How did I forget about Easter?

I don't know how I forgot to blog about Easter. It was so fun. Matt and Mickie and kids came down from Washington. We spent Easter morning with them and the Braggs. Kay had 192 eggs! She tried to recruit kids at church to come to the hunt because she had so many.

 

Once Ashlyn found one she was happy. She would eat the candy and when it was gone would go for another. 

 Dallin found a couple of the $1 eggs.

Tanner found lots of quarter eggs.

 Two of the Spence girls.

After lunch we headed up to my parents house. We did a little hunt for the boys. I think these few pictures will be classics in my family. Watch Drew, the one in the red striped shirt. 

 Ready, set, GO! . . . and Drew is still digging.

 Dallin didn't get as many eggs as he wanted. He was sad.

Kids at the park

When Matt and Mickie were here we went to the park to play and take some family pictures of them.

It was a fun filled weekend. We went out to dinner, did a couple egg hunts, Easter lunch then Easter dinner. Lots of playing.

Here are some pictures I took of Matt and Mickie's family.

 We did a cake smash and she was so fun. She was pretty strait faced the rest of the shoot, but at least we got fun cake pictures.

I kept waiting for Ty to fall into the stream, face first. Never did.

Quirky

Dallin likes to color, and he colors very well. Always inside the lines, and he is very thorough.We made birthday cards for my mom whose birthday is coming up, and Dallin wanted to color the whole thing for her. . .with ball point pen. Here are just a couple pictures of the very long process. It took about 2 hours.

 This one on the right makes me laugh because he spent so long, and he left about a square inch on the bottom left corner. Maybe he got distracted. He noticed it later and went back and colored it in, along with the entire other side of the card!!! :) He makes life interesting and fun.

 Ashlyn is now walking all the time now, and it is really annoying actually. Church was noticeably more difficult to get through because she is all over the place. A sweet lady asked if she could follow Ashlyn around so I could enjoy the meeting.

Bowling

We went bowling with Paul and Paula's family last week. We see them almost every day. Our kids get along so well. I was best buds with my cousins too, so I am happy that we get to be living by cousins again. We miss Calin and Capri though, in Idaho. We'd be in heaven if all the cousins came to Southern Oregon.

The boys made me laugh with all their bowling poses. And this one of Tanner makes  me laugh, because you can see the ball in the gutter, yet he doesn't care. He is just happy to be bowling.

 Joel would spin around and watch the ball go down the lane backwards.Ashlyn loved bowling too. Luckily Dallin doesn't care for it, so she took over his game. Dallin hung out in the arcade pretending to play video games and pool.

A lovely view of Paul's and Drew's bums.

 Dallin doesn't love bowling, but he loves wearing bowling shoes. He seems to think he needs to succeed to enjoy a sport, so if he can't knock over all the pins he'd rather not play. These pictures were of his first frame, then he was off skipping around in those cool bowling shoes.

Cute and I know it!

Ashlyn will be ready for America's Next Top Model with all the photo shoots she does.

Look at the lean on this picture and the pouty lips. She is a natural. :)

 I know my colors are different, I have been playing with my editing. I do all my messing around on my own pictures instead of paying customers.

She's walking!

I am finding that now that I am home and all my family is around, I feel less need to blog. But that is not true. This is kind of a family journal too, and of course we still have tons of Idaho friends that we went to keep in contact with so, hopefully I will find stuff to blog about. 

Like, Ashlyn walking. She has been taking a few steps here and there but she is doing it almost full time now, and it is adorable. Here is a little video.

Is spring here already?

The weather is teasing us lately. At least I think it is. If I remember right, it rains all March and April in Oregon. But it was beautiful today! Like 70 degrees beautiful. We had to go to the park.

 Aren't these sunglasses adorable?!? And her pig tales? And this face! Love her!

 Nate got off early today, so he came too.

 Dallin couldn't keep his eyes open, it was so sunny.

 The master of the monkey bars. He had sore hands after today.

We are finally settled in to our place. Only took 2 weeks! What a pain! I am so done with moving. Well, I guess we will do it again in a few months, but that will be the last one for a long time, I hope.

We made it...barely

Oh my gosh! It has been a crazy couple of days. Me and the kids left on Thursday afternoon to drive to Boise to catch a standby flight. My awesome sister-in-law gave us some of her tickets. Apparently Boise books very tight because we didn't get on our first flight, and had to get a hotel. Then we didn't make our next flight the next day at noon either. We didn't get a flight til about 3 pm on Friday. We got to Medford about 7 pm on Friday night. The kids did so well, I was very blessed. Everyone was complimenting me on how well my kids behaved. I was so proud.

As soon as we get to Oregon Ashlyn gets really sick. And I had a headache for 3 days.

Nate and my dad drove the truck to Oregon on Sunday and got here just fine. I had an appointment to get our housing figured out Friday morning at 10 am, so I missed that. And the lady couldn't see us until Tuesday at 11 a.m. We had our rental truck until Wednesday at 8 a.m., so we were running out of time. There was a hold up with the place we are renting because a window was broken and we can't sign a lease until it is fixed. That isn't fixed until Thursday or Friday. Thank goodness we have family here or we would be homeless for a week. The landlord is nice enough to let us move our stuff in anyway. I am so grateful.

We have felt very unproductive sitting around with all our stuff in a truck. We hope to get house set up before Nate starts his clinical affiliation on Monday.

Power button

We have had Sharpies lying around since I am labeling moving boxes, and the boys found a couple and colored "power buttons" on their bellies. They have been watching this robot cartoon lately that inspired it, I am sure. These faces are of them turning themselves on. That sounded weird, but you know what I mean.

Well, moving day is quickly approaching. Me and the kids fly to Oregon on Thursday. We've been having a lot of "lasts" that are making me sad. We've been in Idaho so long that it has grown on us, but we are SO excited to head back home. Nate is apply for jobs right now. Takes his license exam next month. Lots of big and exciting stuff coming for us.

And here are some of the photo shoots I have had recently.

See more here.

Sneaky Valentine

We (Dallin, Ashlyn and I) went to the store and got Nate his favorite candy (Symphony) bar for Valentine's day. Dallin kept wanting to hold it. I never let him because I know Dallin, and he would open it and eat it. We got home and I get to work in the kitchen and Dallin disappears for a while, so does the candy bar, but I didn't notice it. Dallin was under this blue container for a good 15 minutes. I'd check on him periodically to make sure he was still breathing. I thought he was just playing. I didn't see the candy bar until about the 3rd time I checked on him.

I grab it from him and he was so upset that he didn't get to finish the giant candy bar. These pictures of Dallin were a few minutes after I already discovered him and confiscated the candy bar. He was so upset.

There is even a piece of chocolate in his ear, as you can kind of see. So sad.

Ashlyn trying to walk

Making progress

Just lots of pictures and packing

Word got out that we are leaving so everyone is rushing to get pictures taken before I go. :) Glad I will be missed. I took these this week. I have at least 4 more appointments in the next week. I have been packing slowly so I think we should be ready when the time comes in 2 WEEKS! Ah!

 

Dallin helping me get my settings on my camera right before a shoot. :)

 Funny kid.