The Thatchers: Spring is Coming!

My life :)

Visiting with Great Grandma Hebbert. We go to the care center almost every week and say hi to Grandma. Sarah is often the one that reminds us and asks to go. The kids also like saying hi to the kitty and bunnies that are out front of the center. This particular visit Sarah let Grandma hold her for a few minutes during music time. Anne always says hi and gives her a hug. Rachel is learning to be comfortable there but still always says hi. I love to just sit and hold her hand and tell her that I love her. I pray that she has peace.

This little squirt is two already! And very two at that. She has entered her toddler years with full force. She is independent and likes to do most things herself. She is also very determined and a tad stubborn (I don't know where she gets that from). She is also kind, still likes to give whoever is crying a hug. Sarah loves playing with her sisters and can now join in a lot of their make believe games which is fun. Some of her cute phrases these days are "Mama, hold you!" "I go see flowers, real quick, k?" "You ok?" "Corner?" (for corner of her blanket) "Good mornin Anne!!" "Rach!" "Look at me!" "I do it!" and many others I can't think of at the moment. She is quite the talker. Oh and she loves to jump. With both feet leaving the ground. Coordinated little thing. We love our Sarah.

I let the older girls decorate her cake this year. Yes that's chocolate cake with chocolate frosting...with chocolate chips...and some sprinkles. Sarah loves her chocolate.

It was so fun to have Dawn, Justin, and William visit for a weekend!

It's now a tradition for each kid to receive a large stuffed animal for their 2nd birthday so we hunted all over for a Winnie the Pooh, which is one of her favorites.

Rachel picked out this helmet for her at DI and Sarah loved it! She is such a BYU football fan. I'm not kidding. She goes around the house singing "Ra ra, ra ra ra! Go Cougars!" all the time. And every football team she sees on TV is "BYU football!"

Her favorite thing to do at the park is swing. I'm pretty sure she could swing all day long if I let her. So since we have a swingset now....

She received beautiful dresses and clothes from her Grandma Thatcher, Dawn, and Grandma and Grandpa Russell, thank you! My kids are so well dressed because of their relatives :)

She couldn't wait to try it out.

We got to watch William for a few hours while Dawn and Justin went skiing. It was fun seeing his first experience with snow on our walk to pick up Anne from school.

A taste of life with twins, crazy....but pretty awesome too.William is such a sweetheart.

Also a taste of life with four kids, our van seemed pretty full! But happy!

A fun treat for lunch, we even got Daddy to come with us!

Can I just say how much I love that we have so many animals that live near us? Within a half mile we have horses, chickens, goats, llamas, rabbits, lots of dogs, and cats. Just the other day we saw our neighbors riding their horses down the street. So awesome.

Playin at the park.

I wore them out which was good cause I wasn't sure how I was going to get both of them to take a nap. They slept in the stroller for about an hour and soaked in some sunshine.

And then Rachel fell asleep on the swing with me so I had rare alone awake time that I just sat and thought and appreciated the beauty of spring in our front yard.

Justin was a huuuuuge help in showing us how to prune our trees. Here's some of his handywork. We have enough firewood to last us a few winters. And enough smaller branches to chip and cover the orchard ground.

Poor Rachel fell asleep like this on our drive up the canyon. That just did not look comfortable, so I leaned her back over and balled up a sweatshirt for her for a pillow. Disadvantage to a non high back booster seat.

Zac took pictures of our fun adventure up the canyon in the snow with the Watsons, but they are below. One of the things that happened was Rachel's snowpants were way too small so all the snow got in her boots. Her socks were literally dripping when we peeled them off her.....and we forgot to bring other shoes. Luckily she had worn actual holes in the soles her running shoes so she needed a new pair anyways. Plus the shoe store we stopped at was having an awesome sale so she got to pick out cool ones. Fun times.

On the last day of the Watson's visit we went to Kangaroo Zoo and had a blast jumping and sliding for hours.

So proud of my brave girls.

They did not want to leave and have asked almost every day since then if we could go back. If only it wasn't so darn expensive!

One of our fun activities is all snuggling up on the downstairs hide-a-bed and watching movies together as a family. It usually turns into family nap time, but it's still fun.

I'm pretty sure this was our last snow of the season. Glad we got to go out and play in it a little bit before it melted. I hope we get more snow next winter...when we're not trying to move.

A little going away present for our nephew. He has some pretty cool initials.

Sarah loves the dress Jennifer made for her for her birthday and asks to wear it over her clothes all the time. She also still loves the toolbelt Grandma Russell made her for Christmas.

Since it has warmed up we've been exploring our new neighborhood. How awesome is this trail? Less than two miles from our house. Beautiful views of the entire valley. I wish I had had this baby when I was training last year. We've gone for many a bike ride, run, and walk on this already. I think it's going to be a favorite.

Spring has sprung at our new house and it is beautiful. With each new flower or tree that blooms, I am reminded of who planted and took care of them all these years. I'm pretty sure they will always remind me of my Grandma and Grandpa and that makes me happy.

Awesome play day with our Evans buddies! How do we have six kids all together Carlie? Remember when it was just 2? Crazy how the time flies.

Many have asked for pictures of our new house. I've been wanting to wait till the trees have bloomed but I realized that then you won't be able to actually see the front of the house. Here's a before picture (I since have painted the shutters cherry red). I'll have updated pictures next time. That's a greenhouse that my Grandpa built for my Grandma, how cool is that? We're hoping to grow all our starters for our garden in there as well as year-round goodies.

We had to get Anne's glasses fixed so we all tried on glasses.

Our neighbor that lives two houses down from us.

View from that trail I talked about before.The Murdock trail I believe it's called.

We had a fun family night up in Salt Lake at Fashion Place Mall where they were hosting a Lego America exhibit. All throughout the mall they displayed these incredible replicas of historical buildings. It was fun to see a little taste of "home".

The girls had fun in the Lego store. One in particular ;)

Expensive taste there Anne...

Sarah's creation.

At the end they had a station set up where you could build lego cars and race them down a track. We spent a while there. Rachel built complex cars, Anne rolled one wheel down the track, and Sarah cheered for her one block she kept racing down the ramp.

I have a strong feeling this will be a much enjoyed pastime this summer.

Yes, it was warm enough for this last Saturday.

Leaving for Church Sunday morning. We had fun with sponge curlers the night before.

Our first blooming tree. We can't remember which fruit tree this is but is sure is pretty.

Here's our snow adventure up near Strawberry Reservoir. We wanted to go play in the snow with the Watsons but we didn't realize we'd have to drive so far to find it. It's been a really weird winter. But we found a great place for sledding.

As soon as we got there Anne took off and said she wanted to "climb the mountain". Sometimes that girl surprises us. I tried to go up there with her but the snow was up to my waist in places. Her lightness just flitted over the top of the snow.