Finn

In the last 4 years, he's gone from this...

to this....

to this...

to this...

to this!

Happy birthday little man! Crazy, it is, how much a little person can grow and change in such a short time.  Finn's 4th birthday was July 16th, and it's fun to look back at all the changes.  We love this little guy.  He adds plenty of personality (and drama) to our family.  Lets just say, he keeps us on our toes daily.  He's quite the charmer. We love you!

So much to cover, Part III

In a desperate attempt to document our lives, I will continue.

As part of our lavish lifestyle in California, little Finn had a toddler mattress on the floor. Good thing he didn't mind it too much. He probably like feeling like he was camping all of the time.

Just reading my books

We had a couple of Easter activities. Our ward friends invited us over for an Easter egg hunt. The boys always love having more candy. These same ward friends hosted our "Go Away" party. We don't have any pictures from that party, but we were so happy they hosted that party. It was so good to see people in a non-church setting to say our "See ya later"s. Nobody in our family really likes the idea of saying good-bye.

Doing what Finn does best--eating

Tate's 5th birthday was the same day as Easter, just like the day he was born. We had dinner at my parents house followed by a family birthday party for Tate. Poor Tate seems to have his birthday around the time that we tend to move.

Aunt Carolyn gave him a joke book--It is straight out of the late eighties, but still provides plenty of laughs and smiles.

"It's mine!"

Tate really liked his preschool at the park near my parents house. His teachers were shocked that Tate wasn't from a foreign country. One teacher kept asking my wife "Which country did you come from?" She didn't really like the answer "America." Most of the kids, outside of Tate's carpool buddy, were from foreign countries.

Tate on his last day with Teacher Vivian and Teacher Marie

Tate's carpool buddy Charlie--We miss you Charlie!

Soon after we pulled our kids out of school, Cassie packed our entire house. Unfortunately, I thought that we could get away with moving in the same truck we moved in two years earlier. Silly me, we seem to have acquired a few things. Cassie and I swear up and down that we disposed of more stuff than we acquired, but the real test came when we loaded up the truck. We were oh so wrong.

My coworkers and friends from church helped us load the smaller truck half way until we realized we were only a third of the way packed. We unloaded the truck, and drove to get a larger truck. ARGH!

Our entire apartment in our parking lot

This is truck number two. Quite a bit larger than the other truck

Cassie and her band of friends from church cleaned the apartment from top to bottom, repainted some of the walls, and cleaned the carpet. Cassie was determined to get our entire deposit back.

Our family/dining/playroom all cleaned

Our pocket size kitchen all clean. Notice the trash compactor--never used

We embarked on our drive on a Tuesday morning with the plan to get to Washington by Thursday afternoon. My mom drove my car, my dad drove the 24' diesel truck, and Cassie and I drove the minivan with our precious cargo.  We thoroughly enjoy the scenic drive up to Oregon the first day and the second day drive to Washington. I must say it is more interesting than the drive to Utah from California.

Finn in his element--shaggy hair, his pillow, and food

The Oregon sign

Cassie and the boys in front of the Oregon sign

The boys really liked the connected hotel room we had in Oregon

After a long journey, we finally moved it to our new home. The boys were happy to see all of the green  and to see their new backyard.

Next up, more of April and Washington...

So much to cover, Part II

I am going to pick up where I last left off--we secured our new place of living and now we had to wrap things up in our previous state. Unfortunately, I decided to use pictures from the real camera vs. my phone so there are loads of pictures in this post. This post covers March. More to come...

I forgot to add some pictures from outside of the space needle. As you can tell--it was cold, very wet, but we enjoyed the trip.

Back in California, Arie's artwork was featured in an art museum in town. He thought he was pretty awesome that his artwork was displayed. We were really proud of him and his artistic abilities. I must say that my "artwork" was never displayed on a museum wall.

Arie's penguin in the mountains

Proud mom and proud Arie

Here is Arie's Penguin

We had some family in town--Chelsea & Pearce and Lacey, Kate, & Gus. It was a lot of fun to have family in town for a whole week. My mom's friend Darla graciously housed our family for entire week.  Kate liked her daily chats with Darla in the morning. We are so grateful she housed everyone since our apartment was too small for just the five of us.

Just me and Gus. Just so his dad knows, the 'Y' is where Gus will go to school.

Arie had another piece of artwork displayed, this time it was in a diversity program. We are glad his extended family endured the two hour fanfare of dancing, music, and etc. to support Arie.

Proud Arie with his classmates and Principal

In order to get ready for work, I had to have my hairstyle approved by Kate. I think I passed the test

Part of our adventure with the extended family involved finding a large castle park with two purple dragons. The castle had a very large slide that usually would get the kids going so fast that they flew a couple of feet past the end of the slide. Everyone had a ton of fun at this park--minus the really cold ocean breeze.

Tate loved being "eaten" by the dragon

Pretty much the largest castle park we could find

Much of the trip was centered around Gus--he certainly captured everyone's attention all of the time. The boys loved playing with him, holding him, and watching him.

Happy Gus and happy Lacey

Gus eating

Gus still eating...and playing

Everyone wanted a turn pushing Gus in the swing

The boys at the park

As part of our agreement with our landlord (to get out of our lease early), we showed our apartment to about a dozen people through a couple of open houses. Cass worked really hard to get the place in order after our family was in town. I must say that I don't miss cramming all of our stuff into that apartment.

The wonderful walk in closet that acted like another room/storage/everything else

Our entire apartment. Known as Dining/Family/Play/Craft/Fight room.

We would typically buy strawberries to eat, but usually there was only one person would get the bulk of the good berries. The rest of us were left with the scraps.

The damage done by Finn

Tate really enjoyed his preschool in California. One of the events at school was for the "Spring Celebration" (also known as Easter) where his class made lots of spring-type things.

Overjoyed Tate with his spring crafts

We were successful and lured a couple to sign a lease for the apartment. We were free (from the rest of the month of April). Soon after the open houses, the packing resumed. These pictures make it seem like the apartment that had so carefully swallowed all of stuff for two years threw up all over itself.

Our bedroom/office/garage/storage

This is the same family/dining/play room as shown above, but five days later

Next up, April and our move to the great state of Washington.