Our Trip

We recently made a house hunting trip to Idaho.  That's right.  We'll be living in Idaho in just one short month.  In some ways our med school/residency has flown by and in some ways it seems like we have waited for this forever.  Either way we are excited for this opportunity and are thankful that it is working out so well.  

We had to stop at Big Judds to get giant hamburgers.  We knew we made the right choice when they brought out a giant bottle of fry sauce for the hand cut fries.  Right choice indeed.

 We had just gotten off a eight hour plane trip and were more than tired.  We also sat on the VERY back row of the plane.  Believe it or not that is not the best seat in the house.

 The poor girls were so patient while we spent an enormous amount of time house hunting.  We did get to go swimming a couple of times.  I'll tell you what.  Squeezing this squishy body into a swimming suit was no easy task.  Have you ever seen such an adorable baby booty?

 Audrey turned FOUR while we were there!  I felt kind of bad for her because we were on this crazy trip but we did our best to make it special and she was so excited about it.

 We brought her breakfast in bed and she enjoyed the complimentary breakfast waffles very much.

 We then spent the afternoon swimming.  She loves it so much.  I don't think she would have wanted to spend her birthday any other way.  We even made it extra special by eating her favorite, Little Caesers.

 Living the big four year old life.

 I got her a party hat and balloons.  She was thrilled with all of it.  I love that they are so easy to please.

 She had begged and begged to have this barbie purse that came with a pretend phone.  Of all the toys in the toy department this was the one that called to her.

 We are extra lucky because not only are we moving the the beautiful state of Idaho but some of our very best friends already live there!  We are going to live about ten minutes away from them.  Kara was so sweet and made Audrey 4 year old birthday brownies.  We got to see their cute house and little Bexley all grown up.  We are excited to see more and more of these people.

 Our little Lily is getting to be more mobile and funny by the moment.  The other day I laid her on the ground and went to the other room to do something.  (Okay, okay I had to go to the bathroom.  Don't you judge me!)  She got quiet for a while and I assumed she was playing with her toys.  When I returned I discovered that she had eaten Julia's school work.  I mean I was pulling pieces out of her mouth.  I don't even know how she scurried her giant chubby body over to the paper in the first place!  And she was oh so angry when I took the piece of paper away.
So when Julia's teacher asks where her homework is she can genuinely say, "my little sister ate it."  Oh Lily...

 She really does look so innocent.

 Oh my goodness how I love that face.  Love it to pieces.

Zippity ay and Hidey Ho

This little chunker is six months.  How has half a year already flown by?  Well she is now twenty pounds and getting more difficult to haul around by the minute.  She is just so cute and sweet right now though.  I love this stage so much.  

 She is rolling from her back to her belly but can't seem to figure out how to roll from her belly to back.  It frustrates her and hopefully one of these days she can figure it out.  She is sitting up pretty good and loves to shove her hands in her mouth.  Drool is a good friend of ours these days.  She loves cereal and hates green beans. I mean hates them enough that she coughs and gags when I give them to her.  We adore her.  My favorite thing is to watch her sleeping with her chubby arms splayed out.  It is just so sweet.

 Audrey's birthday isn't for a few more days but she celebrated at school because it was her last day.  She took flower cookies and they gave her a hat which she wears on a regular basis.

 We had a big garage sale this week.  I still can't believe that people bought some of the things they bought.  It was great to get rid of some things before our move.  I encouraged Julia to sell lemonade and brownies to earn some of her own money.  She was so excited about it and sat so diligently the entire four hours of the sale.

 You will not be surprised that they were VERY successful..  I mean look at how cute they are.  How could you say no to those faces?  I had to make another batch of brownies because they sold out.  I believe we went through five pictures of lemonade.  It was a great experience for Julia and helped her learn about money and counting quarters.  They were the talk of the neighborhood.

 It was also my birthday this weekend.  I was recently released from my primary calling at church.  My former presidency arranged for families to come to my house every ten minutes to bring me something for my birthday from the primary children.  It was so sweet.  I have to say I teared up more than once seeing those sweet children that I have grown to love so dearly bring me a hand picked bouquet/cards/chocolates/beautiful flower arrangements and more.  I was overcome.  It made for a very special birthday and Mother's Day.  I love those primary kids so much and have been so thankful to serve in that calling as long as I have.  And thanks to my wonderful presidency friends for doing that for me.

 That evening Bryan, bless his heart, kept the girls so I could go shopping with some of my most dear friends.  It was such a wonderful time!  I loved the drive there and back chatting and I loved getting me some new clothes.  I also love talking my friends into getting new clothes.  It was a win win all around.

 Thanks girls for being such wonderful friends and for making it such a great day.  I am so lucky.

 We then grabbed dinner with some more friends and stuffed ourselves silly.  It was a perfect day.

 Then for Mother's Day/Birthday Bryan made me a delicious dinner of king crab legs and steak.  It was SO yummy.  If you know me, you know I love the seafood!

 What a lucky momma I am.  Lucky to have such wonderful friends, a loving husband, beautiful girls and family that support and make me feel special.  My heart is full.  Thanks again to everyone!

Family Pictures 2012

My great wish was before we left Ohio I could get a picture in front of the Ohio barn.  We have loved the past eight years here and I just REALLY wanted this picture.  For a minute because of weather I didn't think it was going to happen but thankfully the clouds cleared and I was able to get my wish.  My good friend Tamara Jacobs took these and I really love them.  She captured my children and our family perfectly.  She even did it right before heading out of town the next day.  Thank you Tamara!

Didn't they turn out great!?  Oh after the stress of getting outfits together, fixing hair, hoping it will stand up to the humidity and getting everyone to look and smile at the same time I would say it was a success!

And So it Begins...

The girls had their last dance recital.  It's difficult for me to come to terms with the fact that we are ending things here in Ohio.  The girls have loved dancing with Miss Sherri and she has been so good with them.  They were both very sad to see it end.

 They have such fun friends in their class.

 The whole group.  A cute one at that.

 I'm glad they were in the same class together.

 We went to a park for dinner the other day.  It was so pretty.  We even went on a two mile walk with these girls in tow.  They only complained a little bit.

 Can't get enough of this little one.

Preschool

Audrey has been having a great year at preschool.  They do such fun things like pajama parties, beach parties, show and tell and field trips to the fire station.  They have a special "friend" day where they can invite two people to join them for school.  Well this little girl's favorite person in the whole world is her daddy.  She is attached to him from the second he comes home and won't leave his side.  So I told him far in advance so he could try and arrange it to come be with her on her special day.  It wasn't looking promising but thanks to some very kind residents they made sure he could make it.  It meant so much to Audrey to have him there. 

 She would only have her picture taken with daddy.  I tried for one but was rejected.

 They performed all of the songs they have practiced this year for us.  It was beyond cute.

 The whole group.  One of the little boys to the right was singing "I'm NOT bringing home a baby bumblebee, won't my mom NOT be so proud of me!"  He did this on nearly every song.  It was hilarious.  Such a cute group of kids.  It was very entertaining to say the least.

 After the singing they had the parents come and do some dances with the kids.  I sat by Lily and watched.  Bryan is so good to our girls.  He danced right with Audrey the whole time whether he looked awkward doing it or not.  I know you all wish you could have been there to see Bryan do the hokey pokey and the chicken dance.

 Check out those smooth moves.  Audrey specifically requested that Bryan wear this shirt because it is her favorite.  She has very strong opinions about clothes, make-up, how her hair is fixed.  Teenage years could be interesting.

 Lily and I watched from the chairs.  Before you know it she'll be running around doing dance moves.

 This is Audrey's little buddy Riley that we carpool with.  He is Audrey's protector during preschool.  They stick together and if anyone tries to cross Audrey, Riley will tell them what's up.  She's lucky to have such a good friend.  Such a sweet boy.  And I sure love his mom too.

And now some video of the live action.  Great job Audrey!  You have done so well at preschool this year and we are so proud of you even though you only want pictures with your dad and not me.  I won't take it personally.