Happy Mother's Day!

I want my mom, Grammie, and mother in law to know how much I love them and am grateful for their good examples and support. I love how dedicated to their families our moms are. Especially grateful for their willingness to watch our kids when we visit, travel across the country to visit and watch our kids, lend us their car, let us hang around their house on our vacations, and their phone calls to check up on us. There is nothing like becoming a mom yourself to make you realize what all your mom did for your family. I'm hoping some of their good examples will rub off on me.

These are some pics of what we've been up to lately. Jonas and Savannah got invited to a knight/princess birthday party. It was too overwhelming for Savannah but Jonas had a lot of fun pretending to slay the dragons played by all the dads in attendance. Jonas started t-ball and likes to practice in the back yard. Savannah got her first haircut.

Easter Weekend

This Easter I was really taking some time to think about the significance of the holiday. As I felt the importance of the savior's resurrection I kept thinking about how I need to tell my children the things that I know and feel about the Savior even if they don't understand fully they can feel and recognize the truth. I'm grateful we have a chance to live again and be together. I can't think of my life without family.
Due to a series of crazy events, we got to have Granny come stay with us for a few days which we all loved. We went on a hike and enjoyed the beach. And a big thanks to Granny for letting James and I get a way for a night. We all loved the visit. After Granny left Savannah asked where she was, we said "she had to go home" and Savannah said "she'll be back". We had a great easter weekend. We had a very quick easter egg hunt on Saturday morning, then I was off to drive the youth to the SC temple which is 3 hrs away. James stayed home with the kids and they had lots of fun decorating easter eggs and swimming in the backyard. On easter Sunday the primary kids sang in church and Savannah and I had fun watching James who is Jonas' primary teacher and Jonas go up to the stand. Jonas was really singing the song which is great for him. It made me so happy to see that. For easter dinner on Sunday we had ham with raisin sauce, deviled eggs, and sweet potatoes. I am feeling oh so blessed.

St Pats Day

Ready for church






Our kids learned from somewhere to salute and say "yes sir!" Isn't that awsome? I don't even mind being called sir. I just wish they would use it as a consistent response when asked to do something.







this year for St Patricks day we went camping and a little leprechaun came into our campsite and hid some gold coins. The kids loved it. Then a few days later I made corned beef and cabbage, not because I wanted to but because James really wanted to try it. I try to make the things that my family requests- corned beef n cabbage did not sound good to me but almost nothing does sound good to me right now. It ended up being okay not bad, but now even thinking about it makes feel queasy, sorry irish people but your food just isn't that good. I need to find a different irish tradition food to make on that day. Feel free to share if you have any ideas.

I'm just posting some pictures of what we've been up to lately. The first is a picture of the kids keeping themselves entertained with friends during a loooooooong day at the Columbia temple. It's a 6 hr round trip there and many hrs were spent this day on the temple grounds and at the park nearby. Luckily the weather was nice so the kids stayed pretty happy.





My husband likes to save our refried beans and taco meat in a yin and yang design. I love that about him.



Savannah's hair after playing in the sun for quite a while, it still looks wet because of the full tub of vaseline that she put in it the night before.




James and I got all dressed up to go to a military ball. I don't know why but I really wanted us to do this, I think it's because I like the uniform. James is awsome because he took me to the ball even though he would much rather have been doing just about anything else.



Jonas is hard at work learning to read and write



me and my girly

Rainy Days

We've had some cold rainy days here which I know is nothing to complain about compared with many others who are buried in snow. As a result we've been inside a lot. We've been trying to get Jonas to understand the concept of "entertaining himself" without electronic devices. So one of the things he has come up with that Savannah loves to join him in doing is playing with mom's spice bottles. He sets them up to have battles.The spiciest spices (cayenne pepper) are the leaders, but even they will fall if they don't "watch their back". I've also been baking bead sometimes successfully and sometimes not so much.










I love it that my kids make me smile and laugh every day. It's so fun to watch them learning new things.Today the sun was out so after church we went for a walk while everyone else was watching the superbowl. Jonas is getting better at riding his bike. He used to be too worried about falling, but now he's got more confidence (thanks to James who is better at getting Jonas to try new things), Savannah is also learning to use the potty, and attempting to do somersaults and cartwheels- which I haven't gotten a picture of that yet.

Picture Time

Christmas Trip

I loved being surrounded by family this year for Christmas. After arriving in Utah we had to buy all Christmas presents in a rush before Christmas, so we were feeling some of that Christmas stress for a few days, but then we got to just enjoy being with everybody. I didn't take pictures of all the highlights because my camera started acting weird, but these were some of the highlights for me anyway.




Seeing and talking with family that I don't get to see very often. Watching the kids play/fight/interact with cousins-k I could have done without the fighting.










Going on dates with my husband including: skiing, seeing a play, seeing HP and Voyage of the dawn treader, plus late night shopping dates










Holding these delicious babylicious babies






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Watching my brother get married :)












Now we are back home and getting things back to normal. It's so great to be all together again.



Thanks Aunt Zan for this cute outfit