Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas From the Martins 2012! 
Here's How we are all doing....

Dan and Becca are loving life in Colorado.  We do miss all our friends in Oklahoma, but we have found Colorado to be a great place to live.  Dan is enjoying his work at Fronterra, and Becca at home with the kids.  We have tried to do as much exploring of the outdoors as we can this last year and hope to get more in this year.  We enjoy our Callings at Church, (Dan-ward mission leader and Becca-primary Chorister).  We hope you all have a Happy Holiday season and a Happy New Year!  

Whitney is Dan's little sister, she came to live with us for her Senior Year in High School.  She is a lot of fun to have around and we enjoy her laugh and happy nature as a great addition to our home.  

Margie is 7 years old and in Second grade.  She likes to read and is becoming an especially good artist.   She likes to be outside and loves to ride her Bike.  She is a good big sister and helper to Mom.   

Jacob is 5 years old and finally started Kinder-garten.  He loves his teacher and his class and has made some great friends in school this year.  He is on his way to being a great reader and also loves to draw and imagine.  He enjoys being outdoors and riding his scooter.   

 James turned two in August.  He is good at being two..., but can also be a very sweet boy.  He is learning how to talk and express himself with funny expressions that we're not sure where he picks up!  He wants to keep up with the big kids so he is very active and energetic.  

We are grateful for all the wonderful blessings we have received this year and especially for wonderful friends and family who support us.  

Merry Christmas!!!

Homework

Margie had some homework to do the other day, a story problem she had to solve and then write a sentence about the problem using some of the words.  

There was no way I could correct this one.  It was just too cute!  

By the way if you can't read it - it says, "lambs half fur"  She meant "lambs have fur."

2012

Where did the first two months of this year go?  Oh well, we've survived the snow so far here in Denver this winter.  Thankfully this city is prepared and when it does snow most everything goes on as usual, just a little slower if you have to get somewhere.  We are enjoying many hikes in the Mountains, snowball fights,  and driving around to get ourselves more acquainted with the city.  Here's a few pictures of the last two months.  

January

Brothers.. they mostly love each other..Jake always says, "look how cute we are mom, take a picture of us!"

 Here's Dan and Margie and Jake having a campout in the backyard in January.  It only got to the mid 30's and they were super bundled up with sleeping bags inside of sleeping bags.  Nobody got cold as far as I know.  James and I slept inside.  

Dan turned 35, he ended up having to go in early and work late on his actual birthday (left about 5am and came home at 11)  so we celebrated with the kids the next day and of course drug out any and all excuse for a birthday celebration all week.  I just love that we captured the huge cheese on James' face... a true Martin Goosie kid!

A fabulous day for a hike!  We love the trails here!  

February

 Playing in the snow!  I finally got some snowpants for the kids and they were amazed at the amount of enjoyment they got out of playing in the snow and staying warm.  It was a wonderful month to send them outside and let them play for a long time.  

Margie as a mouse in her 1st grad production of the Tortoise and the hare.  She was great!  She knew all the words and sang so well, she got to wear the microphone around her neck for the deaf boy in her class.  It amplified her voice into his hearing aid, she was pretty excited about it.  She didn't try out for a part...no surprise, she's not about to have the limelight on her in public.  Although you'd never know it by the way she acts at home, we're slowly breaking out of our shell this year.  

(No talks in primary yet though... I'm not sure how to help them do it?)  Oh well, she made a pretty cute woodland creature for the play and sang her heart out!  

Happy Novermber

I just love this picture of James... He is such a ham when he wants to be.  

 Rub-a-dub-dub three kids in a tub!  (first and only time so far, Margie and Jake are getting a little big for tubs together)  I guess I was trying to be efficient that night!  

 This Boy Loves Hats!  he'll usually find whatever he can to put on his head, right now he loves to get into my bowl cupboard, this one fits especially nice! 

 Happy Turkey Day!  Dan's Brother Micah and Jess came to our house for Thanksgiving.  We're glad we live close enough for family to visit now.  

 Just about to gobble up..

 James and Andrew, cute cousins!

I have some more pictures, I think, unless I was too busy eating Pie to take any.  Anyway, we had a fabulous time with the cousins.  Margie and Kloe became best buds.   We had a great time together.  

We made it!!!

Moving has a way of making you crazy. I forgot just how much work it is, and there is so much to do! We finally sold our house and just as I knew it would everything went so fast I hardly had time to process what was happening. The 10 hour trip took us 12 with so many stops, mainly due to the fact that we were driving separate cars. Trying to deal with kids and drive down the freeway is really hard! We spent a day in Colorado Springs and took the train up to Pikes Peak, hiked the red rock in Garden of the Gods, and made a little vacation out of the move. It was hard though, to be homeless for a few days, it's very stressful. We have a rental in south Denver and are getting settled in quite nicely. I'm in the process of getting pictures organized and downloaded so I can start posting some of the things we've done in the last few months. Until then....

June - Margie dance recital

Here's Margie ready for her debut performance with her dance class. She surprised us all with her booty shaking and stage presence. I don't know what happened to our shy little girl, she did awesome that night. Way to go Margie! Here some of the Best friends in her dance class.

Her friend Emma takes dance at the same studio,

so they had to have a pre-performance photo together. What Cuties!

I got video of the first dance, I'd post it on here, but either our computer, or blogger took way too long, so you'll have to see it here. She starts out in the middle and then moves to the far left for most of the performance. Go Margie!!

Catch-up May

Well, May has come and gone, and we've done a few things so here they are:

1. We put our house on the market. Here's our page listing if you're interested. It ended up happening on our 8 Year Anniversary May 3. Happy anniversary to us.. I guess.

2. Dan and I went to Denver, which is where we are moving, to check the place out. We think we found an area to live in, but still waiting for the house to sell before we do anything more. We'll call that the anniversary trip, even though we had James with us.

3. We took a fun trip to the Ouchita's in south-eastern Oklahoma.

Here's Dan and the kids on the trail

James

Margie and Jake

It was a beautiful, yet unseasonably cold day, so we went on a few short hikes and drove the Talamina drive. It was a lot of fun. This is where Dan went on his camping trip last month with his friend James. We stayed over in a Hotel - too cold to camp- and swam in the pool and had a wonderful time.

4. I bought a piano at a garage sale for $150 I was pretty excited and it needs a tune, but I'll wait till it has a permanent place in Denver to tune it. It doesn't sound too bad though, and Margie and I have semi-regular piano lessons. She doing pretty well so far.

5. We had a tornado hit just a few miles West of us which at one point was heading our way and then turned... thankfully. Just the day after the big Joplin, MO, Tornado. It's a very scary thing to watch. We were very blessed, and pray for those who weren't so lucky.

6. I turned 33. I made a super yummy lemon-strawberry cake and we had a little party. I have no pictures, how sad is that? oh well. I actually get the whole month of celebrations with our anniversary, Mothers Day, and my Birthday.. we just call it the month of Becca (Dan usually gets to participate in the anniversary part, but the rest is mine!)

7. We went to the Paseo arts festival Memorial day weekend and finally found a great painting of an Oklahoma storm building on the horizon so we can always remember how the sky looks when a storm is building.

That's just about it... we only had two showings in May, unfortunately, it's a bad time to sell a house, but we're hopeful it'll happen soon.