Bethany the Horseback rider

Bethany loves riding her little rocking horse. Thanks, Paul and Mari for the loan!

Michael's Daddy Dance

Michael told me that this was his "Daddy dance." I guess he learned his cool moves from his dad.

Bedtime

I love to hear Christopher, Michael, and Bethany laughing together. Sorry about the poor lighting--but the laughter is the best part.

Bethany crawls

Bethany started crawling!! I think she is trying to keep up with the boys. She is also pulling herself up and loves being mobile.

Fun Times

Blessing pic

My mom found the blessing dress that I was blessed in. Bethany still fit into it! We got a few cute pictures of her wearing it.

Pine Valley

Over the weekend wew visited my family in St. George. We went to a cool place called "Pine Valley" for a picnic lunch. The weather was beautiful. Christopher and Michael had fun sword-fighting with sticks and crossing the creek on fallen logs with their cousins. Bethany loved the trees and looking around at everything. I enjoyed the fresh pine scent and just being outside.

Scavenger Hunt: "Things American"

We had a great fourth of July weekend in St. George. After a flag fruit pizza breakfast and a grand parade through the balcony, around the couch, and up the stairs, we went to the mall and had a scavenger hunt for things American. We divided up into teams and took pictures with our cell phones of the American items we found. It was really fun. After we got back we went swimming at a neighbor's pool. The boys had a breakthrough--they both swam underwater! I was really excited. It's taken a lot of swimming--but they are making progress. We watched the fireworks from my mom's back porch, which had an amazing view. The best part was that we didn't have to drive home in traffic afterwards--and Bethany slept peacefully inside during the whole display.

Summer Fun

One of the great things about living in a desert is that it comes with a longer-than-normal outdoor swimming season! A few weeks ago, the Hickens invited us over to swim with them in their backyard pool.

A cute shot of the girls enjoying the water!

Christopher and Michael are becoming quite the swimmers (of course, a little floatation help never hurts!)

Christopher was even kind enough to share some of his swimming/diving expertise with the rest of the crowd!

What is THAT?

Bethany likes to put stuff in her mouth. Apprently, she is strong enough to yank up some weedy looking grass and sneak it into her mouth when Mom isn't looking. I didn't discover it until twenty minutes later when she was having difficulty eating.

Six months

Bethany is six months old now. She is sitting up and loves it--until she falls over. She was blowing bubbles in the tub the other day with Christopher and Michael and bent down a little too far--Splash! Tub time ended early that day. Christopher loves to act silly to make Bethany laugh. He is a great helper with her. Michael likes to help make baby food for Bethany. We have a little baby food grinder, and he loves to turn the little crank for me. Bethany just likes eating her bananas and oatmeal.

More zoo pictures

Sarah thought it would be neat to get a triple bunny rabbit picture with Bethany rabbit, Sarah rabbit, and Jack rabbit. Christopher and Sarah had a lot of fun together. Cousins are so much fun.

Michael thought he'd like to hatch some ostrich eggs. :)

Fun times at the Zoo

We went to the zoo this past weekend. It was a lot of fun! The kids had fun posing with the different animal statues and playing on the playgrounds. Christopher loved driving the tractor, and Michael had fun trying to "slide" down the ramp to the playhouse. Bethany loved looking at everything. There was so much to see!

Day at the park

We had a fun day at the park today. The kids fed the ducks and enjoyed playing on the slides. We're enjoying the nice weather before it turns hot.

Special time with Daddy

Mark took Bethany to the store. They found some fun things to look at!

Chillin' at the Dentist

I took these pictures of the kids while we were waiting for the dentist. Bethany and Michael liked trying out the chairs. Christopher has suddenly decided that he likes to color! He has started to color in the lines and spend a lot of time to make his artwork look good. We stayed at an extra 15 minutes at the dentist so that Christopher could finish and hand in his coloring page for the art contest. The receptionist said he might win--there are only two entries so far.

Christopher's Birthday

Christopher is five years old now! He had a great birthday. He spent the day playing legos and biking with Dad and Michael. I made him rainbow jello, a time-consuming but very yummy layered jello containing raspberry, orange, lemon, lime, blueberry, and grape jello. It's going to take us a long time to get through it--it made a lot of jello!

My good Helper

Michael is such a great helper! He loves to help cook and help make Bethany happy. He also likes to dig. He had lots of fun when we brought in the filler dirt for our yard. He played dump trucks, poured dirt on his head, and generally rolled around like a puppy dog. What fun! We have a blossom on our peach tree now! Hooray! It's still alive! Our lemon tree has two flowers, and our orange tree has a few buds. Yipee!

Snow in Flagstaff

We had a lot of fun in flagstaff playing in the snow!

Valentine's Day

I took these Valentines pictures of the kids. It's fun to do Valentine pictures with a girl in the mix! I also included a picture of Mark and I on our Valentine bike ride.