We all love Abigale!

Abigale is here! She arrived on April 10, 2009 (her due date, which is only hit by 5% of babies). She weighed 9 pounds and 5 ounces. I don't know how long she was. I guess I should look that up! The delivery went without any problems, and she is doing well.

Easter Celebration

Here are Benjamin, Emily, and Joshua in their Easter finery. All ready for church.

On Saturday, David took the kids on an egg hunt downtown Dayton. They had breakfast there, met the Easter Bunny, and did some crafts. It was a great event!

Of course, the best thing about Easter was bringing Abigale home!
Here are Kathryn and I carrying her out of the hospital. Mom was also came to bring us home, while David took the kids to church.

Mormor with baby Abigale just home from the hospital.

Abigale Arrives

Here is the last "belly photo" taken before Abigale was born. I was ready to have her out of my stomach, and into my arms!

Me in labor. Thanks for the photo support, David!

She's here! One of the 5 best moments of my life! I love holding those slimy, warm, new babies!

Clean her off...weigh and measure her.

And now back with mom and dad. We were sure glad to see her!

Aunt Kathryn in Ohio

My brother's wife, Kathryn, came to visit for a few weeks before the baby came. She was such a big help! Even though she is half-way through her own pregnancy, she dropped everything, and came to Ohio to help us out! Thanks Kath! We had a great time with you! You really took a load off of me when I needed it.

Here we are a Chuck E. Cheese's, one of the kids' favorite places!

Having a cookout in the back yard.

Kathryn with baby Abigale. Kathryn had her ultrasound here in Ohio. Her husband is deployed with the Navy, and so my mom, Kathryn's step mom, and Kathryn's sister all went to the ultrasound. They found out Joseph and Kathryn are expecting a BOY! How exciting!

1000 Books

Benjamin has now been immortalized on the halls of Parkwood Elementary by reading 1000 books. Here is the plaque with his name on it! Hurray for Ben!

Emily went to a princess tea party with some friends at the library. Here she is looking beautiful in her princess dress with Liliana.

Grandma comes to visit

David's mom came to visit in February! We had such a great time with her. Here she is with each of the kids. They sure love their grandmother!

Jeff's family came too

We went bowling with Grandma. It was a great time. She blew us all out of the water. I guess that bowling class at BYU was pretty good!

Joshua loved bowling.


Emily didn't so much, but she looks happy here!

We went out to John Bryan State Park for a cook out. It was chilly, but fun.

Jeff, Stacey, and Jacob. What a cute family!
Thanks for coming to visit! It is so great to see you all.

Valentine's Day

The kids all had Valentine's Day parties at their school, and I was able to make it to all three! It was great. Here they are:

Benjamin's class had to make as many words as they could out of the phrase "Valentine's Day." They came up with a lot of great words. They also had treats.

Emily's class had a game, treats, and a craft. Here she is with her friend Megan.

Joshua's class made a book of love, and decorated valentine's. They also had treats. It was a fun Valnetine's day!

Cut the Flour

I loved this game as a child, and now my kids love it. We used to play it in conjunction with another game we called concentration. My kids are young, so we just take turns cutting the flour till someone knocks the penny in. Then they go after it with their teeth. Here is Joshua digging in after he tipped over the penny. He was a pretty good sport.

Clean sink

Benjamin called me up to his bathroom the other day, very excited. There was a plant growing out of the bottom drain! We had noticed that the drain was running a little slowly, and I added ZEP to my mental list (a totally useless list). So, now we have vegetation coming up. How did it get there? Our pet hamster planted it for us. He lives in the bathroom at night, and throws his seeds into the sink. (And all over the rest of the room, he's not a very tidy eater, but still very cute.) We left the sprout for a while, but it didn't seem to be doing very well, so I pulled it out.

Here is a picture of our cute Zander.

Wallpaper borders

Wallpaper borders are something to think seriously about. Before you put one up, even a really cute one, consider whether you will EVER move away from your house and want to sell it. We loved a house here in Beavercreek, but didn't buy it because there was too much wallpaper to remove.

We have a very cute border in Joshua's room that was there when we moved in. It was great for Josh, but now we are moving the new baby into his room and Josh is going to bunk with Ben. So, the sports border has to come down. I have spent 2 hours scraping at the ceiling, and have sore fingers and arms, and am about a quarter of the way through. It is going to take longer than painting the room!

So, really think about it.

By the way, I painted the room the most cheerful yellow color you can imagine. Yellow is definitely my favorite color. Such a happy room!

Morfar Visits Ohio

For Christmas this year, we gave my dad a gift he couldn't return. It was actually more of a gift to ourselves, but we were feeling selfish. We spent our frequent flyer miles, and brought him to Ohio for a week! He had to work the 4:30 am session at the temple, but was able to clear the entire week and come! What a great grandfather. The kids were so excited, and asked everyday for a week if he was coming that day. Finally, he arrived, bringing gifts! WOW!
Here is Emily modelling her new princess dress from Morfar. This is quite the dress. We caught her staring at herself in the mirror in it. She did look awfully beautiful! Benjamin got new Pokemon cards, and Joshua got Diesel #10. They were all pretty excited.


We left on Monday to spend 2 days at Great Wolf Lodge, one of our favorite places to go as a family. Fun for everyone!

After a long day of swimming and waterslides (not me, of course, they don't let people that are so obviously pregnant on the slides), the kids went down for a bedtime story with Wiley the Wolf. They all met him, although Josh wasn't willing to get very close.

Here we all are, enjoying the good night animal show.

My dad got me out of the house, and I did 3 things I had never done before in Dayton while he was here. The first was to visit Charleston State Preserve. They call it the "miniature Niagara." It is certainly tiny in comparison, but it was beautiful, and a fun winter hike. We only took Joshua, while the other kids were in school.

As you can see, the falls were frozen. It was really beautiful.

Another new things I saw was Mendelson's Liquidation Outlet. If you know my dad, you'll understand that he spotted this place from the car on our way to the Children's Museum one day, and absolutely had to see what it was. It was mostly junk, but interesting none the less. We also visited the Dayton Institute of Art, which is free to the public. We didn't see the grown up exhibits because we had kids with us, but in the basement they have the "Experiencenter" with hands on activities for kids. Mine loved it. Dad and I had fun, as well.


Mostly, I enjoyed seeing my kids play with my dad. He did a lot of reading, snuggling, and playing. He repaired some things around the house, took my car into the shop, and even suggested a trip to Hobby Lobby (which I took him up on, of course).
Thanks for a great trip, dad!