Happy Birthday Josh

Here's a big shout out to my birthday boy!! Josh turned 27 yesterday. I can't even begin to tell you how much I love this guy. Let's just say he's the most wonderful and perfect husband ever. I love getting to celebrate him on occasions like this.

We had a yummy birthday breakfast to kick off the day. I made him wait to open his presents so that Anna and Andrew could be there too. We brought him some birthday balloons to school and then went out to eat later that night. These are some of the pictures of the whole gang at Applebees.



After dinner we came back and had a birthday party, complete with balloons, streamers and noise makers. I wish I had caught Anna's expression on camera when she first heard the noise makers. She LOVED them, to say the least. Do you see her sneaking some frosting while Daddy is getting his picture taken? Typical.
The babies gave Daddy candy and he got a Boccee Ball set from me. Yay for birthdays!!
These are just a few pictures I had left on my camera. This was one happy day for Andrew. He's always happy, but he was in an especially good mood this day.


I've never seen him laugh so hard! It was melting our hearts.
This is Anna and Daddy playing doctor during General Conference. I've been given about one million shots since then.

March Madness

No, I'm not talking about basketball. I'm talking about how it snowed on my tulips. We had a pretty good snowfall a few days ago. It was beautiful but it killed a lot of the beautiful blossoms on the trees. Of course, Anna and Josh took full advantage and made a five foot snowman.

Josh tried to make the guinness book for world's biggest snowball. Good effort!

Here's just a few pictures of us around the house. We love our kiddos!

I think it's impossible to get Anna to smile without scrunching her nose. She's been doing it since day one.

Finally

I found some pictures on our computer that I haven't blogged about yet, so I thought I'd share. We gave Andrew his first taste of rice cereal a few weeks ago. I think the pictures say it all. He HATES it. We haven't been very consistent with our efforts on this one. I still don't think he's actually swallowed more than a tablespoon combined! One day, right?

With Anna, we let her cry it out once she got to this age and it was like bam! No big deal. In just a couple of days, she was a sleep expert! Andrew on the other hand, has made it very challenging. I honestly did not think he would learn how to sleep on his own for 6 more months. I think more than anything, it has been a battle of wills.

Good news though, HE DID IT!!! Two nights ago was SUPER hard and we let him cry three times longer than I ever thought I'd be comfortable with. Now....he's cured! We can just lay him down in his crib without rocking or swaddling or anything, and he can put himself to sleep. It was TOTALLY worth having one hard night. Now we get to enjoy every night knowing that he can do it himself. It's so nice to actually be able to sleep for longer than three hours at a time, too. All I have to say is hallelujah!

And look, he survived it!

This boy loves to suck on his toes. Doesn't he look excited to do it right now!?

This is Anna's best friend in the WORLD! She loves Hannah. Hannah came over to play today, and Anna couldn't wait for her to get here. She opened our front door and just waited on the steps for her. As soon as Hannah came in the door, they immediately started squealing. I love it!

Family Vacation

Sometimes as a parent, I think you get these moments where you're like, "Wow, that's my child," and you feel overwhelmed with love for them. As I was preparing this blog, that's what the picture above did for me. That's my baby girl. She means the world to me. She's sitting on her bed reading stories right now. I can hear her talking and giggling up there, and to me, she sounds like a little angel.

We just took a church history trip for Josh's spring break. We went with some of our good friends, the Hintze's. It was so much fun. We got a hotel with an indoor pool and the kids loved it. If you thought I've posted lots of pictures in the past, "you aint seen nothin' yet!!"

This is at Adam-Ondi-Ahman. It was beautiful but I'm sure it will be much prettier in a couple months when everything is green. We had a picnic lunch. It was super fun!

Can you say, crazy hair?

Andrew's first time in a pool. He didn't even seem to notice that he was in the water. He was just a cool as a cucumber.

It won't be long before he can be thrown in the air like his big sister.

Chub, chub, chub!!

The girls loved jumping in, over and over and over....

At dinner, Andrew just couldn't stay awake for one more minute. Doesn't he look sweet?

This is at historic Liberty Jail.

Once again, Andrew is zonked!

This was taken in Independence. They had a little pretend log cabin for the kiddos to play in. They had a BALL!! It was the cutest thing. Anna and Hannah were both in heaven.

She's so talented! ;-)

Love this picture.

It was a great trip!