Pictures

As some of you might know about 4 months ago I lost the digital copies of all the pictures of my children from Nate's birth until about January of this year. Right now we are waiting to see if the (very expensive) professionals can recover them for us. In the meantime I've been taking lots more pictures & videos of the kiddos so we have something. We've also been looking in every nook & crany collecting any pictures we can find (digging through "sent" email folders for any pictures we've emailed out at any point) - if they aren't able to get us our pictures back more of you may be hearing from us asking for any pictures you may have of our kids. In the meantime here are some of our more recent life experiences in pictures.

We took the kids to Sears for Easter Pictures - here are some of our favorites:
We took a trip to the zoo - Kassie's first - she had a great time - we all did! Mount Rainer even made a nice showing.

Our St. Patrick's Day Green - This was in the week when Nate was sick - hence the green PJs.

Kassie update. She's going to crawl any day now - we are all excited for her to be mobile. She's also getting good at grabbing everything - recently she grabbed Abbie's dinner plate from the table in an attempt to get Abbie's un-eaten hot dog bun, all she got was a swipe of ketchup on her head.

Abbie update - Not much new, still a diva in the making. She loves to be the center of attention, pull out a camera & not only will she smile but pose as well. She working hard at learning her letters & sight words at school - she'll be a kindergartner before we know it!
Nate update - I've written more about Nate lately than the girls, but a funny thing to share a little bit ago Dan took Nate & Abbie to swimming lessons. Long story short, Nate didn't have any PJs to come home in, but Abbie had 2 sets. Good thing Nate isn't above wearing pink- he looks pretty good in it too.
Then when Nate was sick I pulled out some jello molds my mom sent to make something special for him - we made mini jello molds with 3 different kinds of jello (so it looked layered, although you can't tell in the picture). When he dished it up he put whipped cream around the bottom & at the top, added cupcake sprinkles and called it "Grandma's Famous Jello Recipe" (I'm guessing because grandma sent the molds she got credit for the creation). I called my mom to fill her in, not only on what happened but to give her a copy of her now "Famous Jello Recipe" - we both got a kick out of it. Nate's rendition of Grandma's Famous Jello Recipe
We've been working on getting both kids to ride their bikes with no training wheels. Nate is free wheelin' on 2 wheels now. Abbie's almost there - video to come soon (I hope)! Never a dull moment around here - how blessed we truly are!

Today I am grateful for the sun - we had a couple of good weather days in a row. I forget how much I like the sun & fresh air - the doors have been opened as we have been "drinking in" the good weather. After all this is Western Washington who knows how long it will last!

PS - The last 3 weeks have been long - Nate was sick for one whole week, the day he was well enough to go to school - Abbie got whatever bug Nate brought home (thankfully Dan, Kassie & I all escaped it) & missed 3 out of 4 days of preschool that week. This last week has been spring break so come tomorrow I'll be happy to have 2 healthy kids who are going back to school!

Good Old Fashion Update

This last week Nate completed his first science fair project. It was optional for first grade, but Nate LOVES science so we jumped in with both feet. We googled first grade science fair and I read him some of the things we found and he decided his topic would be "Will it Float?"

Nate chose several things to test to see if they would sink or float. He made his predictions about each item. He was right 2/3rds of the time. Then we changed the water around - we tested sugar water and salt water to see if that affected if each object sank or floated. It was a lot of fun. Some of the observations Nate made was the plain water was clear, the sugar water looked yellow and the salt water was cloudy. He found out that about 1/3 of his objects floated in plain water, about 40% floated in sugar water and almost half of them floated in the salt water. "The thickness of the water changed mom". I got to teach Nate a new word - density. He had discovered how it worked & he loved having a new big word to use.
Nate has a pretty extensive vocabulary and uses the words correctly. Every once in a while we'll get a zinger that just cracks us up. A few weeks ago they were talking about the Joseph Smith First Vision story in primary when the teacher asked how they would feel if Heavenly Father and Jesus appeared to them, Nate's response was a 1 word zinger - Flabergasted. Needless to say the teacher laughed. We had to explain to him at home why that was such a great answer and why it made the teacher laugh. Kids say the darndest things.

Yesterday Abbie was invited to a friend's birthday party. A princess tea party, she got to wear her favorite princess dress. She had a great time! Towards the end of the party the girls decided to play hide-n-seek. Abbie & Nate play this a lot so she's pretty good at it. The birthday girl was the first to count so Abbie & the other little girl ran to hide. The Birthday Girl found the other guest right away and off they went to find Abbie. They couldn't find here anywhere so after about 5 minutes they started calling to her "Abbie you won. Come out." She didn't budge. After about another 5 minutes they were about to give up so I went to help find Abbie. She had hidden herself in the corner of a closet & shut the door. I couldn't believe she had sat in there so quietly for so long, by herself in the dark. She was very upset that I found her not her friends. I had to do some fast talking to get her to calm down & join back in the game. Every time after that when it was Abbie's turn to count they other 2 little girls hid in the closet where Abbie had been - it was such a great hiding space surely she'd never find them in there. It was hysterical. A great time was had by all.
It snowed about 3 inches today - Abbie loves to play in the snow and took advantage of Nate & Kassie not feeling well and commandeered Dad to help her make a snowman. They had a great time & there was hot chocolate for all when they finally came in.
I'm guessing that Kassie's going to be crawling very soon - if not any day now. If you set her on her bottom on the floor with a toy just out of reach she'll lean forward, get on all 4 and start rocking back and forth. It won't be long now! She's also about to pop her first 2 top teeth to join the bottom 2 she's got. Man time has just blown by with her - it' s hard to believe in a week she'll be 8 months old! How cute is she in Daddy's hat?!
Today I am grateful for Tyenol/Motrin - Nate & Kassie were both under the weather - they are both finally resting peacefully.