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Well summer has come to a close and I am back in school.  I was excited to start again, as I’m anxious to learn more and grow my skill set.  This will be my third semester and after this one I’ll have one more to go.  It wasn’t looking like it would be a very hard year but I ended up adding a class that normally would be taken next semester.  It’s called Supervised Work Experience and it is basically just an internship.  One came up and my teacher gave me the option to do it so I decided I might as well.  So that makes my schedule a lot busier!

Kryssi is getting closer to the end of the pregnancy, which is really hard to believe.  Time has just flown by!  Her due date is Oct. 19th, so not many more weeks left to go.  So far everything has been going great, no real issues.  She’s had problems with heart burn lately, so hopefully we can find something that will help with that.

Lucas is growing and changing every day it seems.  He is so smart and seems to learn new words every day.  He is always making us laugh and we love having him around.  That was the hardest part of going back to school, leaving him here.  But it is wonderful to come home and see how excited he is.  He has such a wild imagination and he seems so much smarter then I’d ever expect a 2-year old to be.  I think we’ve finally got him sleeping in his toddler bed for naps as well as at night.  He hasn’t slept in his crib for a while, so that is good.  We are working on potty training him, which is coming along fairly well.  He loves using his potty, and even tells us sometimes he has to go.  I think if we worked a little harder at it he’d be trained fairly fast.

Lucas with his cheesy grin sitting on his chair he got for his birthday.  He has a new shirt on that was part of a bunch of older clothes Great Grandma brought us that were stored at their house.

Lucas was taking some pictures with the camera (one of his favorite things to do) and he wanted pictures of himself taken so this is what we got.

Lucas dressed up in his Superman costume from last Halloween.  It’s small on him but he has been in a Superman/superhero kick lately.  He watched The Incredibles, and since then he’s loved pretending to fly around as Superman.  I reminded him he had a costume, so he had to have it out and try it on.  He flew around in it for a while.  It was pretty cute!

A recent picture of Kryssi.  You can’t really see her pregnant belly at this angle but it is there, trust me.  Everything is growing at a normal rate and hopefully this baby will be more then the 6 lbs. Lucas was.

Here are some more recent pictures of Lucas.  He is getting so big and it seems he is constantly changing.  He always makes us laugh, though, so we are a happy family!

Well it has been a long time since the last post, mostly I’ve been pretty busy but also lately our internet has not been working very good.  But a lot’s happened since the last post.  We celebrated 4th of July in Utah, which I’ll post pictures later.  Lucas turned 2 on July 14th, which I’ll post pictures of that as well.

We can’t believe how much Lucas is changing.  He just seemed to grow up overnight.  He has become very independent, and wants to do everything by himself.  Anytime you try and help him, that’s what he’ll tell you, “by myself.”  I guess it’s good he is learning how to do things, but it sure tests our patience as parents.

He loves to repeat whatever you tell him, which is a lot better then him constantly saying “hmm” which was his typical response to everything you asked him before, which he still does some of that.  So his vocabulary is growing more and more each day, which makes it a lot nicer for us to communicate with him.

We got a toddler bed for him, and have been working on getting him sleeping there instead of his crib.  He’s actually done pretty well since his birthday, but he still usually gets up and plays multiple times before finally staying and falling asleep.  Last night he actually fell asleep in front of the door, so I had to push him a little to get his door open.

We are also trying to get him potty trained, and he is starting to use his potty more and more.  He basically just likes dumping it in the toilet and then flushing it, but at least he’s using his potty some.  I think if we worked a little more on it he’d get the hang of it pretty fast.

It seems like there are a lot more things he’s been doing lately that are all pretty cool, but I can’t think of them right now.  He’s just a really funny boy and we love having him in our lives.  Kryssi is getting pretty far along in the pregnancy, and getting more and more uncomfortable.  So far everything is going great, which we are happy for.  She actually went to the dentist a few weeks ago and had one of her wisdom teeth taken out, and she gets the other one out this week, along with a bunch of cavities filled.  She actually recovered really fast the first time so let’s hope this second time goes just as smoothly.

GIRL!

We went to the doctor on Tuesday and had the ultrasound.  They said they can’t guarantee it’s a girl as good as with a boy, but she said she was positive it was a girl.  Kryssi wanted a girl so she is super excited.  I’d be happy either way but it will be nice to have a girl.  I must admit I’m more scared this time then with Lucas, since raising a girl puts me more out of my comfort zone, but I’m sure we’ll do fine as parents.

Below are some pictures from the ultrasound.  The first set is of the babies spine and then her foot (if you can see it).  The next set is of her hands.  She was being stubborn and was facing away from us the whole time, so we never got a profile view.  I don’t know if it’s a good sign that she’s already being stubborn!

It was Kendal’s and Vanessa’s graduation last week, both from High School and Seminary. We didn’t have our camera for high school, and we only took two from Seminary. But both were really good ceremonies. Lucas actually did pretty well in sitting in both for an hour. He ended up in the row behind us playing with some girls during the seminary graduation, but it kept him happy!

We had our annual Kotter Easter Egg Hunt on April 10th.  That was the same day we were sealed, so it was a very busy day.  The weather was great, so we were able to be outside the whole time.  Lucas seemed to understand what to do, and he really enjoyed it.  I think Kryssi and I probably enjoyed hunting just as much though!

All the little kids waiting on Grandma Kotter’s steps.  Lucas had his basket stolen.

Lucas and Grandpa playing with an old trike they found in the barn.  Lucas loved it.

Family picture in front of the barn.

After the easter egg hunt, we rushed home to get ready to go to the temple.  We went and had some pictures taken in front of the temple before hand (which I’ll post some later) and then we were able to go inside.  Lucas was brought up to the children’s holding area, and he was great.  Everywhere Kryssi and I went in the temple getting ready, someone stopped us and told us how cute our son was and how they wanted to take him home.  We were just glad he was happy.

He wasn’t very happy during the sealing though.  He started crying once they brought him in, but it was okay, nothing worse then what we were thinking.  All in all it was a great experience.  We are so happy to be sealed together as a family for all eternity!

I’m assuming most have heard the good news but for those that haven’t, here it is.  We (Kryssi and I) went through the temple for the first time on Tuesday, March 30.  It was a great experience and something we have been working towards for awhile.  It was great to have family there to support us, even though we missed those that couldn’t be there.  We are going to be sealed in the Rexburg Temple on April 10.  Anyone that wants to be there is more then welcome!

Also, we are expecting our second child!  He/she will be born October 19 (or sometime around then).  We are excited to continue to grow our family.  We know Lucas will be a great older brother and it will be good for him to have a younger sibling to play with/tease.  Kryssi hasn’t been as sick as she was last time, but she still has to deal with it more then she would like.

Today we had some Easter fun!  Between the morning and afternoon sessions of conference, we colored eggs and had a small easter egg hunt at Kryssi’s parent’s house.  It was way to cold to be outside (it actually snowed the night before) but it was still a lot of fun.

I was going to mention before that Lucas has been going to nursery that last 3 weeks.  You can start going to nursery at 18 months, but he had a cold that lasted for awhile.  It kept getting better then worse, so eventually we took him to the doctor.  Turns out he had a sinus infection.  So the doctor gave him some medicine and after about a week, he was better.  We didn’t even have any problem getting him to take the medicine.

But after he was finally better, we finally got to take him to nursery.  It wasn’t a problem at all.  He walked right in and started playing with the toys and never looked back at us.  I think it was harder for Kryssi then him.  But since then he’s loved  it.  I can’t get him to tell me much of what he does, other then he shoots the basketball (they have a basketball hoop in there).  But the teachers all say he’s a sweetheart so that is good.  Hopefully he stays this good with nursery.

It was my birthday this last week and even though I had school that day, it was still a fun time.  Kryssi made a birthday sign that she hung up, and then later that day we went to a movie, while my mom watched Lucas.  The day before we went out to lunch with my family.  So all in all it was a great birthday!

My cards and other assorted presents.

Me with all my gifts and my 3-D glasses from the movie.