Help from Grandpa...

So I haven't posted in two years. And I'm sorry to say that if you are reading this to see what's going on in the family or something, sorry. I'm actually just posting here so there's an easier way for us to show grandpa our bird pictures for Livvy's science fair project. SORRY. Maybe someday I'll be better at posting on the blog...

Ok, so here are the pics we need help with:

We're thinking the bird at the top is maybe another flicker? or a really fat robin? or something else? And the other birds on the branches below are females?

This is in a different place, different day, but is it the same kind of bird? it looks round chested like the other ones but without the orange-y color. We also saw some small grey birds with a black mask, kind of like a chickadee. We can't find our bird book, so I couldn't check when we were there. I'm also pretty sure we saw a blue jay and some sparrows of some sort. And we've also seen magpies and blackbirds or crows (what's the difference?) And tons of quail.

Now I know this isn't a great shot, but we were super far away so this was as close as our camera could zoom. We think this is some kind of hawk, and we're guessing maybe a marsh hawk since this was taken out by the river. What do you think?

And again, it was far away, but we think this is a kestrel? A small hawk, right? It was just hanging out on the fence post out there by a farm over by the river.

And then we found a tree with all of these hanging birds nests and we were wondering what kind of bird would make them?

Thanks for your help, Boppa! Just email me if you want, or you can call when you have a minute. Love you lots!

Rylie's Preschool Graduation

Rylie was so excited to graduate from preschool on Thursday (May 25) - she's such a big girl. They sang songs that they had learned all year long, and they showed us their drawings of what they want to be when they grow up. Rylie wants to be a princess. (Surprise! Surprise!) She loved Teacher Tracey and seeing her friends at preschool, but she is SO excited to go to BYU Kindergarten next year. (And we are, too!)

Here she is, receiving her "diploma" from Teacher Tracey.

That tassel was in her face through the whole program.

Chee-eese!

A visit to Temple Square

We had fun taking a little trip up to Salt Lake City last weekend. Dan was finally home for a weekend, after five straight saturdays on the road, and we had a great family day. We had a picnic by the fountains and walked through Temple Square. We saw all of the children's artwork in the Church History Musuem, and then played in a fun Book of Mormon exhibit. It was a beautiful day, which we haven't had too many of lately, it seems, so it was really just a great day.

Rylie has always loved to pose - I guess she's choosing the "little angel" pose here.

And Olivia thought it was hilarious to tease Tate while we were trying to take the pictures. She was laughing pretty hard through the whole attempt.

And naturally we had some wet hands and feet after sitting by the reflecting pond here. No matter how breezy it was outside, they could not stay out of the water!

Cute little Taters kept singing "I love to see the temple" while we were sitting here so I had to get a picture of that!

And here the girls were trying their best to look like saints or angels or something.

That's Tate. Just chillin. Like usual.

The snowball fight.

Here is a short video of the snow fun in our front yard. I hope it works. :)

The first post of 2011 in APRIL?! Sorry, folks...

So it's kind of daunting looking at a blog that hasn't been updated in about 8 months, but I know I need to do it. I want to do it! We'll see if we can get this updated more often, but as for now, let me just get the basic details of our lives down.

We moved back to Provo right around New Year's, and the first four months in our new house have been wonderful. We have great land lords and we're close to school and church and everything we need. Plus the house has a basement! So we have room for the kids to play and they love it and we love it. We miss Athens, especially now when it *should be springtime here. We had such wonderful friends in Georgia and such a great ward. We'll have to go back to visit soon.

I haven't taken very many pictures, but we did get out into the snow in the front yard several times, so that's what I've posted pictures of here. And I promise to try to get more up soon. (Do I end every post with that promise? Probably so. Sorry, family!)

Love to you all.

Olivia vs. The Monkey Bars

The weather has started to cool off here, at least in the mornings, and so we thought we'd take advantage of sunny and 80s and meet some friends at the park. We hadn't been there 5 minutes when Olivia came to me crying (followed by several adults, which made me nervous) and saying her arm hurt. As soon as I looked at her arm, I knew we were headed to the hospital. There was a "dip" in her forearm, above the wrist, and it just didn't look right. The adults who'd seen it said she lost her grip on the monkey bars and fell, and they heard a popping noise. Poor girl.

So I left Tucker and Rylie at the park with Amber and Shauna (and all of their kids too, of course) and headed to the hospital. Unfortunately, we were leaving the park downtown in the middle of gameday traffic. I pulled to the side of the road when I saw a police officer directing traffic and he rigged the stoplight for us and we headed to the hospital. Luckily, Bro. Dunford was working in the ER today, so we got in to see a familiar face. Both he and the nurses were all impressed with how brave and cheerful Olivia was for enduring a broken arm. She got a temporary cast and we'll head back to the doctor some time on Monday to get a permanent one. Do they make waterproof casts these days? I surely hope so. The plastic bag on her arm during the bath tonight was cumbersome...

She really did great, all things considered, and by this evening she was playing with the kids outside - a little quieter and more careful, but playing all the same. And now she's sleeping her first night with a ginormous left arm.

What a day. Of course, I told myself. Of course we have a broken limb to add to a house that won't sell and a dad that lives far away...

But then I got phone calls from both women taking care of my children, then phone calls from each of my visiting teachers, then dinner and happy conversation with a dear friend...Of course. Of course, I reminded myself, my wonderful ward and good friends will always be here to help me, and my Heavenly Father will never forget about me.

Rylie's Birthday

We had a great time at Grandma and Grandpa's house! We went to Aiken's Makin' and the kids got balloons and cotton candy (which they decided wasn't nearly as delicious as they had dreamed it would be.) Then we went miniature golfing. Rylie couldn't be persuaded to place the ball anywhere but a few inches from the hole each time, so we got to see a fabulous hole-in-one-victory dance at every hole. :) Tate was proud to have his own ball and club, and Tucker was proud to be golfing with Grandpa and Uncle Q. Olivia remained surprisingly calm through the frustrations of mini golf, and eventually decided it was more fun to experiment with rolling the ball, rather than focus on "the rules." Good job, Livvy.

Then there was a super fun trip to Burger King and opening presents back at the house. We tried to take video of the present-opening, but it was too dark in the house and the camera was doing some strange things, so we didn't get video of that.

But we took some videos of other parts of the day, hope you enjoy them honey!