3 years and 3 months

this past thursday scott, sara and i went to columbus to visit our buddies brody, macie and anne.  as any avid follower of this blog will know scott and brody have the same birthday so we went down to celebrate.  can you believe these boys are almost THREE!?!?!

here's the fearsome foursome in their matching batman shirts. i wonder if these kids like posing for pictures as much as we like taking them??

here are the boys opening their gifts from each other.  scott gave brody an airplane (that he was a bit jealous of) and brody gave scott the coolest ever lightening mcqueen blanket that he now sleeps with every night.

these boys had so much fun playing in the backyard together...

eating icecream at graeters...

and just chilling with their sippy cups.  i can't believe they are so old!

speaking of old... does anyone else feel like sara was born yesterday?  she's THREE months today and big enough to be on an exersaucer!

macie and sara are already becoming best buddies.  one of my favorite moments was sitting next to anne with our girls on our laps.  they were just watching each other and gabbing and smiling and i know that in a few months they'll be running around together like scott and brody.

on saturday our whole family participated in a walk for cystic fibrosis at our zoo.  scott's cute friend Porter has CF so we wanted to support him. plus we got to walk around and see all the cool animals.  win win win!
here's scott with his little buddy mitchel. i was impressed at how well they stuck their heads through the slots.

frisbees or hats? either way...

watching the mokeys with their dads.

here we are in front of the brand new elephant exhibit.  we have been waiting all year for these elephants to arrive and they did not disappoint.

and here's my little sara girl when i took her back to the car because it was much to hot for her (or me) to be in the sun any longer.

she really is such a little sweetheart.  and i have to say that even though i've loved her from the day she was born i'm really starting to develop a bond with this happy, smiley little girl of ours.  she truly brings sunshine into our home.

and i just thought this last picture was funny because while i was taking it sara was filling her pants.  and by the time i put the camera away we were both covered in brown poop!  how something so stinky can come from someone so sweet is beyond me!



so many things!

a couple weeks ago we blessed sara which meant we had lots of visitors!  james' dad's family as well as the bryan and annie clan came to town and we had such a fun weekend!

we all met at one of the church historical sites - the john johnson farm - and then we had lunch and played around in a nearby town called chagrin falls.  the kids loved playing together and of course i loved taking pictures!

scott was a little moody in this pic because i had just gotten after him for getting too close to the river.  he was still processing the lecture i gave him on how he could die if he fell into the water.  i love how smiley audrey was despite it all.

scott and caleb LOVED getting pushed around in the stroller.  i could complain about having had to push them all over the place but james had to carry sara all day in her car seat so he wins. 

here are my boys in the john johnson farm. this was a very cool room where the prophet joseph smith had many of the revelations that are in the docterine and covenants. it was a really neat experience.

and of course the group picture outside...

i really wish i had some better pictures of sara's blessing day.  unfortunately it was cold and really windy and sara was having an extremely rough day.  she was crying so much that i never even got a picture of her in her blessing dress!  she wore the same dress i wore when i was blessed so it was really special. i've been meaning to put her back in it for some pictures but that's going to have to happen later.  hopefully before she outgrows it!

well its finally spring in cleveland which also means its BASEBALL season!  i signed scott up for a tee ball league and even though i pulled him out because they ended up combining the 5-6 year olds with 3-4 year olds and scott was WAY out of his league... i still got some great shots of his one day on the team.

here scott is with his team and his coach.  (the first day was inside because of the rain.)

and here is scott .5 seconds later when his attention span came to an end.

i LOVE this picture of scott getting ready to bat.  he was such a little stud.

and here he is manning second base.  i kept telling him to stand up but apparently he was tired.

and here's our little sister sara.  what a big girl she is turning out to be!

i can't believe how much she has grown lately!  she is starting to feel like a real little girl instead of just a female blob.

this picture was taken on mother's day.  i feel like the luckiest mother in the world!

this is sara post-hair cut.  i don't have time in my day to figure out my hair and sara's hair so hers had to come off.  she does look a little boy-ish but we just throw a bow in there and its all good.

this was taken tonight while james played a computer game with the kids for FHE.   its still weird to refer to "the kids" and i can't believe we have two!

not to jinx us or anything but sara has slept through the night for the past THREE nights!!!  i can't even begin to express my excitement for this huge milestone! not to mention the fact that sara is out of our room and sharing a room with scott.  they are so cute in there together.

and that's not all... without being too much of a bragging parent i have to say that this weekend scott learned to open the car door by himself, get in and BUCKLE UP HIS CAR SEAT!!!  i LOVE it!  i mean, i know that i could use the extra exercise running around to both sides of the car to get the kids in but it is still so nice to not have to!