Family Fun

This past weekend we had great news! My parents were granted their visitation rights to see Josh, Melissa's son. Marti had actually been down to St. George the weekend prior so we got to see her a little bit then and then the very next week, we took off to Salt Lake when we got the good news. This was a big event for us because Marti, Chris, and I and all of our kids have not been allowed to see Josh since October of 2007 while all interested parties got it worked out. Another bright spot to all of this was Josh got to meet Lydia for the first time.

Here are some pictures of our weekend.
One of the highlights, for me anyway, was watching Grandma Z dive in and play rockband with all of us! Go Grandma!










Here is Lydia with Marti!












Here is Josh meeting Lydia. Usually she is very timid around people she doesn't know. But not with Josh. She crawled right up and sat on his lap like they had always been the best of friends.













In Saint George, the previous week, Nate and I got the opportunity to take Alex V. and Hunter along with our girls to a new family restaurant here, Pirate Island Pizza. It was a lot of fun. Alex here is wearing this kids menu on his head!






This kids had a blast. Not only did Nate win them prizes at the arcade, but the whole place was pirate themed all the way down to the pirate ship and waterfalls. All the waiters were dresses up and the food was decent as well! I have a hunch that this is where Lila is going to have us go for her birthday in March. All in all we really enjoyed our time with our family. Thank you to Grandma and Grandpa Zollinger for facilitating our awesome family reunion. We love you guys!

Lila's 1st Birthday Party

We were so excited when Lila received her first invitation to a birthday party. She's been to others but this was the first where it was just her friend and Emma wasn't included. Her little friend Serena invited her to her 4th birthday party. It was Strawberry Shortcake themed and she came home with tons of goody bags and the biggest smile!

Lydia's Playin' Dress Up

Our Aunt Marti bought Lydia her first dress up during one of her trips here last fall and on this day we decided to break it out. I didn't want to completely undress her so she got the dress up experience over her clothes which I don't think she was too excited about. Lila decided that she wanted to be twinners with Lydia and so here is our two Snow White's.







Lydia gets extremely excited when she gets to play in her sister's room. There is never a dull moment there, that's for sure! Here she is playing Barbie's with Lila...










reading books...













and just generally enjoying being in the thick of things.

Mischief

So as I was going through my pictures for this latest blog, it was becoming blatantly clear to me exactly who takes more pictures on our camera. My children!

Just so you can see what they have been up to when I have turned my back here you go...

First, there are lots of rules in my house and most are just common sense. One of them that is farely recent is -there shall be no children on the computer as they do not know what they are hurting and have their own games and gaming consoles. (On a side note, this is a new computer that was purchased as a result of too many children playing on the computer.) Emma is going to learn that having her sister take a picture of her breaking the rules may not play to her advantage.

Lila is well known as our family acrobat and well, let's just say family tornado. Here is Emma documenting that fact.

Being almost 4, Lila is very into doing things all by herself. Today she decided to do her own hair... Luckily Mother is close by to help guide the child :)

Now, another one of the rules of our house is - we got you camera's of your own for Christmas so keep your grubby hands of Mom and Dad's!

This is Lila's opinion of that rule!

Say Cheese!