Spring is on the way

This year for Valentine's Day we had stake conference, so we got all the kids dressed up and ready to go. They were actually willing to smile and take a decent photo altogether this time. It helps that I was home, instead of in meetings, to get them all ready to go.

Malia is getting around a lot better too these days. She can crawl to almost anywhere she wants, and is really good about pulling herself up anywhere. This day she decided to help with the laundry.

She's also trying to sit up in the middle of rooms. She has a unique form to stabilize herself, she sits on top of one leg stretches the other one way out. We're betting that she will start walking by standing up in the middle of the room and taking off, instead of walking around furniture.

The weather is actually started warming up recently too, and all the ice has melted off the roads, so the kids are finally able to take the bikes out again and get to the streets. As you can see Charlie enjoys wearing shorts and T-shirts. There've been several days that we have to tell him he has to wear a coat to school, especially since you're still frost on the ground in the mornings when he's leaving for the bus.

We have had a couple fun family nights recently. Earlier this week the kids enjoyed making candy sushi.

They all had lots of fun making them and I think this is the only one that Jerrick actually took a picture with before eating it.

Keisha just loves attention for the camera, and make extra effort posing for it now.

Here some of the finer end results

Friday evening we had a pan themed dinner, to get ready for the movie. The kids really enjoy the extra effort that Ashley puts in to the themes for the movies. Sometimes this is a meal other times it's just the snack that goes along with the movie.

Tooth Fairy

Keisha finally lost her first tooth! She has been dying to lose teeth ever since Adahleigh started. Last year was the hardest for her when Charlie started losing teeth and she wasn't. Every time he would lose one she would ask when am I going to lose a tooth. The main reason she's wanted to lose teeth is so she could get one of the glowing bottles that the tooth fairy leaves behind for your first tooth. She wanted her tooth out so bad that the day it got loose she was determined to have it pulled out. I didn't think it would come out because it was pretty well attached, it only took two tries though and she was excited as can be to have it out. Her two bottom teeth actually became loose about a month ago, for a day or two and then tightened back up. She somehow loosened the tooth this time in a wreck on her bike, and made sure the tooth was out that same night.

We were able to capture a picture of her with her treasures from the tooth fairy while she was still sleeping.

She has been using the bottle as a night light every night since she got it. It has definitely been the highlight of her week.

Flashback to Karli's wedding, Jerrick was in rare form at the sealing of Karli and Josh. He usually pretends to be shy in public around other people, but his regular personality, that we see at home, came out to shine from the beginning. He walked around with his hands in his pockets, which till then he only used to transport toys (usually a car), and a smug look on his face.

He then decided to catch rain on his tongue, hands still in pockets.

We should apologize to Karli, because she probably ended up with more pictures of our kids then of her and Josh. The one thing the photographer didn't catch was Jerrick's climb up the steepest and only muddy hill on the temple grounds. While no one was watching he took off exploring, luckily he didn't slip and I had to go rescue him otherwise he was going to slide down on his bum to get down.. 

Snowshoeing, sleeping, and crawling

A little over a week ago, I was able to go on a field trip with Adahleigh.The class went up to Mount bachelor to go snowshoeing. It was a lot of fun to go exploring in the wilderness. The forest rangers shared a lot of information about the area and the dangers of being in the woods in wintertime. Adahleigh did really well getting around on the snowshoes some of her classmates didn't fare so well and fell often and had to be helped back up.

Jerrick has been having a hard time adjusting to primary, some weeks he wants to go back to nursery instead. This week he wasn't able to last through sharing time and fell asleep sitting up on his chair. The last couple weeks he hasn't ended up falling completely asleep, but comes close. The funny thing about this is during the week he doesn't take naps no matter if we make him lay down for a while. A lot of it probably has to do with him not constantly moving and play. When asked why he went to sleep he just complained "they wouldn't give me a blanket".

Malia continues to grow rapidly. She can now get up on all fours and rocks as an attempt to crawl. She is getting around though, by getting up on all fours and then diving forward so she inches along.

Adahleigh's Baptism/Malia's Blessing

Adahleigh turned 8 this last year and decided to be baptized, so we were able to participate in that with her.  She made the decisions on how her program went.  Keisha had the opportunity to lead the music, so we tracked down a stool she could stand on so everyone could see her and set up the music stand even though she couldn't read any of the music.

We tried to get Adahleigh to write about her baptism right after it happened but this is all that we could get out of her.
-Last night was Adahleigh's baptism! It was a lot of fun.

Adahleigh was baptized on Halloween at the Stake Center. It was originally the child of record date, but they moved it to November, and we had already made arrangements with family. All Grandparents were able to make it out, Aunt Jenny, Riggin, and Aunt Karli.

After the baptism, the kids were able to go door to door for trick'o'treating. This hasn't happened since we lived in Reno  because the city just does a trunk o treat put on by the local businesses. They probably walked over 5 miles and trick o treated for 3 hours. By the time they were done they ended collecting their weight in candy.

Sunday we had Malia's blessing, everyone was able to stay over and be part of that. Uncle Josh was even able to join us after getting off work and driving  over late Saturday night. We enjoyed a nice get together after church before some family had to get back. The girls got up early the next morning to say goodbye one last time to Grandpa and Grandma Wilde, before they left back to Utah.

Malia has been growing tons since then and is getting close to crawling. Here's a video from a couple months ago of her blown raspberries. It was a one time deal since we've tried to get her to do it again and she won't. Luckily we got it on video the first time.

Winter Fun

   This winter we had quite a bit of snow. It all started when we wanted to make a trip out to Utah for Thanksgiving. A 10 hour trip turned into a 20 hour trip. The first three hours of the trip was spent just 10 miles down the road where we got stuck on the highway closed due to the foot and a half of snow we got in one day. We have continually been getting snow on and off since then.

   We decided to go get a Christmas tree A couple weeks later. Also  decided to dump a bunch more snow. Only Charlie and Keisha were willing to brave the snow to find a tree. They had a blast trompping through the woods and shaking snow off the trees to find the perfect one.

   Adahleigh and Keisha made sure to make snowman. We still have some parts of snowmen in the yard, a month later.

   At the end of the cul-de-sac the plows have been piling up the snow. Our neighbor has done some of the plowing and made sure to stack the snow so that we had a sledding hill. The kids have spent several days after school sledding down it. They usually do it on an innertube.