Everlasting spring

Yesterday was the official start of spring! I can hardly believe it because it's felt like spring for months now. I am most definitely not bragging - we have our not-so-pleasant weather to look forward to all too soon. I do feel grateful for the beautiful days of "winter" here though. Our garden thinks it feels pretty nice out right now too. Here's the garden I mentioned planting with Lisa. The first pic is my wishing well that sat full of nothing but dirt for so long - I always wished it full of flowers!

Yeah, that's an ice cream about the drip on Bennett's head. He was pretending to be Lady Liberty.

We've got carrots, gn onions, cucumbers, broccoli, peas, lettuce & tomatoes!

We spend a great deal of our evenings lately at tee-ball practices and games for Audrey and Bennett and I'm glad we get to enjoy our time outdoors. We realized after our commitment to be part of the Blue Jay team that we had not been too diligent in playing catch with our kids - or batting, or anything about the game of baseball. Here's a Sunday afternoon batting lesson with dad in the backyard.

Rob & I took a trip to San Diego for our 8th wedding anniversary in December. Most of the photos below are in Balboa Park - really really beautiful! A huge thank you to Rob's parents for keeping the kids so we could get away for a couple days! Here's a squirrel in the park - a big, fat, completely fearless monster of a squirrel.

We stopped on our way to CA to see the old lighthouse in the desert where we hiked around and found crazy sculptures carved out of the rocks.

Bringing you up to speed

It's only natural to cherish the sweet moments more when coming through one of life's bitter parts. My children have become more precious to me in the loss of our unborn baby. Their existence in our family is nothing short of a miracle! I'm so grateful for each of them with their amazing spirits and emerging personalities... and maybe even for their orneriness.

It's been months since my miscarriage but I'm still so thankful for the support of family and friends. Lisa (and let's not forget our mom and Lisa's husband, Jared who ran the show with Lisa's four kids in her absence) flew to Phoenix for moral support and to help us get life back to normal. We went for walks and bike rides. We finally put some vegetables in my long empty raised garden bed (pics coming soon). We stayed up late laughing and crying and reminiscing about old times. Thank you Lisa!

Thanksgiving family reunion!

This is our baby floating down from heaven... what an angel! (I told Rob I never want to see Jeremiah flying this high again, even if he is loving it)

Spent this last weekend over in Long Beach (CA) with Ryan after dropping the kids with Rob's parents in Yuma. We had such a fun time and finally got to see Ryan's boat, the Enchantress. Ryan and sea mate, Shawn took us out past the breakwater to the real ocean to sail for a few hours. It was great to see them in action since they'll be leaving for their 10 month trip to Audtralia this week with one other friend. I felt pretty good about not hurling over the edge in my delicate condition - that's not to say that I didn't feel like it.

Here's Ryan while he was here for Thanksgiving. The protective eye wear was for target shooting - more pics of that to follow. I don't get to see Ryan that often, but I'm always inspired when I do. He's constantly following through with one dream or another and living life to the fullest. My prayers will be with him on this journey.

Ryan with his girlfriend, Melissa who was brave enough to spend her Thanksgiving here with all of us. She was delightful and got us all (Mom and Dad included) to stand in front of a leave blower while Ryan took pictures of our contorted faces. Those pics will not follow.

Jeremiah sharing one of his favorite hang out places with his cousin, Ivan (Aaron and Krystal's 2nd).

All the grandkids in attendance (we missed you Syd!): back row Spencer, Aneya, and Audrey, seated are Jordan, Jeremiah and Carter, on laps are Ivan and Bennett and then there's lincoln hanging on the end.

We hiked up in South Mountain park to a natural rock slide (no water like "Slide Rock). Lots of rocks and skinned knees along the way, but no injuries on the actually slide surprisingly.

Lisa and her kids in a pile at the bottom of the slide. I think they decided to go train style.

My Dad and Jeremiah, who was the only one not to slide but preferred to roll around in the dirt while he waited.

The promised shooting pics. This was mostly a boys outing, but Melissa stuck by her man and proved to be a good shot.

Love this one of everyone looking so tough. Nice minivans.

One holiday to the next

Here's our anxious trick or treaters. Audrey's friend Nicole joined us for our very short and sweet trip around the block. We had already collected quite a stash at the ward trunk or treat the night before. Jeremiah was a ferocious lion, Audrey, Sleeping Beauty and Bennett, Peter Pan... it's not my fault he still fits in the costume he wore last year, and he makes such a cute Peter!

Jeremiah understood fully about the chocolate if not about taking wrappers off

Audrey and Bennett at the chili cookoff part of our ward "fall festival". Just thought their expressions were priceless. No, neither of them would touch the chili and got away with eating only candy and cookies the whole night.

Giddy with their loot from the neighborhood

picture time, picture time, lots of fun with picture time...

Okay, here are the rest from our photo shoot a couple weeks ago. It's kind of a lot of pictures, so if you get tired of looking at my kids half way through and need to click on someone elses blog to look at that for a while, I understand. If you can endure the whole thing (and I've really narrowed it down), please vote for your favorites of the kids - trying to decide which to print for the wall).