Spring 2014

I thought I'd post some pictures we've taken the last month or so.

We can't get enough of this baby and his open mouth smile.  He is such a dear one.  He was sick most of the winter, but now that it's spring he's feeling better and we're trying to catch up on sleep. 

 Andy is a great crawler now.  We have to keep a good eye on him.  Here he is trying to go in the dog's crate.  His dream is to get to the food and water dishes in there and play with them :) 

 Such a sweetie.

 On Friday when Lisa and her kids were in town we went to the Zoo and we had lots of fun.  The weather was perfect and there was hardly anyone there.  It was a great outing.  Above is a picture of the girls in a fake bird's nest.

Here's Joy driving the Safari Jeep. 

 And pretty Grace.

 Then here's a couple more of Andy from at the Zoo.  He was a happy camper while we were there, but when we got home he was so happy to crawl around again.  He loves to explore and play with toys.

That's it for now.  I hope you are all having a wonderful spring.  Conference weekend was wonderful and the weather is getting warm and there is popcorn all over the trees.  It's a good life.

Love, Aubrey

Disneyland!

We had quite the adventure last month when we went to Disneyland!  We had a lot of great experiences and the girls especially had a great time.  Andy was sick for the first few days so I didn't get much rest, then BethAnne was sick the last few days, but she was still able to enjoy most of the trip.  

 One of our favorite rides was a great big Ferris wheel at Disney California Adventure.  We could all go on it and it was fun to do a ride together.  

 I loved all the beautiful flowers and landscaping at Disneyland. 

 The kids were often quite worn out by the end of the day.  These pictures were from the last day.  We stayed late, in the rain, to wait for Fireworks, but sadly they cancelled the fireworks.  Joy fell asleep waiting to go to the bus to the parking lot, then she fell asleep on the bus, then she fell asleep in the car on the way to the hotel.  By the time we got to the hotel, she was deep asleep and we almost couldn't wake her up to get her in the hotel.

 Grace was my hero the whole week.  She walked and walked and walked without complaining.  I was so proud of her. 

 We got to California on a Saturday and we went to Church on Sunday and then we thought we would take a nice, reverent stroll on the beach.  We found that a reverent stroll is kind of impossible with children who have never been to the beach.  We had fun, but we'll have to go on a Saturday next time. 

 Pretty BethAnne and Grace found lots of shells.

 Joy ended up going for a spin in the waves.  Luckily Daddy was right there to pull her out.  I certainly didn't imagine our reverent stroll would create such a wet and sandy girl :)

 We bought the girls some autograph books and they were able to wait in line and get some autographs every once in awhile. 

 Here they are with Aladdin, Jasmine, and the Genie

 Here they are with Donald Duck.  They also met Daisy, Mickey and Chip (from Chip and Dale).

 We liked the Carousel because it didn't usually have a long line.  We also spent a lot of time on the teacups for the same reason.  

 We all got hats on the first day because it was a hot sunny day.  I love Grace's hat.

 Here are the girls with Belle.  They also met Merida (she was very fun).

 One day, Grace and Joy wore princess dresses we brought from home and I bought them some accessories to go with their dresses at Disneyland.  They looked so pretty and the workers at Disneyland would call them "Princess" if they talked to them.  Very fun.

 Here is my adorable Andy.  He was such a trooper also.  He was pretty happy most of the time, even though he had a cold.  Disneyland with a baby is not ideal (as people warned us), but I'm not sure I would have wanted it any other way.  I would have missed him too much if we left him with a babysitter.

 Here are Grace and Joy at Toon Town.  It's quite a fun place that seems to transport you to a different, cartoony world.  

 Here's Joy in front of the castle on our last night.  It rained hard all day (the rainiest day in years there).  That was good and bad.  Good because the lines were short, bad because it got pretty wet and cold.  At least we were able to do lots of fun rides that day.

 We took these pictures by the Tiki room.  I love my beautiful girls and I'm glad we could give them this experience.  It was quite challenging at times, especially for Mark and I, but the kids really had a great time most of the time and we made some great memories and that's all that matters.

We love you all.  Have a great week!  

Love, Aubrey

Happy Sunday, Cute Andy Pictures!

I've got some super cute pictures stacking up so I thought I better blog.  Things here are going well.  I've been kind of stressed with a sick baby and taking an online class and preparing a Relief Society lesson and planning for Disneyland and planning birthday parties for BethAnne.  But Andy's feeling better finally (thank goodness for antibiotics and a doctor willing to prescribe them), and we had BethAnne's friend party yesterday, and my Relief Society lesson was today, and now I feel much better.  How's that for some run-on sentences :)

I love Andy's eyes in this picture and Mark's smile.  I love my boys! 

I took the following pictures today and I love them.  Andy finally wore a real church outfit today and he had good smiles for me after church.

                                       

I love his teeth, although I think we need a badge of courage for what it took to get those all in at such a young age.  He's now working on more, but they're not bothering him quite as much as those first four.

 I love this picture, he tucks his head and smiles sometimes.  He's my shy guy.  Such a sweetie!

So that's it for today.  I hope you are all well.  I would love to see some pictures of Leeya posted on here.  My thoughts have been with Suzie this week.  I wish we could be there to see the new baby.  Have a great week.  We're headed to Disneyland on Saturday, wish us luck!

Love, 

Aubrey

Christmas 2013

The big present for our family this year is that we're going to Disneyland in February.  A great big  Minnie announced the news (with a Disneyland guide book) when we first came downstairs.
 

The girls opening Minnie Mouse ears

Happy cute Grace

Pretty BethAnne

 

Sweet Andy in his Christmas outfit!

Happy, happy Joy!

Aubrey and Andy.  I love having a baby this time of year!

Daisy and Lily in new Christmas sweaters from Nana and Papa.

Minnie Mouse Joy

BethAnne in her new ears and sweatshirt.

And Grace and Joy have them too.

We hope you all had a Very Merry Christmas!  We are so grateful for the Savior and His life and all He gave to us.  We are so grateful that we can have families and be together forever because of Jesus. We are so blessed!
Love, Aubrey

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We've been getting ready for Christmas around here.  We got some big wreaths for our outside upstairs windows, it looks great in the day too.  That was inspired by last year's December Cincinnati trip.  There are lots of Colonial style houses and people put big wreaths in all their windows and it's so pretty.

This year, I wanted to shake things up with our big tree (the kids have their own tree that they get to decorate themselves).  So we did a different color scheme with glitter butterflies and other fun ornaments.  I'm not sure I'll stick with this every year, but it was fun to try something different.

Things have been going pretty well lately.  We had a stressful week a couple weeks ago waiting to get BethAnne's bladder checked for cancer because she's been having weird bleeding with infections.  But everything looks good there.  Andy may have a small surgical procedure next week to put a stent in his tear duct.  Other than that, he seems very healthy and getting so big.  He doesn't have many symptoms of acid reflux anymore, so he may go off of that medicine soon.


And here's a picture of our sweet baby Andy. I took this picture when I was taking pictures of the tree and I thought of the words "sleep in heavenly peace."  He's such a sweetie.  He just got both of his bottom teeth in and they're adorable.  I'll have to get a picture soon.  He's been a pretty happy, easy baby lately, except for waking up more at night (I think because of the teeth coming in).  We're so blessed.  Have a very merry Christmas.  Love you all!