happy 31st birthday, carolyn!

 On Saturday, February 25th, we gathered at The Wild Duck for lunch to celebrate Carolyn's birthday!

Jacque, Stu, Carolyn & Alma

 The birthday girl with her sweet family.  :)

 Cedar & Mama

 Zoned out Finley, but he sure is handsome!  :)  

 Flowers & an Alma-inspired painting from us.

After lunch, we met back at the Williams' house for dessert.

 Alma got a little bit of tummy time!

 I just love those cheeks!

 Tummy time is tough stuff!

 Time for ice cream cake!

 Aren't they cute...

We followed dessert with a heated game of Mad Gab: Guys vs. Girls!

Stu & Jesse trying to figure out the clue Kenton's reading.  :P

In case you couldn't guess, the girls ruled this game!  Hee hee!  ;)  Jacque & Stu had to take off, but the party continued with Carolyn, Jesse & Alma heading back to our house where we ate dinner & played some more!  What a fun day.  :)

welcome bridget

 On Tuesday, February 14th, Bridget Emiline Thaxter was born!  

Our friends, Frank & Katie, are the proud parents & were so sweet to let all the ladies from our Bible study group come to visit just two days later.

Stephanie made the sweet hat.  The Thaxters waited to find out the sex of their baby until the birth, so Stephanie added a flower after Bridget was born.  :)

 I took a long turn holding Bridget & got lots of sweet expressions on camera.

 She was wide awake during our visit!  It was so fun to see her looking around, taking it all in.  :)

 Amy & Bridget

Stephanie & Malia were there too, but I didn't get any photos of them.  :\

Thank you Frank & Katie for letting us visit & hold your sweet daughter!  She's so precious!

prekindergarten fun

 Finn has had a really great preKindergarten year!  He loves his teacher & his friends (& cousin!) & always seems to be doing fun projects.  On this day, Finn was dressed & ready for pajama day at school!

He also had the very important job of taking home two of the classroom "pets" to take care of it overnight!

Finn's pets were toy lizards, but they still came with a list of jobs that I had to sign off on: feeding, watering & playing with the "pets".  :)  He took it very seriously & was very responsible with the lizards...for the most part.  :P

 For Valentine's Day, Finley & I made Valentines for our classes.  He chose the paper colors & stamps himself & worked very hard to stamp designs & write out his classmates names on his own.

 It took us a few different sessions on different days to get through them all, but he was very proud of the finished product.  And I was SUPER proud of his hard work, thoughtfulness & creativity!

 So sweet!

Nice job, Finley!  :)

home with friends

 After our trip to California, we settled back into daily life.  We hosted our Bible study group & everyone was surprised & excited that baby Matthew (& his parents) joined us!

Macey holding Matthew, like a pro!

 Stephanie, Matthew & Macey

 Emma wanted a turn too!

 Emma is so sweet with babies.  :)

 Don't forget Finn!

 Finn really loves babies!  

It's very sweet.  He's very affectionate with babies that we meet when we're out in public...which can be a bit awkward.  ;)  Needless to say, he is always SO excited to get a chance to hold a new baby.  :)

What a fun photo opp!

california - day 6

 On Thursday morning, Finley was excited to show Cedar his souvenir from Disneyland!

 Cedar posed with his ears, then wanted very little to do with them.  Oh well.  I think they were more for me than for Cedar.  ;)

 We had a low key morning.

 Happy Dominic!

 Then, we drove to Sun City to have lunch with Oma at a park near her home.

 The perfect place for 8 kids to visit with their great grandmother!

 Sword fighting!

 Tate, Uncle Aaron & Oma (my dad's mom).

 Oma had celebrated her 90th birthday less than 3 weeks earlier, but only my parents were able to be there.

 So we celebrated again & my parents gave her some of the family photos that Erik had taken after Christmas.

 Becca, Katrina, Gretchen & Oma

 Oma with 8 of her great grandchildren!

 Papa brought some cool Styrofoam airplanes to play with!

 Two planes, flying high!

 Me & my love.

 4 generations

Gretchen, Papa, Tate & Oma

 4 generations.

Papa, Katrina, Cedar & Oma

 The Henry family

 The Chase family

 The Ruddick family

After several hours of playing & eating lunch at the park, we drove back to Glendora & met up at the Barrett's house for a delicious pasta dinner!  We even squeezed in a game that Kenton had brought with Emily, Kellie, Melissa, Shaheen & Steve!  Super fun!

 Matching second cousins!

Dominic & Tate both wore their "drink cup" onesies from In-N-Out!

 Cute boys!

Dominic was much more willing to sit still, but then again, he hasn't quite learned to crawl yet.  ;)