Miss Esme Comes to Town

Esme and her parents visited Boise last week.  It was fun to see how much she has changed and grown since we last saw her!  She is just learning to walk, but she has the cutest crawl I ever saw in my life.

Esme had her first visit to the pool and she seemed to like it quite a lot!

She's looking very serious here but she gave us lots of smiles.

Dawn and Charlie came swimming with us too (Cole was playing with a friend).  Of course the kids required a snack break...

The Easter Egg Hunt that Wasn't

The neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt was last Saturday.  We had grand plans to participate like we have the last several years.  Since the hunt never starts on time, we didn't rush down though and planned to arrive right at the scheduled start time (so we could stand around for 15 minutes instead of 30).  Of course, this would be the year they actually started not only on time... but a little bit early.
 
Claire and Charlie got there just as it was pretty much over.  Bryce, due to a last minute diaper change (yeah, potty training has not happened yet), didn't even make it that far.  Oh well... the kids actually weren't that disappointed and I honestly didn't miss the extra candy (we have plenty!).  At least we got some cute pictures.

Another Walk

It's April

Blowing bubbles with Aunt Peggy (on Cole & Charlie's birthday weekend).

 Soaking up the sunshine with Berman.

Climbing trees (and losing teeth!). 

 Spring soccer.  Claire scored 4 goals in her first game and 3 goals in the second one!

 Happy Birthday Cole (8) and Charlie (4).  They are looking really serious here.

 More sunshine with Berman.

And February's almost over already!

Claire lost her first tooth on February 19th.  It was super loose... we snapped this picture and not very long after she pulled it out!  The tooth fairy came to our house that night!

Claire and Charlie decided to play this Princess game that Aunt Tara and family gave her for Christmas this year the other day.  I honestly don't know whose idea it was to wear the princess dresses but I was very surprised when Charlie came in asking me to help zip him up!

Every once in a while Claire asks to hold Bryce... he doesn't like to hold still for very long so it's always short lived.  You can see in this picture that she no longer has that tooth!

Bryce is getting pretty big!  He's pretty happy if you let him play with his toys (although he likes to just tornado all our shelves with books and movies etc, too).

He's gotten very good at putting blocks and other things into a bucket.  What a smart boy! 

Random Pics & Stuff...

Oh Charlie!!  Luckily it was a dry erase marker.

 Aileen invited Dawn and I to come with her to try on wedding gowns and then we celebrated at the Cheesecake factory.

 Mommy & Bryce

 Daddy & Bryce

 Beautiful, sweet Claire having some ice cream.

In the Leaves

The leaves have been falling off the trees and into our yard and everywhere else!

 Pumpkins at Williamson Orchards

 On a walk down by the pool...

 Gathering acorns on a walk...

Backyard Campout

Claire convinced me to set the tent up in our backyard on Friday afternoon.  Then we invited Cole to come have a sleepover.  I laid with the kids for a while (I may have dozed a bit myself) and then I went inside and those brave kids slept out all by themselves all night.  That is, until the sprinkler came on in the morning.  Oops.  In my defense, I had turned the sprinklers to the "off" setting before bed... however, I forgot our controller doesn't always register the change unless you jiggle it a bit and so when I woke up to the sound of the spraying water I was very surprised.  The kids just hunkered down in their sleeping bags while their water came sprinkling in!  Luckily it was hot that day so everything dried out fairly quickly and was ready to go again Saturday night!

We had a picnic at the "campsite" on Saturday evening.

 

When sun finally went down we lit our campfire (the kids had helped get it all ready to go earlier in the day).  We burned a bunch of sticks and branches and pine cones I had saved from yard cleanup.  Everything was pretty dry and we had huge flames in the beginning!

You have to have s'mores when you go camping!  Yum!

Claire and Cole were ready for another night in the tent.  Ty gave them each a glow stick.  And thankfully they woke up dry the next morning!

Dairy Days (last weekend)

After swimming lessons last week Dawn and I took the kids over the park across the street where Meridian's annual "Dairy Days" celebration was going on.  The kids were psyched to get some cotton candy.

And of course they each just had to have a balloon animal.
Claire got a kitty.  Cole got a laser gun.  Charlie got a giraffe.

We walked through the dairy barn to see all the 4-H animals.  Claire had absolutely no fear of the big dairy cows.  The gal invited the kids to pet her cow.  Claire would have petted all of them if she could.

These duckling (or goslings?  I don't know) were very popular too and seemed to like the attention.

All the kids took a turn riding the "horse" - I showed them how to properly hold the reins and control their horse.  They also tried out milking the "cow" - actual milk (watered down I think) came out!  These kids are ready for the farm!