Meeting Baby James

The kids and I decided to drive up to Idaho and visit new baby James.  Matthew has had the night shift at the hospital all month and usually the kids will accidentally wake him up during the day while he is sleeping so it was a great win-win for all of us.  
We are all in love with sweet baby James! He is still so tiny! He is about 6 weeks old. Kensley was especially smitten. She constantly wanted to hold him and rub his head. :)

It was great for Jenna's kids to have a distraction from their mom being occupied by a new baby.  The cousins had soo much fun together.

All the cousins hanging out together!

These girls share a love of reading!

 Dancing to the Frozen soundtrack

 Playing at the park

Reading books together

 Talking to Mimi (my mom) on facetime

On Saturday Cole took Cade and Austin on a hike.  I love the pictures they took!  

On Sunday we took a walk around the Rexburg, ID temple.  It was such a beautiful day and so windy.  We nearly got blown away.  It actually scared Kensley so I had to take her back to the car.  But we got some cute pictures of the kids.

 Crazy pose

Girls in their matching skirts

 Boys!

 Twin picture with the beautiful temple

 Holding baby James

It was such a fun trip!  Living only 4 hours away from each other is so perfect!  Many more trips to come.

Easter 2014

My grandparents always throw a great Easter party for all the grand kids and great-grand kids. They have put on an Easter party every year since I was in college. This year wasn't any different.  We had a kid egg hunt and an adult egg hunt both of which were super intense!  Then we have a great dinner and time to visit and catch up. I'm sad we didn't get a picture of everyone.   Somehow Kayla managed to get into one of my pictures :)

Kayla photo-bombing

Easter egg hunt at the grandparents

Easter morning: finding their Easter baskets.  The smallest things can excite them!

 Easter Sunday pictures

 I made Kensley and Rylee matching Easter skirts this year.  Too bad they weren't together to wear them.

Pretty low key weekend, just enjoyed our time together. 

Sisters!

One thing that I love about living in Utah right now is being so close to most of my sisters.  My youngest sister Alyssa is in high school in TX but Ciera and Kayla are both attending BYU and Jenna is living 4 hours away in Idaho.  I have been loving our sister get togethers! Here are a few of the things we have been doing together:

My sister Ciera is in a band called Book on Tape Worm.  They are amazing and have their first CD out.   They have also been on tour and have another tour in a few weeks.  Ciera plays the cello in the band and is a rockstar. I was finally able to go to one of her concerts.  It was so fun to see her play live!

Jenna, up in Idaho has been having a rough pregnancy. This is #3 and she is 37 weeks along = very miserable.  So Ciera, Kayla and I decided to secretly drive up to Idaho and show up at her baby shower!  It was a total surprise, she was shocked!  It worked so perfectly. She literally couldn't take in the fact that we were all there right at that moment!  It was a great weekend hanging out together and to help her out for the weekend. All three of us are taking credit since she went into labor 2 days after we left!  Little baby James is so very adorable and I can't wait to meet him.

 At Jenna's cute superhero themed baby shower

Kayla is involved in two different dance group at BYU.  She is in the Ballroom Dance Company and the Kinect Dance Company.  Kensley and I were able to go see her perform with the Kinect group at BYU.  Since the performance is geared towards kids, Kensley got to go up and help with one of the numbers.  Kensley was thrilled!  She is sooo into dancing right now and I don't mind a bit.

Kayla is getting married in June!  Ciera and I planned her bridal shower and it was a hit! It was so fun to see all of Kayla's friends come and party with her.

Planning committee: Kayla's roommate Heather, Ciera and me

So many girls!   Kayla has seriously so many friends. This was taken after some had already left.

 The decorations:

Needless to say, I am so glad we will be staying in Utah for Matthew's 3 year medical residency so that we can have more sister get togethers. 

Time in TX

We have finished our 3 months of rotation in TX and are now back in Utah for our last set of rotations before graduation. The end is finally in site!  We loved our time in TX though.  My parents were so gracious to let our family stay with them and we are so grateful.  Here are a few of the things we did the last couple weeks while staying there:

My dad and I ran the Cowtown 10K in Fort Worth.  It was such a great race.  My dad is the best running buddy.  We both made our running goal to run 8:00 minute miles. 

Kensley got her first haircut. We didn't cut off much, just a trim at the bottom to even it up. She was such a big girl about it too.

Morning waffles and cartoons, what could be better!

Found a fun way to put laundry away.  I filled up their carts and they raced to put it away in their drawers.  Win, win for everyone!

Coloring on the huge whiteboard in my parents' playhouse.  This was a must do activity whenever it was warm enough outside.

Mimi reading bedtime books on our last night there.

We went to the new natural history Museum in Dallas with my parents.

Kensley's favorite part of the museum was the farm/grocery store where she could put fruits and veggies in her basket.

Austin's favorite part was building dams in the river and floating boats down the river. 

Matthew's favorite activity during our stay in TX was shooting with my dad.  He went duck hunting a couple times, and skeet shooting several times.  Austin thought it was about the coolest thing ever too.  I love this picture of all the boys.

 I found Kensley had fallen asleep while reading a book during her nap. So cute!

I did some substituting while I was there and got to sub at my old high school a few times.  It was so fun to run into my sister Alyssa in the hallways!   

That was a random assortment of our time in Texas but we sure had a great time! 

Kensley Turns 2

Kensley's birthday was at the end of January.  I can't believe she is two! I'm so sad I don't have any really good pictures of her birthday.  I brought my good camera with us to Texas but I forgot the charger.  So it is now dead and I can't do anything about it until we go back to Utah (which is a couple of weeks away)  Phone pictures will have to do.
 
She woke up to birthday pancakes with candles.  Then we went to the book store to get her a new book.  She loves books right now and could read them all day so I thought it would be fun to let her pick out a new one.  Some of our books we have read so many times that she can open it and say every page by herself.  We just happened to get to the book store just in time for story time in the children's section.  That was a fun surprise that Austin and Kensley both enjoyed.

Then at dinner when my parents, Matthew and my little sister, Alyssa were all able to be there we opened presents and had cupcakes.  She loved the attention, all the singing to her and of course the cupcakes.

 Singing and Cupcakes

 Riding her new bike

 Austin helping Kensley open her new Cinderella legos

 Austin and I making cupcakes while Kensley naps.

Kensley is growing up so much.  Here are the things we are loving about her right now.
-She is talking in full sentences
-She wants to be doing anything Austin is doing.
-Books are her favorite toys
-She has discovered princesses! Rupenzel and Cinderella are her favorites
-She wants to be so independent with everything.  Sometimes tantrums follow when she can't do something exactly how she wants it done.
-Chapstick has become her favorite thing to carry around. She loves that she can take the lid off, put some one and out the lid back on all by herself. 
- Shoes are another one of her favorite things.  She loves trying on everyone's shoes.
- She loves playing and laughing with Austin.  She is pretty good about sharing and taking turns with him.
-She has such a cute and sweet personality.  She's a keeper!

Other cute, recent pictures: