May 2011 Update

JARED
Jared was excited to go to Boise to celebrate his 31st birthday with his family. His mom made this German chocolate cake for both our birthdays since mine was last month. The cake was delicious, but probably the biggest treat was going to see the musical Wicked with his family.

Jared has been hard at work this month working on our yard and garden.

He had a lot of transplanting and planting to do which was difficult because we have such hard, rocky soil. He had a big maple tree to move but it was so big that he had trouble lifting it up out of the ground. He managed to break a shovel in his attempt to do so. He drove his little car in the backyard to get a little extra power but the straps on the tree striped the bark and we lost the tree. So now we have a nice new cherry tree in its place.

The kids liked trying out the early start covers for the raised garden beds. Our little child plants seem to be turning out pretty well don't you think?

Our goal was to get our garden in by the end of the month, and on the 28th we finally got everything planted. We are hoping for a big harvest this fall.

In addition to gardening, Jared has been busy this month with work and Elder's Quorum, and on Memorial day Jared left for a week long PA conference in Las Vegas.

MARY

For my birthday my sister-in-law Amy made this nice flower arrangement for our bedroom.

For our birthdays Jared's family gave us this beautiful temple picture that looks great in our living room.

His brother Craig did a beautiful job framing it. We love having it in our home to serve as a reminder of our temple marriage.

I had a nice Mother's day with my sweet kids. Our neighbor brought over these fun cookie lollipops for me.

The girls were very thoughtful--giving me over 15 Mother's day cards that they have been working on for weeks. I am very happy to be the mom of three wonderful kids.

ABBY

Here are Abby and the kids playing with Play-doh with Margaux. They are really going to miss her when she starts her pre-school next month.

Abby having fun with her new hula hoop. She is happy the weather is warming up and she can play outside again. The other day she told me that the grass was getting too long and that daddy needed to get out the "mow lawner."

Abby Tinkerbell and her Tinkerbell fairy flying around the house. Abby came up to me the other day and said, "Mom I'm into Tinkerbell, Strawberry Shortcake, and My Little Pony. That's all!"

Her collection of dolls follow her into whatever room of the house she is in because she is worried her dolls will miss out on something. I often find her talking to her dolls and telling them things. The other day she took her my little pony on our Costco trip, but I made her leave it in the car so it wouldn't get lost. When we got back in I heard her telling the pony all about all the delicious snacks she just had.

In addition to playing with dolls and ponies, Abby has been busy reading and learning the piano. She just started reading the real Book of Mormon and is doing a great job. We love our smart, imaginative little girl.

MADDY

Maddy is also loving the warm weather. It finally was warm enough we were able to enjoy a picnic in the park. When we were in Boise she saw her first convertible. She said to me, "Mommy. That car has no topping!"

We went to the opening day of a new splash park near our home. Maddy really wanted a picture posing with the bunny.

Maddy still loves purple, but she has recently gotten into Blueberry Muffin (Strawberry Shortcake's friend). She gets angry if I call her Maddy, she says "No! My name is Blueberry Muffin." Despite what she says she will always be our sweet little Maddy bear.

NATHAN

Here's our little guy getting ready to slide. He is happiest outside and will entertain himself for hours making his way around our backyard.

He also loves to be daddy's little helper. If Jared scoops up a pile of dirt, then Nathan does it too. If Jared picks up a rock, so does Nathan. When he wakes up from his nap everyday he points out the window and says "Dad! Rrrrum! Rrrrum!" (meaning I want to go outside with dad and work and use loud machines).

Nathan is normally a very well behaved kid, but he wore himself out making this mess. I decided that under Nathan's crib was not a good place to store our extra TP and paper towels.

Every night after dinner Jared vacuums the dining room and living room for me. Nathan now thinks that vacuums are cool "man machines"so he gets very upset if he doesn't have his own vacuum to help Daddy.

Every Sunday Nathan gets upset if he doesn't have a tie to match his Daddy's. Here he is trying on one of Daddy's ties.

In addition to playing outside and imitating his daddy, Nathan is starting to talk and sign more. He loves signing time and his favorite phrase to sign is, "More cookie please." We love our sweet little man.

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.