Jacob turned 5!

We celebrated Jacob's 5th birthday yesterday and he was a happy boy!

He got a big boy bike - in his favorite color ORANGE!!!

More blocks because he doesn't have enough already. This boy isn't happy unless he's building something just to take it apart. His face is pricelesss.

And complete the day with a blue birthday cake with green sprinkles. We love you Jake and are so blessed to have you in our family!

Grand Canyon Trip

**Warning! very long post!!**

We took a very very very very very very (not even exaggerating) much needed vacation over spring break and saw the Grand Canyon and other National Monuments. We had so much fun seeing everything we could in as little amount of time as we could.

Colorado River while it is still green - 4 days later it was brown.

Mather Point at sunset...

Taking a lunch break while hiking the Rim; this was perfect for the kids and it was a beautiful day!

Desert View overlook...

Watch Tower at Desert View

Cody took a picture of us from the top of the tower looking down...

and I took a picture of them from the bottom looking up.

Poor Lizzie, vacations are not very nap-friendly, so it finally caught up to her...

We took a day and drove to Flagstaff and saw Walnut Canyon Nat'l Mon where there were cliff dwellings from the 1100's.

Lizzie loved reaching out to touch the walls as we walked, especially since she was constrained to her dad's shoulders or the backpack most of the time.

Our next stop was Sunset Crater Nat'l Mon. which was covered with volcanic rock and really interesting to see.

We hiked right by the Sunset Crater volcano and got to see all the effects of the eruption. JC kept asking if the volcano was real and if there was fire coming out. Try explaining past eruptions and "dead" volcanoes to a 4 year old is not easy. The word "dead" finally eased his anxiety.

View of Sunset Crater

Another one of our stops was Wupatki Nat'l Mon where we saw a lot of Hopi Indian Tribe ruins. Your guess how to pronounce the name is as good as mine.

Really amazing to see how big some of them really were.

Next day back to Grand Canyon and we hiked to Shoshone Point which was a really good all around view of the canyon.

Hiking makes you hungry :) yeah, we went through a lot of trail mix...

Our little junior ranger with his ranger daddy...

This was a very small percentage of pictures but I picked the best ones to post. We loved exploring, laughing, hiking, playing in new places and most of all just being together as a family.

Lizzie's 2nd Birthday

Our little Lizzie-bug turned 2 last week. She wants to do everything her older sister does, including playing dress up and getting into my pots and pans. She steals her older brother's bike when he's not riding it, so she got her own...And she also steals her older sister's dress up shoes and hides them in a corner in her room, so she got her own...
And we had a lady-bug cake for our Lizzie-bug. She is such a sweetheart and brings such a brightness into our family. She is growing up so fast and we love her so much!

Family Time

We had some fun family togetherness over the holidays. Ate lots of food, played games, opened presents and watched movies. Couldn't get much better than that.

And then...we danced!