Easter

Happy Easter! 

We loved having our tulips in full bloom.

  Maddie Jane enjoys smelling flowers.

 Maddie and Daddy

 Maddie loves to knock on our front door as well as sit down on our front porch step. 

  Madelyn knew that the Easter Egg Hunt was after her nap time, so she was very happy to be awake!

  Here she goes...

 She could take as long as she wanted since there was no competition.  Don't worry, she did get a doze of competitive egg hunting though.  Saturday morning, I took her to Orem's community egg hunt. Once it started, I could tell she was a little stunned to see all of these kids and parents running towards the eggs and candy.  But soon she got her head into the game and started picking up candy. 

  

 Todd boosted Maddie up so she could hang on the basketball hoop.  She must enjoy dunking, because she loves it!

20 Months of Fun

Madelyn loves to wear her sunglasses.

She loves to feed herself, make big messes, and be cute as can be.

Climbing on chairs and tables is her favorite.  She enjoys going to nursery and story time at the library.

 We practiced finding Easter eggs many times during the month of April.

 After several rounds of practice, she started pointing to where she wanted me to place the eggs.

Words that Maddie has added to her vocabulary are: "bee", "I love you", "eat it", "I know" and is able to repeat many words that you say. 

She enjoys taking her shoes on and off by herself.  Looking through library books and Better Homes and Gardens magazines is another favorite activity. 

 

Spring Break Visitors

During their spring break, Jill brought Hailey and Christopher for a visit.  We were thrilled to have our house be their vacation spot.  Monday morning, we went to see the construction of the temple.  Little did we know that they would put the Angel Moroni on top just a few hours later.  

 We stopped to see the tree by the courthouse.  So lovely as the buds are starting to blossom.

 Since they had never tried ice cream from the BYU creamery, we definitely needed to stop for a treat.  Boy, was it good!

 The next day, it was filled with playing at the park, feeding ducks, taking a walk, eating at Pizza Pie Cafe, and playing games.  The kids had a tea party with Madelyn which was probably her favorite activity.

St George Day 3

                                                                                    The last day at St George we stayed in town and saw a few sites.  We walked around the beautiful temple.  I could not believe just how brilliantly white this temple is!

 We ate lunch across the street and of course Maddie Jane's favorite part was climbing up and down the stairs.

 Then we took a tour of Brigham Young's Winter home.  Here is a picture of his chair. There is a beehive (represent UT) on the top back of the chair and lion claws (represent Lion of the Lord) on the feet of the chair.  

While there, we learned the history behind St. George.  It was named after George A. Smith, first cousin to Brigham Young.  He was nicknamed "Potato Saint" as he helped the early saints by eating raw potatoes with the skins still on to help with scurvy and saved many lives.  Also, St. George was the headquarters of the church while Brigham Young lived there as he could communicate with the telegraph.

 While we toured the home, Madelyn loved climbing up the set of stairs.  They are steep and so I didn't want her climbing up them.  She was not happy about that during the rest of the tour.

 Last, we toured the old tabernacle.  It is a lovely old building.  Once again, the spiral staircase was right where Madelyn went towards.  It was a challenge to keep her away from it and listen to the tour guide.

We enjoyed learning about the history of St. George and are excited to go back to see the rest of the historic homes and hike the other trails.

St George Day 2

The next morning, we headed to Snow Canyon.  It was fun to learn that it was not named after the beautiful white snow, but after Lorenzo and Erastus Snow.       

 We did several family friendly hikes to enjoy the remarkable red rock. 

 The sky was the perfect color blue to compare with the red rock and green sagebrush.

 On the trail to Johnson's arch

 On the way to Jenny's trail to the the small slot canyon

 We ate a picnic and then hiked to see a lava tube.  

 We each took a turn climbing down into the tube while Madelyn was sleeping in the backpack.

 Todd saw this peak and just had to climb it.

 He said it was a wonderful view from there.

 He also got great cell phone coverage up there as he received a call from his mom.  

 Then we headed to the sand dunes.

 Out of all sand that Maddie could play with, she enjoyed climbing on the stairs the best.

 My favorite part was going on an adventure with Todd and Madelyn. 

 While driving back into town, we stopped to see the great view of St. George.

 Dinner at Olive Garden (Thanks to Rebecca's Christmas gift!) Then we headed off on a scavenger hunt of an adventure.  Todd had researched and discovers obscure directions to a place that had Native American petroglyphs or rock engravings.  I must admit it was quite the thrill once we found landmark after landmark that was mentioned.  We then hiked up as the sun was starting to set.  We found tons of pottery shards, not sure if they dated back to Native American times.  Then we started looking for the rock engravings.   

 I was impressed.  These petroglyphs seemed like the ones you see in your history text book.  These people must have settled on the top of this mountain that has a spectacular view of the valley and then engraved on these rocks.  We climbed around to find as many as we could.  Since it was starting to get dark, we didn't get to spend as much time as we would have liked.  But definitely worth the hunt to find this place. We want to go back.

We had quite the adventure that day!

St. George Day 1

We headed to St. George for a few days.  On our trip down, we started having car problems.  Thankfully, Todd had gotten the car off the highway at Parowan and into a gas station parking lot.  We weren't exactly sure what the problem was, but said a prayer asking to get the help we needed so we could enjoy the rest of our trip.  Our prayer was answered.  1) Not getting stuck on the side of the interstate 2) A truck mechanic shop was right next door and a few mechanics came over to look at the car.  They said it was the alternator and suggested towing it to Cedar City to get it fixed. 3) The tow truck showed up very quickly and even stopped at Auto Zone so Todd could pick up the free replacement alternator that had a lifetime guarantee. 4) The mechanic that we took the car to was quite shady and a little scary but they were willing to use our free part, complete the job in about an hour, and not close the shop until it was finished. After getting our car fixed, we ate dinner at Sizzle's with a salad bar, potato and steak, then drove the 45 minutes to St. George to the hotel.  What a day!