Staying busy

My posts are either feast or famine I guess. And because I've pretty much scrapped doing any scrapbooking or journaling our blog serves as both. So I'll try to play a little catch-up here. Prepare yourself.

These last two months have been busy busy. And since I don't want to turn this post into a long detailed synopsis of our goings on, I'll just flood it with pictures none of which I can claim as my own. But when you have a professional photographer at your disposal what do you do. Eilisa, my sisterinlaw, is so wonderful and talented. Plus I left my adapter to download my pics at home ( We are in South Carolina). So thanks to Eilisa and Mom for their beautiful pictures! We Love them!

Feel free to ooooo and aaaaaah, Eilisa is a professional and she shot some pretty cute kiddos.

In May Heath had a training trip in Alabama, only an hour from where Eilisa and Casey live so we decided to accompany him and visit while he worked alot. Conveniently, Mom and Tysha were also visiting at the time. Lots of fun. The pics were taken at Nacallula Falls, named for an Indian girl who flung herself into the falls because she was being forced into a terrible marriage or sold as a slave or something or other. A touching story but a little morbid for a family friendly attraction I thought. It did have a great children's park.

Heath was very impressed with Casey's truck. He was able to ride along with Casey for a mile or two, he felt pretty darn cool.

And these two had a BIRTHDAY!

Heath turned 31 on May 20th.

I feel terrible but I couldn't find my camera so no pictures to document the big day.
A great husband and a fun and loving Daddy. We sure love and appreciate him!

Elliana celebrated her very First Birthday on June 2nd.

We are sad that many of you haven't gotten to know our sweet baby yet. Elli is so easy-going. She is all smiles and shreeking laughter. She loves to be chased and wrestled with. She is definately a little mama's girl and loves to be cuddled but it only lasts seconds because she's always moving and busy. But she usually prefers to keep us close enough to touch. Consequently she chases me around the house all day. Her many accomplishments include standing on her own, following the actions to the Choo Choo song, speed crawling and deafening screams. She is the proud owner of 6 baby teeth. And unfortunately she loves to use them. Probably her biggest birthday gift came 2 weeks later when the helmet came off for good, Yeah! And she's doing Great by the way!

It was so fun to celebrate with more family than we usually have around. Eilisa and Maddy came to visit and a week later Tyson and Mom flew in. We love love love visitors. (hint hint to all of you so far away and wanting a vacation ;)

Oh, how we missed our boy who seemed to grow another foot or so.

I love this one, and the drool dripping off her chin. Priceless.

We played in the water

Please feel free to refer to Heath's pic for perfect slip n' slide form

We took two trips to the Zoo.

How cute is this little pic. Really Maddy loved the zoo, just not that hippo.

The Zoo also has a new children's activity center.

One night we had a Harry Potter's Party. Grandma Nese Made us some butter beer. (I'll try to get that recipe and post later) We played Harry Potter's Scene It and Dressed like one of the characters which we all had to guess. Eilisa was our photographer and we forgot to snap one of her. Too bad, she was probably the funniest, a flying Dementor if you can picture that :)

Go ahead and try to guess, only one of us is a main character.

In case you're wondering. Yep, we're surviving pretty well out her in South Carolina. Sometimes its not easy in such tight quarters but its gone much better than expected. We've had alot of fun. Its actually been nice to just focus on the kids. No big projects, work or any deep cleaning. Don't you know that's what a maid is for :) More details to come for sure. But this post took me a good four days to post and I'm done for now.

Two weeks ago it wasn't raining.

Click to enlarge

"This is the money you could be saving with Geico..."

Failed to air. A little too creepy I think.

In our neck of the woods....

.... it's been gorgeous! A perfect 80 degrees today. If only it could last all summer :)

One of our favorite Saydee things, is her "binocular hands". She loves to be our look out and find things for us, the house on our way back home, the library, items in the supermarket. And anytime we say "Hey, look Saydee" she gets her binocular hands up. At first when she started doing it she'd always say "I use my eyes mom" . She's been doing it for the last 2 months and its still funny.

Saydee looking for dogs and Elli getting soaked

Our kids are changing so much lately, way too fast. But they are all in such fun stages right now. Elli is pulling herself up on everything and all over the place. And Saydee is talking in full sentences. Tyson is playing soccer and reading short novels and making witty jokes. Its all going too fast but its fun to see them grow. Can't wait for Tyson to be here with us!

Catching up again...

A while back we went to the Zoo with the Dassler family. When we first moved here we were pleasantly surprised to find that our good family friends from Colorado years had also moved into the St. Louis area. We just love spending time with them when we get the chance. And this trip Peggy's daughter Carolyn was in town with her cute kiddos. We had lots of fun but somehow I came away with not one animal shot.

We all love to be outside.

Saydee "princess dancing"

Easter

We all had a very nice relaxing Easter. Last year we went to eckert's orchard for their egg hunt and activities. Saydee loved it so much we thought we'd go back. She kept saying "and I paint my bunny nose and I hold the bunnies and andimals and find some eggs?"

So on Saturday we went back to eckerts where there would be all that. If we would have known it would be so crowded we probably would've opted out this year. But Saydee loved every minute and Elli was pretty good too.

Then we went home and colored eggs. Saydee didn't want to stop so every egg got dipped several times in every color. And after a while she wanted all the eggs in together. Most ended up with a greenish tint.

Near the end of the day she was our dirty little snot nosed bunny. We had to very discreetly wash off her bunny face in the bath. She was devastated to find it gone the next morning.

Sunday morning we had a Stake conference broadcast joined with many many other stakes.
President Monson and Elder Oaks spoke and a sister whom I don't recall. They were all so good! It was wonderful to focus on the true meaning of Easter.

After the girls took their naps we had a Easter bunny trail set up throughout the house which led to their baskets. It was actually Heath's idea that turned out so fun for Saydee. Since it was beyond my abilities to do rabbit footprints. Seemingly simple I know. We went with bunny faces. Along the trail the Easter bunny dropped a few treats and we loved watching the excitement building up in Saydee. When she saw the baskets she gasped, dropped everything and ran to them. It was fun and she got totally into it. Elli loved all the excitement and new toys too.

Then Saydee hunted for eggs in our backyard. Heath is probably embarrassed by all the dead spots I'm posting. So much work to do.

Even though we really missed being with our families we had a good Easter.

We are so thankful for its true meaning. The life, teachings, sacrifice and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ. Without Him we'd be much more miserable here and have no hope of eternal happiness with our loved ones after this life. I'm glad I know Christ lives!