We are ALIVE!!!

It's true, we are alive. I've been real bad at blogging but hope to do a little better to help ease the complaints of people who love and miss us and actually want to see us!! Thanks everyone!!!

Here is our big man Jacob at his open house. He is standing next to his pirate map he drew. Jacob is doing great. He is playing baseball again, just finished basketball, is taking piano lessons and is in Cub Scouts. He is doing very well at school with his lowest mark this last report card being a 94. WOO HOO!! One day we were out walking and Jacob saw a boy from his class, Vallobh. They said Hi to each other and we kept walking. Then Vallobh's dad realized who his son had said hi to and he turned to us and in a very excited voice said, Jacob? That's Jacob from your class? We said yes and he said oh, oh I am so glad to meet you. Jacob is so smart and Vallobh talks about him all the time and on and on. It was pretty cute!

Here is Madelyn at her open house by her creations. The face one of hers is at the very top slightly to the left. At the open house there was another mom and older sister there and as Madelyn's teacher said good bye to Madelyn, this mom said - oh "that's" Madelyn. So I kind of looked at her like, what do you mean? She said, I'm maxs mom. All he ever talks about is Madelyn and the sister said yes he does. She said that he & zach have it all worked out that they are both going to marry Madelyn and share her. HA HA The PE teacher said the boys follow her all over. That you look and it is Madelyn with this group of boys following her in a pack. The PE teacher said, Boys leave her alone and then looked at Madelyn and she is standing there posing and looking her cutest. Oh my, we are in trouble. Madelyn is also very smart, can already read like a pro. Her report card was perfect. Over spring break she learned to tie her shoes and ride her bike with no training wheels.

Ella Bella! This is some artwork from her preschool. The teacher told me the kids were asked to paint a rainbow. Can you tell which picture is Ella's?? Yeah - that's right, the ONLY one that actually looks like a rainbow. Ella is doing great. She loves school, loves going to other people's house and is my best helper at home. Her and Madelyn are taking gymnastics and loving it! They have both gotten really good and love running and jumping and flipping and climbing!

Abigail....where do we start? She is doing great! She is getting bigger, or I should say longer. She seems so tall! She works sooo hard at all the therapy she does. She can sit for awhile by herself, she can roll over and sometimes even roll back. She loves 'walking'. We are still borrowing the KidWalk and she loves 'walking' in that. Or walking back and forth between Barry and I. She can't do it by herself but she sure loves trying. We will probably order her own KidWalk in the next couple months. We're getting a bright pink one!!

She's gotten orthotics recently. You can barely see them poking over her shoes. They go to about mid foot. But she is walking on her toes so we are going back in to get different ones that cover her foot and go up her leg more to stop her from being on her tip toes.

We also got a Special Tomato chair. It is pretty cool. It can strap to any chair or we got a base with it that we can roll her around the house (or outside). Jacob and Barry just made her a table this week so she can sit and play with her toys. We love it because we can take it to restaurants or church or school things etc and strap her to her own chair and she can be a big girl.

She is learning more and more words. Just the other night Barry asked her what her name was and she said, Abby. Just as clear as a bell. We all looked at eachother in amazement!! She still doesn't sleep very good and loves to be held which makes doing anything a bit hard, but - in Barry's famous words - it is what it is!!

We did get a dog at the end of the year. Her name is Cocoa. She is a catahoula leopard dog. She is in the background of one of Ella's pictures. We love her most of the time as she's eaten our blinds, lots of toys, food, the yard.......

Barry and I are good. He is busy at work trying to keep this country safe (or atleast this little corner of it!) He works a 4 day work week now, which I love as I make a long honey-do list for him every week. He is serving with another guy in our ward as the emergency preparedness guru's.

I am good too. I went from the Primary presidency right to the Relief Society presidency. I am over the RS meetings. We have our birthday party coming up this week - anyone want to come? I hope someone does...... I spend most of my time running kids to school, appointments, games, practices, lessons, etc etc I love getting our house organized and clean (for 5 seconds) and watching these kids get so big!!