Catch Up on the Big Events

So here we go. My new resolve is to blog more often so I don't have to have these big catch up posts on the major events of our lives, but since I still haven't done LJ and Ryan's birthdays I need to do one of those posts with lots of picture and little captions to give you an idea of all that went on. First though speaking of catch up (or actually Ketchup), does anyone else have a child that would probably drink it if you watered it down a bit and put it in a sippy cup?! Lorilyn if allowed can eat spoonful after spoonful of the stuff! She wants it with the usual stuff like french fries, but then she also asks for it with her breakfast nutrigrain bar or her yogurt for snack! Anyway, I digress, now without further adu we'll begin with LJ's 2nd birthday. Nana and Papa came to visit and we had a wonderful weekend full of LOTS of food, fun, play and football (it was super bowl Sunday:) Then the next weekend we had some of our cousins (unfortunately many from the family were sick) over to celebrate again and watch Jimmer play a game:-) Me being my forgetful self forgot to take many pictures of any of it, but here are a few cute ones...

Nana made a gorgeous princess cake and cupcakes to go along with it. Lorilyn LOVED the princess cake but more liked playing with it...the cupcakes however were devoured:-)

Look at the pretty frosting dress!

Yay for birthdays!

Look at my pretty yellow princess dress I got!


Nana and Papa gave me my own play kitchen and I LOVE it!

Waking up from my nap to find a new kitchen assembled:-)

LOVED playing with Nana in the kitchen.


Look at these handsome Stoianowski boys!


I love my Papa!


Here is a picture of all the food we made...yes this is just 2 days worth...we love food what can we say!


Saying hi to the camera:-) Such a precious face!

Unfortunately this is the only pic I got when the cousins were here. It was sooo much fun having them, hopefully we can plan it again soon!

LJ's first night in a big girl bed, since she is such a big girl, 2 and all:-) We got this bed from Aunt Kori. Her girls used it and now it was passed to us. Thank you so much Aunt Kori, we LOVE it!

Helping mom do some baking:-)

No we move on to pictures at Nana and Papa's for Ryans birthday weekend. Unfortunately Lorilyn had the flu so she wasn't herself, but she was a super good cuddler with Papa!

Look at that sad sick girl:-(

Danny had the time of his life rollin around on their super soft carpet...Daddy gave him a MI football to play with and he loved it:-)

Such a big happy boy!

Love this face...and the beautify blue eyes! I always wanted a blue eyed boy!

Feelin sick just playin with her dollhouse Nana gave her...

What you lookin at...so what my diaper is sagging!:-)

We had so much fun playing with Aunt Melissa!

Feelin a little better with Papa...she has a MI cheer leading outfit on...too cute:-)

One happy boy:-)

I also wanted to let you know that Grandma and Grandpa Bird sent Lorilyn a birthday package with 2 beautiful pairs of shoes that she adores. I took a video of her opening them and wanted to post it, but its not letting me today:-( I feel so bad that most all our picture are with just Nana and Papa and not Grandma and Grandpa Bird also. We miss them sooo much and can't wait until we get to go out to visit them in Utah in the summer!!

Where do They Learn These Things?!

So yesterday Lorilyn found one of Dad's hard hats in the garage and brought it in to play with. We were sitting on the couch when she came up to us wearing it saying, "Boss, I'm da Boss!" Both Ryan and I looked at each other with the did you teach her that look. Ryan then asked her if the Boss is the one who wears the hard hat and she said "Yep, so I'm the boss!". I think there is something every single day that this girl just randomly says that we have no idea how she knows it. I absolutely love watching the process of her brain learn things. She amazes us every day.

She also LOVES her some crayons. Not always to color with, but just to hold too. Well we shortly found out maybe its just that she is not coloring on PAPER, but she is coloring with them. Its hard to see but if you look closely the helmet has her artwork all over it:-) Then she found a nice place to store the crayons when she was done.

So last night the storage area was the helmet...this morning she decided they didn't belong in the helmet, but the lamp instead...

Waiting with her "Church bag" in hand for Daddy to finish tying his tie so we could go to church:-)

Just thought I would add a couple more pics of the boy to end this post. He doesn't seem to have many interesting stories that I can share about (unless of course you like stories based around spit up and poop), but he sure does take some cute pictures!

One of my favorite things with this little guy is he LOVES faces. Whether you are feeding, playing with, or just holding him, he always find a way to get his hand up to your face and feel or pat it. I will miss his pudgy little hand on my face as he gets older and grows out of it, but for now I try and soak it in as much as possible.

My New Goal + Jesus and the Chicken :-)

So I have this new goal, and I am determined to accomplish it. I have been thinking quite a bit about personal history, journal writing and scrap booking. All are amazing mediums to save your pictures, thoughts and stories for posterity. The only problem with these for me is that I am NOT good any doing any of them. I have always loved the gorgeous scrapbooks that so many women do, but as I have tried so many times to get into it myself it always turns out to be way more of a hassle and frustration than good so it never gets done. I have also had a journal my whole life, but it contains entry after entry that begin with "I know I haven't written forever"...So what do I do? Then I realized guess what I do have that I don't mind actually doing?...my blog. I have used the blog from the beginning as a way to make sure the major events in our lives were documented with pictures and small captions. Now here is where my goal comes into play. Instead of just the major events I want to record even the small ones, ones that I don't want to ever forget and would love for my children to read someday. So here goes nothing. Instead of the huge posts of big events I want to do posts more often with a few pics and sharing my feelings and stories with you. So I apologize in advance for my lack of writing skills. I have always been very good at writing the school essay because I could have a format that I could follow and include the researched information...however, the classes that I always struggled in most was anything having to do with creative writing...Im just not very good at it. I read some of my good friends (the amazing Jenny in particular) and I just love hearing how they can put their thoughts and feelings into such incredible words. Unfortunately, that is not me, but I will definitely do my best and hope that the true feeling of my words and experiences can somehow get across. Also, I truly hope someday that the pictures you see can be of much better quality in both camera and knowledge of photography. I have always been interested in it but have never had the means or time to really do it. Now I REALLY want to, but the means to get that kind of camera is unfortunately not here yet for me. Someday....On that note though here is my first post with my new goal in mind. (Truthfully I am behind with even the major events, Lorilyn's and Ryan's Birthdays) but I will catch those up shortly also.

You may be wondering what the title of my post could mean. It was something I just had to get recorded. My mother sent us this incredible calendar with some of the most beautiful and moving pictures I have ever seen. The March picture depicts Jesus in the garden during the atonement. Instead of leaning on the tree how we have always seen he is being held by an Angel. I saw the picture and was overwhelmed with the most wonderful spirit testifying of the truthfulness of the great sacrifice HE made for all of us and that I could never have ANY idea of what He really went though, but I am so grateful He did so He could take my hurt away from me and make me whole again. I love this picture because even though He is God's son, He is also Mary's, a mortal. He felt all of the pain he was asked to endure...and how would there not be Angels in His mist loving and holding Him? Well, Ryan and I were looking at the picture and talking about it when our little innocent 2 year old, who actually LOVES talking and reading stories about Jesus all the time which makes mommy and daddy so happy, came in, looked at the picture and said, "Look! Its Jesus with a pretty chicken!" Soooo innocent and adorable. We did however explain to her the difference between chickens and Angels, but it was just so cute I wanted to save the memory forever. Here is the picture...I hope it can touch your heart as much as it has mine...

And now I'll leave you with a pic of my little sunshine...can't get enough of this kid:-)