Say Cheese!

Before we went to Arizona, we had Krista take some family pictures! I wanted to have some family pics since we haven't had many since Ella was born (as a family, that is). She got lots of fun shots despite the kiddos being really grumpy most of the time! A few of my favorites...

Ok, well that was more then a few! Once I get posting there's no stopping! I'm off to bed.

Abby and Chris are Married! and other AZ trip stuff.

So, we got back a couple of days ago from AZ! Abby is now Mrs. Hallows... how cute is that!? Happy day. Look how perfect she and Chris look together! This is right after coming out of the temple. I love going to sealings... it's such a great reminder of marriage and temple covenants. Makes me want to re-live my wedding day! Anyway, it was a beautiful day, and so much fun to hang out with our family and friends that made the trip. Fun times!
Awww... so cute.
The Mesa Temple
Hot day! Luke and Ella found a little shade though!...

I'm excited to see how her photographer's pictures turned out! Here are just a couple group pictures at the temple that I got... her colors were so fun. The picture with the nieces and nephews is so funny!

Some reception stuff! Check out her fun blinging cake and the cool flowers! I especially liked her bouquet :)

I love these of Luke and Aunt Abby. He loves her so much! Oh, and I couldn't leave out Ella!

A few more reception goodies... luke was eating his cake on the ground and then a kid ran by and stepped in it. Haha. Kind of made him mad until we got him another piece!

And more. Some of our aunts and uncles and all the grandparents made the trip down to Arizona. I miss them.

Their wedding colors and everything looked great. We came home with sooo many pictures! Oh, and Chris is such a nice guy. We are happy he's in the fam now and excited to get to know him better! Hopefully they will make a trip to Vegas this summer! :)

Some other fun things from our trip...

We found out who gets the cutest fatty in the pool award this summer!!!! (Sorry, it's not you this year.) Ella is my water baby! This girl pretty much jumps out of my arms to get in the bath tub every night, so she was in heaven swimming at grandma and grandpas houses. Too stinking cute in her suit. Luke swam a little, but mostly just sat by the side of the pool this trip.

Luke had a great time with grandmas and grandpas and cousins!

Jake had his 29th Birthday! Melanie and Joe had all of us over for his birthday dinner. Cutie Logan, Seth, and Luke wanted to blow his candles out for him. On his birthday, Jake did some shopping with his mom, then we went to test drive some cars and to lunch while my mom watched the kiddos. Happy 29 Jake! I hope this year is the best so far :)

The day after we test-drove the cars, we bought one. It's a red Toyota Highlander. Yay for having 2 cars!! We made it for 4 years with one. It will be so nice having another around!! Luke, Ella, and I went to Krispy Kreme and then hung out in Rick's truck while Jake was in the dealership signing papers.

I think that's it. Fun trip. I'm excited to move closer to Arizona!

I don't feel like blogging.

BUT, I know I'll regret it later if I get too behind and don't! So, here's a little of what we've been up to this past week or so!

*Jake took the WREB (licensing exam) this past weekend. Woo hoo! He says he rocked it. Let's hope so. :)

*Almost bought a couple of cars... keep changing our minds about what we want, or other people beat us to the deals we find. Anywho, hopefully we'll find a car that we like for a good deal soon! Right now, we're trying to decide between one of these:

and these: *Went with Jake to his group party! It was for the graduating seniors in his group and retiring Dr. Kaiser. We have the big senior gala tomorrow night. Yeah for another fun date! I'm excited to dress up a little bit! Here are the Group 4 Seniors!

Other pictures from the party...

*We've been reading lots of rocket, train, and airplane books. Ella's probably wishing Luke would show her pictures of something else.

*Tormented each other a little bit this week. Ella is old enough now to want stuff that Luke has. I heard her screaching the other day and went into the living room to find Luke teasing her with his M&Ms... he thought it was hilarious making her think she was going to grab one of them and then when she would be close to grabbing one, he'd pop it in his mouth to make her scream. It goes the other way too... if I give Ella something, Luke suddenly thinks it's the greatest toy ever and wants it.

* Got some really cute new scrap stuff! I'm hoping to dig into it tonight!

* We took a trip to the E.R. For me. NOT fun. I really would have rather had the swine flu since they say it's pretty mild. Anyway, they ran a bunch of tests and concluded that it was some sort of virus and I was super dehydrated. After a lot of fluid through an IV and some pain meds I was feeling a lot better! Thanks to Aaron and Kristen for watching the kids for our all night "date" to the hospital!

*Made Ella some new hair accessories! Too bad she started ripping them off her head this week. She would rather chew on them then wear them. :(
*We just got family pictures taken tonight! Woo hoo! It's kinda the first "real" photo session of the 4 of us since Ella was born. Kiddos didn't really feel like getting pictures taken though, so I'm hoping Krista can do some of her magic and they will turn out!


*Wednesday we're off to AZ again for a while! Going to see this cute couple tie the knot. I'm SO excited for them! And, I love weddings cause I get to hang out with extended fam I don't get to see very often! Be back in a couple of weeks!

Introducing... Dr. Smith.

Today was Jake's LAST day of clinic! Woo hoo! He is finally done! A real dentist!! He's just got to take the WREB and walk across the stage to grab his diploma now. I'm so proud of him. Congrats Jake!!! I love you.

On a smaller but exciting note, baby Ella's first tooth started coming out today. Fun coincidence :)

Too Many BoOGeRs

My kids have been snotty for the last 3 weeks. I'm sick of wiping their noses. It's a never ending job I tell ya. I'm also sick of Luke wiping his nose on clothes, couches, and seeing him occasionally eat the boogers. Sick of boogies on my shoulder from carrying baby Ella around. Colds are the worst. Really. So, to the annoying virus living at our house... Please, please just GO AWAY! Thanks.

Friends

Here's Ashley, Me, Nicole, Krista, Kajsa, Kristen, Melissa, and Mandee. We missed a couple that couldn't come this past time, but for the most part this is our girl's nights group!We took this picture at like midnight on Friday at what probably was our last girl's night before Kristen and I move. We've gone to church together, had babies and showers and parties together, and have had lots of fun times. I am going to miss these girls and their cute families!

Easter

I took a lot of pictures of the Easter happenings this past week, and since I want them in my blog book they are all going on here. Here we are today all ready for church. I guess the light coming in through the window behind us did weird things to the picture!

The cuties right before church! Ella wasn't very thrilled.

Luke was concerned that she was going to take his candy...

Showing off some of his Easter basket loot!
Ella and her Easter stuff!
Luke and I dyed eggs one night while Jake and Ella watched the Spurs game.

The ward Easter party at the park! The kids got to do an egg hunt and everyone did sack races and played games. Here are some pics of Luke and Jaylie when they were a team, and Lily and Dylan were a team for a bit. Jake and the guys got into the action too. So funny to watch!

I've seen this little movie clip about the real meaning of Easter about ten times this weekend. Krista, I'm copying you and putting it on here because it has set the tone for my weekend.

Happy Easter!

Another Fun Giveaway

Frugal Mommy is giving away some cute baby shoes! Check it out here :)
I never win things... so, wish me luck!

OuR LaSt SpRiNg BrEaK

Last week we spent Jake's spring break in Arizona and Vegas! We had a great time. I was a little nervous to leave town while the house was still being shown (thought we would come home to a house with all the blinds open and every light on) but the good news is that we sold it while we were away! We just got a list of stuff to fix from the inspector so that has given us some chores for this week. Anyway... here's some of what we did on our trip!

Jake, Ella, and I drove with Sherry to Las Vegas for a couple days! Luke stayed with Aunt Melanie and Uncle Joe while we went and had a great time with his cousins. His first sleep overs with friends! Ella was great in the car! She really did so good. I was expecting her to scream the whole way, and she hardly even fussed on the car ride there (I'm starting to think that a certain 2 year old is the reason for most of her car issues.) We stayed at Aliante Hotel and ate at some yummy restaurants. (You are all going to want to visit us when we move to try the pizza place we found!) It was fun hanging out with just the 4 of us. Ella had fun playing in the huge hotel bath tub and we found some sweet glasses in the gift shop. Fun times. We checked out a bunch of houses, the base, and different areas to live. We decided on a house that we're excited about... it's bigger then this house, in a nice nice area, close to work for Jake, and has a park right behind it for the kiddos. We're set.

Kate loved holding and helping out with Ella this trip. Very cute.

Luke and Ella had fun with the grandparents. He is fascinated with Grandpa Paul's and Grandpa Rick's tools and toys, and had fun helping grandpas make cookies and smoothies. Grandpa Rick was stranded in Alaska for most of the week because of the crazy volcano eruptions up there. Luke suggested that we go cool the volcano and throw Rick a rope because he thought Rick was actually in the volcano. Too funny. Luke helped my mom plant a couple things in her garden, and picked the last orange of the season off grandma's orange tree.

We went to the park one day. We love parks.

Two nights we were in Mesa we had game nights with the fam and some friends. Here we were playing Mad Gab with David, Daniel, Abby, Chris, Todd, Jenny, Dak, Callie, and Ryan. Boys won first night... girls the next.

I put together some of Abby's wedding invites one day and got to go to Abby's bridal shower!! Countdown to her wedding!! They only have a month left! Kim threw the shower for her and did a great job with it. (BTW, I got these pics from Kim's blog since I didn't have my camera there... she did a cute post about the whole thing!) Ab scored a ton of fun things!

Friends at the shower!
I love my sister!

It was a fun spring break. Crazy to think it was our last one!! Jake only has 2 weeks left of school and then some testing. We got his graduation announcements in the mail yesterday. SO CRAZY!! I remember when this seemed so far away... now he's pretty much done.

An Attempt at Bluebonnet Pictures...

When Luke was a baby, we sat him in a bunch of bluebonnets and took pictures. (Ya, he's a boy, and it's not the most boyish thing to do but it was fun and he was cute and it's a Texas thing to do...)

Anyway, I was driving yesterday and noticed that there were bluebonnets on the sides of the roads again and I wanted to get Ella's pics in them. So, I changed the kiddos clothes and took them to the same place we took Luke's pics a couple years ago. Let's just say that the flowers are not nearly as plentiful this year! Haha.

I got out of the car quick... took them down to a good spot and snapped a couple pictures. Two cars stopped thinking I was having car trouble and another dude yelled out his car window "You're going to get fined!!" Huh? I thought you only get fined if you pick the dang things.... Anyway, our little picture session lasted a grand thirty seconds and I thought I better leave. Maybe we'll go back another time with Jake to get better ones... and hopefully more flowers will come out!!

Since the kids were looking picture ready though, I took more pics when we came home just because.

He wanted me to take one of him "being fast!!"