Trip To Boise

We drove down to Boise so we could welcome Jared's youngest brother home. He has spent the last two years in Brazil serving as a full time missionary for our church. Here he is being welcomed home by his parents.

Here is a happy, but very tired Elder Collett.

Nathan trying on Kevin's Brazilian hat while he hangs out with his Uncle Bryan.

The girls had a fun trip to the zoo with their cousin Courtney. The Boise zoo isn't very big compared to Philly, but it was just the right size for kids this age. The girls had a lot of fun looking at all the birds, lions, giraffes, and monkeys.

Here they are exploring a tunnel with the ground hogs.

Nathan's first trip to the zoo.

These aren't real elephants, but the girls enjoyed the cool shower on such a hot day.

Aunt Jessica and Courtney trying out the tiger.

Abby pretending to be a turtle.

Of course Maddy had to try it too.

Jared's mom cooked a nice birthday dinner for Jared.

She also made him a delicious German chocolate cake.

The weather was perfect all weekend. Here are the girls enjoying some shade.

Nathan hanging out with his cousin William.

William teething on the table.

Abby had lots of fun on the tramp with her cousins and Uncle Bryan.

At church on Sunday Kevin gave an amazing homecoming talk, and Jared and his brothers sang a beautiful musical number. Afterwards we had a nice family dinner outside.

We loved our trip. It was fun to see Kevin and catch up with family. Good times.

Mother's Day and other May pictures

On Saturday morning Jared decided that we should go down to Boise to see one of his good friends who had just gotten married. I told the girls that we had to hurry and pack so that we could go. Five minutes later Abby shows me this pile and proudly announces, "Mom, I'm all packed!"

Abby was sweet and made me a little mother's day cake out of play dough.

After finishing up some mending, I came out of my room to find that the girls playing Peter Pan. Abby was Tinkerbell and Maddy was playing Captain Hook and trying to lock Abby up.

Here I am with my kids on Mother's day morning. Jared and the girls got up early and made me pancakes. The girls are sitting on my mother's day present, which was a step stool for my kitchen. It was very nice, although the highlight of my day was Abby singing with the Primary in sacrament meeting for the first time. She was very excited about the performance and had spent the night before practicing mother's day songs in her bed at the top of her lungs. Every Mother's day I am reminded of what a blessing it is to be a mom of such sweet children.

April 2010 Update

JARED Jared continues to love his job, and now that Spring is here, he has been busy working in our yard. He also just finished up making the end tables for our living room. I think they turned out really nice, especially for his first furniture making project.

NATHANAEL The bath tub is Nathan's second favorite spot (the first is in his high chair eating). He loves to splash, kick, and play around in the bath. I came in Nathan's room one day to find that the girls had been playing dress up with him again. Here he is as a little Soviet comrade. Nathan has developed a lot this month. He still eats huge amounts of food, but luckily he mastered Cheerios so he can feed himself a snack while I get dinner on. He can't crawl yet, but that's okay with him, he just rolls around to get to where he wants to go.

MADELINE

Maddy's favorite color is purple, can you tell? She is holding her favorite purple bear that she sleeps with every night. She continues to be our sweet little bear. She is talking more and surprises us with her understanding of things. She loves nursery rhymes and songs and we will often overhear her reciting or singing to herself when she is alone. Today she was talking about Mary Quite Contrary as she watered her flowers in the garden.

Maddy has just learned how to dress herself and is very proud of herself for it. She refuses help with dressing and comes up with some pretty interesting outfits on her own. Here's a picture of her and Abby after they raided Nathan's drawers and put his clothes on. The girls are so skinny they fit in his 12 month clothes--although they are a little short in a few places.

ABIGAIL

Here is Abby with her favorite white unicorn (the small one) that she insists on sleeping with every night. She loves to dress her up and do puppet shows with her too. The other unicorn is her favorite for riding around the house. The other day she asked me how old she had to be to get her own real flying unicorn.

Here's Abby all ready for ballet. I thought her love for ballet would fade after a while, but it is still the highlight of her week.

MARY

I turned 31 this year and had a nice family party followed by a fun trip to the park. I don't know what I did to deserve it, but I was really spoiled for my birthday this year. Jared made me a delicious cake, gave me some Harry Potter movies, and got me a Bosch mixer! He said it was to make up for all of our poor years when he didn't really give me much, but I feel like he more than compensated this year. I also got a beautiful new dress and exercise clothes (a hint?) from my parents.

Here I am with my three beautiful children. As I blew out my candles to make a wish I was reminded of my three years of infertility in which I wished for a baby each year as I blew my candles. I thought about how blessed I am with my three wonderful children. Jared, my children, and my family really are my greatest gifts. Okay that sounded kind of sappy, but it's true.

Abby's 4th Birthday!

A very happy birthday girl! She loved being the center of attention (not to mention all the presents and sugar). Abby thinks that everything just gets better the older you are. One day I told Abby that I had to take some Ibuprofen because I was hurting. She said wisely, "Don't worry mommy. When you turn 100 then you'll feel better."

Abby opening her new clothes from grandma Donaldson. She was very excited to see the number 4 on all of the tags. Abby absolutely loves clothes and decided to spend the money her Grandma Collett sent her to buy some more.

Abby was very excited to get her princess bike. I had to get her to stop jumping up and down with excitement so that I could take this picture. She has been waiting a long time for this bike since this was her promised reward for getting potty trained. She still hasn't made it a full week with no accidents (sometimes our fault), but she has been working hard and is doing much better so we decided to give it to her for her birthday anyway.

Abby taking a seat.

It was dark, but Abby insisted on trying out her new bike right away.

Abby really wanted a princess party, but I convinced her that the boys next door probably wouldn't like it; she decided to have a Dora party instead. They played a few games and then I told them it was time for cupcakes, but then I showed them a note from Swiper saying "Ha Ha, I took your cupcakes. You'll never find me now!" The kids then had to get their backpacks in which we put a map, flashlight, whistle, and mini toy telescope. They then had to read their map which took them to swing set ship, chocolate tree, down lollipop lane, to table tunnel, across crocodile lake, and up stair mountain. On the way they had to use their tools to over come the different obstacles and at one point they had to stop Swiper (Jared) from stealing their candy. In the end they found Pirate Jared guarding the cupcakes and they had to answer three silly questions before they could get them. In the picture here they all are saying "We did it!" after getting the cupcakes.

Here are they kids telling Swiper "no swiping" three times.

So much fun!

April Fools and Easter Pictures 2010

APRIL FOOLS
Abby and Maddy really enjoyed April Fools day. They thought it was especially fun to put their clothes on backwards and they got a big kick out of fooling Daddy with some sour lemonade.


EASTER

Here are the girls coloring Easter eggs. After a messy experience last year we decided to let the kids color the eggs with crayons and left dying the eggs to the parents.

A very happy Abby on Easter morning!

Nathan with his Easter bucket.

Maddy really liked her new sunglasses which she insists on wearing everywhere. She likes to put them on and says, "I superstar!"

The superstar bunnies together.

Abby looking for Easter eggs--unfortunately Saturday was so cold the girls had to look for their eggs in their winter gear.

Maddy found her first egg and decided to sit down and eat it right away. We don't think she quite got the concept of an Easter egg hunt.

The girls in their matching Easter dresses from Grandma.

We tried to do all the Easter egg and bunny stuff on Saturday so that we could spend Easter Sunday thinking about the true meaning of Easter. We spent Easter Sunday watching General Conference and had a nice dinner together. We are grateful for Jesus Christ and the hope His resurrection brings.