Hello?

Hailey is loving the phone these days! Mostly the buttons, but she tries to listen and will sort of make up a response. The word she says the best is "Hi". We love watching her say it, because she sticks out her arm as far as she can reach it, and stares and repeats herself until she gets the desired response.

We won!

Ian's soccer team had a rough season this year--almost no wins. It was great to see them gradually improve, and last weekend, they won the tournament that finished out the season.

Growing kids

Big smiles

Happy Abby--Happy Easter

Fourth place in the Pinewood Derby!

Rachel is officially 13!

For Grandma, a few pics of growing kids--sorry I've been so negligent! Love you all.

New Puppy

Just in case life was going to get easier...we decided to add a puppy to our family. We think he's very cute, but have been surprised how much work it is. Shawn has trained 2 puppies, and promises me every night that all of the challenges of potty training and chewing will be overcome. I am happy about the way having a puppy is encouraging all of us to spend more time outside. Puppies and people need exercise. Everyone is so tired at the end of the day, we haven't really been able to fall into bad summer habits of late nights and mornings.

Bufford (our dog) knows that Shawn is really the Dad, including his Dad, but Ian and Rachel have been making great efforts to teach him to mind them. I guess I should share the story of Bufford's name--Natalie might remember! When we last visited Utah, Natalie's little dog, Boston, made quite an impression on Abby. The only dog name she could really remember was Clifford, but since she new that wasn't quite right, she called Natalie's dog "Bufford" all week. We thought it was really cute, and determined that if we found a dog, Bufford would be his name.

This little pup had actually been named "Cowboy" because the brown marking on his back looks like a saddle. When we suggested to Abby that we might want to call him "Cowboy Bufford" she really wouldn't hear of it. So, for Abby, Bufford is his name. We challenge anyone who reads this blog to find another dog with the same name. : )

Hailey turned 1!

Hailey celebrated her first birthday! We went to Build a Bear--she was getting pretty jealous of everyone else's special friends. She loved her little dog right away. She is so sweet tempered and really enjoys meeting people and animals and basically is happy to have new experiences. This is really different for me after having 2 kids that really were pretty much uninterested in anyone besides me.

The new experience that she didn't love was mushing her cake! Being the baby in our family, she gets a lot of help with eating and drinking. Getting her own hands gooey trying to feed herself was a surprise. Once she figured out that it was frosting, she did actually eat some, but first she cried and pouted and generally looked disgusted at the whole experience.

Presents were more to her liking. In the past she's been pretty happy to let Abby open hers, but not anymore! Abby was kind of disappointed. We are looking forward to celebrating her 3 1/2 birthday on June 23! Thanks to Uncle Paul for the good idea--our almost Christmas baby doesn't even remember that she had a birthday!

What

What