Girls Night

Brian took Cooper out to a movie so we girls had our own night. We did facial masks (Except Bella. She wasn't too excited about the looks of it) and I gave the girls little ghetto spa treatment on their feet and did their nails while we watched a movie. Pretty fun girl time.

More of May

May ended up being pretty busy. The weather was still hit and miss but getting warmer. I told the kids if they weeded out the garden bed that I'd buy a big slip 'n' slide for them to play on. I've never seen them move so fast to work together. I think it was worth it in the end. We were going to do it the night before for FHE but we had some major drama and had to put them all to bed early. They weren't happy, but after seeing them work so hard together, I think it worked out better that way anyway.

The weather was warming up a little bit and every day that we would go to the gym we'd pass this beautiful spot so I took the camera one time. So pretty.

We had play days with our friends (Skinners), new hair cuts, fashion statements and rainy days.

Our house in Logan had it's rental contract come to an end. We felt like it would be good to put it up for sale on the market, but it needed some work done first, so we headed over to Utah over Memorial day to get some work done. Luckily the kids were out of school, so we took off for an adventure. We took our air mattresses and a bunch of painting supplies and tools. We tried to get as much done as we could with yard work and ripping out carpet to replace with new carpet and re-doing the counter tops. Mom came up and got the kids and took them to play with cousins, which was a huge help. She dropped off Dad to help which was also a huge help. Unfortunately we got stuck with a toilet leak, which was not part of the plan, but with Dad and Brian's brains together, the figured it out. The counter top took a while, but it turned out really nice. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the new carpet put it. It was a lot of work, A LOT, and it stinks to do all of that on a house you planned on living in and never got to enjoy that new stuff. Brian and I were both a little sad that we weren't living there anymore. We felt a little home sick, which is kind of funny 'cause we've lived so many places in the last few years, but this one had sweat and tears put into it and just always felt so right to us.  I had put in a bunch of plants just a month or so before we moved to PA and they looked so nice and full.

This counter top turned out so nice! All of this hard work couldn't have been done so fast with out the hard work from Brian and Dad. We got a lot done!

 We weren't planning on going down to Sandy, but we had to get the kids and it was a welcomed break, so I got a few pictures with Evie since she was the hot commodity this trip. I thought these pictures of Brian and Charlotte were so cute too.

 Thought this was a cute moment with Papa John

 

It was a fun and quick trip out. The girls got to drop in on their old school (Hillcrest) and see some of their friends. They also got to play with some neighbor kids one of the days, so it was a successful trip. They all did pretty good in the car too, so not so bad.

Garden of the Gods

Brian's parents stayed for a few days after the whole baptism weekend so we decided to take a trip down to the Garden of the Gods for the day. It was a little trek down there, but it was worth the drive. Such a beautiful place and very unique. We spent several hours there walking around and seeing the beauty there.

After the garden, we grabbed lunch and then headed over to see the Red Rocks amphitheater. We heard it was supposed to be pretty cool, and it was. The kids had fun running up to the top of the stairs. I told them I'd give them all a quarter if they did. Come to think of it, I think I still owe them for it!

It had been a long day and Elizabeth had a piano recital, so after the amphitheater, Brian took his parents to go tour a little of Boulder and grab some dinner while I took the kids home to eat and get ready for the recital. Elizabeth did a great job on her song. All her practicing paid off for a nice recital piece.

Baptism Pictures

Even though we took some on her baptism day, I wanted to get some studio looking pictures of Caroline in her baptism dress. Pretty little girl!

A personality shot...

Caroline's Baptism

Caroline's Bday was a special day. She was able to be baptized on her birthday which was special. She was the only one and that was nice and intimate. Both sets of grandparents came out for it and that was wonderful. So, we started off her birthday on a spiritual note. Caroline said she wanted to sing a song for the special musical number. I asked her if she wanted her siblings to sing with her and she said she wanted to do it by herself. She sang Gethsemane and did a beautiful job. It was such a sweet thing to hear. Grandma played the piano and Papa John gave a prayer.  Grandchud gave a talk on baptism and WeeMama gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. Both talks were great, of course. Brian baptized Caroline and when I took her in the back to help her change she just smiled from ear to ear and said, " I'm so happy". I was so glad that she was feeling so good inside. She was ready and so excited to be baptized.


The only other people Caroline invited to come, besides the Primary President (sister Ericcson ) and the 2nd counselor (Brother Hanzon) were the Skinners. They all came and it was nice to have someone else there to support her on her special day. Afterwards we came back to our house and had lunch. Caroline requested Maccaroni and Cheese, so we had some of that for the kids along with sandwiches for everyone else. We had a nice time visiting and the kids got to play a little bit.

We wanted to keep Caroline's bday focused on her baptism, so we didn't do a friend party. She said she was ok to just play games, but apparently that wasn't enough. After some attitude and frustrations, we decided to go see a movie. It was the Goons. It was a fun movie and I guess made Caroline feel like it was a little bit better of a day.

Of course we finished up the day with cake and presents. All in all I think she had a good day and I hope she remembers the way she felt and the special things that happened.

April

April was a fun month. There were many plays made:

Disasters to deal with (poked 21 holes in our leather bench) :

Dress up play:

TOO much more snow:

Cute faces:

There was also lots of family time, science projects, school career days, and lots of fun times to remember.

Brian took a weekend trip to Moab for a mountain biking adventure. I sent him with the camera and surprisingly he came back with a few pictures and a few gashes. Returned in one piece though.

I had a quick weekend trip out to Utah to photography my cousin Kaitlin's wedding. It was nice to be a little more free to run around doing a few things I wanted to do. I love my family and enjoy the time I get to spend with them. Being there for the wedding was fun and taking pictures is ALWAYS fun! (unless I"m taking our own family picture!) April was a pretty good month! This is probably my favorite temple shot that I've taken so far.

Soccer

I thought I took a lot more pictures for soccer, but I can't find anymore, so I guess not. Soccer this year was basically just a bunch of games. It snowed nearly every day there was supposed to be a practice, really! It was crazy.
Liz hadn't played in over a year and this was Cooper's first season. Elizabeth started a little shy, which was fine, she was the new girl after all. She slowly warmed up, but in the end I think she had a nice time.
Cooper got more and more aggressive as the season went on and ended up scoring several goals. It was fun to watch him understand the game more and put some good effort into it. We'll see where they go with it. Liz loves it, we would just love to see her get a little more fire in her and be more aggressive, but I think that will come with time.

Trip to Utah

We took another trip to Utah for spring break. Brian drove out with me this time and stayed the weekend, then flew home on Sunday to be back for work. We started off the trip heading down to Provo to see Jayde and Caroline (Kowallis). This was our first time meeting baby Evie. The girls were so excited to meet her. She is such a cute baby. So sweet and a little chubby. Love me some chubs! On babies of course.

 

We did a lot of fun things together. We went to Salt Lake one day to take the kids to the children's section at the church museum. We spent a couple hours there. It was fun and so well put together.

Another day we went to an arcade and did some mini golf, laser tag and bumper cars. After, Wee-Mama treated us all to a ride on the huge ferris wheel at Sheels sports store. I think all the kids enjoyed it. We also went bowling and all these things were done nearly free on the passes that Mom and Dad gave us for Christmas. Fun times!

 There were plenty of sleepover and we also took the older 2 girls to go see a BYU volleyball games. Brought back memories for Brian and I since he was a score keeper for the women and I went to several games. The girls seemed to really enjoy it. Everyone (except Mel and Greg) went and it was a lot of fun. After, we went to Caroline and Jayde's for dessert.

Then of course there's Easter. We did a quick photo shoot, of course, just before everyone showed up for the Easter egg hunt. Got some cute ones of Evie, Caroline and Jayde. I always love taking pictures of babies. It was a good trip and we had a lot of fun, as always. Brian had flown back out Thursday night to enjoy the weekend with us and drive back with me. We had the Easter dinner on Saturday since we were on the road on Sunday, so that was nice of the family to get together for us. Love family!