TWO WHEELS!

Dal finally had the desire (with a little prompting) to learn to ride on two wheels... we had to work on it for a few days, but he got it!

Apparently all that effort tuckered him out...

Random May Pictures

Love Love Love her shirt...

 Bryson decided he wanted to plant a garden in the vacant lot across the street...

 Prime gardening soil, as you can plainly see... but he has sprouts and I don't!!

Cleaning out the camper for the summer...

She loves books...

 mostly eating them.  We have classified her as a paper-vore.

Dance Party!

Lego building on rainy days...

Brysons Spring Program

Bryson is the yellow jacket on the far right... 

 pretty hard to see, I know...

 I totally spaced the program that night, thinking it was at 6:30 instead of 6pm.  Literally at 5:55, I realized my mistake AND PANICKED!  We arrived just as his class was actually walking up on stage- he took his place as if nothing had happened.  What can I say, he's a performer, and always has been!

His sweatshirt is a play on words... he was a yellow jacket!  (I thought it was a cute idea...)

End of Preschool

Ugh, the lighting in the sanctuary... terrible for pictures!

Ella, Lexi and Dallin- 

his 'girls' from the neighborhood who are in his class

Dallin has had a love-hate relationship with preschool.  He's just not so into the social aspect that a certain older brother was.  He loves the learning...  I think it helped that his teacher his first year Mrs. Marshall, co-taught his class this year...

Awe and Wonder...

The annual testing of the fire-hydrants...

a long anticipated event.

No words

What words are there to explain a boy in an orangutan costume playing the piano?

A belated birthday present...

Ear tubes!  She wasn't so sure why we were up so early... or where her breakfast was...

But she sure was snuggly!

Her surgery went beautifully though!  Hopefully this will be a 'one and done' procedure like it was for Bryson... 

An hour or so after surgery, she was happy to be exploring at Mimi's- thank you Mimi for watching the boys during her surgery!

The rest of the day, she was happy to snuggle and play... maybe it was a good birthday present!

One Year Old!!

I tried all day to get a decent picture of her on her actual birthday... 

 She wouldn't cooperate.  I think her ears were bothering her.  And she was teething.

To celebrate her birthday, we took her to the Oregon Coast... actually, it was a trip to check out some dental equipment in Portland, so we added a few days and went to the Coast for our anniversary- and it happened to be Hailee's birthday.  Let me tell you, anniversary + 1 year old = romance.

She was looking rather cute at our afternoon lunch in Portland... it was so warm and sunny!  I'm sooo ready for summer.

The next day we headed out to the coast- not so warm and sunny...

But the view from our room was amazing... 

Our hotel sat on a cliff overlooking the beach, and for some reason the perspective of being so high was really  strange to me... I know, sounds weird, but I don't know how else to describe it.

When we got back to Spokane, we had a little birthday party for Hailee.

She was mildly interested in her cake...

Obviously her thumb is her fav...

 She ended up coming around to the idea of cake though...

Even though she's still tiny, I can't believe how big she is!

 And how fast time has gone!

Dallin-ism

We got rid of 'paid' tv a year ago.  I haven't missed it a bit.  We have Netflix, which we stream through our Wii, so when I need to put on a show for the kids, I do it through the Wii.  I love that there are no commercials- its ridiculous the commercials that come on 'kids' channels these days.  Anywho, because the boys watch commercial free tv, most of the shows I put on only last 15-20 minutes, so when we actually watch a full on movie, it can get a little long to Dallin- especially if its one we haven't seen before.

So tonight we watched Tangled.  Adorable. (except for the "A little rebellion, a little adventure--that's good!" part!!)  The boys seemed pretty into it (and the popcorn and candy too).  After it was over, Nathan asked Dallin what he thought, Dal sighed then answered, "It took like an hour... actually, more like 10 hours!"

He's not at the most patient of ages.

Bryson-ism

You know that clown on Toy Story 3?

The really freaky looking one?

No?

Well, here's a picture...

Told you he's freaky.

Well, the other day, Bryson commented on him to me... well, really at me, but nonetheless, I thought it worth recording.

Bryson:  "Um, you know that clown that looks like a clown, well, he wasn't really prepared to be a clown, but he was a clown."

Ya.  So what AM I supposed to say to that?

Happy Birthday Grandma D

Today is my Grandma D's birthday.  Gram was diagnosed with lung cancer back in the fall and after a few weeks of chemo and radiation, ended up in the hospital with pneumonia at the end of December.  She was so weak and frail, not at all what comes to mind when I think of Grandma.  The doctors sent her home (to my moms) with hospice and gave her anywhere from a week to a month.  And we all totally believed them... before we went to California in January, we stopped in to see Grandma, fully expecting that she'd be gone when we got home!  Obviously I didn't understand just how strong Grandma is!  Here she is, five months later, and still kicking!  She certainly is declining, far too weak to resume chemo or radiation, but she's still her same strong-willed and independent self- and I'm pretty sure that she thinks she's gonna make a full recovery...

For her birthday, my mom and her sisters arranged such a special day for Gram.  My mom 'scheduled' all of us kids in town to come visit and sing to her and have cake- she wanted us all there at different times so Grandma D could enjoy us individually.  She was up in a chair with her wig on (she insisted!) and dressed up for pictures- Oh what a joy getting a decent picture... 

Clearly, Dallin and Bryson had just had a lecture on keeping their eyes OPEN for the pictures as they're both so wide-eye'd!  And then of course I'm not even looking at the camera...

I have wonderfully fun memories of visiting her as a child... her rhododendrons, her cast when she broke her leg, Polish sausages when my parents were out of town...  She is a wonderful example of faith and hard work and I owe her many thanks for accepting the Gospel in her life, which altered not only her own, but my mothers life and mine in turn...

I love you Grandma!

Brysons spring soccer

Bryson had a great soccer season- he was pretty intimidated by running after the ball in a big crowd at first, but really learned a lot and improved.

Dallins Spring Soccer

These shots are the few times that he actually was in the game and chasing the ball... really, he was in it for the post game snacks.

Why buy 1 Easter dress when you can buy 2?

especially when you have an adorable little girl to put it on??  I just couldn't help myself, they were 60% off.

She wasn't "feelin' it" by this point... it was naptime and she has {another} icky cold.  It's probably just my imagination, but I swear, she loves getting froofy dresses on- she gets all squealy and excited, kicking her legs and all.

Note the piano bench in the background.... it's one of my spring projects.  We got my great-grandmothers piano a while back, minus the bench.  I picked this one up off craigslist.  Bless craigslist.