Each year Emily has a tradition of celebrating her birthday with Zeb Teichert. They both have birthdays in early January, so we celebrate together. Although their ages are a bit different, we love to celebrate together. Each year Zeb is a great sport about having a girly cake. Last year it was some princess that we added basketballs to, this year was nothing short of girly. We went for fairies...thanks Zeb for making us laugh and being a great sport for the 5 year old! We love you!

My babies are growing up!

I know every parent at some time looks back and wonders what happened with the time...so here we go. We not only have a 9 year old, 6 year old, but our babies are 5 and 2 years old. Our little Emily Estelle turned 5 on January 6...she starts school this year...I can't believe it. Then a month later Briti had a candle ceremony on February 8 when she turned 2! Where has the time gone?? I'm sure in a few years when Brooklyn and JJ are driving I'll really have a reality check as for now turning 2 is a big deal!!

Projects on my mind

These past several months have been filled with numerous projects from kitchen backsplash and counter tops, wood floors, wall texturing, replacing closet doors...and now the long awaited basement fixer!! We're finally fixing the bathroom and laundryroom with an extention to the familyroom.!! Hooray, we've waited 7 years to jackhammer this area!! It's quite messy, but we know the end result will be great! I apologize about the pictures being sideways...you know I'm not a techo genius...:}

Kids, Kids, more Kids!

These are a few of our pics from the summer: vacation to the Basque festival.

The three older kids were dancers this year with Emily as our family

champion. She won the Jota contest for her age...she danced her little feet off!

Wedding Bells!

Vacation, Vacation, Vacation

While visiting Grandma and Grandpa, we scaled the castle walls, dug through cemetaries, and found numerous family history cites.

Our beginnings

Early this summer our family went to Europe to visit Elder and Sister Backus who were serving in the England Manchester Mission. This is a picture of our family in the docks where our pioneer ancestors loaded the boats to sail to the promised land. Since the docks in Liverpool are significant to our family history, this is where we'll begin our family blog!!