Holidays
We had a great Easter weekend. We were able to have a BBQ with friends on Saturday where we had an Easter Egg Hunt for the kids and celebrated our March Madness Bracket among our local friends…where Amber came in 2nd. Then we were able to attend church and have a relaxing afternoon with just our immediate family. The girls looked adorable in their Easter dresses and Emma even let Amber curl her hair for church. They are both getting so big and had so much fun finding eggs and enjoying the treasures in their baskets. Hope you all had a great Easter!!
With April came the first signs of spring and all that goes with it. We were able to have a big BBQ with friends from our ward. It was great to have so many kids playing in the yard and the adults just visited for a handful of hours. It was a great time and we’ve looked forward to having more BBQs. April also brought Easter. Emma’s friend had an Easter party, the kids got to decorate eggs, go on an easter hunt, and we all enjoyed a great lunch. Emma had a lot of fun really understood the hunt for the eggs. Easter Sunday we spent with John’s parents up at the lake house and the girls loved finding the eggs and enjoying the Easter candy. Ashleigh is our little eater and it was so much fun seeing her fully enjoy the sugar, I don’t think she’s had so much sugar at one time and she thoroughly enjoyed it. 
On the way home from the lake we got to stop into a farm that John’s mom knew about and the girls got to see baby chicks, calves, lambs…basically all the farm animals. Emma loved it and it was fun to really see spring in such a fun way on Easter.
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- My Little Reader…fell asleep reading….just like her mom :)
Can’t believe I have to go all the way back to 2010 to get caught up….ahhh!! So I guess here’s our Christmas in July.
Our December was so much fun! We got to go to Idaho and spend about 10 days with Amber’s family, we went to the cabin with EVERYONE, it’s been a while since we’ve got to be all together as a family and it was great to spend time with everyone. After Idaho we went up to John’s family’s lake house at Deep Creek Lake in Maryland. It was a great transition especially for Emma since she had just left all her cousins and then she was surrounded by her Aunts and Uncles. Plus she got two Christmas, what more could a 2 year old want. It was really fun this year with her as she got opening presents and Santa but even more fun was the time we spent learning the Christmas story and hearing her talk about Baby Jesus and his Mommy Mary. We have a Fisher Price Nativity set and she loved telling the story and having it throughout the season. It was great! We just love the Holiday Season filled with family!! YAY!
So between being in Idaho for 10 days for Thanksgiving and coming home sick and being sick for 2 1/2 weeks our Christmas Card got put on the back burner when it came to preparing for Christmas. So I’m posting it here if you want to look at it. The first picture is the front and back cover and the next is the inside fold. Those of you that I had address for I’ve ordered it and you hopefully will be getting it before New Years….maybe…So instead of Merry Christmas we decided to wish you all a Happy Holiday Season as we’re a little late. I hope that everyone had a Merry Christmas and know that we are thinking of you all! Love YOU!!
Since I’m coming down with the cold that Emma’s had for the past couple of days I decided to be lazy today and get caught up on a few other things. So I’m getting to the point where I feel like I can post pictures of the house, but for now you’ll have to settle for some of our July events which include more pictures of Emma . July was a fun month. We enjoyed the 4 th of July, we spent the day working on the house and the evening at my cousin’s house with their family. We decided not going downtown because we didn’t know how Emma would react to the fireworks. At first she was with John and a little frightened and wanted me and when she came to me and realized that I thought it was okay and encouraged it she got excited and liked all the bright lights and loud noises. We had a great 4th of July and really enjoyed being with family! Thanks Mark and Heather!! (Oh and yes Emma was already walking by the 4th of July…she started walking a few weeks earlier, around 11 months)
So I imgaine that in our move I failed to send Christmas Cards to everyone…so click on the link below and you can view our Christmas card for this year. If you would like to recieve a card in the future just leave a comment with your current address and I’ll add you to the list! Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
A late Happy Halloween to all! We had a lot of fun on Halloween, we actually had a lot of kids come to our place so that was fun. We also finally craved our pumpkins. We kind of cheated and got some help off the internet since neither one of us are artists. We had a lot of fun doing it this way and will probably do it again in the future.
Emma keeps growing and is definitely getting more active and interacting. She loves to smile at everyone and if you try really hard she might even “talk” to you. We’ve enjoyed introducing her to the game of football as she’s accompanied us to the BYU football games. She’s done really well and can even sleep through the cannon.
We’re looking forward to the holidays, especially going out to Maryland during Thanksgiving to try and find a place to live in Virginia.
We were able to go to downtown DC to see the National Christmas Tree and the State Capital Tree. It was nice to spend a relaxing but chilly evening at the Nation’s capital and start to feel the Christmas spirit as they had people performing Christmas music and had yule tide fire burning to take of the winter chill.
We were able to go to a hockey game with the fam, Capitals Vs. the Canadians the Thursday before Christmas. It was really fun to go and do that. It had been a while since Amber had seen a hockey game and John had never been to one so we both really enjoyed it. Granted we realized that we should probably learn more about the sport so we understand the rules a little more. Unfortunately nothing exciting happened during the game….no fights or injuries or things like that, there was time spent in the penalty box though.
We spent the first part of the holiday in Maryland with John’s family up at Deep Creek Lake. It was a perfect place to relax and play games and spent time together as a family. It was fun to be able to participate in the family traditions as we were on our Honeymoon last Christmas and missed out on all the family. We really enjoyed spending one last weekend together with the family before we headed West. We broke the news to the family that we are pregnant while we were all together. We did it at Deep Creek with John’s family and then when we had our second Christmas with Amber’s family. Everyone is really excited and can’t wait for the nine months to be over. August 8th won’t come soon enough!
The day after Christmas we got in the car and drove for two straight days and made it to Idaho at about 1:30 in the morning. We were exhausted and grateful to be able to sleep in and not worry about getting up in the morning. We had a second Christmas with Amber’s family and gratefully the pajama tradition still continues….even though there was threat of it not happening. We spent a few days up at Island Park enjoying the snow and recreational activities. Amber was excited to be back in the West and closer to her family for the next little while we both finish up school.
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We where able to go out to Utah/Idaho for Thanksgiving. There were a lot of activities that happened during the 10 days we where there. Justin, John’s old roommate, got married on Nov. 17th and we where able to be there for that. Sunday Dan and Amy blessed their new baby, Erica…she’s such a doll! We had the Searle Thanksgiving dinner at Dan and Amy’s old house on Monday since it was the only time that the whole family could get together. We where able to go up to Idaho for a few days, it was very relaxing and it was good to go home. Last but not least we where able to attend the BYU vs UTAH game. It was of course amazing and we where very happy that BYU came out on top…and yes we were one of the crazy people that stormed the field! We can’t wait till next season when we can attend all the home games!
We decided to go downtown for the fireworks since I had never been. Even though it rained really hard that afternoon the weather was perfect for the fireworks and the ground was even dry. John wore his John Deere shirt, he said you couldn’t get any more patriotic, my parents agreed when we told them. It was a great 4th of July
