Even truer love is ...

when your husband agrees to pay for someone to complete the job when you get tired of what you started!

Here is a picture of when we were first moving in. The only cute thing here is Eliza!

And here we are three years later!

Hannah

We couldn't pass up taking a few pictures with our azaleas blooming.

Heaven

We've had a little piece of heaven with us for a whole month now. She gave us her first smiles today.

True love is...

when your husband comes home to find you have started a demolition project and just jumps in to help finish it with no questions asked. You're the best, Nate!

Ryan's words

Hannah had a migraine one day last week. The next day, Ryan asked me if Hannah still had a "microbrain." A what? I thought he was insulting her, but the girls were laughing so hard. They finally explained to me that he was trying to say "migraine."

On Easter Sunday, after church we were going to watch a video about Christ's resurrection on the church website. Ryan started crying, and said, "I don't want to be resurrected!" He had actual tears coming down his face. After talking to him for a little bit, I think he thought being crucified was part of what resurrection is. How terrible! When his teachers at church said we would all be resurrected one day the poor kid thought we are all going to be crucified! Hopefully, our discussion helped him out a little bit.

Catching up a bit

My baby is so beautiful. Even with her Alfalfa patch of hair on the crown of her head, and even though her perfect skin has started to get that baby acne (of course, since I'm ready to show her off now). Clearly, I'm her mother because she just looks perfect to me. And she is SO good. She doesn't really cry. She grunts and she'll let out a little quack here and there if she's really hungry or if I take too long changing her diaper. I'm sure that will change soon enough, but I'm enjoying her sweet disposition for as long as it will last. Well, she did cry in her carseat on the way home from Goldsboro this weekend. We were all shocked to hear her. It almost had Nikki in tears. Thankfully, she fell asleep pretty quickly. So, apparently she doesn't really like her carseat -- I guess we won't be driving her around late at night to get her to fall asleep.

 Look at that sweet face! I just love this baby!

 For April fool's day, Nate asked the kids if they wanted some brownies. Nikki and Ryan came running to the table and Nate pulled out some "brown E's" from the oven. Ha! But we got him back. I had Hannah stick a piece of a post-it note on the bottom of the mouse so it wouldn't work. The best part was that the night before I had told him about a joke I saw online where someone took a screen shot of something on the computer and then left that up, so whoever tried to use the computer would think it was frozen. So he thought that's what I had done and couldn't figure it out!

 Nikki went to the state gymnastics meet in Wilmington on Saturday. We left Hannah and Ryan with JW & Alli and took Nikki and Natalie. This is Nikki before the meet.

And here she is afterwards. She did great and placed 2nd all-around. And the quality of this picture is exactly why I want a new camera for Mother's day. Please send any suggestions you have for a good one to Nate. I'm pulling for a smartphone or ipad. :)

We loved General Conference this weekend. Nikki's meet was on Saturday, so it was really strange to miss conference that day. Technology is amazing, though, and I love that the video recordings were available so quickly.


Then, for family night last night, we watched the replays of the final four games from Saturday and then watched the championship game between Louisville and Michigan. Nate had us all fill out brackets for the tournament this year. After I picked Louisville to go all the way, both Nikki and Nate decided perhaps they should change their picks, too. So, I'm claiming I won. HaHa! It was so good to have our family together for so much of the weekend. Good times!