Swan Lake and Our Little Star

I am so proud of Audrey, and honestly a little amazed. I can't quite believe that this beautiful young lady is my daughter! Audrey, we so enjoyed watching you perform, you truly are a graceful and beautiful dancer. Great job, we love you!

We really appreciated all the friends and family who came to see her perform, Thank you!!

Still Daddy's little girl.

Preschool Graduation, Fieldtrips and Fun!

Busy busy busy time of year for everyone!! We had a great day at the Discovery Center with the preschool, and I was excited to see Elle's affinity for rock climbing taking root! Elle has also had so much fun running around with her little buddy Calli from preschool. They loved seeing the baby elephant at the zoo together!

Preschool Graduation Day! Was also the same day as soccer games, soccer pictures, a birthday party, Audrey's performance and a cousin sleepover... whew.. I'm tired just typing all that.

The "Graduation" went great and Elle successfully memorized her little part. Yay! Thanks to her teacher for doing such an awesome job all year long. They also sang lots of songs, one of which was titled "I'm your little hug bug" that completely melted my heart! So cute!

There is Beauty All Around

The Kids checking out all the Book Of Mormons printed in all the different languages from around the world.

We had an awesome family night last week visiting the temple grounds and the visitors center. The Sister Missionaries showed us a program about families and it was really great to just be there in such a wonderful place where you can feel the love and spirit of our Heavenly Father. We're so thankful to live so close to our beautiful city and Temple. We enjoy so many opportunities that other church members from around the world only dream of. If you haven't taken your kids to the visitors center, we highly recommend it!

Happy Mother's Day

To the amazing Moms in our lives, we love you so much and appreciate all the countless hours you've spent helping us, worrying over us, shopping for us, praying for us and putting all of your effort into raising good people. We owe you so much. What an amazing example we have to follow. Thank you Mom, Thank you Mary, Thank you Grandma. WE LOVE YOU !!

Happy Mother's Day!!!
Also, thank you to my sweet little family for putting in so much effort to make my day wonderful. I felt loved and pampered. Thank you!!

Fun in the Studio

My Brother Bryant will be taking portraits for Audrey's Dance Academy. He is such a talented photographer. You can check out his site by clicking this link: http://www.blphoto.com/index2.php

The top three are just a sampling of many that he took using Audrey for the ballerina muse. He needed to sample the backgrounds, and while he was busy, I couldn't help but snap a few for myself.

My Brother's daughter Breanne was there to give moral support and be photographed in her dance costume too. The girls had a great time playing and dancing all around. Breanne is actually older than Audrey and Bryant and I were getting a kick out of the size difference between these two. Cute girls.

These last two and the one at the top of the blog happened by chance. I tried not to use my flash so I wouldn't mess up Bryant's pictures, so these were ones I took at the exact moment he took his with the massive flash bulbs; his camera knows what to do with all that light and mine does not. Here's the result, a kind of a cool eerie effect.

Audrey, we're so proud of you! You're a joy to watch change and grow. We love you, and Thanks to Bryant and Betsy for a fun evening!

phone pics

..... And the winner is.....

This is one of my favorite pictures from my phone, it was just on the drive home from the store. I felt like it kind of had that "Gone With the Wind" thing going for it...

Now on to more pictures of lesser quality from my phone:

Sam's never-ending quest for new bands he likes has led us to all kinds of fun music. He's also been watching and getting concert tickets because he loves concerts so much. Here we are at the Vampire Weekend Concert:

This was a concert for a band called SPOON, Sam's loved them since high school and because they're not very mainstream he thought he'd never get to see them. Well, wrong he was, because he did see them and we wiggled our way right up against the front rail. The picture of the base player you can see is very close; our phone camera doesn't even have any zoom people!! Anyway, we were right in front of the guy. You can also see he's reading his "set list" in the picture; which I asked for at the end of the concert and he kindly gave it to me... Sam was over the moon and decided he needed me to come to every concert just so I can get him stuff.

Here's some randoms of Elle, you can see how much she really needed that sling after a while..

Here's just a few more, this is Elle's version of "Theatre Seating"

Lastly but certainly not least.... Sarah, our friend's dog. The poor girl has been the butt of many jokes and sneers due to her slightly off-beat looks. Sam however loves her dearly so I snapped this one just for him. Sarah told me to send it to him with her love. You just can't help but have pity, pity and awe for the creature. :)

The owners of this lovely mutt are Liesl and Travis, our good friends who live in Logan. They're also the proud owners of Lazy One Pajamas. Here's Liesl giving me a tour of the new warehouse. They've done so awesome, and we're so happy for them!

and that about wraps up this edition of phone pics.

Easter Fun

Thanks to Elle, somewhere along the way we've adopted the custom of holding up things to our faces, like eggs.... toys... or anything else we love. :)

Happy 92nd Birthday to Grandma! She's just so happy and sweet, it was great to see her having fun. We had a joint party for Grandma and Jessica since Jess will be in Vienna for the upcoming semester and won't be here for her birthday, lucky girl!

Our naughty niece Jessica called, (or should I say made her mom call) and told all of her Aunties that she was engaged. After leading us on and on, she finally said, "April Fools!" So Betsy got her back by getting her a special present for her birthday. A gloriously large ring with a "Congrats on your Wedding" card. That's what she gets for playing with her Aunts' heartstrings!

Spring Break!

What a blessing it was to be gone over spring break!! In light of the snow storms and virtual fire storms going on here at home, I have to say I was ok with being gone; (and if you don't have your speakers on, turn em on so you can have a little dance party in your chair :) Here's a few quick snaps of Sam in his happy place, Audrey still being my sweet little girl, Reese feasting on yet more licorice, and Elle all tuckered out-for good reason, we had a blast!

(Click on the collages to see them closer)

Thanks to these two wonderful people, (our good friends Cory and Sara) we tagged along during their stay in Sam's company's condo (Cory works with Sam), they were lucky enough to secure the place during the coveted spot of Spring Break. Here's a picture I took in Guatemala. I forgot to take one of them over the break, but felt they definitely deserved some credit here. Thanks for the great times!! Here's what I like to call the "boys club." They stayed in a room together, played hours of video games, messed up and stunk up their room and had a blast doing it. Elle was also an honorary member thanks to her best-est boy-bud Ty, the red-head pictured below.

The bigger girls had a great time shopping on our girls day out and were ecstatic to be "twinners." They also got a matching pair of skinny jeans they had shamelessly if not relentlessly begged for, eventually wearing Sara and I down into submission.

Acrobatics in the pool courtesy of Sam, always good times.

On our last day, our friends had to head out of town early to make it all they way to their grandparents. We on the other hand didn't have any definite plans so we decided to stroll around in the sunshine and ended up stumbling on the St. George Arts festival! So fun, I love that kind of stuff. Sorry to Sam for using this picture of us, but I liked it and yes, I know his eyes are closed but felt at least half the picture turned out.... am I right???

Put me in coach, I'm ready to go back any time!