Summer days

Feels like summer anyway. We are loving the nice warm weather.

If you are wondering what is on Dallin's face, they are scabs. He fell out of the car and onto his face while trying to get out.

 Drew & Joel

 School will be out in a month. Wonder what we will do this summer.

In other news. We made an offer on a house this weekend. We should hear soon if they accept. It is a beautiful new house and we really hope we get it.

Something else that has been consuming my time, or at least my thoughts, is my grandpa. Well, all my grandparents really. I'm not sure this is the place to write my thoughts about it, but I'll be brief. My grandpa Marshall had surgery a couple weeks ago to remove cancer on his thyroid. It was pretty major surgery; they ended up breaking open his sternum to remove it. He was in the hospital for weeks in recovery. Turns out the cancer is pretty aggressive and had spread and continues to. The doctors give him about three months to live. I have all four of my grandparents still living. I haven't lost someone this close before. And even though I know God's plan, it is still hard. Hard to see him in pain and confined to a chair. I remember him walking for exercise, faithfully. And writing novels. And working with wood. He even lost his thumb from sawing a piece of wood. That is how I remember him. That is how I left him when I went away to college. It is hard to come back over 10 years later to see him this way. We visited him yesterday and he couldn't get up and give the boys a ride like he usually does, so he had me do it so he could see their faces. We sure love him.

This is the boys about this time last year with grandpa.

Whistling, and singing

Check out Dallin's whistle.

 

And Ashlyn learning "Popcorn Popping".

Graduation!

I have been looking forward to this post for years! Nate graduated this past weekend with his Doctorate of Physical Therapy. He already passed his license exam, so he is officially a physical therapist. And, yes, he has a job. He will start work as soon as his transcript makes it to the licensure board and they make it all legal. To say we are excited is an understatement.

 We made it back to Idaho for the graduation with the help of many family members and friends. Matt and Mickie took the boys for the weekend. Paula hooked us up with discount plane tickets. Sharla and Jeremie let us stay with them in Idaho and watched Ashlyn for us. Steve and Melissa helped us get a discounted rental car. We really appreciate it! Really, really.

He was hooded twice for some reason. Once at a dinner we went to the night before, and then again at the ceremony. 

It was a wonderful and exhausting weekend.

Family picture

My sister Tracie took some more pictures of our family this weekend. We are a tough crowd. Ashlyn wouldn't smile. Stinker!

 The wild flowers are coming out at my parents' house. Tanner managed to pick one of the few that were planted intentionally. Sorry grandma. Last year they picked her irises.

Ashlyn is getting so big and naughty. She has learned the word "mine". I was telling Nate I don't think Tanner learned it until he was 3 just because he didn't have older siblings saying it. I've had to put all our writing utensils up high because she colors on everything.

She has gone to nursery a couple times and doesn't love it. She will though. I actually miss having her with me in class. She is a fun distraction sometime. People actually have introduced themselves to me a second time because they don't recognize me without her on my lap. I mean multiple people. So weird.

Oh yeah, my older brother Kevin got married this weekend. He and Kassie got married in Vegas, sort of a planned elopement. :) My parents went and my brother's family, as well as some of Kassie's family. They actually had the wedding Skyped so we could watch it. We went up to my parents house and my sister Tracie make a mini wedding cake for all of us who didn't go to the wedding. I am so happy to have another sister-in-law. She is really sweet

Feeding the deer

There is a friendly deer out at my parents' house. It lets you pet it and feed it. Pretty weird.
The kids thought it was cool. Don't worry, we sanitized very well after this.

Kids & Me

My sister Tracie did me a huge favor and came and took pictures of me and the kids.
It was quite the task trying to get them all to cooperate. These were the couple of the probably 75 she took that worked out. Tracie is such a good sport.

 

 

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.