Spring! (Part 2)

 One Sunday, our kids were so adorable that we HAD to take pictures. Oh, how we love these two little balls of energy!

We have lots of fun creating and re-creating our yard. We found these cute benches on sale at a nursery this spring and splurged! Brian and I really enjoy working together in the yard. He lets me do a lot of the designing and plant choosing (which I love) and his favorite hobby is manual labor in the yard (which I also love!) :) We have spent many date nights dreaming about and working on our yard, and I'm sure there are many more to come.

This picture is a little hard to see, but Jacob is helping daddy till the garden with his fisher price lawn mower. It was pretty much the cutest thing ever to see them out there together.

Okay, maybe this little girl is the cutest thing ever...it's really hard to decide.

Little cheese-ball :)

I had another wonderful year of teaching the Virginia Tanner satellite classes in  Ogden and a couple of studio classes in Salt Lake. Our performance this year was based on the book "Wherever You Are, My Love Will Find You" by Nancy Tillman. I created three dances with my classes for the show: "My Love Will Find You in the Garden" (We used Giant tulips and colorful streamers and imagined ourselves as ladybugs and butterflies in the garden.), "My Love Will Find You on the Snowiest of Days" (We used sheer white blankets and danced one of my childhood memories, in which my mother woke me up to play in the snow in the middle of the night), and "Splashes of Sunshine" (A dance about the joy and beauty of sunlight and summer days).

 My Ogden classes got to do a special performance after our Kingsbury Hall show as a fundraiser for our studio in Ogden. These pictures are from that event. I also was able to perform with my friend, Shannon Stead. We danced a piece titled "A Wish and a Change."

Katelyn started ripping headbands off her head as soon as she figured out she could. I stopped trying after that, but the other day she saw this one in the store, put it on herself and left it there happily. I decided I had to buy it. I tried to get her to wear it at church the next day and it lasted about  5 minutes... she has a mind of her own, that's for sure. :)

  We needed a bunch of dirt for all our spring yard projects, and the pile sat on the side of the road for weeks waiting for us to finish everything. We finally used up the last of it last weekend, but in the meantime our kids had a blast playing in it for hours every day. We've decided our next yard project should be a sandbox in the back yard. :)

 Jacob is my little chef. He loves to help me cook. We made him this silly chef hat and he wears it faithfully when we make dinner together. I sure do love this little man.

He also helps pick fresh herbs from the garden...sometimes he eats them all before we can use them (which I think is a little odd, but probably healthy, right?)

Kate is in the "love to share" stage. She loves to share...chewed on grapes, spit out apple peels, half-eaten crackers, and she even shares her toys...most of the time. :)

Kate is our little animal lover. She especially loves dogs, horses and fish.

Whew! One more post to go and then I'll be all caught up. Stay tuned for part 3! :)

Spring! (part 1)

It's been a super fun spring!! We'll start with St. Patrick's Day! We had a leprechaun come to our house again and bring us Lucky Charms (a rare treat!) and our traditional rainbow of fruit for breakfast. He also magically turned our milk and toilet water green... For dinner, we celebrated with green enchiladas, salad, and green jello! mmm...

 Kate had an ice cream cone all to herself for the first time. Boy, did she love it!! Jacob liked his too! :)

Easter is becoming my favorite holiday for SO many reasons. Mostly for the symbolism of new life found all around as we celebrate the resurrection of our Savior. I love to take a quiet moment Easter morning to reflect on the life of Christ and his atonement. I am filled with gratitude and testimony that He lives and loves us.

We had a lot of fun with our Easter traditions this year. Saturday evening, we had a little family egg hunt, in which Jacob found about 40 eggs and Katelyn about 10. ;) It was so much fun because Kate had just started walking a few weeks before and could wander around on her own to find the eggs. She was too cute! Jacob was a machine! He was super fast and had a blast.

 My two favorite little people...

 Loving my girl...

I wanted to start a new tradition for Easter this year, something that would help us focus more on the Savior after the egg hunting action. I decided to do a dinner of "fishes and loaves" we cooked Salmon and barley loaves and served it with grapes and salad. I had intended to talk about the miracle of the loaves and fishes before we all dug in, but the kids were tired and hungry and anxious, so we ended up simply telling Jacob that Jesus ate fishes and loaves and so we were going to eat them to help us remember him. :) We hit the story about the fishes and loaves later in FHE. 

The Easter bunny did visit our house. He brought Jacob a picture that mom REALLY liked. Mom had seen it in the store, and fell in love, because the little boy reminded her so much of Jacob. She knew Jacob needed that picture in his room, so she told the Easter bunny to bring it along with the Easter baskets when he came this year. ;-)

  As a side note, I also fell in love with this picture because the boy  is mirroring the Savior perfectly. It is such a beautiful symbol of trying to be like Jesus. I'm glad the Easter bunny brought it.

Kate got a little bunny. She LOVES animals and she loves to cuddle them and say "ooohhh!" It melts my heart. Every time.

I was able to attend the General Primary Auxiliary meeting this Spring, which was very inspiring. Brian and the kiddos took the opportunity to wait for me and enjoy the gardens and beautiful Salt Lake Temple.  

 I thought this picture turned out super cool...

 I love this one too...

Somehow I didn't ever see this picture until just now working on the blog. It is SO sweet, I want it in my living room...

The Family History Center on Temple Square now has a really cute little children's section. They have little old cars, toys, pictures to color and other things for kids to start to learn about history and their ancestors. It's really neat!

 We headed to St. George after temple square and, fortunately, the kiddos slept most of  the way. :)

Jacob decided he wanted to eat a lime one day. It went over REALLY well. :)

Kate liked the lime too...

They both agreed that limes are much better in Popsicle form. :)

Mangos, however, are a favorite just the way they are. 

I got the urge to make something new, sweet, springy, and YUMMY one day and found a recipe for Strawberry Lemonade Cake online. Everything was homemade from the cake to the filling to the frosting. It was DELICIOUS! Brian said he wanted it for his birthday this year instead of his traditional carrot cake. :)