Wii Play Well Together

Many of the days were spent playing the Wii together while my family was here visiting.

Kyle had to get ready to challenge my brother James to a best of 3 competition. They played bowling, baseball, and boxing. I can't remember who ended up winning but I'm sure Kyle does.

Then my sister Taylor and our niece Jossie played each other in baseball.

Taylor had some problems...

And Jossie has never played baseball before so she was really fun/funny to watch.

Hope you guys enjoyed visiting with us because we sure loved it.

We love visits from Family!

After a very long drive from Virginia, my family arrived at our house the Saturday evening before Easter. Sunday morning we woke up and watched General Conference for our church, where all the leaders of our church speak to members around the world. None of the kids in my family have ever watched conference so we were very impressed that James, my little brother, Jossie, my niece, and Keiley, another niece sat through one whole session and played the listening bingo game. They were good sports to sit and listen with us so we could follow our normal routine.

After Conference, we played outside together while we waited for Easter dinner to finish cooking. All the cousins drew on the driveway with chalk and then started running through the bushes in the front of our house. Kyle got the camera out and we had a little impromptu photo shoot.

We told Gabs to give her cousin Keiley a hug and this is what she did. She must have seen Kyle and I do that so many times that she just assumed that's how you give hugs. Well, probably not. I think she just wanted to hug her that way.

These two had loads of fun together.

Cousin Brayden, Gabs, and Cousin Keiley

We tried to get all the kids together but this was the best shot we got. It is really hard trying to get numerous kids to look at the camera all at the same time.

Going on an adventure through the bushes in the front yard...

"Hey this is awesome...Mom doesn't ever let me do this!"

Then all the kids wanted to have a shoulder ride...

Our best family shot. Gabs and Noah were pretty tired of pictures by this point so it was almost a waste of time.

Me and my mom...

Thanks for coming to visit guys! More pictures of the week with family to come.

Easter Fun

Happy Easter! The kids looked so cute in their outfits for church the Sunday before Easter. They loved taking pictures together for us to commemorate the occasion.

I hope you all had wonderful Easters and enjoyed the very special time of the year.

Our Little Boy

Here's another video in connection with the earlier Gabs version.

Spring Break In Georgia

Gabbie loved seeing her cousins when we visited them in Georgia. Her cousins probably got tired of Gabbie following her around but they were troopers. Gabbie adores her cousins.

Gabbie's cousin taught her how to climb down from the top bunk...

They snuck into the strawberries together. (I'm sure Gabbie would have done this one all on her own because the second she saw all the cartons of strawberries, she wanted to 'hold' the bag and 'carry' them up the stairs for us)

While at Missie and Justin's, Gabbie got a package from her Grandma Christensen. She has been making quilts for all the grandchildren from youngest to oldest and Gabs' turn came up. She was super excited to have a katty cover (kitty cat). Every night we were there, she had to sleep with it.

This is Noah's opinion on Freakanomics, which Kyle was reading.

The kids got to dye easter eggs together. This was the first time that Gabbie had actually understood what we were doing so it was fun.

A little break for some strawberries...

Grandma Christensen check out her tongue! Doesn't she look like Kyle?

Playing in the backyard together...

And Noah finally got to be held and fed by his big cousin.

Thank you so much for letting us come visit guys. It was a great getaway and Gabbie loved getting to know her cousins!

Spring Break..On the Road

Kyle had Spring Break a few weeks ago. We just needed to get out of Houston and away from our house. We called up Kyle's sister Missie in Atlanta, Georgia and asked if she would mind if we came up to visit for the week. We hadn't seen them since they moved away from Utah two years ago. Missie said it would be okay for us to come so we packed up all our stuff and got ready to leave on Saturday morning.

As many of you know, Kyle has applied for a teaching position with the Department of Defense Education Activity. On Friday morning, we all woke up really early to drive him up to the airport so he could fly to Arlington, Virginia and do a screening interview for the DoD. Then Saturday morning we picked him up again from the airport and took off to go to Georgia. Apparently everyone in Texas had the idea to leave the state because traffic was ridiculous trying to get out. We sat for almost two-three hours in traffic in Louisiana. The driving part of road trips are my favorite parts of vacation. Here are some of the pictures that we always have to take while driving.

Gabbie was so excited to pick Daddy up from the airport. It was very unusual for us to spend a whole day without him. It was the first time in our married life that he was gone and we didn't see him the whole day. That was very different.

One of the driving pictures that we always end up taking...

Noah wanted to chew and munch on something so we handed him a roll that I had made and he started chowing down...

Gabs wasn't so sure about the roll though. She was too excited to eat much of anything.

At one of our numerous stops along the way, Noah decided he wanted to help Daddy drive...

Gabs got his little music player on a book that I got from working at the Scholastic Warehouse and she wouldn't part from it on the road. Whenever she would drop it or couldn't reach it, she would say: "My listener, I need my listener".

My road picture...

On the trip home, we had strawberries in the cooler and the kids wanted to have one. Noah eats them very much like his Daddy and his big sister did when she was his age...

And this is what he looked like after his strawberry. He was so proud of himself.

When we got back to our house and dumped out the ice from the cooler, Gabs went straight over to it, sat down on the grass and started picking up pieces of ice to eat. Crazy girl!

Road trips are so much fun. I know most people prefer to fly but with my dad being a truck driver, we never flew anywhere. It was always driving. Some of my most memorable vacations were the ones where we played games together in the car on the drive.

March

We did a lot of experimenting in March in regards to cooking. Kyle is super talented with making pizza. One night while I was out working at the Scholastic Warehouse (for free books), he decided to make a chicken pesto, stuffed crust pizza. It sure looked pretty, and it didn't taste too bad either!

I love these two kids. They are a handful some days but I wouldn't change my time with them for anything.

Another fun trip to the zoo...

We got to see the new Jaguar exhibit at our zoo on the day we went. It was fun to see the section of the zoo that had been blocked off again.

Noah is very much like his big sister with bananas. They both love them so much and would eat two or three each day if we would let them.

For some reason, Gabbie loves this pose. She also loves to put on socks and pull up one leg of her jammies. (Thanks Missie for the clothes! Gabs loves them!)

March brought the 27th birthday for my hunny. Gabs and I made him a vanilla cake with chocolate icing from scratch and a special dinner of Chicken Kiev and steamed veggies.

"Happy Birthday to you..."

Gabbie attended our ward's Easter activity. She was able to stuff an egg crate full of plastic eggs with symbols for the crucifixion and atonement of Jesus Christ. Then the kids all tried to do the bunny hop and dance. She didn't really want any part in that though.

Noah woke up early one morning and came into the bed with us. He fell asleep in my arms and I couldn't resist letting him stay there and snuggling with him. These are the times that I miss with Gabs and Noah because they are getting so big and don't really want to lay/sit still long enough to snuggle with me.

Noah is such a handsome little guy. We catch ourselves going into his room some nights just to look at him while he's sleeping. There is such a look of pure peace on his face when he sleeps.

More posts to come about Spring Break, Easter, and a visit from the Campbell Family.