April 2010

Boys at swim lessons


Lizzy LOVED Mimi's Easter Egg tree!


There's nothing like getting M&M's from a tree!


Hanging out at Mimi & Papa's.


Lizzy has a special relationship with Papa.


Rachel with Mimi.


Lining up for the Easter Egg hunt. Mimi always buys great prizes so they were excited to compete for the most eggs....


Lizzy really fun during the Easter Egg hunt.


The hunt.


Rachel 11 months


Our little Rachel LOVES her dad.


Such a cute picture.


The Big Hunt at Grandma Jensen's. We spent Easter day with Dave's family and Conference Saturday at Ashley's parents house. So we got to celebrate with both families this year.


Lizzy turns 2 in May.


Dave & Rachel


Sherry's twins Noah & Kate


Nathan was very excited that the Easter Bunny brought him his own set of paints.


Daniel 6 yrs. old


Uncle Brad came to visit & gave lots of piggy back rides.


Lizzy loved the Donald Duck voice that Uncle Brad made.


Ashley's friend Leslie & her family came to visit for 3 days. It was very fun to be able to spend some time with them while they were in town from Lethbridge, Canada.


Ashley & Leslie


Emily was able to come join us at the park and it was so fun to all be together again!


Leslie's daughter Madeleine took great care of our babies.


We are still trying to get Rachel to crawl. She can slink across a room backwards but hasn't actually crawled forward yet. She's still ahead of Lizzy who didn't start crawling until 13 months!


Daniel is a wonderful artist and builder. He made this bike for himself out of tinker toys.

March 2010

Lizzy is growing up and is almost 2! Even though she is good-natured and independent, she is quite the destroyer! We have spent a considerable part of March removing her "drawings" from our wood floors, furniture, walls, etc. She is also infatuated with toilets. If a toilet seat is left up-- watch out! Her babies go for a swim, water gets emptied on the floor, toilet paper rolls are thrown in. She's definitely keeping us on our toes!

Ashley has had some serious back problems this month and isn't allowed to lift anything heavier than 5 lbs.. (She herniated 2 disks and one ruptured). Daniel has been a big helper carrying Rachel and taking her in and out of her crib. Also, our moms, friends & neighbors have been such a blessing, coming to help Ashley care for the kids during this time...

Kids in their Easter clothes

Dying Easter eggs

Lizzy loves her babies. Here she is giving one kisses. She really mimics Ashley caring for Rachel. She changes her babies diapers, feeds them bottles, wraps them in blankets. It's so cute to watch.

Rachel has really gotten so much easier (with the exception of nights where she is teething and won't sleep!!!). She has become very interested in toys and is generally happy when people are around. She will sit and play with toys all by herself, however, she definitely likes to be where the 'action' is.

Nathan our fireman!

One of Ashley's Young Women took some pictures of Rachel for her photography class.

Daniel raised some catepillars and watched them turn into butterflies. They were so tame, they let Daniel hold them and carry them around the house. Too bad they only lived 2 weeks!

In March, Ashley was released as Young Womens President. Here is one of her last activities with the girls-- going to the Provo Temple. She will miss spending time with the girls!

February 2010

Daniel had to wear a costume to school one day and recite a nursery rhyme. He chose "Hey Diddle Diddle" and Mimi was nice enough to make him this great cow costume. When he came downstairs and saw it, you'd think it was Christmas! He was so proud to wear his costume to school. Thanks Mimi for your help!

Rachel has really envolved in the last month. She is so much happier and capable of doing things. She loves to play downstairs in the playroom with toys and this ball popper is probably her most favorite. It was a gift from Stephan and Carina and is getting lots of use now!

Rachel still is such a people person. She is easy to laugh and loves attention. It's been such a blessing to be able to sit her down on the floor to play with her, instead of carrying her all day long!

Lizzy has started to run this month and loves to be chased. Here she is trying to egg Ashley on to chase her!

The boys love to play computer games. The oven timer is often set so they can take turns using Ashley's computer.

After months of picky eating, Rachel has finally decided that she likes most food! She will now let us feed her something other than baby bananas! Maybe she'll start growing now that she eats!

Ashley was involved in a big Valentines Flowers fund raiser for Young Womens this month. We sold 68 bouquets to the men of the ward and had the Young Women assemble and deliver them.

Ashley was able to volunteer in Daniel's kndergarten classrooom for his Valentines Party. She manned the cookie decorating table and it was fun to watch Daniel interact with his friends.

Daniel took this picture because he thought Rachel and her doll looked like twins with their bald heads!

For Nathan's birthday we gave him a huge lot of Geotrax trains we bought on ebay. It has been the best inside toy we have ever bought our boys. Nathan especially has spend hours and hours building train villages all the way from his bedroom to the playroom. We're impressed at how skilled he is fitting tracks together all by himself!

Lizzy has started to get into a lot of mischeif at home and has entered the world of time outs. She is so sad when she gets one, Ashley just had to take a picture to remember her. Lizzy has an uncanny ability to unscrew bottle tops and contact cases.

Rachel just loves her dad. Whenever she sees him she wants him to hold her and won't give up until she gets her way!

Life in January 2010

This has really been a dry winter in Utah this year. We have hardly had any snow and haven't even been able to go sledding once! Daniel was able to make a cute snowman in the front yard, but this is almost the extent of our playing in the snow this year. Unfortunately, it's still been really cold and smoggy, just without the positive benefits of winter!

Rachel and Lizzy are starting to notice each other and are becomming cute little sisters. Lizzy is very nuturing and loves to put Rachel's pacifers in her mouth and feed her the bottle. Rachel just laughs at Lizzy and likes the things she does.

Rachel just LOVES Daniel and Dave. She is so excited when either of them around.

An attempt at a picture with all 4 kids. Luckily, Ashley had just taken them into Kiddie Kandids to get a real professional picture taken before they went out of business. (And got the pictures back in time!)

Rachel just loves to be entertained. It's not hard to get smiles from this little baby.

We had a big joint birthday party this year for Daniel and Nathan at Kids Universe Gymnastics, since they have many of the same friends. We had 22 kids come and let them run wild at the facility. It was a really fun place to have a birthday party!

Lizzy and her cousin Siena are just starting to notice each other and become little friends. Siena is Ashley's brother Stephan's daughter.

Daniel having a great time with his cousins Charlie Freedman and Barrett.

Lizzy loves her Papa. Everytime we get in the car she starts saying "Papa" hoping we are going to visit him.

Dave with his mom. She was a great help-- holding Rachel the whole time so that Ashley could get things organized for the party. Luckily she loves holding babies.

Ashley with her friend Emily, who came with her 2 boys: Logan & Gavin

The boys blowing out their cake together.

All of our neighborhood friends and cousins.

Ashley's sister-in-law Carina with baby Siena (1 yr.).

Since Nathan and Ashley's dad have birthdays one day apart, we had a family party for them too. Here Lizzy is at Mimi & Papa's running away from Rosie the dog who is trying to steal her cookie. Rosie knows an easy target when she sees one!

Lizzy with Mimi. Lizzy just loves baby dolls, stuffed toys, etc. Anything she can hold and feed a bottle to. After having 2 boys, it's fun to watch her be a little mommy.

Nathan 'spit out' his birthday cake.

Ashley's brother Dane is engaged and getting married in June in Boston. This is his fiance's sister who is studying at BYU and came to dinner that evening.

Mimi cooked a great dinner for us all. The kids were very excited about having a slice of cake!