Making Raisins

Hyrum and Kyler went out to a field to make sun-dried raisins.  When they got back, Kyler explained what they did.  He said, "To make raisins: you hang the grapes, the light comes, the light bonks the grapes, and then they are raisins!"    :)

The World's Greatest Dad

Our little Doll

Tais is so cute!

 Can you do this?

 Smile!

 Caught in the act

Tais's Baby Blessing

Family fun on Tais's special day

 Taissia looked so beautiful in the dress that her grandma made for her.

Isn't she a doll?!

Conference Fun

General Conference is a fun time for LDS families.

 Here we are, all snuggled together, listening to conference.

When the men all headed to the Priesthood session, us lady folk and the kids stayed home to make a special treat--break a parts!  When the men got home, we had a lovely time eating the treat and hearing about the session.

Families are Forever!

Words from LDS children's hymn:

 I have a fam'ly here on earth.

They are so good to me.

I want to share my life with them through all eternity.

Fam'lies can be together forever

Through Heav'nly Father's plan.

I always want to be with my own family,

And the Lord has shown me how I can.

The Lord has shown me how I can.

Easter

Easter is such a beautiful holiday.  It is time to spend with family and friends and remember the life of our Savior.  I love that we have a holiday to celebrate His resurrection.  We will all live again because of His resurrection.  What peace this brings.

Easter also brings other things, like fun traditions:

Egg Hunt #1

 Our community put on an Easter egg hunt for the children.  Kyler had lots of fun finding the hidden eggs and seeing his friends.

 Who would have known a few eggs could bring such happiness?

 Another fun family tradition is coloring Easter eggs.  Kyler loved having Ana (from Serbia, how cool!) help him.

 Grandpa was delighted to have Tais's opinion.

 We all had a good time.

Easter Egg Hunt #2

Kyler had lots of fun finding the colored eggs at our home Easter morning.

He also found six letters that spelled "Easter".  As we unscrambled the letters, we talked about the meaning of Easter and the Atonement.

Egg Hunt #3

With extended family gathered, Kyler got to do another egg hunt.  He waited very patiently while it was set up.

Tais enjoyed her first Easter, especially all the attention she got.

Here is everyone watching Kyler as the hunt begins.

Kyler's only competition was his great grandparents.  They raced after those eggs with laughing and squealing Kyler beating them to every one.  Sometimes it is fun to be the only child who can walk!

Trick Riding

Look at Kyler's amazing stunts!  He was calling himself the "trick dog".  He has a book based off of the mickey mouse cartoon "The Society Dog Show" that the quote comes from.

Packages

I got two adorable packages in the mail today :)

Too Cute to Not Share

Kyler loves his sister.

Reading

This was a very cute moment.  I told Kyler that he had two more minutes to play and then it was nap time.  He choose to spend his time reading to his sister (he had never done this before).  He went and grabbed a book from his bedroom.  Then brought it over to her and sat in front of her.  He then proceeded to "read" it to her, telling her the story to the best he could remember (which is pretty good).  It was so cute!  He read her five stories before he wanted to do something else (and I let him have more than the two minutes because it was so cute!).

Another time, he wanted to read to her again, but it was a little trickier this time--she was in the bassinet.  My smart two year old found a way to read to her and still show her the pictures despite the challenge.

Silly Faces

Tummy Time!

Kyler enjoys it more than Taissia.

Music Time!

We had some of Kyler's friends over to play and they really got into playing the piano.  It was super cute to watch them all try and fit on the piano bench and plink away at the keys.

Temple Trip

We took a trip to the temple and walked around the visitor center.  It was a really neat.  I love knowing that I can be with my family forever and that because of Christ our whole family is linked together.

More of Taissia

 Smiling, happy baby

 "I just want to be able to sit up."

Tais can now hold things in her hand just a little bit.

Smiles and reading with Daddy

Taissia is starting to smile a lot.  She loves to smile, giggle, and watch her brother.  Taissia loves spending time with Daddy.

Fish Hatchery

Recently, we all went to a fish hatchery with some of our friends.  The toddlers all loved it!  The picture above shows us looking at the "pools" where the little fish are growing up. 

 Feeding the fish.

 The bird wanted some of the food too.

Picnic lunch after all the excitment.  Kyler loved the cupcakes that topped off the meal.

We had a grand time.

Hmmm.... We have been finding a lot of great stuff recently on Amazon.com ----Check it out! :)

Gingerbread Houses-A Family Tradition

 We love Christmas time and one of our traditions is making real gingerbread houses (yes, the whole thing is edible!).  Kyler had the time of his life as his face below testifies :)

The houses turned our really well, but I will admit that our guest have a much nicer looking home (no two year old helping them--lol).

Brother and Sister

Kyler and Taíssia have so much fun together.  Taíssia loves to watch Kyler and gives him so many smiles.  Kyler adores his little sister and is constantly wondering what she is doing and how he can be a part of it.  I love it when we are eating and she is laying near by, he will take a spoonful of his food, hold it out to her and ask, "Do you want some?"  Then he will pause as if she is responding and then continue, "No?  Okay." and will eat the bite.  So cute!

He also loves to put the pacifier in her mouth, which is a wonderful things for us parents because Taís spits it out a lot.

Our little daughter

Our sweet little daughter Taíssia has joined our family!  Here's the story:

I was feeling the whole nine months of pregnancy--very big and uncomfortable.  Hyrum was having fun seeing how big my stomach was by taking the above picture (A MOVIE fits on her stomach!).  After all that fun, we started settling down to watch a show when suddenly my water broke!

Almost four hours later, and six minutes of pushing, Taíssia was born!

 We love our new little addition, and Kyler is a great big brother.