early birthday party

we went over to spokane this weekend to celebrate steven's & asher's birthdays with steven's family. because of the long memorial day weekend, we decided to celebrate early. we were able to relax and hang out with family and just have a good time. we miss being so close to his family because it is always a good time being with them. hellers and bowers, we love you! thanks for a good weekend.

auntie lisa and katie made these amazing panda bear cupcakes.

excited-

partaking-

enjoying!

everyone enjoyed the panda bears, especially the kids.

gardening & scoopers

well we went to spokane this weekend and for lily and jackson it was filled with gardening (playing in the dirt) and uncle dave's scooper as jackson likes to call the caterpillar. the whole trip over to spokane jackson talked about driving in the scooper but sitting in it was the best he would do. he loves the scooper but he is scared of the scooper. unfortunately he is not scared of the dirt as you can see in this first picture.

jackson insisted on having a hat and when his grandma asked what he needed a hat for, he got very serious and said "for my head!"

lily was very excited about playing in the dirt with her shovel.

getting older

well now that asher is almost one he is looking so much older. you can't tell but lily was feeding him yogurt in these pictures. he thought it was the greatest thing ever that his big sister was feeding him with a spoon. i love seeing asher interact with his big sister and brother. he loves them so much and i am truly grateful that they get along the way that they do.

ashy gets a haircut & steven goes black

well my baby's hair was getting so fluffy and crazy so we decided to buzz it. he looks so much older to me. i took pictures before and after but...the memory card was not in the camera and thus they were not saved. i was really bummed because there were some really cute before pics.

ashy in lily's princess chair. he thought it was so cool to be sitting in it.

ashy loving his daddy's hair. steven decided he needed a change and came home with black hair dye after work one night.

asher thinks his dad is really cool. the other night he was having a hard time sleeping and i brought him in bed with us. unfortunately for steven, asher insisted on sleeping on steven's pillow and squeezing steven's ear. also, every 5 or 10 minutes he would pick his head up and just stare at him. finally i could tell that steven had enough and took him back to his own bed.

rocking out

jackson and asher enjoy playing the piano together. they will just sit and hit the keys and asher will bounce up and down which is his way of dancing. they are pretty cute together! sometimes it doesn't sound all that bad.

ashy with his rocker hairdo.

to my daughter (hopefully not for another 20 years)

i know that one day you are going to ask me, how do i know if “he’s the one?” this is a question that we have all asked, or will ask at some point in our lives. for some reason, i have been thinking about this lately. maybe because i have read the twilight books recently or i have been pondering my children growing up but, it has been on my mind. this is probably going to take me a long time to write but here it goes.............

when i was in high school and college i was a crazy romantic. i really think i was looking for something that wasn’t there. a mythical figure that would bring me kissing in the rain, surprise letters on my car and of course the star crossed romance that would never work out unless....i could work my magic. but when it came to reality, i don’t have any magic to wield. there have been times in my life that i kissed someone just because at the time, i knew that if i didn’t, i would regret it for the rest of my life. i wanted the feeling that i felt when i watched pride & prejudice or sleepless in seattle but as i get older, no matter how much i want bella to be with edward, i realize that edward is not who i would choose in real life (twilight reference.)

i have had edwards in my life but in the end, it just wasn’t enough! i think the older you get the more you will realize that all of that stuff is important (and fun) but it doesn’t make up for the lack of a testimony of the savior. it is ok to desire those things but more importantly you should be looking for someone who honors his priesthood, someone who has served a mission and most of all, someone who loves the gospel. if he loves the gospel, most likely, everything else will be there.

when i met your father, we were friends for a long time. i had never dated someone that i was friends with first. i just didn’t think that i could do something like that. it didn’t seem romantic enough for me (silly as that might sound.) he was a great guy that i enjoyed spending time with but how can you be romantic with a friend. well it turns out you can and it was something i had never felt before. it was like coming home. i had never been so comfortable with anyone else. there was no pretense behind anything he did. he was my best friend and we could do anything together and i wasn’t to shy to be myself. he saw who i was and i saw who he was. that is not to say that there wasn’t any, as i like to call it, movie romance, but that wasn’t the most exciting part. he loved the savior, served a mission and was a faithful priesthood holder. HE LOVED THE GOSPEL.

you are a beautiful girl who loves her heavenly father and even though you are only four right now i can see that you are going to always feel this way. i hope that this will be helpful to you when you are old enough to have this question. i love you and HOPE that you will choose someone that is worthy of all that you have to give. thank you for being my daughter baby belle.

love mommy

lily turns 4

happy birthday my little lily! i can't believe that she is 4 years old. well by looking at the first picture i am sure you can tell that she loves princess stuff. she had a beautiful day. we went to chuck e cheese for the first time. all of the kids had a blast. it was a little crazy there and jackson wanted to run everywhere by himself. lily was so good and her favorite thing to do was anything that would get her tickets. she ended up with 50 and bought herself two rings, two bracelets and a sucker(which she devoured before we even got home.)

lily in her princess jammies and sitting on her new princess chair.

lily, maddie & sophie

lily about to blow our her candles which she blew out in one shot.

just after she blew them out. they were crayon candles and jackson kept asking me why there were crayons on her cake.

steven cutting the cake.

lily eating her yummy cake.

jackson in one of the many rides he loved.

ashy's favorite part of the party was the pizza. he wanted down so bad but it was too crazy there for him to be crawling around. he was a good boy though and ate pizza and loved riding on the barney ride. it was a good day!

zihuatanejo, mexico

can anyone tell me what movie ends in zihuatanejo? well i am sure that mostly everyone can but this was our first stop on our mexican cruise. we loved this little quaint city. after our horse back riding adventure, we ate lunch in a little place that wasn't so cheap and did a little shopping. here are some pictures of our time here.

we had to take boats or tenders from the ship to the shore so we were able to get some good shots of our boat the Star Princess. here is one of them.

zihuatanejo

one of the only picture of steven and i.

we went horseback riding here and this was me and my horse.

steven's horse was a little crazy and actually jumped his hind legs off the ground and kicked the little old lady's horse that was next to his. i was behind both of them so all i knew was i didn't want to pass him at all.

park day

well the weather is finally getting good enough for me to want to walk to the park. so, the other day we walked on over and since school was just getting out we were the only ones there. this park is really little but lily and jack had a really good time. lily even slid down the pole by herself she is not the biggest dare devil so it was huge for her to want to try. it seemed like she had fun but she didn't want to do it again. obviously the picture of asher isn't at the park but i had to throw it in there. i love his bum.

jack getting ready to head down the slide.

lily making her way down the slide

jackson just hanging around. (could i be any cornier?)

lily posing on the slide.

could there be a cuter body than this. ashy is just so big, i can't believe that he is about to turn 1. he is the funniest little baby.

piano

i have to admit that i saw jessica zimmerman's blog where she got a piano and i thought, "we really need a piano." well funny enough, that next sunday at church i over heard that someone was giving away their piano and i took it. we got it for free and it needs some work but i think it has some charm. it was made sometime in late 1800's to the early 1900's not really sure the actual year. all i know is that the company stopped making pianos in the 1930's. when we get some money, we need to get it tuned and we would like to refinish it. someone had painted it black and that paint definitely needs some work. the previous owner let their children color on it with crayon but luckily most of that came out. well here it is.

pictures

i have been trying to take pictures of my children since we bought our new camera. i never realized how frustrating this could be. no one wants to sit still or pay attention at the same time. i have been able to get some good shots of them individually but not one good one of them all together. maybe someone can give me some hints. if one of them is actually looking at the camera and smiling, the 2nd is looking away and the 3rd is trying to crawl away. my camera takes fast pictures but not fast enough. here are some of the ones that i like.

i am not sure what lily is doing in this picture but i really like it.

asher trying to get away. now that he can get away, he will!

jackson and his best friend.

this is one of my favorite pictures of lily.

this picture completely captures jackson to me. he is the sweetest little boy. i only wish you could hear his squeaky little voice.

i don't remember why he was crying but i think he has the saddest crying face and i wanted to remember it.

free jamba juice

today we went to jamba juice because if you were there before 10am then you got free smoothies. so we also got a new camera and i took it with us to capture this event.

lily loving her juice!

jackson decided that he loved the blueberry one and didn't want to share it with the rest of us. i think he actually thought he could drink it in one long drink so we couldn't get any.

asher along for the ride. i actually got one of their new breakfast drinks that had peaches and granola on top. he loved it!

bunny glasses

lily and jackson got these glasses for easter. she likes playing with them and steven thought that they looked pretty funny on her. she is definitely our little jokester. jackson wont put his on correctly so we haven't been able to snap a good picture.