Easter Eggs-Travaganza - Part I

Laura is searching for eggs--she found one behind that rock. It looks like Jared is trying to find someone to throw the ball to or at!! :o)
Kailee was excited because she got a new Pet Shop for Easter--a cute little zebra. Gene just got back from South Africa and had bought her a zebra charm for her bracelet, so I think she has enough zebra stuff for now!!
Joseph was so proud of himself--he found one last egg up on top of the gas meter. :o) And, he found it all by himself. Kailee helped me to set up the badminton net too--good thing she was around to help me because that silly thing about ate my sack lunch!!
Gene was THE CHEF, and his mom was his assistant. We had hamburgers and hot dogs, and it was nice to be able to grill outside again--we miss that during the winter months.

Easter Eggs-Travaganza

Mr. Cool (aka Chad) and Miss Cheesy (aka Jenalee) are playing some catch with the football, although I'm not sure where the football is. I think Jared has it. I can't believe how green the grass is already--it snowed ALL last week!! That's the grass that I mowed this week to make my back ache so bad. :o)
Joseph and Laura are busy hunting for eggs while Shiloh looks on. Laura found a BUNCH of eggs--she was pretty good at finding those eggs. Do you see the croquet mallets behind Joseph? Well, they really aren't croquet mallets, they are weapons to those kids. haha! I THOUGHT it was a good idea to set the game up, but mostly everyone just tripped over the metal things in the ground. :o)
From left to right: Shiloh, Jared, Gene, Adelaide, and Kailee. I was mad at myself because I didn't get any pictures of Christiaan--he must have been running too fast for me to take his picture. :o) But Adelaide saw an egg and took off running to get it before someone else did!
Joseph and Adelaide are asking Melanie if they can have some of the candy that they found in their eggs. Joseph was MUCH more interested in opening and eating the candy than in finding more eggs. :o) Poor Melanie is getting miserable--she is due in just a week or two. She is due the SAME weekend that Chad graduates from BYU. Could be interesting!!

Draper, Utah Temple Open House

We had the opportunity to go to the Draper Temple Open House on Monday, February 16, 2009. Our whole family was able to go, so it was a very special experience. We had to meet at one of the nearby churches and ride a city bus up to the temple--they had buses running constantly the whole time we were there. I believe they said that there have already been one million people go through the temple Open House--it is only open to the public from January through March. This picture was taken as we were leaving the temple, and as you can see, it was snowing!! It wasn't snowing when we got there, but by the time we left, a storm moved in.
We asked a lady to take a picture of us at the end of the tour, so we gathered everyone together real quick and got it done!! Christiaan is peeking out from behind Shiloh--he wasn't that excited about having his picture taken. :o)
We actually couldn't take any pictures inside the temple--after the tour was over, we had to walk through this really LONG tunnel that led to another nearby church where they had refreshments for everyone. Notice the cookies in Adelaide and Joseph's hands. :o) Also, notice his little vest and tie--he looked so cute.
This is a picture of Laura and Christiaan--Christiaan is enjoying his bottled water that they gave to him. That's a LOT of bottled water if a million people have gone through there!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

The boxes in the background are the ones that Kailee and I made for Christiaan, Laura, Adelaide, and Joseph. We had a pattern that we used to make the box, and then we decorated them with stickers and Valentine decorations. In the foreground are the candy bar wrappers that I made for the ladies that I visit teach. You can't really see the oval tags on the 2 outer ones, but I used Kailee's Cricut machine to cut out the letters--I even did it without Kailee's help this time. :o) I wonder who gets the big candy bar in the middle? :o)

Laura's 2nd Birthday

Gene and I bought Laura a talking doll for her birthday, so she had to go sit down on her little couch so that Kailee could show her how to operate the thing. :o) You use the doll's hand to point to its eyes, nose, mouth, feet, etc., and it says all of those words as you touch the doll's parts. Plus, it says little phrases like "This little piggy", "Patty Cake", and the "ABC" song. I think Kailee was more impressed with it than Laura was. haha!
We didn't want Christiaan to feel left out on Laura's birthday, so we bought him a little squishy green frog--I think he liked it from the look on his face. :o) We also got Laura a squishy pink frog--she didn't like hers as much as Christiaan liked his though.
Kailee bought Laura a BAG full of bracelets--about 10 of them in lots of different colors. Anyway, Laura loved those more than anything, and she had to wear ALL of them at the same time. Notice her pink tutu--she loves to wear it even in the winter. She just wears pants underneath it to stay warm. :o) She was a ballerina for Halloween, but she is still wearing her costume!
This was Laura 'running' over to see her new doll--that's why the picture is a little fuzzy.
We took some chocolate-covered strawberries over to Jared/Shiloh's house to share with them, and Laura LOVES strawberries as you can tell from this picture. These were a little sour for her, but she still managed to eat one of mine. :o)

Kailee, Joseph, and Adelaide

Adelaide and Joseph came over yesterday and played with Kailee in the snow. This was taken in our backyard on TOP of the trampoline. haha! The had fun jumping in the snow. :o) Joseph really did not like it very much because he had a hard time standing up in that big snow suit and snow boots. :o)
They are sitting on the innertube in this picture on our back patio that Gene attempted to shovel off until the snow shovel broke. There was about 2 feet of snow on our patio--lots of work to move all of that stuff!!! The drifts were close to 3 feet out there.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!!!

This was taken at Chad and Melanie's house on Christmas Eve--you can't really tell from the picture, but their car is pretty much buried in the snow. I am sure Chad would have had to shovel the snow just to get their car out.
This was taken at our house on Christmas Eve also. You can't even see the mountains behind the houses because of the low snow clouds. But that is about a six-foot pile of snow from our driveway. Jenalee's Jeep is pretty much surrounded by snow. Kailee had fun sliding down the pile of snow on her innertube--she would go about 20 feet each time.

Christmas Day

This is a picture of Melanie and Jenalee taken at Jared and Shiloh's house on Christmas Day--we spent the afternoon over there and ate a yummy meal and exchanged presents. Jenalee is holding up her Hannah Montana journal that Jared and Shiloh (mostly Jared) bought for her--as a joke. They also got her a gift card, which she has already partly used--that didn't take long. :o)
Chad and Melanie are enjoying watching the kids open their presents. Well, actually it looks like Chad is PLAYING with the kids' toys instead. :o)
I made Jared and Shiloh look at the camera so that I could take their picture--I think everyone was glad when I finally put the camera away. :o)
Kailee is opening her present from Chad and Melanie in her new Christmas sweatsuit. I'm just glad that it fit and that I didn't have to take ANYTHING back this year. If you notice Adelaide's striped socks, Kailee bought those for her, and they actually light up on the sides. Chad painted a picture of Gene and I, but he is still working on it, so I will have to take a picture of it and put it on my blog when he is finished. He did a really good job on it--too bad it looks just like us. :o)

Christmas Day - continued

This was Christmas morning, and Kailee is trying on some new houseshoes that she got for Christmas. Her new Cricket Cutter is sitting behind her in the white box--I believe that may be her favorite Christmas present ever. She has been making all kinds of things--mostly paper dolls. I will have to post some pictures of hers AND Jenalee's paper dolls later. :o) Did you notice the little gingerbread dolls behind Kailee?? Sharon made those for Jared and Chad a LONG time ago, but we still set them out every year. :o)
This is a picture of Laura over at Jared and Shiloh's house waiting to open one of her presents. She was being very patient because we went around the room and took turns opening our presents.
Joseph was so excited about his green glitter ball that Christiaan and Laura gave to him--you can't really see the glitter in this picture, but it is a really cool ball. Shiloh's mom found them at The Container Store in Dallas and sent a bunch of them to her to give away.
Adelaide is sitting on Christiaan's 'couch' admiring her white glitter ball. She is in her new 'dance clothes' that she got for Christmas--she loves to twirl around in it and dance for us.
This is what we got Christiaan for Christmas--it is a construction set complete with dynamite and rocks and loud stuff. His parents will love it. :o) Notice their big-screen TV in the background--really nice for watching BYU games. :o)

Santa's Suit

Here is a picture of the little Santa suits that Kailee and I made for her friends at church and school. Notice the little flap on the back side of Santa's suit--isn't that cute? Anyway, this is what the attached poem says: "I went looking for a stocking, and couldn't find a spare, so I stuffed your goodies in Santa's underwear." Then we put candy and a little Christmas magnet that we made inside of the suit. We got the idea from a friend in Texas, so we can't take credit for the cute idea.