Easter

Easter was fun... I put together a treasure hunt for the kids Easter baskets again this year: the clues told the Easter story with little symbols in plastic eggs, like a piece of bread for the Last Supper and sacrament, a rosebush branch for the crown of thorns, a nail for Christ being nailed to the cross, a rock for the stone rolled away from the tomb, etc.. It went pretty well, trying to make Easter more about the Savior and less about the candy. We also watched the Bible video posted by the Church called "He is Risen," which was a nice end to the hunt.

Then we went down to John's parents' home to have dinner and celebrate Grandma's birthday! We got to have an Easter egg hunt (like 60 eggs.. it took a while too because Grandpa and Dad are tricky egg hiders!) and dye eggs, lots of fun!

Here are the pictures!

I made a chocolate cheesecake for Mom B's birthday. It turned out pretty well, I was pleased, and Mom liked it too, yay! And yes, it tasted as good as it looked!

Lucy 2 Months

Our Lucy-lu is two months old! Where did the time go? At her doctor appt she measure 13 lbs and 24 inches long, so she's gained 4.5 lbs and 3 inches! She is continually a sweetheart and the most easy-going baby there ever was. She is hesitant to cry and has a ready smile--especially right after she wakes up from a nap, she's so happy! Her siblings are always trying to get her to smile, and usually can. She has also laughed a few times, and that's usually when she has been bounced a little--I think this one might like the thrill rides and roller coasters when she gets older... She has been sleeping a good 6 hours at a time, for which her mother is very, VERY grateful! The past couple weeks with everyone sick except for Lucy and I would have been much much harder if Lucy hadn't slept so well! Last night she even slept the whole night--from 10 to 7! She is getting better at finding her thumb, which I think helps with the longer sleeping times. Her hair is starting to come in more, and looks to be strawberry blonde. Her eyes are very blue, and everyone says that she's such a pretty baby! Who am I to argue? :) Lucy loves to be sitting up and watching everything she can, and she's starting to track me as I move across the room. Her face lights up when she sees me, which makes me light up as well. Has there ever been a sweeter baby??

Lucy's Blessing, the zoo, and Hiking with Grandparents

Lucy Grace was blessed on March 25th, and we were so blessed to have both sets of grandparents there! It was great! John did a great job.

We did take more pictures, but with my mom's camera since mine is a 10 year old dinosaur and the batteries keep dying. Blargh!! So I still have to get those from my mom...

In other news, we went to the Denver Zoo for the first time, and there was lots to see. Too much, if you ask Calvin, but he was starting to get sick and wasn't feeling very adventurous on this day..

The night before, we had asked the kids what animal they were most excited to see, and Kimmie said the zebra:

Emily said she was excited to see the toucans, but they didn't have any. What kind of a zoo doesn't have toucans?!? She liked the lorakeets and pink tropical birds, but we didn't get any pictures of them.. Emily also recognized the Mongolian wild horses before we knew what they were, and told us they were the ancestors of today's horses.. Sure enough, she was right!!

Calvin said that he wanted to see the "Koffees" and I had no idea what he was talking about. He said he learned about them on a computer came, and that they had striped back legs and were kind of big. I chalked it up to a wild imagination... Yet sure enough, one of the exhibits was the Okapis, a kind of African deer with striped back legs!! My kids are smarter than me! It happened sooner than I was expecting...

For spring break, we went to visit my parents' new house in Utah. We had a lot of fun, and for a couple weeks afterwards Calvin kept asking to go back.. All that love and attention from grandparents, and he especially loved Grandma and Grandpa's trampoline and the "slidey room." I was worried about leaving, because I knew they would be so bored when we went back home! I think I have more pictures on my phone, I blame the ancient camera again for only having pictures of our hike..

Thanks Mom and Dad for a fun stay with you, and thanks to siblings and cousins and grandparents for making time to see us while we were there! Love you all!!

2 Weeks Old

Here's pictures of Lucy from Valentines Day and some of her at the two week benchmark..

My Little Valentine

My favorite shot of Lucy from this particular photo op..

Emily and Kimmie are fabulous big sisters, they love Lucy soooooo much.. :)

Sleeping baby.. bathtime wears a girl out!!

Lucy Grace!!

Finally! The reason for this long series of posts: pictures of the baby! Lucy Grace was born January 23rd at 12:18am. She was 8 pounds, 8 ounces and 21 inches long. She has blonde hair! If I hadn't seen them place her directly on my chest after birth, I would have sworn they had switched babies, just because I was dead sure she would have dark hair. But no, she is my blonde-haired, blue-eyed baby.

We were actually scheduled for an induction on the 22nd, but the pitocin took so long to kick in and the baby so long to come down far enough to break the water that labor didn't really start until 9-10 hours after they started the pitocin. Also they did an ultrasound to try and make sure she wasn't a bigger baby than Calvin was (which would have been bad... 10lbs is about my limit). But they actually measured her at 8lbs 10oz, so they weren't far off. Once they broke my water at about 8-9pm things happened pretty quickly, and I lasted about an hour before I wanted the epidural, and then it seemed just a blink before I was telling the nurse that there was something pressing against my tailbone that needed to come OUT. Then I was pushing and then she was out after a few contractions. They put her right on my chest and she just kind of laid there, calmly adjusting to new surroundings. They rubbed her down good and she made a couple squawks, so they knew she was ok, but she didn't really cry until much later when they cleaned her up good. All in all though, I don't think she's really squalled more than twice in her week-long life. She is so calm and sleeps through anything and eats like a champ.

And then there were four... She is beautiful and there never was a sweeter baby in the world. :)

Laundry Room!!

John is building me a laundry room! He and a friend in the ward worked on plumbing, and them Dad Butler has been awesome with helping do framing and drywall. The washer and dryer are in the middle of the kitchen right now, taking over the pantry closet, and I am so excited to get them moved! I am also amazed at the things John can do. Plumbing and electrical and framing and everything else. He has worked so hard and tried to get this up as much as possible before the baby was born. Love it. Love him.

Christmas!! And John's Birthday!!

And our anniversary! 10 years. Wow. John got me these beautiful roses.

My Christmas Kids! Christmas this year was pretty low key. I did most of the shopping early so that was good, but still a lot of the festivities only happened because of Mom Butler's efforts. Thanks Mom! We went down there a lot during the holiday break and had fun with family and ate good food.

Torturing uncles: a favorite pastime.

Ice skating! I guess something was malfunctioning so only the kids could skate, but they had fun!

Calvin got pretty brave at the end--maybe he'll be as good as his dad soon!

We got a gingerbread house-making kit from G&G Durrans, and the kids had great fun with that! Kimmie and Calvin pooled their resources to make a fort (all right, my idea, but they went with it), and Emily made a cute little cottage all by herself. As you can see, they were pretty pleased with themselves.

Christmas morning! The kids got lots of stuff, but most popular seemed to be the pillow pets!

Calvin got a Little People garage from Santa, which ended up being worth its weight in gold when the kids played with it for three days straight.

Angry birds!

Playdough set for Kimmie

And for Emily, a horse of course!

Post-Christmas chaos...

John's birthday! He turned... 29. :) I outdid myself and actually found 2 gifts he liked: a BYU sweatshirt and a 2012 calendar I made with pics of the kids/family that he could use at work.

One nice thing about Christmas birthdays is having family around, so we had a "party" (everyone was so holidayed out that half the party fell asleep) and ate pie and ice cream.

Happy Birthday John! You are a great dad and we sure love you and appreciate the many many many many things that you do for all of us.