End of the school year celebration

Parker loved his first year in preschool. Our extra social, outgoing 3 year old was happy to meet up with his friends and teachers twice a week. He has made some good little buddies. Tyler, Taylor and Parker all love the same things. It made it easy for them to play at school or on play dates at each others homes.

Ms. Danai and Ms. Jill gave awards to each child. As soon as I heard "The Most Energetic Award," I knew my little Parkie would be the recipricant. They explained that this award isn't exactly how it sounds. She said that they bring a great energy to their class and when they're not there its noticeable and they're missed. Ms. Danai has a soft spot for Parker and its very sweet to hear her talk about him.

After all the awards they had pizza, dessert, and goodies for the family. It was a great get together to send us off into summer.

30th Birthdays

Dave and I turned 30 just 4 days apart. It's great having a husband the same age because we share milestones together.

All I wanted to do for my 30th was dance, so we had a dance party. It was a fun evening celebrating with friends/family, dancing, and having some fabulous food!

Scot and his food assistant (& wife) Amy did an amazing job. Scot is a chef and it helped me to just be able to enjoy the evening without worrying about the food.

You can always count on Carolyn Canning to be a party girl, but watch out Tracy Bacchus might just be second in command. She danced the night away!

I've been fortunate to have some great friends in my life. Jordan (on my left) has been a friend of mine since birth. We have gone to all the same schools, had many of the same teachers, friends, and he has been part of my life for 30 years. He was the friend that pulled me out of bed when I was depressed after a break up, crack me up with his many impressions, and was someone I could always count on (unless it came to amusement park rides, he was no help there). James (on my right) has been my friend since the 3rd grade. While we never went to school together we were in the same ward for many years. Just like Jordan, he was a friend that you could always rely on. He was always the life of the party. He is pretty brave and got me to do thing I would have never done, like jump off the Weimar bridge. It made my birthday even more special to have us all together to laugh about old times.

James shares the same birthday as me, so we included him in blowing out the candles.

Then the dancing began!

Thanks to all those that helped us celebrate. I felt very special and am excited to enter this new phase of my life with Dave.

Mother's Day

My Mother's Day weekend started out a with a wonderful lunch with my husband and Mother in-law. On Friday David had us over to his new office for lunch from Panera. He recently got a new position at work and is now part of the management team in the NICU. He's an assistant Nurse Manager. So we had a tour and met some new co-workers. We enjoyed visiting and spending time just the three of us. When we were leaving David gave us both beautiful bouquets of flowers.

On Saturday we went to the Susan G. Komen walk. It is our tradition to celebrate David's grandma who survived breast cancer. It's always nice being together with the women in the family.

Mother's day was lovely too. I had delicious heart shaped pancakes for breakfast, lots of cards, pictures, and love.

In the evening we had dinner with the Mills family. It was a great day full of being celebrated.

Easter

This was not only our first Easter in our new home, but also the first family gathering we were able to host.

We took the opportunity to get a family picture before church. Uncle Jord had stayed the night and was able to go to our ward.

We promised the boys they could take their own "posed" picture after we took one nice one.

While they were at church the Easter bunny came and hid all their eggs.

We were excited to find a dining room table that seats up to 14. The more the merrier! I have some new chair covers being made for the end chairs and a different color fabric for the seats. White just won't work for this family.

We hosted 18 people this year, so we had to make some extra room.

Then off to the egg hunt. We did some colored eggs and some plastic. The kids had a great time finding them. We even found one just the other day in the backyard, yep it was a hard boiled one. Yuck!

Our little friend Larkin joined us for the fun.

Isn't there some rite of passage when you're the man in charge of cutting the meat? I made sure to get a picture. Apparently he also needs a new apron.

We had some amazing desserts provided by our friends Scot and Amy. They out did themselves. Gramma also made a delicious Oklahoma cake.

I just point and shoot, I try not to require too much cooperation when I'm getting some shots. So, sometimes this is what you get. Check out those deviled eggs though! They were incredible! Teri made them.

See, more point and shoot.

The Rice family were festive and great additions to our family gathering.

And just one picture to prove I was here too. It was a lovely Easter. We were thrilled to have people celebrate with us in our home. We are grateful for holidays that bring our family together while celebrating something so important to us, our Savior.