of some previous poor choices we actually owed more on our van than it's worth. Believe it or not this all turned out to be a blessing in disguise. For some reason we had purchased GAP Insurance when we bought the van, which means we would not have to pay the remaining 5000 or whatever was left after the insurance pays. So we were able to get out of a bad loan situation, without too much pain. We have since purchased a new van, an '07 Grand Caravan. We got a killer deal, this thing is loaded: 6 disc DVD changer, leather, heated seats, automatic doors, stow-and-go, and only 18000 miles, all for the same payments we were making on our last one. We're pretty excited about it and highly reccomend this course of action to anyone!




Jaxon seems to be trying our patience a little more than we're used to , Ryan sat him down for a little heart-to-heart which Jaxon had little tolerance for. This leads us to our quote of the day: "Dad, you're wasting my time." His eyes were rolled in the back of his head and he got up and walked away. Charmig child.

We had the opportunity to take the family to the Rexburg Temple Open House. Kamron was the only one brave enough to pose for a picture, it was -20 (-35 with the wind chill)! Only zero in Kazakhstan, who knew we would be jealous of that? All schools were closed for the day, but it was surprisingly busy at the temple. As you would imagine the temple is beautiful, there's a subtle, recurring wheat theme. The kids were excited because they never get to go to the temple. When asked about their favorite thing Kamron and Jaxon both said "the cookies".




Jaxon had a great birthday, he had a party at the restaraunt where the infamous streak took place. Luckily all clothes remined in their appropriate places. We invited some of Jaxon's friends and some of mom & dad's friends so we could all have fun. Unfortunately Tiff thought Ryan got the camera. She didn't realize that "oh, there's the camera." meant that he wasn't getting it. You'd think she'd learn by now. But here's a picture of him playing with one of his new toys. He calls it his "guitar hero" and loves it!

Today Ryan and Tiff had to speak in sacrament meeting. This is the first time in about 5 years, we somehow managed to miss out in our last 2 wards. I suppose our luck ran out. When we walked out of the chapel we were shocked to see Dalan, Devin, and Darren Smith stading in the hall. Apparently Darren is in the ward before us. His son was receiving the priesthood so Dalan and Devin and their families came up. They invited us over for dinner and we went to the biggest, fanciest house we've ever been to. They seem to be doing well for themselves. We had way too much fun, talking and laughing about "remember when we..." the Smith boys are convinced that Anne and Roy hated Dalan and were surprised Ryan was never banned from seeing him. We played Rock Band on XBox - it's like Guitar Hero but with a bass, drums, and a microphone. Sooooo fun! We were excited to find out they are in our stake and live so close, and it was great seeing Dalan again.







Quote of the day: "When we go out to dinner do I have to wear pants?" -Jaxon

Drifting

Anyone who has spent anytime in eastern Idaho during the winter might be able to sympathize with our current plight. It started snowing sometime before Chistmas and has just continued to pile up. We currently have over 3 feet snow in or backyard! The city of Idaho Falls rarely plows the roads, on occasion they will drop some dirt/rock mixture in the intersections. We live on a dead-end street which means not much traffic and absolutely no plows. As a result the snow is pretty thick on our road. In fact, a couple days ago Tiff got the van stuck while trying to get the mail. Ryan was not happy, he could not understand why she didn't walk herself out to the mail instead of trying to get it from the van. After 20 long minutes the van was free and peace and happines were restored. Of course Tiff blames it on the fact that Ryan has completely boycotted shoveling. He started out strong, but in the past week or so has followed suit of our fearless leaders and is now letting it accumulate at will.
After recently watching the Fast and the Furious 3 Tokoyo Drift Ryan is completely obsessed with drifting. Nothing is cooler than drifting in a minivan. The other day while in the Wal-Mart parking lot he decided to show off his new "talent". With a van full of groceries and small children he proceeded to accelerate, cranking the wheel to avoid light poles, he jerked the E-brake sending the van into a 360. The sheet of ice under the van caused it to then slide out of control for another 30 yards or so. The kids thought it was great an begged to do it again. As the only responsible adult in the van, Tiff insisted there would be no more. Yet, she has a sneaking suspicsion he practices when she's not looking.
As you might be aware, Jaxon's birthday is on Tuesday. We are excited to finally have a 4-year- old in 6-year-old clothing instead of a 3-year-old in 6-year-old clothing. We'll see how long that lasts. As I'm typing this he is dancing around he house with oven mitts on his feet. Don't ask, we don't know.
Ryan was happy to be able to attend Kamron's parent teacher confrence last week. All is well, her teacher repeated over an over again what a good girl she is and how much she enjoys her. Hey, we can't all be funny. Someone's got to have some sense around here.
Calista is as cute as ever, her favorite toy is a Dora doll that she packs all over the house. Unfortunately Dora has 5 different buttons, making her the least favorite toy of the rest of us. But, with any luck we may have a bi-lingual child, too.