March/April 2011 Update

NATHAN

Nathan loves the outdoors. Give him a shovel and dirt and he will dig happily for hours. He loves going out with daddy to be his backyard helper.

Nathan's other love is going for rides in his wagon. Here we are on a family walk by the river.

Nathan enjoys jumping in his crib with his best friend Margaux. He is talking a little and signing more. Mostly he makes noises which are fun to hear as he eats his food: Grapes and berries are called balls, which he enjoys rolling across his tray. Sandwiches and bread are dinosaurs that he pretends are growling at each other. String cheese is a snake which he moves around as he hisses "Sssss."

MADDY

Maddy going for a ride at the park on St. Patrick's day--so cool!

Now that the weather has warmed up, Maddy loves playing in the backyard constantly.



ABBY

Ever since we did Kindergarten registration Abby has been very excited for school. Here she is playing school with Maddy and all her stuffed animals. Being the oldest she loves being the teacher and bossing everyone else around.

Abby's favorite backyard pastime is picking dandelions and bringing me bouquets everyday. She was really sad when Daddy pulled them all up.

MARY

My birthday was spent trying to keep the kids away from Daddy while he tore up our grass in the backyard so we decided to celebrate on Easter. Even though Jared was tired from all his hard work on Saturday, he stayed up until 1:00am making me this delicious Reese's Peanut Butter Cream Pie so we could enjoy it the next day. So good!

Nathan loved it so much he kept eating it and giving me back his bowl saying "yum yum, more!"

JARED

Jared was really excited to have some of his family come up to visit for the first time in over a year. His brother and his family came up for the weekend and Jared treated them to one of his delicious crepe breakfasts. (I am posting this picture hoping that we will get more visits from family in the future, and Jared promises to make crepes for anyone who comes up to visit). We had a wonderful time with them and hope for more visitors in the future!

Our backyard being re-modeled.

Jared decided he didn't want to spend his entire life mowing the lawn so he rented a sod cutter and took up 1/3 of our back lawn. He plans to put in some raised garden beds, a shed/greenhouse, and some more flowers, trees, etc. It will definitely keep him busy all summer, but should look really nice when he is done.

Easter 2011

Nathan on Easter morning. He wasn't too interested in his basket, he was more excited about all the colorful "balls" all around the room. He had fun looking for eggs and putting them in the basket until he started looking behind a closet door we forgot to shut. He saw a cheerio in a sticky mouse trap and decided to go for it. He came out with the trap stuck to his PJs and his hands and fingers glued together. Jared thought it was funny and wanted to take a picture of the "ROUS" caught in the mouse trap, but I declined. We had to use paint thinner to get all the sticky stuff off his hands.

Maddy loved getting new socks and her own Purplicious book.

Abby got new Sunday shoes and a Pinkalicious book.

The kids all looked cute in their new Easter clothes from Grandma.

Abby's 5th Birthday

It's hard to believe that we have a 5 year old! For her birthday dinner she asked for German oven pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream.

Here she is with her special pink jewelry box that Jared made for her.

She is excited to try out her new scooter.

One of her favorite gifts was a Strawberry Shortcake doll from Grandma D. She also loved going to the store and picking out things with her money from her Collett grandparents. She chose a Hello Kitty backpack, another smaller Strawberry Shortcake with changeable clothes, and a small Tinkerbell doll that she has "fly" around the house with her.

Abby opted for a Princess party this year. Her primary class all came to the party and she was excited to have her cousin Courtney there too.

Here's a picture of all the princesses. Since Tangled just came out on DVD a few weeks ago all the girls showed up to the door telling me, "I'm Rapunzel."

Abby blowing out the candle on her Cinderella cake. One year older and wiser too. We love her and are so proud of the way she is learning and becoming more responsible.

Trip to Utah March 2011

Since we were going down to Boise for the wedding, we decided to drive a bit farther and visit my family in Utah. The main reason was that we wanted to see the Carl Bloch exhibit while it was still at BYU. We went to the exhibit our first day. It was breathtaking and well worth the trip.

Afterwards we enjoyed a great lunch at a new specialty pizza shop called Malawi Pizza. The kids loved eating by a tree inside the restaurant.

The Riverwoods also has a new fun center where the kids enjoyed a Carousel ride and loved watching the surfers in the indoor surf center.

A trip to Utah would not be complete without a ride on the ponies at Thanksgiving point.

The girls got new ballerina PJs from their grandma which they loved (in part because they matched their cousins).

The kids also enjoyed a trip to Salt Lake's Children's museum which is quite amazing. We had a hard time getting Nathan away from the enormous ball beehive.

He also loved driving the little cars around.

The girls loved playing house and, as expected, dress up.

They also loved trying out the controls on a real helicopter.

On the way back from the museum we stopped by the aquarium. Our favorite part was the new penguin exhibit. It was amazing to see how fast they can swim.

The kids also had fun visiting the Bean Museum at BYU with their cousin Christian.

My mom treated us all to a nice family dinner. Luckily the weather was beautiful so we were able sit outside and enjoy my parents' new deck.

The girls enjoyed having a "sleepover" with their cousins in their matching PJs.

Here they are again all squeezing in to sit on the cow bench at Thanksgiving Point.

Nathan was too small to ride on the ponies, but he sure liked riding on his Grandpa's shoulders.

After the farm the kids enjoyed a trip to the Dinosaur museum. Nathan loved growling and pretending he was a dinosaur and the girls loved the water play area and the dig where they could look for dinosaur bones in the sand.

We enjoyed all our time with family. Rachel and Stephen kept us up late every night talking and debating. Mom spoiled us with lots of yummy healthy food. The kids loved the exciting playland she created for them both upstairs and downstairs. Mom and I had fun swimming and visiting with all the "old people" who like to mother mom. She also managed to scare us half to death by taking us to a freaky doll hospital in Salt Lake. Dad and I spent some quality father-daughter torture time as he lasered my wart. He also spent some good bonding time with Nathan by carrying him around on his shoulders so he could visit the dogs in the neighborhood. Sarah came up often to visit and came with us to Storytime and Thanksgiving Point. I was happy that Andrew and Nikki even took the trip down to meet with us for the family dinner and to spend the day at Thanksgiving point. On our last day Grandpa and Aunt Rebecca took us out to Brick Oven where we really enjoyed visiting with them. I missed not seeing Joseph and Ruth but hopefully someday when Joseph's out of school we can plan a time and place when we can all get together. It was a wonderful trip and like always I was wishing for more time when I left.

Kevin and Katie's Wedding

Kevin and Katie were married at the Boise temple. The wedding was beautiful, although I don't have any pictures from after due to the cold, rainy weather. Afterwards Jared's mom put on this beautiful luncheon.

Abby loved having a "fancy" dinner.

Maddy and Nathan were both pretty tired and ready for a nap by this point.

The girls loved getting dressed up and dancing around at the reception with their cousins. Here they are with their new aunt Katie.

Nathan looked really handsome in his suit and tie, but was a little more excited about the chocolate dipped strawberries than he was about the dancing.

The reception was beautiful--the highlight being Kevin and Katie performing the chicken dance for us all. The whole day was perfect, and we are very excited to welcome Katie into our family.

In addition to the wedding, we had the added fun of celebrating William's birthday the next day. As usual Eric and Amy did a great job hosting us, and the girls had fun dressing up as princesses.