Happy Easter!

We had a wonderful Easter weekend in Seattle! getting there was a little bit of a problem... all went smooth until just before the pass- there had been an over-turned container truck in the pass, so it was closed. We spent 2+ hours in a TINY town called Easton, before we were finally on our way again to Seattle. Saturday morning was an Easter-egg hunt at the park and this blessed meeting with the Bunny himself!

Then we were off to the beach with our picnic lunch, and another bag full of eggs that Nana and Emmy hid for the kids. The day was SO beautiful! a PERFECT day for the beach! There is really NOTHING like a sunny day in Seattle! It was breathtaking!

Laynie posing

Addison posing

The beach hunt was definitely more challenging than the park "hunt"- more rewarding too! Casey and Kelly filled a bunch of the eggs with Papa's left over change! The kids made like $9!!

Addison and Laynie even let Hailey find a few eggs!

And they all played for hours with their fav aunt!

Sunday morning brought clues from the Easter bunny to find the baskets...

And find them they did!

The Easter bunny even left mommy a basket!!...with an IPOD! yahoo!

Photo shoots with Papa are a given whenever we're together!

and a few photo shoots of our own too...

Too many of these? I just can't get enough of my cute kids!

I love this one of them laughing at each other!!

Hailey is sitting on what's left of my lap...

Spring Break!

Nana was nice enough to drive with me and the kids all the way to Utah! We got to meet our newest cousin- Owen!! and we all fell in love with him! He is so sweet and so handsome! We couldn't get enough!

Kisses from Hailey...

Kisses from Laynie...

And tons of love from Addison!

I was able to attend my mission reunion with a lot of the people I served my mission with in Germany. I was THRILLED to see everyone and catch up with them! We chatted, had dinner, had a short testimony meeting, and then all stood together and sang "Called to Serve" auf Deutsch! (in German) I couldn't contain myself at that point and bawled my eyes out!! I was so grateful for the experience of my mission in that moment and the emotion overflowed! (plus pregnancy hormones, PLUS I had woken up at 4:30am!)

We watched general conference together with the family on Saturday and Sunday and had 2 relaxing days at Casey and Katalyn's house in Springville.

Sunday dinner at the kids table was a little wild...it's hard to contain yourself when you just love your cousins so much!

Monday after a nice visit with aunt JoAnn and lunch with Kera, we drove to Logan to stay with Becca and Jake. Cache Valley was SO beautiful and we had a GREAT time just hanging out, visiting dinosaur park, and the zoo! The picture above is me and Hailey at the Logan zoo- yep, I'm pregnant, REALLY pregnant!

Hailey was "so hot" (it was about 50 degrees that day) she just had to take off her long-sleeve!

Playing at the park after the zoo!

And some portraits of the kids by photographer Papa...

Thanks for a great spring break family!!!

The Rest of March...

I guess March had a few other elements besides a HEAVENLY trip to Mexico...so here are the REST of the happenings-

GREEN breakfast on St. Patty's Day= green waffles & green smoothie! So delicious :)


Oh the wonders of food coloring...

These little beauties I just had to show off. I made these instead of the cake I was supposed to make for the scout auction that Kelly was in charge of. If you have never tried Oreo truffles you are TOTALLY missing out! Mix one package oreos with one package cream cheese and roll them into balls...then dip them in chocolate- AMAZING! These are made with peanut butter oreos and drizzled with peanut butter- yeah, they turned out pretty good. And the price they fetched you ask? $55!! Woo hoo!

The other "event" in March was the re-piping the road right on front of our house = disaster for several days! This is my FRONT YARD people!

But LOTS of entertainment for the children!! They are finally (just now in the middle of April) re-paving the road- so there is an end in sight!

And the basement continues to make progress!! We CAN'T WAIT for our extra rooms! Especially a play room where the kids will want to spend ALL their time!! right?!

MEXICO!!!

This is a perfect picture to start with, since it is some of the first moments of our trip, and since the relaxation symbolized in this lovely palm-tree-hammock contraption was pretty much how our whole trip felt! SO BEAUTIFUL! SO WONDERFUL! SO Hard to come back to real life!!!

So, the trip: the moment we were through customs, we were attacked by the time-share people- Sara had mentioned that a family member had listened to a presentation and got a bunch of free stuff for doing so, so I was interested- AND WE DID! We got massages, tickets to a GREAT dinner/show (more on that later), breakfast, and cash for taxis! It's a pretty sweet deal!

So after that and getting to our sweet and CHEAP hotel, we took off to the city and scoured the flee markets and had a great dinner...here we are on "Dead man's beach" that night!

The next day, after listening to the time share blah blah blah and securing all of the free items promised, we bore our white Spokane skin on the beach for a while and read- HEAVEN!

Then that night was the free dinner/show- so we took a boat across the Bay of Banderas to a private beach accessible only by boat- Open bar on the the boat, might I add, so we had all the virgin-pina coladas we could drink! :)

When we arrived at the beach we were greeted by the "natives"- ripped guys with their bodies painted, playing the conch shells, and girls wearing as little as possible dancing along... Our dinner was at this very table, right next to the waves- SO GORGEOUS- and the food was delish! Mounds and Mounds of guacamole, so I couldn't have been happier!
The show was awesome! Lots of fire and drums and crazy dancing...it was a FANTASTIC night, especially because it was FREE :)

Thursday morning we cashed in on our massages- HEAVENLY! Kelly had never had a massage that wasn't "therapeutic" so he thought it was pretty amazing too- and then we were off to the resort where NFIB had booked us- Here's a the view from our balcony- ridiculous. P.S. we never did see a cloud the entire trip, and every day was right around 78-80 degrees...seriously perfect.

We met up with our friends the Paynes...it is rare to find other couples who are below 50+ in Kelly's company gatherings, so we were fast friends with Lyle and Kerissa last year, and so happy to see them again this year!

This dress-up night was the night of all the awards, thus Kelly's cheering pose. I am so proud of Kelly for working so hard towards his goals- and I don't mind reaping the rewards of his heard work either :)

Some of Kelly's fellow NFIB sales reps...from TX, IA, and TN!!


The happy wives.

So, Saturday I was ready for an adventure and we decided upon Yelapa as our destination point!

We convinced our friends the Hopkins to join us and lucky we did- THEY ARE SO FUN! We took a water taxi from Boca de Tomatlan and when we arrived at Yelapa were told to follow a nice little man so we could see the waterfall- sweet!

It was a gorgeous, authentic, little Mexican city and after winding our way down from the waterfall experience, we played on the beach, kayaked, had lunch, and then reluctantly said good-bye to Yelapa.

Of course, we came back to the resort to this sunset, so we can't complain too much huh?

It was awesome to watch the sun slip into the ocean...although that was our last sunset- the next day we packed up and said our good-byes to Mexico- It was a FABULOUS trip!!

And now for your viewing pleasure: Kelly tried his hand at some 'artsy' photos of the landscape.

The view as we came into Yelapa

Another view from Yelapa

And another view from Yelapa

?

Awesome bird.

(My favorite) view from Yelapa

It's still Winter...

After a crazy BLUSTERY storm on Wednesday night, we woke up to A FOOT of new snow on Thursday morning...and I heard the cries of joy as Addison discovered it was a snow day! The first snow day of the year!

I still made them do chores, and then some friends came over for a play date, so we didn't go too stir-crazy...but I was so happy (and a little shocked) when Addison and Laynie played outside on the "the hill" together for over an hour! They hiked all the way to the top (that's why my picture is from so far away...and this is WITH the zoom lens...) and explored, etc. Today it's all Laynie can talk about and she can't wait until Addison gets home so they can hike the hill again!

In other news, we have started working on the basement (maybe I should clarify that by "we" I mean Steve, my next door neighbor!) The sounds of sawing and drilling coming from the basement have been music to my ears!! can't wait to have a place the send the kids to play!
Also, my pregnancy "app" says I have 100 days of pregnancy left- wow, that sure seems like a lot- BUT, I only have 10 days left until we leave for Mexico!! That number it much nicer :)

What's in my head?

My head has been full of thoughts this week, thoughts and snot (did I just say that?!)- it has been a sick-y week for me...cough, sore throat, gross nose, and then the sinus infection hit- bah! Did you know that my only other sinus infection in my life was when I was PREGNANT with Hailey! Shouldn't there be a rule that pregnant women are NOT allow to be sick with sickness unrelated to pregnancy?!? So, after a full day of feeling like I had been punched in the jaw- I saw the doc and got some antibiotics- hallelujah for drugs is all I can say...I'm on the up and up folks.

Maybe I feel compelled to write this record of my week because of my newest client who promptly reported that upon learning who her therapist would be, she googled me...of course google found this very blog and after perusing through she wondered how a person "with a perfect life and perfect husband" (her words people!) could possibly counsel her! Wow, I realized I do a great job writing about the positive points of my life! (although it should be noted that Kelly was not shocked at all to learn someone thought he was perfect...)

Not to state the obvious or anything, but unfortunately my life is not perfect. I yelled at my kids a few time this week about really important things like cleaning their rooms, setting the table, etc. and then I cried for feeling like such a crummy mom; I layed on the bed and closed my eyes for at least a half an hour while the girls "read books" next to me...which turned into jumping on the bed and ended that 'nap;' I let Kelly fold the clothes all by himself Monday night while I wallowed in the depths of my sickness despair...nope, my life is not perfect- B.U.T. - I really do love it.

This same client who googled me has posed some incredible questions that have really got me thinking this week...how can a woman yell at her children and then go teach Sunday school? (um, that one was directed right at me I'm sure!) How come we can "do everything we're supposed to be doing" and still feel like something is missing? and the one that has made me ponder most of all: How do we use the Atonement of Jesus Christ to better our self esteem? I have had some deep and productive thoughts thanks to her this week, and although I don't have all the answers, I have realized (again) that the most important thing in life is our relationships. Our relationship with Heavenly Father, with our families, with our friends... yep...so go make your relationships better!

I promised Sara some tummy shots, so here you go! I am 25 weeks today...feels like forever til' she's here!! She's super active and I seriously love every time I can feel her move.

P.S. You'll notice my too-small BYU apparel...well we're all a little star-truck with Jimmer at our house- Addison asked me yesterday if Jimmer is better than Michael Jordan! and the kids love watching the video on youtube "Teach me How to Jimmer" if you haven't seen it...it's pretty fun...if you even know what I'm talking about!

Happy Valentines Day!!

We celebrated our "LOVE" for all the Dittos with dinner at our house Sunday night...

Thanks to Julia for this beauty heart-shaped-3-layer-cake!! Seriously, is she a Martha Stewart or what?

Here are my less impressive conversation-heart-cupcakes...

And this morning was nothing but the best, heart-shaped pancakes and pink smoothie!

HAPPY VALENTINES!