Easter

We spent a night down in Zion with the whole Melling family. It was a blast. Swimming, a great sandbox, the river, lots of cousins, and of couse riding down the grassy hill in the Tonka dumptrucks.

Easter morning looking for eggs



Back down in Zion (I don't always get my pictures in order) The huge family Easter egg hunt. (Even the 20 year old grandkids love to participate).



A fun game - Human Foosball - you need lots of people to play so it works great for our family

Sara was the only one who wanted to go down as many times as Carter and she wanted to go as fast as possible.


Swimming with the cousins


Exhausted after a long, hard day

Hanna got hit by a confetti egg. (Ok, lets be honest - she cracked it on her own head) 8 is such a fun age.

We needed to walk home from Grandma's house and these two were cold and didn't have a coat so we made a big coat work and they laughed the whole way, until we got home and I tried to take a picture.

Carter's favorite thing is riding the tractor. It doesn't matter if he is riding with Grandpa or Dad, just so he is on the tractor.

Hanna and Sara are only 17 months apart and the second pregnancy and the first year of having two so small were really hard. But, now comes the silver lining of that cloud. They are best friends (most of the time) and they have so much fun together.

Sara was blessed with 21 baby teeth and when she was little she would tell people, "I have an extra tooth, but we don't know which one it is." It was pretty obvious which one was extra since one was all snaggly and out of place. Her extra tooth is loose now and I am sad to see it go, but anxious to see if she will have an extra adult tooth as well.

Allie is our little "Goldilocks". She has georgeous blond, curly hair. When she wakes up in the morning it is huge and unruly, but it is easy to brush out and easy to fix. The hair is fitting for the princess she is.

ST PATRICK'S DAY
We started out the day by choosing green to wear. Hanna and Allie chose green, green and more green while Carter chose his P.J.'s and Sara chose green socks.

Breakfast was Green German pancakes!


The kids made Leprechaun catchers with Grandma Karen and we set them out but didn't catch a Leprechaun only some gold coins and a note saying "better luck next year"

Milestones

We have hit a huge milestone as a family this week. First we brought home a twin bed and transfered Carter out of his crib. My girls have all had to move out of the crib right on their 2nd birthday because the new baby was ready to take over. I have said that I was going to leave Carter in it until he goes to kindergarten, but I didn't realize that he would learn how to climb out and make the crib pointless. The transition was smooth other than the "scary" dreams he is having and we keep having to go into his room at night to get the spiders, big dogs, scary guys, and sharks out.





But the biggest change is that we started potty training him on Monday. I have heard that boys were hard and waited until he was getting closer to 3 even though my girls have been trained right around 2. After he went in the potty the first time he hasn't gotten his "undies" wet. The first 2 days have been great and I am so proud of him. After 8 years of having babies in diapers, we are done. I can't believe that we are at this point. How could you not love this face? Adorable!

We are so blessed to have 3 sets of grandparents! This is our Grandma Karen who has a date with our kids every Friday night so that we can have a date. Date night has been a huge blessing in our lives. I wouldn't be able to have fun if I was worried about my kids, but they are always pushing us out the door because they are so excited to play with grandma.


Decorating cookies - What a mess!
The kids love this and I love them being happy and having fun, but I hate the mess it makes. They decided they were going to "sprinkle their cookies to death". Notice Allie's blue lips in the background, she had a bite of her sprinkles, I mean cookie.

Child Abuse?

Carter is a rough, tough kid. He always has some kind of goose-egg on his head from a crash, fall, etc... Last Saturday my mother-in-law took the kids hiking down at red cliffs and they had a great time. They came home with red sand everywhere! Carter had a little fall and when ever anyone asks him what happened to his head he says, "I fell down on a big rock." Last Thursday I was reading with my kids at school and my Aunt Grace (who works at the school)came walking by. Carter and I usually pass her in the hall when we are there and he never says a word to her even though she talks to him. Last week she came walking up and he said "mom look, there is your aunt Grace!" I said yeah and was amazed that he was going to notice her. She started talking to him and then said, "Carter, what happened to your head, did your mom hit you with a big stick?" and Carter said, "no, her hand." ..........He tells eveyone that he fell on a big rock, but because of the way she asked, he accused me of child abuse. We all laughed, I kept saying, "I wasn't even there when he got hurt, I promise."

Our new family pass-time is playing a game on the XBox called Rock band. Allie plays the part of an adoring fan. She loves posing for pictures and in every one she is a princess.

Carter loves to be the drummer.

Hanna is usually the singer, but does well on the guitar also.

Sara is usually the drummer, but being a good sport and letting Carter have a turn.

Carter got a new tie for Christmas and even let dad comb his hair for church so I had to get some pictures.


The kids had a 2 week long Christmas break with ugly weather and kids wanting to play in the snow, but it wasn't great snow, and it was so cold. So... the first day back to school we wake up to beautiful snow and a warm sunny day. Carter and Allie enjoyed it and then Hanna and Sara played for a little while after school. The timing was not great in my oppinion. I would have loved this storm a week earlier. Carter and Allie were having so much fun and I ran in the house to take a picture, only to come back out to them eating the snow. Oh well, just avoid the yellow spots!

Christmas

We had a great Christmas! All the kids are happy! Mom and Dad are happy!

Hanna's Baptism

Hanna turned 8 on November 30th and then got baptised on December 1st. She was so excited and made a count down chart 100 days before. She was lucky enough to be baptised at the same time as her cousin Mallori who is 8 days older than her. She went shopping for her dress with Grandma Carter and then shopping for special jewelry with Grandma Karen. Grandma Melling braided both girls hair and it was perfect because it looked just as great after the baptism as it did when we got to the church. The kids all sang "When I am baptised" and they sounded great. After the baptism we had a dinner at the church. When we got to the church and started taking pictures we realized that the memory card was home in the computer, so we had my sister bring it. By the time she got there we only took the important pictures and I forgot to get any with her siblings. Oh well, it was an amazing day.

One of my ancestors on my moms side is William Maddison Wall and there is a statue of him in Heber, UT. My parents wanted the whole family to see the statue and learn about him. His life was amazing. We stood around the statue and read some of his stories for about 10 minutes and then we headed over to the "fun slide" where we tried to get as many grandkids in a train as possible.