Our Special Boy

Singing to Spencer at Grandma's house. I love the eyes. :)

Hanging out with cousin Michelle and Frank

We had such great time spending time with cousin Michelle and Frank during their stay in Utah for 4 months. Our kids loved them and started calling them Uncle Frank and Aunt Michelle. :) Catherine was also impressed with Michelle's medical knowledge as she explained that Catherine's bruised knee she got during an intense game of hide-and-seek in the backyard was called a "hematoma." When Catherine told her class the next day that she had a hematoma, they were pretty amazed that she had something so exotic. We're excited for their next adventure in Vermont and to see them again this summer in Maine.

My how they've grown . . .

Our busy boys, playing on mommy's bed. Here they are doing the same thing
2 years ago. They've grown a little bit since then.What blows me away, actually, is that David is now as old (if not as big) as Spencer was back then. I felt like Spencer was so grown-up when David was born. It's all about comparison and perspective, I guess.

This is how Spencer falls asleep at night. I love it.

David and his new Thomas train he got for his birthday.

In the video below, notice the lesion on David's ear. This is the kid who finds totally new places to get bruises - partly because he's the kid who has already had more goose-eggs and bruises than any of our other kids! (Maybe it's partly because of that fair skin.) He fell from a rocking ottoman and somehow totally bruised just his upper ear. It was purple for a few days. What a kid!

David's new book from Grandma

Our David is 2! We all love this cute little guy who has turned into a real little boy over the past few weeks. He talks so cute-ly in full sentences, but still in his sweet little boy voice. He LOVES books -every night there are about 20 in his bed, and when he wakes-up early he reads them for a while before yelling, "Mommy! Mommy! I soaked!" He also loves animals, trains and Dora the Explorer and her cousin, Diego the animal rescuer. He is starting to exhibit more 2-year-old behavior, saying things like "I want it!" and "I do it by myself!" At his birthday-time I always think about how worried we were about him at his birth - how scrawny and sickly he was - and I am so grateful that he is now so happy, and smart, and busy, and cheerful.

We had fun celebrating his birthday Sunday night after watching Conference. Daddy unfortunately had to go on a trip to San Francisco that night and had to leave before dinner, only to get to the airport and find his flight was delayed and sit at the airport for about 3 hours.

A birthday book from Grandma Rosie. He loved the ducks!

Easter 2008

Easter felt way too early this year (as already mentioned in the Birthday post below.) After such a long winter, which continued into April,
we were just glad it wasn't snowing on Easter Sunday! The girls wore their flower-girl dresses from Laura's wedding and looked very cute. The kids loved all the Easter prep - dying eggs was especially fun the day before with Uncle Bret and Aunt Laura. Uncle Bret taught them how to make an especially beautiful grand-finale egg by combining all the different dyes at the end.

Where in the world is Michael?

To kick-off the craziness that was March this year, Michael made his first trans-Pacific flight to Tokyo. He went to train the Asian PR folks for the Four Seasons Hotels. I don't want to steal his thunder, but since he may never do this himself, I'll at least post some of the pictures.
Here is Michael hard at work.
I think this was Michael's favorite 'cultural' experience in Tokyo - going to the early-morning Tuna auction. Those giant grey things behind him? Those are the tuna. Huge.
Here is another sampling of the fine sea-produce. Check out those giant prawns! I think his VERY favorite part of the trip was the food. He became a sushi-convert.

Busy March birthday month!

March is heavy-duty Birthday month at our house. Not only Michael and I, but my sister, Jenni, my Grandpa Sabine, and now 2 more new birthdays to celebrate in March: Our new brother-in-law Bret, and our new niece, Lily (Matt and Jenni's baby.) It is kind of surreal to be almost half-way through my 30's! The girls gave me seeds to plant in our garden. Spencer gave me a pair of tongs -which we actually needed. His orriginal idea was to give me a pot, but Michael talked him into the tongs. Michael gave me tickets to the Police Concert at the USANA ampitheater in July! Woohoo!
Here we are celebrating Michael, Bret and Jenni's birthdays, oh and Easter all on the same day. It was a little too much for everyone, especially Jenni's girls who had had it by the time we got to cake, so Jenni wasn't even there anymore. We are glad Easter won't fall that early again - at least not for a LONG TIME. To many things to celebrate at once!
Here is my cute Grandpa Sabine's 99th birthday celebration! (Frankly, I hope I'm not still around for my 99th birthday.) But we had a fun time celebrating Grandpa's birthday with a good majority of his posterity. When President Hinckley passed away, my Grandpa asked my mom, "Just what do you think President Hinckley died of?" (That young whipper-snapper, only 97-years old! Grandpa was only a year ahead of P. Hinckley at LDS High School.) My mom said, "OLD AGE. People die of that!"
Our cute new niece, Lily Catherine. Our Catherine is very excited about her new cousin's name. Not only because she shares one of the same names, but Lily is Catherine's favorite name. IT was also the name of Cath's fairy-alter-ego that she was for Halloween.
This new little-Lily is a little red-head! It's pretty cute!

While we were gone . . .

Laura and her awesome husband, Bret, took good care of our kids while we were in Newport. Look at these handsome guys. Bret even brought his own firetruck sleepers to be like our boys. Way to go, Uncle Bret.