Alex's first piano performance!

Today was Alex's FIRST piano performance! He played in primary. He played "If I Listen With My Heart"- both hands and memorized! He was really nervous but he did it anyway-I'm so proud of him. I couldn't find his church pants anywhere this morning, so I had to go to the store and I got him a suit and he looks SO handsome and grown up in his suit. He definitely has a talent and love for music. I took a video of his performance but somehow it didn't work:(.

pictures of the kids, dog and chickens

Abbie can push the shopping cart by herself:

The boys on a frog at the Salt Lake Aquarium:

 Katherine on a frog (she has to do everything her brothers do):

 Manzo's dad being bad chewing on something. He got caught here:

 Manzo with his dog mommy:

 One day we went up Payson canyon and explored. It was such a beautiful day!:

 She was eating snow:

 The little orange dot is Nathan (and Alex) climbing the big hill:

The chicken coop. Notice there are chickens in the chicken wire and some escaped:

 These are the Barred Rock chickens:

 The red chickens are the Rhode Island Red:

 Manzo with human mommy. Notice he's trying to eat me:

 Crazies:

 The cute fur ball:

 He's so little!

 I haven't taken enough pictures of Abbie so I took a lot:

 This is the cutest smile she gives me whenever she sees me. All I have to do is call her name and when she sees me she smiles like this!:

 The unpotty trained in the house:

 Making friends:

 Only one little bottom tooth (adorable!)

 Heart shaped pizzas with heart shaped pepperonis for Val. Day:

 Katherine went on a date with Todd to BYU's Cinderella ballet. Here they are eating ice cream:

 I curled her hair for their date:

 Here she is anxiously waiting for it to start. She sat mesmerized for the whole 2 hour production!!

Happy 10th Anniversary!

Feb. 9, 2011 was our 10th anniversary! For our anniversary, I wanted to get Todd a Bosch mixer and surprise him. So I went all the way to Orem to the Bosch store on a day that he was out, so he wouldn't even know I was going anywhere. I picked it out and had it at the checkout when guess who walks around the corner: Todd!!!! I had NO idea how he knew where I was, except that he had me bugged or something. It just happened that he was meeting someone for lunch at a little South American restaurant next door, and Todd arrived early so he wanted to go in the Bosch store and look around for a little bit, and there I was.

He really likes his mixer and has been making lots and lots of bread, pizza dough, cinnamon rolls, etc. since he got it. I like his new mixer, too:). He surprised me with a new sewing machine for our anniversary. Alex is taking a sewing class and knows more about it than I do! I'm very excited to make dresses, quiet books, doll clothes, skirts, aprons, etc. etc.!!!

Our new puppy!

Meet Almanzo-- "Manzo" for short! He's the cutest ball of fur you've ever seen! We picked him out a few weeks ago and he was ready to go today so Todd and Katherine went to pick him up tonight. Both boys are sick with the flu, or we would have all gone. We thought of lots of names: Cousteau (for Jaques Cousteau since our theme this year is explorers and we are doing marine biology), Flame (we just read Heleman 5 and we all loved it and Nephi and Lehi were in flames but were not burned), Diego (as in Dora and Diego), and Almanzo after the main character in Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Farmer Boy" book that we just read and all loved. Alex loved the book so much he read it in his Friday school, we read it as a family, and he read it again to himself. Reading that book made us want a farm and want animals, and that's what lead us to getting him. In the book his mom called him "Manzo" for short. Out of all the names, he seemed like a Manzo, and he would look when we called him Manzo.
He is full of energy and playful and hasn't been at all shy or scared since it came to our house. We are all so excited about our cute puppy!!!!