Things that made me smile this weekend

Allyson has been able to go to the nursery at church for 3 Sundays now. She loves it and almost immediately bonded with 2 of the teachers. In our ward they alternate between 2 women one month, then 2 men the next month. I'm not sure this is really the best thing for all the kids, but the leaders in the ward feel like they want to allow nursery leaders to be able to attend their meetings sometimes. Ally, so far, doesn't seem to mind, she likes being able to play with toys and doesn't really care who is in there. But her first two weeks, Debby and Robin were in there and since then, everytime Ally sees them, she gets very excited. She waves to them during sacrament meeting. One thing that especially made me smile happened after church as we were making our way around the church to get to our car. She was walking along and all of a sudden saw Debby and started "running" while waving to her. She really wanted to say HI. Then a missionary stepped in her way, and she was halted for a minute but found her way around the missionary, who didn't see her and almost stepped on her. She finally got to Debby and waved as big as she could to say hi! It was so cute, I must say. I could also see the almost urgency on her face to get to Debby. :) I'm so glad that she likes her nursery leaders so I don't have to go with her. I had to with the other two girls for quite some time...

Another thing...the weather is FINALLY looking promising. It was a bit on the chilly side yesterday, but it's supposed to be nice Spring temperatures all week. I have to smile when I walk out...it's such a huge difference in everyone's mood when it goes from winter to spring!

Other things that made me smile...

Jessica learning how to dribble a basketball and swing her leg over it.
Courtney sitting down to write her stories and draw pictures...she'll be published someday.
Brian starting his 3 days off.
Getting to take a 2 hour nap on Sunday because Brian was home.
Ally signing "potty" after she wets or messes her diaper. (Okay, that would be a bit embarrassing for her if she knew what I was doing.)
Getting to watch "The Office" for the first time in a VERY long time!
Finding a Smurfs template for my blog! Love the Smurfs!!

Winter blasts and Springtime fun

We had a pretty mild winter this year. I recall only one major snow storm. The kids got to stay home from school that day and play in the snow. They always enjoy that. Ally got to really know what snow is like and seemed to enjoy it. It was very cold, but lots of fun.

Here are our beautiful "snow angels"!

Ally loves to pose for the camera these days! We can't help but think she's the most adorable toddler in the world!

Here's our little "Ally-cat"!

Jessica has lost 4 teeth already. This is after her 4th front tooth fell out in March.

One of Ally's favorite things to do is have someone read her a story. Both older sisters are always happy to oblige.

Recently the kids had Spring Break and Brian's vacation overlapped two days so we took a family day trip to New York. We've been there a number of times but we have never gone to Ellis Island or the Statue of Liberty. So we ordered ferry tickets, parked in New Jersey and took the ferry to both Ellis Island and Liberty Island. It was a great experience to see such a grand part of our history. We didn't have a lot of time to see very much of Ellis Island since we had to get to Lady Liberty by 3:30 or we couldn't go in. When we got to the Lady, we were able to hike up the 160+ stairs in the pedestal. The girls were troopers. Brian carried Ally part of the way and then handed her off to Julie. What a difference that was! It was much tougher to carry her up the stairs, which just goes to show how out of shape we are! YIKES! Anyway, despite the wind and chill we enjoyed the view from the top of the pedestal and the whole trip in general. And the girls did great! No complaining at all! That was a miracle in and of itself!

We actually bought Easter dresses and shoes this year. We found matching dresses for Jessica and Ally at Costco. Unfortunately they don't sell Courtney's size there so she was out of luck (although she didn't see it that way. She was a bit relieved.) The Easter bunny filled baskets with a little bit of candy, including "Reester Bunnies" (Reese's pb bunnies...I loved that marketing idea!) and certain Webkinz stuffed animals that the girls have been wanting for a while now. Courtney wanted a reindeer (wrong holiday, I know), and Jessica wanted a turtle. They love Webkinz...they each have 5 now, I believe.

Courtney may have lucked out in not having to match with a sister for Easter, but we bought these matching outfits at Old Navy that were so adorable. She didn't mind this time because she wanted it so much and didn't care whether Jess got one or not. So she did and they both looked so adorable. Nice little Spring outfit.
We took a walk one day when the weather got up to 70+. The flowers were out...we think our favorites are the daffodils. But the tulips are nice too. It did get cold and rainy the next few days so Spring is still teasing us, but I'm sure it will be here soon!

Finally some pictures to post!

I finally figured out how to transfer pictures from my camera to the computer. Let me clear up, in case you haven't read previous blogs, and lest you think that I'm a complete amateur at this picture thing. I was having trouble with my Kodak software and the connection between the camera and the computer. It wasn't transferring anything. So I finally took my memory cards to a photo place and had them put all the pictures on CDs. Now I have the pics on my computer so here are a few of the shots we've taken in the last couple of months that no one has seen yet. None of them are fantastic...I've kind of slowed down on taking pictures lately because it was such a frustrating feeling not to be able to share them immediately via this fantastic World Wide Web.

As you can see by the date...New Year's Eve. Ally didn't stay up very long...she had her regular bedtime, then the older girls and I (Julie) went to a party at a friend's house. Brian had come home from work in time for us to go for a little bit. We were driving home when it hit midnight, Jessica had already fallen asleep. Courtney was wide awake, so we wished each other Happy New Year, and saw some fireworks when we were about 5 minutes away from home.

In this picture, I think we were trying to get Ally to do some of the Sign Language that she knows, but obviously that doesn't come across in this picture very well. And I thought her outfit was cute. Isn't she adorable? We are so blessed to have such wonderful, adorable girls!!

Ally loves the bath...most babies I have known do eventually. Bathtime usually comes right before bed for AllyJessica and Courtney, while they usually take showers in the morning, like to get in the bath with Ally for a bit. She loves that. They can be a bit silly sometimes. This is Courtney with Ally.

This is Roxy, the toy pug we watched for a weekend for some friends. She was so tiny, very cute, but a big bundle of energy. (Refer to a previous post to find out more, if you want! )

This picture makes me laugh. The girls played a bit of XBOX one day. They don't really spend much time with XBOX because most of the games are geared for Daddy. We have a few fun ones for them. (We inherited a ton of games from a friend of ours, but they didn't have any kid games.) Ally loves to mimick her sisters in whatever they do, so here she looks like she is really into it, but she's not. Funny, huh?

Is Santa here yet? This was Christmas Eve, but they weren't really looking for Santa. The older girls told Ally that the mail slot could be her "peek hole".

Anyway, those are a few pictures I thought were fun.

As for what we've been up to since my last post...not much. We were very sad about the passing of President Hinckley, but we were comforted with the fact that we know where he is and that he is with his sweet wife again. Also, we love President Monson and look forward to hearing more from him in April at conference.

We were also sad that Mitt dropped out of the race for president. I really can't see myself voting for any of the presidential candidates this time. We'll see what happens.

Jessica lost her first top tooth today. (I meant to take a picture of that and post it, but spaced once again.)

The girls had today off of school. I'm assuming some sort of teacher work day made that happen, but I never found out for sure. And with President's day on Monday, and a half day yesterday, they end up with a very long weekend!

I had mentioned in a previous blog about some "missionary work" that I got to be in on and help with. Well, the lady that was taking the lessons has now transitioned to the branch in our stake that she actually belongs to and I haven't seen or talked to her for a while. She hasn't gotten baptized yet, but hopefully soon. There was another lady that I had had a brief discussion with at the kids' school. Well, I run into her ALL the time at the grocery store. One day, she invited me to grab some Starbucks with her, and after almost turning her down because I had other things I had to do, I was stopped by the Spirit, and graciously accepted her offer. We talked about a bunch of things while she sipped her coffee and I, my hot chocolate, and somehow the topic of the church snuck in there. We discussed things for a few minutes before the subject turned to something else. It wasn't an earth-shattering Golden moment, but I was grateful for the chance to mention the gospel again. Hopefully we'll have enough encounters that she will get a chance to hear more. I've stopped going to pick up the girls outside the school for now, due to the weather, but maybe some more encounters at the grocery store and visits at Starbucks, will provide the opportunity.

Jessica started a "missionary club" at school. She has a bunch of friends that "joined" and she says that she talks to them about the church. I don't know how long it will be before someone from the school, whether parent or teacher, complains, but I'm just waiting for it to happen. I'll be surprised if it doesn't. But I'm very proud of Jessica. I can see her going on a mission someday. She seems to want to tell everyone what she knows about the Gospel! She's such a great example to me!

Brian is busy with ER this month after finishing up a very busy month at the ICU in the Children's Hospital. He will have a couple of Sundays with us at church over the next month and a half or so.