Weddings and houses

My little sister got married in the Gilbert Temple to my kids new favorite person, Uncle Travis. We realized that a crazy young uncle is a new thing for them. The rest of us are pretty irrelevant at family gatherings now - all the kids just pile on Travis. 

For April Fools Day/Crazy Hair Day at school, Morgan brought home a tempting pile of "brownies" and was very proud of her joke.

So classy.

 

This girl is so active now, I can't get her to hold still for pictures. All of them have a blurry appendage in them.

At the end of the month, we flew up to Utah to look for a place to live. It was both stressful and awesome to explore the idea of owning a home. No shared walls... a backyard... freedom to invest and put down roots...

While we were in Utah, we visited Grandma and Grandpa Merkley. 

Grandpa got a haircut he will never forget.

 

The kids loved their time with Nana and Far-Far. Although they felt pretty betrayed that the raspberries out back weren't ready to pick. When they visit Nana's house, they expect fresh raspberries and boating - instead they got shuffled between babysitters while we looked at houses. 

This is a happy crew flying home - we found a house!

March Came In Like a Lion

Not really. March is a beautiful time of year in Arizona - all those songs and phrases about seasons have no application here. Even after three years here, I struggle to remember that we play outside in January and huddle by the air conditioner in July. 

One day in March I heard a big thud and went to investigate. Turns out someone had hurled (more like launched) a big rock through the kids bedroom window with so much force that it broke the double paned windows and sliced through the blinds with precision. It was taken care of by our landlords with relatively little fuss, but it just reinforced our eagerness to move from our sketchy little neighborhood. 

I once had to take the kids with me to a church youth activity because Erik was working, and we went bowling with a bunch of teenage girls. The kids thought that was the best, and have been begging to go ever since. My cousin said years ago that if I ever found a man I would be willing to go bowling with, she would know he was "the one." And I did actually go bowling once in college - when Erik asked me to go. So here I am, sacrificing again for my children and looking like an absolute idiot. I blame it all on being left-handed and continually confused about which hand I should bowl with.

Happy Easter! I swear we don't teach Sam how to pose like this - he just does it naturally. 

 

From GQ to.... I don't know. Katy Perry maybe?

This little girl loves dolls - kind of foreign to me. I tried to play halfheartedly as a child until I learned to read, and then it was all over. She's a little nurturer already, burping them and snuggling. 

And the best picture of March: Erik signing his official contract of employment. We will be moving back to Utah, near his parents, at the end of June. Erik is going to be a pediatrician in Ogden! We are so excited to be done with school and training. We have spent the entire 8 years of our marriage in this phase - I hope we can figure out how to handle seeing more of each other. :)