Preston's First Airplane Ride...

My nieces Lauren and Maddi had their year end Dance Company Concert, so Kate, Preston and I jumped on a flight to go watch. Lauren is graduating this year so it was a big deal to go watch. We saw it twice and I was so glad to be able to catch the girls dancing a duet together that they had choreographed. Safe to say I am one proud auntie! Thank goodness Preston can fall asleep on me.  When you travel for just a few days any schedule goes out the door, so he slept when he could.

 We also got to visit our other cousins on Justin's side of the family. We made the rounds. Kate and Lexi have a fun time playing together, and they squeezed in time for a sleepover too! And no trip would be complete if we didn't go to see the temple. So we stopped at my personal favorite, Kneaders, for a bite to eat and walked around Temple Square with cousin Halle, aunt Mari and uncle Jeff.  What a whirlwind of a weekend but a great trip! I could get used to little side trips to break up my every day.

Preston's First Easter...

Things have been busy around here.  We put in the landscaping around the house.  We weren't really thinking we would put it in this soon, but with our mud loving Ryan we had to do something so he could play outside.  You can see in the first picture that he has one of Justin's fishing poles that he has decided makes a good digger, and then in the next picture is Easter with some shrubs in the back.  I do a horrible job taking before and afters of the house. I have a hard time wanting to show off the work that is taking place around here because I feel really fortunate to be able to afford it all but don't want to come off as privileged. Justin and I never thought in a million years we would be able to afford nice things like our new house.  I mean we dreamed about it and we have worked our tails off, especially Justin, but don't want to showcase to brag about it, so my documentation of the process is really horrible!

Anyways...on to Easter! I didn't even attempt new Sunday Easter outfits this year(I am trying to save money) but managed to get a picture of the kids that displays our new found reality perfectly! Zach is becoming too cool for pics as his teen years are soon approaching, Kate is my best helper wrangling Preston, Ryan is as squirmy as ever and never stops, and Preston is becoming very content as sitting up on his own now, which makes us all pretty happy, especially me.  Holding a baby and moving into a house has been no easy task.

We went to Grandma and Grandpa Thompson's house for Easter dinner and had a fun Easter egg hunt for the littles after. Kate and Ryan scored some good lute while Preston sat in real grass for the first time and attempted to figure out just what he should do with a plastic egg. Just as any baby would do his age, he decided to see if it tasted good.

I love this time of year when flowers start to bloom and a new birth of everything starts to take place. I am grateful for our Savior, Jesus Christ, who died for us and was Resurrected on the third day, testifying to me that He lives and that I too will someday be resurrected. I am grateful to live in country that allows me my religious freedom to enjoy these great blessings in my life at this time. Happy Easter!

Spring Break at Seaside...

Since we just built and bought our house in January we weren't feeling up to spending more money on a family vacation so opted to do a "staycation" right here in Oregon.  Grandma and Grandpa had some time on their hands so were visiting us for the week. We picked a great couple of  days to drive down to Seaside to play. This was Preston's first time to the beach.  We stayed overnight in an airbnb that was a few blocks from the beach.  We had so much fun flying kites, playing catch and building trenches. It was so nice to have a break from our everyday life and schedules to unwind and sped time together as a family. 

On our way back to Portland we stopped at Camp 18 for dinner.  I have lived in Oregon my entire life and I cant believe I had  never eaten or stopped their before.  We stopped originally to let Ryan check out the Lumber Museum and all the old lumber equipment on display.  He knew every single machine. What a treat for him to walk around and check things out. We had a great meal and brought home their famous giant cinnamon roll. We bought 5! Two for us and three to give to families in our ward to eat during Conference weekend.  

We did a few other things this week as well like watched Trolls, played at Omsi, etc. And Grandma and Grandpa worked on getting Preston to crawl all week, and it worked! He is starting to really get around on his own. A staycation was exactly what we needed to recharge.