Trip out West

Here are the pics from our trip out west.  Our itinerary was as follows:

Day 1:  Wake up at 1:30 a.m. to depart for Philly.  Arrive in Salt Lake late morning, and go to Nate & Mandy's house in Provo.  After Nate gets home from work, drive to In 'n Out Burger on the way to Blackfoot, Idaho.

Day 2:  Brandt Family reunion, Pizza Hut with Knoebel Family, and hotel pool swimming.

Day 3:  Travel back to Nate's house in Springville, UT, by way of Salt Lake to go to Book of Mormon kid's museum.  Got to talk to Uncle Adam on the phone for Mother's Day!

Day 4:  Research paintball options for later in the week. 

Day 5:  Travel to Moab, UT.

Day 6:  Sightsee at Arches National Park.

Day 7:  Water raft (notice I didn't say Whitewater) trip down the Colorado River.

Day 8:  Hike to Delicate Arch before returning to Nate's house. 

Day 9:  Meet up with Karen Wunderli, enjoy Ruth's pizza, Comedy club outing, SubZero ice cream.

Day 10:  Return to reality on the East Coast. 

 So I know I'm a little behind schedule, but here are Avery's pics from her 4 month old bday...which was April 22nd.  She doesn't sit up on her own yet, but is all hair, smiles, and chubby cheeks! 

 Note the rooster-like hair:

 I do love the started baby look:

 This really captures the 3D nature of those cheeks...and can you say uni-brow?  It's not her actual eyebrows, it's the crease in her furrowed little brow! 

Love her!

Flash---turning into a naughty dog

So, they say when you have a new child that the older children can exhibit behaviors indicating jealousy of the baby.  Or sometimes they regress in certain skills.  Overall, I'd say that hasn't been the case with our kids.  Brynn really wants to help with the baby, and Elyse does have her moments when she is really exhausted and she cries like a baby but it's pretty few and far between.  

The dog, on the other hand, has turned naughty!  He tends to take at least one thing out of the panty or, just last week, OFF THE COUNTER, and eats it when we are gone.  It was an almond Kuchen last week.  Ate the whole. darn. thing.  

So when I come home, it's a contest of sorts to see what Flash as gotten into.  And if you call for him, with a tone of voice that makes it sound like, "You better get over here and explain yourself!"  he will often look like this:

Hysterical and annoying (that he eats our food) all at the same time!

Ice Cream Truck

So it has been a mild spring and the ice cream truck has started on it's route pretty early.  Normally I don't indulge in treats from the ice cream truck since I can buy a whole 1/2 gallon of ice cream at Wegmans for the same price as one popsicle from the ice cream truck.  But 2.2 seconds after the girls heard the ice cream truck song in the air, they asked if they could use their Easter egg money.  What a brilliant idea!  So we have a video below of spontaneous dancing that is reminiscent of a Phish concert I attended in college.  And if you can't do it in Croc boots, Christmas pajama pants, and a jammie dress, then why be a kid?

http://youtu.be/Dwj26LqBV-4

Walkway

I know this sounds really lame, because it is lame, but this May we will have been in this house for 3 years and we are *just* now getting a walkway from the driveway to the front door. It has been YEARS of people not knowing which door to go to (there is one next to the garage doors further up the driveway). Many people have either stepped in dog poo' on the way up to the front porch or slightly dislocated a hip trying to get up or down the giant step. Or both. Come to think of it, we are lucky to have avoided a lawsuit! But now we have a complete front yard! Until you realize that we have zero landscaping. *Sigh*

Easter

Easter weekend was a great one! On Saturday we went to Sunbury to help Grandpa Knoebel trim his apple trees. He's due to have his gall bladder out and he needed some help. So we spent most of Saturday there. I'm hoping to get some pics from Ann as she and Tim and Garrett were there, too. We got things looking awesome in the orchard and all had some ham and green beans from Grandma. And, of course, some pie! No one makes pie like Grandma Knoebel!

Then the next day was Easter. I don't have any pics from church for two reasons. One, Jeremy had to pick someone up so my help left. And, two, the girls wore their matching rainbow dresses that they are going to wear for our family pictures and I don't want to ruin the surprise! Here are some pics from the Easter school parties just a couple days before:

We did have an easter egg hunt at Grandma Knoebel's house and a nice Easter dinner.

We are so grateful for the Savior and His resurrection! And we love our family and that we were able to see some of them to celebrate Jesus. We are nearly on the daily countdown to see both Grandma and Grandpa Frost along with "all our cousins" when we head to Utah!

Childhood Favorites

So, one of the scariest movies from my childhood was, by far, Aliens. It's a scary movie regardless of how old you are, but I'm pretty sure my whole 9-year-old body physically shuddered while sitting in the movie theater seat right next to my Dad for the entire last half of the movie. What was a 9 year-old doing in a movie rated R? Well, we were bonding and even though it was memorable (for reasons that needed therapy later) I won't be taking any of my girls to see rated R movies, that's for sure!

I also was a thumb-sucker. A die-hard one. My mom used to say that at night she'd sneak into my room to try and remove said thumb. Not only could she hear the suction break, but it would pop back in there after about 5.2 seconds. Jeremy was a thumb-sucker, too. We have been surprised that none of our kids have been into it yet. Until...Avery made her thumb-sucking look like the scary alien seen above:

A girl after my own heart <3