Eight Years Later...

And we are more in love than ever!

On March 20th, Jason and I celebrated our 8th Anniversary. They say that it takes about 10 years of marriage to truly understand and love your spouse and after experiencing 8 years so far, I tend to agree with this statement. I know that we loved each other when we got married 8 years ago, but our love has definitely grown and strengthened as the years have passed. I hope that it continues to do so over the next eternity or so!!

Life is definitely not perfect, but it is very, very good. Jason is such a great husband and father and I am very lucky that he is mine!! He has made all of my dreams come true and I hope that I have done the same for him.

There's not another person with whom I would want to spend this crazy adventure of life!!

We are Family!

We were sure sad to see Grandma Julie leave, but we are looking forward to another fun reunion with everyone in July!! Thanks for the all of the fun memories!

Miss Tangled Herself

In addition to making Abby the beautiful quilt, Grandma also set out to make Abby her very own "Tangled" hairpiece. While we were in Idaho, Grandma and Abby worked together to make this...

We are sure blessed to have such a fun and creative Grandma Julie!!

Special Quilt

For a few months prior to Grandma's visit, she had Abby color about 20 pictures about her life with these special fabric crayons on pieces of white paper. When she came out to visit, she made these pictures into a very special quilt for Abby. We were also able to get Abby's name and the year embroidered at a local quilting shop while Grandma was in town...

Grandma worked furiuosly to get the quilt done before she left...

Abby absolutely loves her new quilt and it will be so fun for her to remember all of these fun memories from her drawings for many years to come.

Nine Months!

WOW!!!

(Top to bottom:
12-month outfit @ 1 month/ 3-month outfit @ 1 month
3-month outfit @ 9 months/ 12-month outfit @ 9 months)

I cannot believe this little guy is 9 months old today!! I keep telling him that he needs to stop growing and stay my baby just a little longer but he doesn't seem to be listening. He is just the sweetest most lovable little guy and we cannot get enough of him.

Some fun things about Nolan at 9 months...

1. He eats EVERYTHING!! Anything that can go in his hands will also go in the his mouth. I guess he thinks that he must taste everything to determine if it's worthy of his time or not. He is also a great eater and chomps down on everything that we have given him so far. He still nurses about 4-5 times each day but is also eating three big solid meals each day which is especially nice when we're out and about.

2. He is still not crawling (not too sad about that one really) but he can scoot and roll himself to wherever it is that he wants to go. He has affectionately earned the nickname "Roly-Poly."

3. He likes to make himself heard. He has recently discovered his little (sometimes rather big) voice and he likes to use it often...usually right in the middle of church!

4. While he definitely shows a preference for mom and dad, he doesn't have a lot of stranger anxiety and will go to just about anyone. He especially loves the ladies at the gym's kids club...and the really love him!

5. He loves being held and cuddled, but he can also sit with a few toys and keep himself entertained for long periods of time.

6. A couple of weeks ago he went on his first airplane flight and was a fabulous flier. We flew from Washington D.C. to San Francisco (a 6-hour flight) and he was an angel through it all. He flew three more times over the course of just 48 hours and was so good throughout it all, despite all of us being completely sleep deprived!

7. He is simply the best baby ever!!

We love you little Nolan man. Thanks for being willing to join our little family. We cannot imagine our lives without you!

St. Patrick's Day

In addition to some yummy prizes from a trapped Leprechaun, there were some other fun festivities that went down that day. Abby and Landon made themselves a very fitting breakfast that morning complete with green milk for the cereal and toast with butter. They even used a "serving tray" for their fancy breakfast!

 

Grandma also brought many "green" things for the kids to wear that day including light-up necklaces and some fun sunglasses and masks...
 

 

 

And of course no visit from Grandma Julie would be complete without making some cookies. These cookes even got in the St. Patrick's Day spirit by using green food coloring, Andes mints, and green M&Ms!
 

There is always lots of help when cookies are being made. They especially enjoy testing the product to be sure it is tasty enough!

We hope everyone else had a fabulous and green day!! 

Grandma's Visit

We were very lucky to get almost two whole weeks to spend with my mom when she came out to visit us during the month of March. Of course no visit with my mom would be complete without hundreds of pictures so I've attempted to narrow down the lot in order to give a condensed history of the many activities that happened while she was here...

She hadn't seen Nolan since his blessing over 6 months ago and it was fun for her to see just how big and grown up this little man has become. He loves food now and has become quite the expert at picking up finger foods and feeding himself!

Grandma also fixed "Doggie" so that he now has a nose again!

Landon and Abby both enjoyed playing with Grandma's many earrings that she brought...

And showing off their mad jumping skills on the trampoline!

Abby has gotten pretty good at doing her semi-pullups on this bar. You can also see "Patrick" who acted as a sort of "Elf on the Shelf" during March to watch out for good behaviour. Every time they had a good day, Abby and Landon both received two quarters from Patrick (i.e. Grandma!!)

Landon also spent many morning building shapes and toys out of Grandma's curlers. Who needs toys and Lego's when you've got curlers!

Of course Grandma got to give lots of loves to this little munchkin. He is very squeezable!

I love that my kids are creating such fun memories with their Grandma. We don't get to see grandparents as often as we would like, but when we get together, we sure have a lot of fun!

I think the only time we ever get pictures of our entire family is when Grandma Julie comes to visit...

Abby was also very excited about she has now mastered the "swinging" monkeybars at City Park. She had to show off her new skill to both Grandma and to Dad on another day.

Of course Landon has some pretty nifty climbing skills of his own!

Nolan can't do much at the park quite yet, but he did seem to like these baby swings...

Nolan is also very content with just a basket of toys next to him. He usually loves to empty out the whole basket and then play with the basket itself!

On Thursday, March 15th, Jason, Nolan and I headed to Idaho Falls to attend Shanna's wedding (Jason's youngest sister.) It was a very quick trip and after all was said and done we figured out that we had spent 26 hours either driving, flying or in the airport and only 29 house actually in Idaho (only 16 of which we were actually awake!) but we were glad to be able to be there for Shanna and Ryan on their big day. We were also very grateful to my mom who stayed with Landon and Abby while we were gone. Not only did it save us about $1200 in flying fees, but it also saved the kids (and us) from such a long 2 1/2 days of traveling. Nolan was an angel through it all but I doubt Landon and Abby would have enjoyed it near as much!

While we were gone, they enjoyed some beautiful 80 degree weather and created some beautiful masterpieces with their sidewalk chalk.

They also made a "Leprechaun Trap" on March 16th in hopes that a Leprechaun would leave them a special treat on St. Patrick's Day...

They were mighty pleased with their green M&Ms and quarters!!

We sure had a great time with Grandma while she was here. We took her down to spend another week with Tasha and then enjoyed having my entire family (minus Tami) come up last weekend to celebrate Reygan's 1st birthday. March was definitely a great month to see family (we saw everyone on both sides except for one person.) Not too bad considering how far away we live from everyone!

Read Across America

On Thursday, March 1st, Paramount Elementary held a special "Reading Night" in celebration of Read Across America. They rotated among different classrooms where teachers and staff members read their favorite books. The last room we were in was the library where our principal, Mrs. Wolford read us "Horton Lays an Egg."

Abby really enjoyed going to school that night dressed as one of her favorite storybook characters, Ariel. During the day she had dressed up as Jasmine (pretty much all princesses would be considered her favorite storybook characters these days!)

We have been really impressed with Abby's school and have enjoyed getting involved in all of the many different activities that they offer.

 

We have also loved seeing Abby progress in her reading abilities this year. She is the top reader in her Kindergarten class (she is at about a 2nd grade level now) and she loves to impress us with her reading skills. It's just amazing how fast they have all progressed this year! 

New Projects

I thought I would post some of the projects that I've recently completed around the home.

This first one I absolutely LOVE. It was my first time doing silhouettes of the kids and I was pretty pleased at how they turned out. I hope to do this yearly to track the changes of our little kiddos.

(There's a weird shadow in these pictures because of the curtains on the other side of the room. I think they look better in person. And yes, Nolan always sports a little "alfalfa" action on the back of his head. We don't even try to control it anymore!)

This is the kids' bathroom which is still a work in progress (eventually I would like to paint it...I'm thinking maybe a bright aqua color to match the bottom stripe in the shower curtain but here's how it's coming along for now...)

I love me some fun vinyl cutouts!!

And this is the latest addtion to Nolan's room. It goes really well with the "Willow Forest" theme in his room...

And lookie here...it's the little man himself!! He's always so happy after waking up from his nap in the afternoon.

There are a bunch of other little projects that I have in mind, but it's nice to get a few of them off the checklist for now!! A home seems to always be a work in progress!