Aaron and Laura come to visit!

Aaron Laura, and Dylan drove down for a quick visit.  Laura needed her wisdom teeth out, (ouch) so we took them to the zoo to do something fun first!

 Mitchell wanted to be like all the other kids and have his picture taken on the turtle!  So dad helped him.  lol

 This is one of my favorite pictures of me and Mitchell.  He just looks so cute like a little boy chillin' in his chair.  

 Jansen and Dylan were two peas in a pod!

 Reesa letting Mitchell try her cotton candy... I think he likes it!!!

 The next day, Aaron and I took the kids to an Easter Egg hunt at the school while Jake and Laura went to the office.  The kids scored, and always have fun getting to do multiple egg hunts every year!

 and FINALLY, I finished sewing and hanging up my curtains.  They have a lot of yellow and pink in them, to help tie all the rooms together, but you can't really tell from this picture... Oh well, I love 'em.

Time Out For Women!

This year I was so lucky to get to leave all the kids and head out with some girls in my ward to Time Out for Women.  Actually I overheard some women talking about how they were going and needed to get a hotel, when I chimed in and invited myself!  Ha ha.  In the past I have just LOVED TOFW and feel like it makes me a better wife, mom, person, that I knew I needed to go despite my pride.  I think it’s just the spiritual recharge I need and getting away for 2 days without any responsibilities is pretty nice too!  I rode down with Debbie Millar, Tiffany Nelson, and Keri Rodriguez.  These women are maybe 20 years older than me and they have become some of my closest friends.  (I tried to convince Jennifer to come with me, but she was having a hard time wanting to leave her husband with their new foster baby Max for the whole weekend)  Anyway this time did not disappoint and I had a wonderful time.  Thanks Jake for letting me go and holding down the fort while I was away!

 Me, (holding Tatum) Mayela, Caitlin, Pat, Dahnyalle, Vicki, Anne, Missie... with Keri and Debbie knealing...

 Samantha, Me, Vicki, Jenny, Anne, Keri, Dahnyalle. Knealing, Jennifer, Caitlin, Mayela & Debbie

Missie, Delaney, and Vanessa in this one...  Allison was there too, but no pic... :(
What fun friends I have!!!!  So lucky.

Tiffany has kittens!

Probably one of my favorite things about living in the mountains is being able to have so many animals, and not lots of stress about them.  We have cats, that kill the animals (ie. mice, groundhogs, lizards, frogs etc.) that might attract rattle snakes.  Because of this... we have also lost a lot of cats.  I think we have lost 12 cats in the 3 years we've been here.  BUT it also means we get kittens that are so adorable, cuddly and fun!  Well... we also let our kids name our cats, so we have Tiffany.  Which we thought was a male.  Reesa really wanted a girl sister-cat, so I did NOT care in the least that we named our male cat Tiffany.  Well Jake comes to me and says, I have good and bad news... "Tiffany is a girl!  AND she just had kittens!!!"  She was getting larger, but I just thought she was eating well...  8 kittens later I have some happy children!  

Jansen - March 2013

March at a glance...  So much changes as our family continues to grow...
Jansen, my sweet little boy put his jacket on over his backpack and for some reason I thought this was just too cute!!!  He is getting so big and independent I love it!

 AND... he had his first heart break when our neighbors made a "no boys allowed" sign on their play house.  He marched right home and hung this sign on our front door.  He didn't say a word to me and just did this all on his own. "No girls in the house." His handwriting is way too cute!  I asked him "what about me?" so he later added "only moms!"

Fresno Zoo

It's always hard with visitors leave.  Especially if I'm sad and my kids keep asking me about it... So this time when Grandma Sue left, we picked up Alli before heading to the airport and stopped at the zoo on our way home.  My kids LOVE the zoo, and with Alli's help I felt I could brave it.  

 How many pictures will I have with Jansen here in front of the elephant?  I can only imagine a few each year...!!!

 We went to the petting zoo, and as this sheep walked by Mitchell stuck out his arm and tried to touch it.  I couldn't believe my eyes!!!  It was so cute!

 So we turned him around and let him feel the sheep's coat.  He loved it!

 We went to the END of the bird show and got to take some pictures up close with some amazing birds...

 Mitchell loves Alli so much.  I think it's because she loves him right back!  She is always asking to hold him, take care of him, or play with him.  I feel so lucky we know her!!!

Mitchell!!!

Here is Mitchell in his kidwalk at therapy.  This is one of the few things he doesn't scream the ENTIRE time in.  He doesn't love it, but he doesn't despise it either.  Because of that, I knew we needed one at home so Mitchell could get time standing everyday.  Not just once a week at therapy.  So back in September I started the LONG, annoying journey of insurance requests, appeals, denial letters, and more appeals to get one of these for my sweet baby!  (It won't be until much later in the year that I finally get it approved, ordered and delivered.)

 He is so cute!  Oh I just want to squeeze that sweet baby boy!!!

 Dr. Seuss's birthday, even Mitchell wore his PJ's to school

 It looks like he's smiling in this one!

 Any finally Mitchell in his favorite place in the world... His jungle swing.  Mitchell doesn't like just any swing! He likes THIS ONE!!!  We've worried all the time, what will we ever do when this swing gives out?!?

 And this is Mitchell's newest trick... SITTING UP... in his swing.  It totally throws the swing off balance, and worries me to death that he's going to fall out of it... but he think's he's cool stuff!  Just look at that face!!! How could you ever deny him of that joy?

California WINTER

In California we have nice warm winters, with an occasional cold spell that usually doesn't last too long.  For example... Here we are at Frosty's eating ice cream in sandals...

 The next day blowing bubbles outside on the back porch...

 Look how cute Mitchell is!  He even popped a few...

 Then 2 days later, SNOW!!!  Yep, lots of snow.  Jake canceled work for the day and stayed home to build a snowman...

 Samantha had babysat the day before and stayed the night cause it was starting to snow a lot... and we wanted her here longer...

 Everyone helped to build something...

 Then we drove down to Fresno to pick up Grandma Sue from the airport (where is was sunny!) and warned her we had snow... that was gone by the time we got back home!

 Jake was taking ortho classes and left for a few days every 6 weeks for almost 2 years!!!  It was extremely hard on me.  By the time he got back I was so stressed out, and depressed I didn't think it was worth all the sacrifice!  So we started paying for visitors to come out and help me while Jake was gone.  It was just too much to do alone.  My mom was so sweet and agreed to come help for 10 days!!! It was awesome!

 Reesa, loving Rascal...

 While my mom was here, I posted this on FB one morning.  Now you can see some the hard work I usually had to do ALONE...

Mitchell has been sick with a high fever starting Sunday. He is now on meds every 4 hours. Here's his 5 am doses... To say I'm tired is an understatement! I just keep telling myself this is better than being at the hospital with NO sleep... Luckily my mom, is here to help! 
 Just getting Mitchell's medicine ready feels like a 20 minute task!  And each med has a different dose, so you can't just be on autopilot.  I swear, Jake and I are on our way to becoming pharmacists!!!

 Jansen put this job list on my door one morning!  I LOVED it!  Jansen read it to me... and now I can't remember what it said entirely... something like
#1.  go shower
#2.  go bathroom
#3. go wash hands
#4. go be on ipad,  (haha)

 My mom brought wooden owls for the kids to paint.  They did such a great job, so cute! Reesa wanted a rainbow, so Jansen of course had to do a rainbow too!

 I took this picture because I thought it was the cutest thing ever, my kids moved Mitchell's highchair over so he could watch T.V.  It actually looks like he might be watching...