7 Wonderful Years

Happy Anniversary!

I have been blessed to spend the last 7 years with my best friend

 She is kind, loving, intelligent, fun, strong, beautiful, honest, caring, and the list could go on forever (but I have to get back to work)

I am not sure how many people can honestly say that they married their best friend, but I am able to say that

These last 7 years have been truly amazing. I am so grateful that we have an eternity more to share together

I never would have guessed that a first date to the Fringe Festival on Kim's birthday...

that ended with phony engagement photos...

would have turned into this...

 I love you Kim! Happy anniversary.

Happy Valentine's Day

I love coming home to the different creations that Lyza and Kim, and sometimes Nixon, have made. Lyza loves to paint and is also getting really good at the alphabet

 She is always really proud of her creations

 We have been spoiled by the weather here recently. It has been really warm. We've even got perennials sprouting through the ground 

 This girl is happy to be playing outside again

 It's nice that she can go outside and get some energy out

 Of course she needs her sunglasses on

 Too bad its dark by the time I get home from work. We still find fun things to do together in the evenings 

 On Saturday morning Lyza had a primary Valentine's dance party 

 She had lots of fun dancing

And eating yummy treats

 She even busted out some of her Canadian roots and incorporated them into her dance moves. This one is called the hip check

She definitely moves to her own beat and doesn't follow the crowd

They even had a parachute

 After that party we made some Valentine's cookies together

 I had a meeting in the afternoon and while I was gone Kim and Lyza made a yummy heart shaped pizza for dinner

 Good picture Lyza

 If you ever need help putting cheese on a pizza give Lyza a call

 What a yummy dinner!

That's all for now. Take care

Someone just got really old!

Our funny kids like to dance and one day they each had some kitchen utensils and marched around and danced all morning

 I am very appreciative of our local library and their great activities for children. Lyza loves going to the library. Here the kids have two sticks, one is smooth and the other is rough, so they can bang them together and also rub them together to make different noises. Apparently Nixon really liked them and it was almost impossible for Kim to break his grip on the sticks when it was time to put them away

Lyza is always so proud of the crafts that she makes at the library. Oink oink

Lyza got some valentines in the mail this week and it made her day! 

 I was SPOILED on my birthday! I woke up to our massive (not really) kitchen table covered in 30 presents! Wow 

 What a cute card

 Lyza helped me open some of my gifts before work

 One of the gifts was a package of magna-tiles. The same set that Lyza got for Christmas. Now we can make even more things together

 While I was slaving away at work Kim and the kids went to a play group at church. There was this car that Nixon sat in and they pulled him around with a rope. He had a blast

 My amazing family surprised me at work. I love when they come to visit and I can show them off to everyone at the office

 Lyza made herself right at home eating my birthday treat sitting in my chair

 After work I came home and opened up the rest of my many amazing gifts. I have an extremely thoughtful wife and children

 Then we had some birthday cheese cake and sang happy birthday

 We had a babysitter watch the kids and Kim and I went out for dinner together. What a treat! Great food and great company.

 After dinner we went to a stake dance and danced to a couple of songs. It had been awhile.

Yesterday Lyza had her last gymnastics lesson. It has been fun to see her learn some new skills and have fun

 We followed that up with a little shopping. You can see how excited Nixon was. He takes after his dad.

 Lyza on the other hand had a blast, especially trying on all of the sunglasses

 I went to a monster truck event last night. While I was there the girls had a little party at a friend's house. They have this bouncy house in their basement which Lyza loved.

 Going to a monster truck event was really interesting. This was definitely an All-American event, but it was still cool to see the Canadian flag in the stadium

 I was originally worried about going and the type of crowd that was going to be there, but I had a great time

Here is a video of one of the free style drivers 

This has definetly got to be my favorite video of the week. Enjoy, and take care

Gnome Update

A couple of weeks ago Lyza and her mom made a little stuffed gnome that Lyza really loved. She loved it so much that she had to take it shopping with her. Of course she lost it in the store and was devastated. We checked the store's lost and found multiple times with no luck. This last week we checked again and it was there! It was a happy day and a happy reunion between friends. She is as happy now, if not more, as she was the day they first met. She is not going to ask to take him shopping again.

 They have also made a little fox. What does the fox say?

 Lyza having a tea party. The brown bear was my stuffed animal growing up that I have kept around through adulthood. She really likes it right now.

 I have always said my daughter is special. The headlamp and underwear over her pajamas are just another piece of proof 

 We have reached a long awaited stage with Mr. Nixon...he will actually let us read him books. Until now he has only been interested in eating books. We couldn't get past the first page because he would get it into his mouth and had no interest in looking at the pages. Now he is starting to enjoy looking at the pictures and listening to us read to him.

He is also pretty good at saying "book"

Here is Lyza playing a little game with Nixon. I don't think he is a willing participant

Nixon is amazed by his running bath water

We can never get the best parts on camera, but you get the idea

Here is a video of each kid doing something they love. Lyza has got her blanket on the floor like a dance stage and she is dancing to princess music. Nixon has found a hair that he is eating. Happy moment.

Here is a cute video of Nixon playing with his little computer

That's all for now. Take care