April

I love General Conference. It means Spring is here; I am rejuvenated spiritually; and I get to be with my family ALL weekend!

Here's how Aliyah "watched" conference.

She calls this her swing.

Then we got together with Dave's family and did an Easter Egg hunt.

Aliyah is practically a pro! 

It was a wonderful weekend of being with family.

Dance Pictures

Aliyah had her pictures taken with her dance class. 

She was excited to have curly "Ariel" hair. (All of our hair-do's have princess names: Ariel hair is down, Repunzel hair is a braid, Mulan hair is in a bun on the top of the head, Jasmine hair is a pony tail, Cinderella is half-up, Anna hair is two low braids, and Elsa hair is twisted with a braid on the side.)

Isn't she beautiful?

I knew I had to mentally prepare her a little bit so we talked about what would be happening and I told her that if she did a good job smiling that she could have some orange chips, a.k.a. Doritos--her favorite. (It's ok to bribe, right?)

Here she is gearing up...

and beautiful!!!

Dates...

One of our recent dates failed. We thought the library was open Friday nights, but it's not--which I guess makes sense. So we went to a nearby park instead. 

This is why Dave is the best daddy. He let Aliyah knock him down for about 10 minutes-over, and over and over again.  She was laughing so hard. Why is it funny when other people get hurt, because, let's be honest, we all laugh ...

 

We also started having weekly play dates with these cuties. 

They are all wearing the aprons that Aliyah got for her birthday…

Love

Lovely moments from February:

We celebrated grandma's birthday...

 Aliyah had to help blow out the candles--she loves to blowout candles!

 One of Dave's native Brazilian mission companions came to visit the U.S. and learn English for a few months. We had him over for dinner. We have loved getting to know him better!

I love these two with all of my heart. 

Aliyah LOVES "Fancy Nancy" books.

Really she loves all books (a girl after my own heart)!

I will often find her sitting and reading books...

Bowling

For our date night we went bowling…Aliyah loved it so much the first time and talked about it fairly often.  She loved it again, she would get so excited to bowl, push the ball, and run away not caring what happened on the other end...

although I think she did get a couple of strikes…

that makes Grandma proud!

Family History

I had a cool experience during the summer where I was able to find my great-grandmothers records and her mom. So we finally were able to go with my parents during Christmas break to do their work. Mom got to go for her grandma and I went for my great-great grandma. Dad and Dave got to go for other family members.  I have never experienced the temple like I did that day. It was so powerful to be able to attend for our very own ancestors.  

I had mom take a picture of me and Dave outside the temple. She has us sitting their smiling for a long time saying that the camera wasn't working…when in reality she had taken eighteen pictures! 1-8…18! Technology is hard sometimes. 

 

      

Heehehehee…

and they are pretty far away.

Here's me and Mom.

and an instagram shot!

I love to see the Temple!