Happy Easter!

We had a wonderful Easter Sunday. 
Here's a picture of all four kids actually looking at the camera, it's an Easter miracle! 

Taylor gave a talk in Primary about the resurrection and the meaning of Easter.  He read and studied about his topic all morning and wrote his own talk. He did a great job and I am so proud of him!

The kids had fun finding their Easter baskets, and see what they got; candy, swimming suits, bubbles etc.. 

After church we had a delicious dinner at G&G Shields house, followed by an awesome egg hunt in the backyard. 

These two little buddies ate a lot of candy and had tons of fun!

I almost got a smile on camera.

Here are the cooks for the day, I love this apron on my dad!  These two just celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary!  We love being their neighbors, and having them close by.

Look how fast these two little babies are growing.... stop getting so big!

Spike loved his new sunglasses.  He wanted to bring them to nursery to show "Browder Boren".  He thinks his nursery leader is his real brother and is in our family.  It's so cute and funny.

This is how Taylor says "Happy Easter".

We are so grateful to the Savior and for the wonderful gifts of the atonement and the resurrection that He has given each of us.   

Getting air!

Here's a picture of Taylor jumping on the tramp with his uncles.  They were bouncing him high!  He loved it and was having tons of fun, I made him stop, I was afraid he was going to break a bone.  Thanks to Nat for the great pics. from the balcony!

Two months old!

It's hard to believe Elizabeth is two months old already!  It seems like it's been forever since she was born, but at the same time it has gone by so quickly!  Time does weird things when you have a newborn and are sleep deprived. 

Lizzie is really such a sweet, mellow, adorable baby.  We continue to smother her with kisses and hugs, and the kids fight over who gets to hold her or feed her a bottle.  She is smiling a lot, but it's impossible for me to catch a good smile on camera.  She is growing fast and starting to put on a little weight. 

I am just trying to slow down, and savor her!  I love her at this stage!  She makes the cutest grunts, noises and little cries.  She also cries really loudly too, but not very often, and only when she is really hungry.  I love holding her close and smelling her baby smell and looking in her eyes wondering what her future holds. 

I wish she would stop growing so fast! I know this next year will go by so quickly, and I really want to enjoy every day with her!

Woops, I forgot to flip this picture.
Love you Lizzie!  You are such a beautiful girl!

Spring Break!

We had a great Spring Break this past week.  The only bad part was the cold, rainy weather.  We ended up doing lots of indoor activities; swimming, going to the bouncy house place, art projects, reading books, visiting the library and museums, playing with friends, watching movies and taking a few naps.  It was a fun, busy week and so nice to have no schedules.  The kids even slept in until 8am (that's late for our family)! 

Here are a few pictures of our week. 

"Spike", AKA Isaac, had fun swimming, I guess dogs love the water.  He is still going strong with his doggy pretend play.  He loves to be Spike! 

We made this poster for Grandpa Shields for his B-day this week!

We had a fun Easter party with our friends on the street, we dyed eggs, frosted cookies, and had a big Easter Egg hunt followed a pizza party for dinner.  We LOVE our new house and all our friends around us!  It's tons of fun!

Emily hard at work dying eggs.

Taylor is still impossible to take pictures of.  He won't even look at the camera let alone smile! He's such a boy!

It turned out to be a fabulous week, hope yours was great too!

Weekend BBQ

Danny bought his B-day present early this weekend, and got a new barbeque.  We sold our BBQ when we moved from Idaho, and we have really missed grilling out.  So we had the family and some friends over for dinner. 

The kids played in the shed and made it their fort.

Here's the food on the menu.  It was a great evening and a fun way to spend a Saturday night.

Lizzie went to church for the first time yesterday.  She did great, slept for 3 solid hours, she never even woke up!  She looked so cute in this littel dress!  It is SO much fun to dress and accessorize a baby girl.  Emily likes to choose her outfits and help me get her dressed almost every day. 

Elizabeth smiles a lot now, but it's impossible for me to get a  good picture of her.  By the time I get our my camera-she has stopped smiling!  But she is so cute, we can't get enough kisses on her chubby little cheeks!

Emily is such a fabulous big sister!  She is the best helper in our family!

In other news...we had our Apsen trees cut down last week.  The roots were causing problems with foundation of the house etc.. so we cut 6 trees down.  They were big trees! 

Our house looks bare now without all the trees in front.  I forgot to take a picture, it looks great!

This is Lizzie after Isaac was "helping" her sit on the couch.  She's going to love all his "help"!

Here's a picture of bathtime.  She loves the warm water and gets really relaxed in the water. 

Lizzie gets cuter everyday-we are so happy she's in our family!

Is it Spring yet?

"Is it Spring yet?"  This is what the kids keep asking, when they see our daffodils poking through the dirt and then the next day it snows 6 inches!  This was the latest strom at our house. 

Isaac has been pretending he is a dog all week.  He likes to be called "Spike"  and he crawls around on the floor and eats his food out of bowls on the floor.  He barks, begs and plays fetch.  The funny thing is he is better behaved when he is "Spike" than when he is Isaac!  It's hilarious!  If I ask him to do something as Spike he will do it.  But as his normal self, he is his usual hard  to manage 3 year old little boy.  So for now, it's Spike!

We did spend some time at the park, after the snow melted.  It was so nice to be outside in the warm sunshine enjoying a gorgeous Spring day!

All was going well at the park with our cousins until Isaac got in a fight in the sandbox over a sand toy- a whisk.  He stole a whisk from a little girl and I made him give it back.  This made him erupt into a full blown tantrum, where he was put in the car for a long timeout.  He was bashing his head and hands on the window yelling "I want to whisk!!!"   He didn't even know what a whisk is, he just heard me tell him to give it back to the little girl.  It was so hilarious.  Unfortunately his giant fit landed him in his bed for 3 hour nap. 

Looks like we need to invite "Spike" to the park.

Emily went to a "Tangled" birthday party last week, and came home with this adorable Rapunzel T-shirt.  The mom of her friend made this cute shirts for all the girls at the party, she is really creative and crafty ( unlike me)! Emily loves the movie "Tangled" and was thrilled with her new shirt. 

Emily does her own hair almost everyday.  She likes her hair down, parted on the side, and then she slicks it with lots of water.  It's funny to watch her work on her hair, but I love that she is confident in her ability to do her own hair. Sometimes I step in and "help" if we have somewhere to go, or it looks really crazy!

We had a fun Girls craft/dinner the other night at Grandma Shields.  She made this adorable quilt for Lizzie, it has such cute colors in it. 

There were four new babies at the party, so here's a picture with the new babies and moms. 

It was so much fun to see my aunts, and cousins who we don't see very often.  It was a fun night full of lots of entertaining conversations and laughing!

Elizabeth is growing fast!  I am so sad to see her grow everyday, because I know how fast the time will go.  It's been 7 weeks already, and she has changed so much!  I am trying really hard to savor her newborn smells, grunts, blowouts, baby barf and all her other habits (even the getting up in the middle of the night)! I can't get enough kisses on her cute little cheeks.  I love gazing into her eyes wondering what she would tell me if she could talk.  

Here's two more quilts Lizzie has gotten for gifts.  They are so soft and comfy, I love wrapping them around her tiny little body! 

She loves to raise her arms above her head, when she's not swaddled.  She has been smiling a lot lately, but it's impossible to get a good picture of her with a smile.  She moves too quickly for my camera! 

We are having so much fun with little Lizzie, and are so grateful she is a part of our family!