This Summer

Just the other day I was writing a note to our grandma's telling them of all things we've done this summer. I realized it's been a pretty memorable time in our family and I wanted to put down some of those things here so they aren't forgotten. There are pictures of some stuff below.

We camped out in the back yard for one night.
Roasted hot dogs a few times
Eli started giggling, solid foods, and rolling over.
Shawn learned to ride his bike without training wheels.
Ty cut Shawn's hair one Sunday morning. (Pictures below.)
We went to Bear Lake for a Shumway Reunion.
We went to Cedar City for a Seaman Reunion.
We made some festive dipped strawberries for the Fourth.
Eli got to see his first Freedom Festival Hot Air Balloon show.
Eli did not start sleeping through the night.
The friend who lives nearby taught my sweet little babies to say an awful word.
Ty was playing prince and princess wedding with a little girl and they kissed.
The boys went to their first play, "The Emperor's New Clothes".
Ty and Shawn both played baseball.
Ty lost both his front teeth.
We did 4 weeks of swimming lessons and the boys got so much better.
During swim class, Shawn slipped off the step where he could stand in the water. The teacher was pretty far away from him so I had to jump in, in my clothes, to rescue him. So embarrassing, but worth it.

Lots of memories. This is such a precious time with these boys!

Cool Under Pressure

So congrats to Ethan! He is graduating! Officially he will be done with his MBA on June 18. We are so so excited. It's been a long road though. Some how he was able to juggle a lot of things. I still don't understand how his head has not exploded by now. I guess he was blessed like the baby he heard about, whose middle name is Jimmer, to be cool under pressure. Seriously though he and our family was so blessed these last 2 years. While getting his MBA Ethan got a promotion at work which was so wonderful, but added some time and stress, he was made 2nd counselor in the bishopric, made 1st counselor in bishopric, his wife had #3 baby, he was made bishop, and then his wife went a little crazy (baby hormones+RSV+bishop wife=crazy) for 3 weeks. Maybe I am still a little crazy but doing much better. Anyway, he is so amazing, how he has been able to manage everything. Even now with him being bishop he is still able and willing to help me so much at home. I know he is stressed and tired but I still feel like his #1 priority and I know the boys do too. We love you hun! Thanks for taking care of us!

Baby Blessing

I sure do love this little guy. If I had know who he was before he was born I would not have cried for 2 days straight when I found out he was a boy. He is always so happy to see me and always smiles and talks to me. He is such a happy boy and brings me so much joy. His blessing was wonderful. Ethan did a great job conducting sacrament meeting and with the blessing.

Eli's birth announcement

So far I have loved having little Eli. He is so sweet and cute. His little smiles and cooing just melt my heart. Now that he is 7 weeks old things are starting to get a little easier. He no longer needs to be rocked and walked almost all night. His older brothers just love him too. He had RSV at 5 weeks old and handled that pretty well (although not a good a combo with your husband being asked to be the bishop, yes that is happening to us). Anyway, we love you Eli, so glad you are my little boy.

The New Guy's Arrival

We're very blessed. Late Thursday night our little boy was born at American Fork Hospital. He was 7lbs, 0 ounces and 18 inches tall. He's doing very well!

Rachel had labor pains/contractions about 15 minutes apart all through Wednesday night but was able to fall asleep for a couple hours after they subsided. I was surprised when she woke up later and said, "I think today might be the day." I think we both thought: 'What!? He can't come today! He'd be eight days early. We have too much to do between now and the due date. We'd planned everything out to have him NOT come today!'Rachel decided she'd be able to hold off a water break and closer contractions if she continued with her plans to go to her mom's for the day in Salt Lake. I had meetings in SLC that same afternoon. So when I arrived at Rachel's parents by 6 p.m., Rachel's discomfort had increased enough to the point where she decided we'd better head back home and make arrangements for my sister to come stay with the boys.
We headed to AF Hospital, arriving about 8 p.m. Rachel was dilated to a six. She got an epidural and progressed rapidly, delivering a healthy boy just before 11 p.m. He's been eating pretty well. We're grateful to have a nursery to send him to in between feedings at night!

The hospital has been super good to us. We really want to thank Bella Baby Photography for taking these pictures, too. Click on "View Photos," then type in password 0224babyshumway.
You can go there to view an auto slide show of the album.
Again, we're very fortunate to have him. There's nothing like experiencing the arrival of a new child.

Shawny is 3!

This is one fun kid! We are so glad to have him. He is such a wild boy! He loves all things boy, but can be so sweet too. For his birthday he got a new bike which actually caused an emotional break down because Ty got some new pajamas. "I'm just so sad, will you rock me?" Sometimes you just can't win.

Basketball Class

Here they are stretching out before class begins. On the first class they held each stretch while counting to 10, except for Shawn. He insisted on holding the stretch for 11 seconds. There was this really loud "11" at the end of each one.So the coaches complied and they did 11 jumping jacks instead of 10.
Ty is really enjoying basketball this year. He has really improved a lot. He is so good at dribbling and passing.
Shawn is a great shooter and doesn't really see the point of dribbling when everyone could really just kick the ball around.
These boys are also the only ones in the class that put the basketballs in their shirts and tell everyone they have a baby in their tummy. It's been fun and so fun for them to do the class together!

Christmas

Christmas was great this year. Here are the boys waiting for their breakfast so they can see what Santa brought. We had cinnamon rolls, eggs and hot chocolate. Shawn was most excited about his pillow pet. He also got a razor scooter. He was so much fun to watch this year. He was just so excited. Ty had a hard time coming up with something he really wanted. He got a Mack truck, which he really loves and a T-ball set. It was a great holiday season. We really enjoyed Ethan's break from school.

Ty First Tooth

I can't believe it, but I looked in his mouth last night and there was this huge tooth coming in behind his front teeth. Then we realized one of the baby teeth was loose so Ethan pulled in out with some floss. There was some crying involved, but the end result was a happy boy with a dollar from the tooth fairy. Is he really old enough to lose his first baby tooth? It's killin' me a little.

Halloween

This year for Halloween Ty was Frankenstein and Shawn was a ghost. I was so happy that Shawn let me spray his hair and paint his face. It was great night! We made our appearance at the ward Trunk or Treat and then went out Trick or Treating. Then we came home and counted the candy. I think the kids has a great time. I love Halloween. The kids make it so fun.

What's up with those Chromosomes

Well, the jury finally reached a verdict on the sex of baby number three. Before we elaborate on what that verdict was, a little education might be helpful:

The sex of a human baby is determined by the composition of its sex chromosomes (a single distinct pair among humans' 23 pairs of chromosomes). Females possess two copies of the same chromosome (referred to as the 'X' chromosome); males have one copy of the X chromosome and one copy of the smaller, hook-shaped Y chromosome.

When fertilization occurs, the new gamete (the initial cell from which a fetus grows) always inherits one of the mother's X chromosomes, and either an X or a Y from the father, depending on which chromosome the fertilizing sperm cell happened to inherit. One could say, then, that the father—or, at least, his sperm—determines the sex of the child. On the other hand, the first sperm to reach the egg isn't necessarily the one that fertilizes it; human eggs are rather choosy about that sort of thing. So, in an indirect way, the maternal parent also has some influence on the sex of the child.

Thanks, infoplease.com. Thanks for NOTHING.

So, basically, it's all my fault (that's me, Ethan), but we're having BOY NUMBER THREE. Holy cow.

• Three boys to send on missions.
• Three boys I hope don't get drafted into the military the day they turn 18.
• Three boys to keep away from less-than-awesome, yet super cute girls.
• Three boys to keep from doing even HALF the stupid stuff I did when I was younger.
• Three boys to ruin everything nice that Rachel's worked to make nice in the house.
• Three boys to try to convince at an early age to not want to take up playing the violin, saxophone, trumpet, piccolo, or xylophone.
• Three boys to borrow the car, jump speed bumps going like 87 mph with groups of friends and, when asked why the car just doesn't seem right, they respond, "Golly, Dad, I just don't know what could have happened?!"
• Three boys to run away from the coppers.
• Three boys to run the risk of leaning Nascar or Motocross and not normal sports.
• Three boys to try to get through school without failing (they ARE their dad's offspring, now).
• Three boys to get married in the temple and live good, wholesome lives.

It's a little overwhelming.

Let's just say that every technique out there for having this NOT happen is nothing but a big load of crap.

Rachel is holding up well. We were both a little deflated upon hearing the news, but all will be just fine. The good, and most important, news is that the baby is looking quite healthy and normal (I know; ultrasounds aren't always fool proof, but we're happy with what we heard). The ultrasound tech said that he will have bulging biceps, be potty trainable at 18 months, have blonde hair and one blue and one green eye (weird, I know), probably need braces, be able to catch venison and other creeping animals with his bare hands, be only able to blink with one eye (I can blink with both eyes -- no problem), be an average 5 foot 8 inches tall, and be able to hold his pee for more than two days straight.

So, all in all, things are looking OK for us. Due date is in March. The fact of all of this is this: God's in charge and he knows whom to send to us and when. We just hope we can do our part to not mess everything else up.

Family Time!

It's been great as of late to spend a bit more time together as an entire (little) family. Here are a couple pics from our recent outings.
We also enjoyed a nice drive up above Sundance to see the changing scenery before the winter cold messes everything up. Ty's been going crazy with a signature head tilt with all posed-for picture. Since #2 takes his cues from his older brother, he just follows suit. We sure love these guys.

Lately

So this is clear back to the 4th of July. Here the kids are at the Provo Parade. I couldn't be more proud that the kids can do the splits. That was always a goal of mine growing up.
The other part of the parade that I loved was when the beauty queens would go by Ty would try to yell up to them, "We don't like princesses because we are boys."

That night we went to Fox Field to see the stadium fireworks. I love this picture of Shawn!

Moving on, we made sure we had our traditional tin foil dinner up the canyon.

We also had a few injuries this summer. Ty fell riding a tricycle and had huge goose egg. Shoulda had on a helmet, sorry Ty, won't happen again.

Shawn's injury was a little more costly. The iron fell on the top of his fingers, which resulted in a deep tissue burn. So sad, but after a few visits to Burn Unit at the U they are looking a lot better. Wow, am I grateful they are going to be just fine. Shawn handled the whole thing so well. What a sweetie.


My high school ten year reunion was in August. It was really fun. I had a great time seeing so many people that I wouldn't normally see. These are the friends who helped put it together.

We also got in our annual camping trip. We had such a fun time fishing, rangering, cooking, and just being together. This is the kids with their smores.

We made a dutch oven pizza, it was super easy and super good.

This is Ty's first fish! It was so exciting when he caught it, although he did have to exercise some patience. Ethan also caught a fish or should I say 3. He knew he had something on his line and when he pulled it out of the water there were 3 fish. Crazy! We have video of it if you don't believe us.

And finally a little more current, this is Ty's first day of preschool. His teacher is Miss Ann and he is loving school! He really loves to learn. Just today I told him I missed him while he was gone and he said, "Well, I need to learn to read and write." Shawn is really the one who misses Ty while he is a preschool. He is always asking when we are going to get him.

Also if you didn't notice the side bar, we are expecting! The due date is March 4th. We'll find out next month if it's a boy or a girl.

Funny Kid

OK, so sorry we're not writing more right now, but I thought we'd post this funny video of our youngest at Burger King last night. He's crazy (and takes after his dad). Gotta love this little guy!

Up, up and Away!

In hopes of helping to create some fun memories for the little ones, we decided to be a little overzealous for last weekend's Freedom Festival Children's Parade (it runs down Center Street in Provo; any kids and their families are invited to participate). We planned for several weeks (OK, this was all Rachel's doing), and eventually decided on doing a NASA space shuttle. So, we borrowed a red wagon and got to work.We spent two nights until some after bed-time hours trying to figure out how to make it work. Rachel made cool hats, shakers and capes to make things a little more festive. It was a lot of work, but I think our kids loved it!
We even made a little smoke compartment with a dish of bubbling dry ice for a little take-off effect. That worked for like 7 minutes.We were even lucky to get one of what was probably several trophies recognizing those people who were weird enough to spend lots of time decorating an entry.

Our Preschool Graduate

Yay Ty!
I can't believe how fast a school year can go by.
I loved the graduation, but it also reminded how fast he is going to grow up.
I always beg him to stop growing and he thinks I'm a little crazy.
He has even asked his Dad to help Mom not be sad when he grows up.

This is Ty with Michelle. They are great friends!
We carpooled to preschool and when I drove they would play "car crash" in the back.
Every time a car passed us they would say "ahhh" and hit their heads on their car seats.

Ok, the kid can move.
He wasn't too into the actions of the songs, except this one.
I love it.

Happy Easter

Our Easter celebrations started out at Macey's. The kids loved the Easter bunny and running around the store getting candy. It was a lot of fun.

After Macey's we headed down to Cedar City. We visited Grandma Seaman and went swimming and them the kids fell asleep to a movie in the hotel.

The next morning we headed down to Zion National Park. This is the kids eating their lunch in Grotto Park. I must say I am highly disappointed with what they have done with the park. They made trails around it and blocked off all the grass area. How is anyone supposed to have fun there? It's really quite sad that they have made it unusable to park patrons.

Luckily we did find a place for our egg hunt. This was really fun for all the kids. Thanks everyone!

Here we are at Weeping Rock. This is such a short hike and it is so so pretty!

Easter morning at home. The kids loved the candy the Easter bunny brought but the highlight was.......

the Easter Bunny's helper who came to visit us!

The kids LOVED the real bunny. Ty's first questions where, "Is it real? Is this going to be our pet? Are we going to keep him?" Yes. No. No. We haven't taken him back yet and he really stinks.