March in Everyday Photos

Oh, how I love spring! We got an early start on our garden this year, which was great. Everything thrived except for the basil--oops. I love seeing my babies play in the earth.

Emmeline wore her tap shoes for the first time. She's found a tap shoe as sassy as she is, to be sure.

Me, in pain that Donald Trump was starting to look like the legit GOP nominee. 

We had a fun dinner over at the Ortizes. These two play so well together. It was so fun talking to Erin about her plans for her twin boys due in August. Love this family!...and Emme crashed hard after all the playing.

Emme's tiny Sunbeam/ CTR 4 class. We keep hoping more young families will move into our ward or we're afraid we won't want to raise our kids here forever.

Hudsie takes a real interest in the piano these days.

A fun walk in Tonaquint.

What 8:30 church with Hudson feels like.

Every night we go outside and just let this little guy run. It's the only way to keep our sanity, it seems.

Nikki, Navi, and Nora visit from New Mexico.

Marci comes down with darling Dax.

Our sweet neighbor Davie took Emme to a FCS lab at school. Em loved it!

What these guys look like when they're in big trouble.

Be still my heart. No picture more perfect than these two with their daddy.

Fun Spring Photos

I designed my first dress for Emme, which prompted me to cart the kids out to Santa Clara with Steph to do a little photo shoot. I love the muted freshness of these shots and how they turned out.

Easter 2016

We kicked off the Easter season (yeah, it's feeling more and more like a season than a one-day holiday) with my parents' neighborhood Easter egg hunt.

We also went to the DSU Easter egg hunt, which was madness because parents were picking up lots of the eggs. Oh boy... We ran into the Ences and the Fishers there, though, so that was fun!

Egg coloring with Em this year was really fun. Every time we lifted an egg out of the dye, she was so thrilled.

Our family Easter party was a special one because we were all morning Dresden being wounded in the ISIS attack in Brussels. The day after my birthday, I woke to a text from my mom that he was seriously hurt but would be all right. We were heartbroken and it was just so shocking that someone I know could be hurt by a terrorist--nonetheless while serving a mission. We felt so comforted knowing that he was going to recover well.

Dottie and Hudson are quite the pair.

Em jumped into the shallow end of Macy's pool (while we were feet away, so we just stripped her down and she did the Easter egg hunt in her undies.

Easter Sunday at church in the new outfits Nana gave them.

The Easter bunny came!

Emmeline loves her bike but will only pedal it a few times (even months later now) and then she loses interest. Go figure!

My 29th Birthday

My 29th birthday was so fun. My mom always knows how to make it special.

Birthday "You are special today" plate with Mexican dinner.

Almond torte with berries in lieu of a birthday cake. Amazing!

I'd like to think this beautiful sunset was just for us.

So many birthdays I blew out the candles on the cake wishing for the people who were all around me this birthday! Excited for the last year of my 20s!

Family Time

Family time means everything to us, and March brought lots of opportunities for it. I've been proud of us because we've been being a lot better about visiting Great Grandma Hirschi. She turns 93 this year and is doing fairly well, but lost a lot of weight from getting the flu and also had a brief hospital stay and so we want to take every opportunity to spend time with her.

Smelling Grandma's tulips.

Her cane is the coolest!

She's so tender with my kids and never gets frazzled with their craziness.

Over spring break we had a little stay-cation and went out and did some fun things. The weather was very cool, which I always adore. We went to Nielsen's Frozen Custard and got Grandma some lemon custard and went and visited her.

Another fun thing we did was go up to the new Red Rock park on the Red hill. It is beautiful and very well designed.

Later in the month, Vicki and her family came to visit. Jenny and Callie also came down. Even though my family sometimes feels awkward with the cultural differences between her family and ours, it's gotten to the point where I feel very comfortable talking to her and asking questions about Judaism. In the end, we certainly have much more in common than we have differences.

We attempted a Kosher BBQ on the red hill, which--let's be honest--was a disaster because it was FREEZING, but we still made the best of it. It was fun to see my kids play with their second cousins from St. Louis.

A cold spring break swim. Hudsie loved it.

And, of course, when Auntie's in town it often means some fun dates for Emme. One day, she came home with this Sophie doll just because. Oh dear...