Dylan's Baby Blessing

This weekend we enjoyed Mother's Day, Dylan's baby blessing and lots of family! We're so glad that we got to see so many people, even though their time here was pretty short. The kids had fun playing with their cousins and the adults enjoyed lots of talking, eating and playing games.

 We took most of the crew to Snoqualmie Falls on Saturday. It was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed doing the hike. (Well, most of us enjoyed it! The kids weren't huge fans of the uphill part.)

Katelyn was happy to have Daddy hold her at the end. She was tuckered out.

There was lots of playing out back, and we got the rest of our garden in:

And on Sunday we did Dylan's blessing. Justin's cousins came out for it as well. Afterwards we enjoyed some good eatin' and lots of talking with everyone. And of course the kids did lots of playing with everyone.

What a good weekend!

My Boys

A few pictures from the end of April:

Brandon sporting his do for crazy hair day at school

Dylan sporting his Sunday outfit 

(please note sleeves, waistband and end of pants all rolled up - he's got some room to grow)

And Brandon showing us how to play a song on the piano

We just started piano lessons....

Surgery date

It is set. Please check Dylan's blog.

The many faces of Dylan

We've been able to get a few good pictures of some of Dylan's expressions. Lindsey is in a few of these pictures because she happens to be the one who is home and awake during nap time!

Hanging out with Lindsey:

The scowl:

Lots to look at:

Laughing at Lindsey:

Lots to say. Dylan is starting to "talk" and coo:

I just like this one. :)

This is Dylan trying not to smile at my funny faces:

Ok, here's a little one:

And finally, a picture of Dylan's cute smile! Too bad it's the only one that turned out blurry!

Oh well, it's still cute!

Spring time

'Tis the season for planting and other yard work. We've been enjoying the warmer weather lately and have done some planting in the yard over the past couple of weekends. Our perennials from last summer are starting to wake up and come out of the ground. We installed a hummingbird (or whistling-bird, as Lindsey likes to call it - same difference, right?) feeder that we can see from our kitchen table. The kids are very excited to watch the birds come and eat! 

I just love these little trees. They are red lace-leaf Japanese Maple trees. I love that the leaves are always red and they are just beautiful. This one is still waking up from the winter a little bit, but it should get nice and full. It is the center-piece of the planter in the back yard. We also planted one in the front yard. I think they will make nice additions.

This is an Azalea plant. It will be green all year long and will favor us with these beautiful blossoms every spring. There is an amazing variety of things you can grow here in the northwest. It was really hard to decide on what to plant. And we're still trying to decide what to put up against the house in the back yard. 

This is a nice black mondo grass plant. It will have little purple flowers in the summer time and will add some nice texture and variety to the planter.

Everything is pretty small right now, but it will look really nice as things grow bigger with the warmer months ahead.

A couple of side notes:

This is how I found Katelyn one morning while everyone was at school. She had been dancing in her dress-ups to some beautiful classical music with her baby. After a while I noticed that she wasn't there anymore. She had curled up on the stairs with her baby to take a "nap" and listen to the pretty music. That's my girl!

And here is the best I've been able to get so far. We keep trying to catch Dylan's smile on camera, but he's pretty sneaky with it. Smiles are just the best! (By the way, these pictures of Dylan are a little deceiving. He is getting a little bit more chub, especially in his cheeks, but he's still pretty little. He's just about nine pounds in this picture, and is wearing a preemie outfit still. He's swimming in the 0-3 month clothes. But all in all, he's come such a long way!)

And hooray for warmer temperatures outside and a bit more freedom to go places!

Easter and Spring Break

We had a wonderful Easter weekend. It was pretty laid back and we got to enjoy General Conference. On Sunday after conference, we did an Easter egg hunt, which of course was a big hit with the kids. 

Then we had the missionaries who are serving in our ward right now over for Easter dinner. Yum!

This week has been spring break and I wasn't sure how it would go, especially since we really can't go anywhere public. But it has been a great week! The kids have really enjoyed playing together. They pretend a lot and usually the stories have to do with princesses and dragons and monsters. Somehow, everyone is happy. To break up the week a bit, we went on a couple of road trips. We didn't ever get out of the car, we just drove around. But the kids were excited about those, especially with a smoothie or shake off of the dollar menu in hand! We had a great time driving up and down the waterfront, just 15-20 minutes away from our house. It was a beautiful, sunny day!

Dylan has started smiling this week, which has been so fun, but it is really hard to catch on camera. Here are my feeble attempts.

And I think it is safe to say that he really isn't
a big fan of tummy time.

But I think it is a little more fun to do it with a friend.

We have had fun making chocolate suckers and delivering them to a new family in our ward,

We've tried to fly kites in the back yard,

We've done lots of dancing and playing,

and we have discovered that bright red pumps do in fact go with any kind of outfit.

Happy Spring Time!

Dylan

For an update on our little Dylan, please see the post I just put up on his blog:

A New Perspective

Thanks! We're looking forward to Easter weekend and General Conference!