Michael's trip to D.C.

This is a almost a month late, but here are some pictures from Michael's trip to Washington D.C. He had a GK-12 conference there so he was gone from March 26-29. He enjoyed the conference and loved seeing all of the sites. He also was able to have lunch with my cousin Matt while he was there. Here are some of the pictures he took:

A very fun week!

We got to go to the circus this week on Thursday night! Aaron and Nathan had free tickets through the library for reading 5 books so we only paid $30 for our whole family to go and it was well worth it! I haven't been to the circus for a LONG time and it was amazing! We all enjoyed it a lot including Rachelle. I wasn't sure how she would take the loud noises and being around so many people, but she was fascinated by everything as long as she was in Mommy's lap. My favorite parts were the acrobats who climbed ropes and did a whole bunch of tricks up in the air. Mikey lost his wallet that night which gave us quite a scare, but we went back the next morning and they had it and nothing was missing out of it. Thank goodness for honest people!
We spent many hours at the mall looking for Easter outfits (which was pretty stressfull for mom), but after at least 4 different stores we hit the gold mine at Sears. We got short sleeve nice shirts for the boys with ties and Rachelle got an adorable dress.
Saturday morning we had a church Easter party with crafts, an Easter egg hunt, games and lunch. We all had a great time! (Thank you to all who are on the activities committee for putting on a very fun and successful Easter party!)
We also did two Easter hunts at home that night with the boys and had a lot of fun.
Then today the kids all got to wear their new outfits to church and we had a special egg hunt with objects in the eggs to remind us of the Easter story. I hope everyone else had a happy Easter!
Here are some fun pictures from this week:

Awesome children's books

I am so proud of my mom (Edith West) who has published 2 children's books recently! She authored and illustrated both and they are awesome. I would highly recommend them! They are called "My Family Tree" and "A World Just For Me". Check them out at http://www.authorhouse.com/BookStore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=59051

Trip to San Antonio

We went to San Antonio on the 20th to see some of the sites! We got to go to the Alamo, Hemisfair park, and walk along the River walk! We had a great time together and loved seeing the sites. Here are some fun pictures from it. (Sorry, I guess we forgot to take any pictures along the River Walk).

St. Patrick's Day (and the Sunday before)

The first picture is just so cute that I had to put it on here too! Rachelle is now getting interested in playing with things. It is hard for her to manipulate things, but she definately tries! It is soooooooooooo adorable!

The next 2 pictures are from our St. Patrick's day. As you can see we all wore green. We made fun headbands (Well, Rachelle has little Shamrocks taped onto her headband) for all of us including Mommy and Daddy, we had potato soup, and we made Shamrock cookies with green frosting that day. We had a lot of fun together!

Sick, but adorable

It is amazing how kids can still act so rambunctious when their sick. We took a trip to the Emergency Room last night because Nathan was having a hard time breathing. After Mikey gave him a blessing I drove him over to the hospital. They brought us in pretty quickly and took x-rays. Turns out he has pneumonia and a slight ear infection so he is on antibiotics and has an inhaler to help him with his breathing. After the breathing treatment at the hospital he was back to his normal self. He had been leaning against me on my lap the whole time before the treatment, but when he could breath better he was off and playing with the curtain. The same has been true today. He still has some wheezing but he is just as rambunctious as ever.

Aaron is not feeling well either. He has a slight fever today so we are hoping it doesn't develop into any type of infection like Nathan has. He says his throat hurts (No trouble breathing) and after we gave him some medicine he has been feeling a lot better. We'll see how he's doing tomorrow. We might have to take a trip to the doctors for him too.

Anyways, I will stop going on about their sicknesses. They'll be back to normal in a few days. Here are some cute and fun pictures from this month! I have the cutest kids ever!

A month in pictures

So I just realized today that I haven't put anything on here since January 24th! That is crazy! Sorry about the slacking! February was a busy month with a few sicknesses, but we're all feeling well right now and we're doing good.

(Aaron's Popeye shirt that Nana sent him for Valentine's Day. She made it for Daddy when he was little.)

Rachelle got a cold right before Valentine's Day so we ended up taking her on our Valentine's date, but it was still great! We went to Ninfa's for my first time and it was delicious! (I highly recommend the tortilla soup!) Oh, and my sweetie gave me a rose bush so that I could plant them. (Unfortunately they have died since we did not realize that there was not a hole in the bottom of the planter to let the water out so they drowned:( ) Oh well, I loved them anyways, and they were beautiful while they lasted!

(The boys' Valentine's outfits from Nana)

Cute pic of Nathan playing the piano

The next week we had a short visit from my sister Linda all the way from New York City! It was only a few days, but totally worth it! I hadn't seen her since the Christmas of 2007 so it was great to see her! The boys were ecstatic to be able to play with their aunt and I had a wonderful time catching up with her and just being together!

The boys in their armor Aunt Linda bought them

Snuggle time with Aunt Linda

Rachelle as a "Laker girl" (as Aaron put it)

My adorable children

We were able to go to Houston the last weekend in February to the temple. We ended up not being able to go in since it was closing early, but we walked around it and enjoyed the beauty of it. Then we went to visit my cousin Adam and his family. They have a beautiful new daughter Taydem (who was only a few days old when we went) that we got to meet. It's always fun being able to go visit them and spend time with their family! I love having them so close.

Stephanie, Adam, Taydem, and KailleeJo Finlayson

Nathan, Aaron, and KailleeJo playing with bubbles

Aaron, Nathan and KailleeJo playing with bubbles

Oh, and Mikey has been playing basketball with our ward team in our stake tournament since January. They had a lot of fun and they did really good! Their championship game was on March 3 and they got 2nd place!

Well, I should get back to my kiddos!

Precious Moments

Many times it is the small precious moments that make life enjoyable and remind you of how blessed you are . I'd like to share a couple of these (in no particular order) from the past week:

1. One night while we were at the table finishing dinner, I looked over at Nathan and noticed that he was dancing. When I commented about it Aaron started doing it too and then I realized that they were dancing to the rhythm of the dishwasher in the background! They are both very musically inclined and I'm sure both of them would make great dancers or musicians!

2. Yesterday afternoon when Aaron and Nathan were watching one of their favorite cartoons (Maya and Miguel) Nathan decided to put his arm around Aaron. How cute!

3. Michael took the boys with him to run errands with him last Saturday so that I could relax a little. He also took Rachelle and rocked her a couple of nights ago when she wouldn't go to sleep so that I could get some sleep. He is a wonderful husband and I love seeing how wonderful he is with all of the kids.

4. I don't have a particular story with this one, but the boys love their sister very much and always want to hold her and play with her.

5. Rachelle was just so cute in her little towel looking around that I had to take a picture!