Who would have thought that 11 years could go by so quickly? Just 11 short years ago I was a young kid of 21. I’d only been home from my mission for about 6 months and I had myself a brand new Valentine. I’d met her through a blind date and even though she lived half way to Reno (it seemed like it at the time) I was willing to make the long drive cause she was hot and she had a beautiful smile. I wasn’t too sure what her family thought of me, but they hadn’t tried to run me off yet so I figured I’d just keep hanging around until they did. Fortunately for me that never happened and now here we are 11 years, 7 or 8 moves (depending on how you count them), 3 jobs and 4 kids later. During that time we’ve had our ups and downs, but one thing has never changed… my Valentine is still hot and she still has a beautiful smile. Not to mention the fact that she’s a great mom, a great wife and my best friend. One thing that has changed over the years is that we’ve sort of gotten into the habit of being pretty low-key when it comes to celebrating holidays (and birthdays), but I hope she knows that even though I don’t always make a big deal about it, I would be utterly lost without her. She’s the yin to my yang and she provides balance to my universe. Many things have changed in the last 11 years but no matter what other changes might come our way in the future, I will always need her and love her with all my heart.

Thanks for being my eternal Valentine Em.

So this year’s Halloween activities weren’t exactly what we had planned, but we still ended up with more candy than we know what to do with. This year the kids dressed up as Sharpay from High School Musical (Hailey), Dorothy (Mallory), Little Bo Peep (Annie) and Jack was a Sheep. We had a couple days worth of Halloweening including a party at Grandma’s house and a pretty crazy round of trunk-or-treating at the park.

I suppose it’s technically 20 minutes after Mothers Day at this point, but I wanted to post a quick note about what an amazing mother Emily is. Now I know that lots of mothers out there have 4 or more kids to look after, but it takes a special kind of mother to handle twins plus 2. The demand they place on her time and patience is something that would drive any male insane in very short order (me included). And yet, Emily is able to give them both the time and love they need while still having enough patience to deal with all the trouble they get into, not to mention the trouble that Haily and Mallory get into on top of that. And if that weren’t enough, Emily still has time for her church calling and a part time job as well as the fact that she seems unable to tell anyone no when they ask her to help out. She helps at Haily’s school, tends the neighbor kids all the time, takes on PTA projects, is always there for her family, and the list goes on. She handles a schedule that would make most people cry and she does it with only the occasional meltdown. I just want Emily to know how much her family loves her and how much we couldn’t get along without her. Of course we’re a little biased, but we think she’s the all-time greatest mom ever!

For St Patricks day Emily made a completely green meal for the kids (I unfortunately missed this one). From the pictures you can see that the meal consisted of green beans, green jello, grilled cheese sandwiches which were dyed green and some sort of green beverage. Haily and Mallory were excited at the change of pace, but my reaction to this meal would have been similar to Jack’s expression in the third picture. I like my food to be the color nature intended… with just the right amount of Yellow #5.

For Easter the kids got to go up to the park for a neighborhood Easter egg hunt. They found lots of Easter treats and I think they’re just barely finishing all the candy they obtained at this event. They also all got new Easter outfits from Grandma which is what they’re showing off in the pictures below.