Justin's Wedding

My brother-in-law Justin got married on the 18th of April. I wasn't able to attend, but David did. He said it was a beautiful wedding. Here are some of the pictures he took of the event, not very many but oh well. Justin married Cami in the Redlands, California temple. We are all excited to have her as an addition to the family. Congrats to Cami and Justin! The temple grounds. Coming down the stairs, the bride and groom.

The beautiful bride and her handsome groom.

The men (from left to right): Grandpa Carling(David's grandpa); David's brother's: Shawn and Bryan; David; David's brother Dan, and David's dad Mike.

Groom's parents (David's parents too)

David and 3 of his brothers outside the temple.

Easter Kids

I wanted to take pictures of the kids before church because they looked nice but we ran out of time since my kids always seem to sleep in on Sunday and our church is at 9 so we had to wait until after church to take some photos. And of course their hair doesn't look as nice as it did when I did it that morning, but oh well, right. Our color for Easter this year for the kids was blue. Last year we did purple but this year since Porter had that outfit I thought we should do blue. See their individual postings for more details.

Group hugs.

We had a great Easter this year. Next year we need to focus even more on our Savior and what the true meaning of Easter is. I tried this year to be better and Eliana still says that Easter is about the Easter Bunny and hiding eggs. I want to do all that but am looking for ideas on how to focus it more on resurrection of Jesus Christ. Kenzie was cute because after nursery she kept saying, "Jesus died. He loves me." And something about Mary being her friend.

Eliana's Easter Dress

Eliana got a new dress this year that I bought w/ the white sweater on Ebay. The best picture I got was this one, but it has the wrong shirt underneath. This is because it was at Grandma/pa's later that day when her cousins got there after their church and their mom was taking their picture so Eliana wanted her dress back on to take a picture. I didn't think about it til after I took the picture, oh well.

Eliana was being really funny when I was trying to take her picture.

Silly face.

A little update on Eliana: She is such a character and so much fun. Her new favorite thing is she loves to play games and her favorite is Uno Attack. She is really into Spanish too, thanks to her new liking to Dora and the Spanish speaking kids/teacher in her primary class. In fact she knows how to count and a few other words, so according to her she speaks Spanish. The other day at Walmart she starting taking to a worker in Spanish and the lady spoke back to her. Eliana looked confused. Sometimes she just talks gibberish and says she is speaking Spanish. Eliana begs for the Spanish backpacks (themed group of books, videos, music, toys, etc in a backpack to check out at the library) every week and makes me read the Spanish books, which I have a hard time with and most of the time just try to read a few words on each page if it is long. I don't know Spanish well at all, but since David knows Italian he can read those books better than I can. That is pretty much all that is new with Eliana.

Kenzie's Easter Dress

This year for Easter Kenzie wore a dress that my mom had bought matching dresses for the girls. She fits the one that was originally bought for Eliana. I love these dresses. We got them for like $7 or $8 at Gymboree in Las Vegas after Easter two years ago.

I was trying to get the tree in our front yard in the picture too. It was too wet and cold to actually take the picture outside.

Her dress is a little dirty in the picture since we didn't get pictures until after church.

A little update on Kenzie: Our little Kenzer is becoming such a big girl and is finally in a big kid bed, she just really loved her crib and would ask to go in it when she was tired, so it was so much easier when she had to lay down. She is still good about sleeping though and can sleep anywhere. Whenever she falls asleep out running errands I can lay her down in a cart on a blanket or put her in the stroller and she will just keep on sleeping. I take advantage of this a lot and whenever she is asleep people are always commenting to me about her being sound asleep. (People are always saying stuff to me no matter what usually "You have your hands full", gee people what is that really supposed to mean). Kenzie is working on learning her alphabet. She is still our puzzle whiz and can do puzzles that Eliana can do. In fact I got a comment the other day from a member of the Stake Primary Presidency (it was ward conference) that I should teach her to read and she will probably do it really soon because she is really bright. The lady said she mixed up three different puzzles and Kenzie knew exactly where each piece went. What a compliant. She gets her brains from her daddy for sure.

Porter's Easter Best

I got this church outfit before I went to my brother's wedding so he could wear it then. I also intended it being used for Easter. Porter is trying to crawl now. He has gotten up on his knees the last couple of days. He has also tried to pull himself on a couple of things this week too and almost succeeded. He wants to really bad and cried from frustration after he couldn't quite do it. See below (Porter's 7 months) to see more of an update.

I just like this picture because of his eyelashes, even though it still doesn't do them justice. I love his eyelashes and a lot of people comment about them.

The Easter Bunny Visit

The Easter Bunny visited our girls, but didn't leave very much candy this year. The girls got plenty of candy on the Easter egg hunts they went on. The Easter Bunny did bring new sheets to the girls and a puzzle for Eliana and scissors and glue for Kenzie.

What nice morning hair.
What a looker in the morning.

Egg Dyeing

Saturday we dyed some eggs for Easter. Me and Eliana dipping the eggs.

David helping Eliana decorate the dyed eggs with paint and stuff.

When Kenzie tried to color the eggs, it seems she would always end up cracking them somehow, I guess she was just a little too young. Maybe next year she will be better.

The Eggs!

Easter Egg Hunt

We did an Easter Egg Hunt two different days. We did one Thursday before Easter with our church playgroup, but I didn't get any pictures of that one. We also did one at Grandma and Grandpa Strasser's on Sunday with all the local cousins.

Ready to go out in the rain for the hunt! Crazy Uncle Dan, what a face.
Eliana picking up eggs/candy.

Kenzie loading up her basket.

Cheese

Alyssa climbing to reach an egg.

This is Oregon for you, wet and rainy. Although we get really nice days too. Just not on Easter.

Randomness

Here are a few pictures of some of the things we have been doing lately, just some of the recent pictures I have taken and haven't posted.

My very hungry brother-in-law Dan. Gotta love those apple pies and ice cream sundaes from McDonald's.

Eliana climbing up her new bunk bed, she loves it. I am not sure if we are keeping this bunk bed yet. We actually bought about 15 of these and have been selling them. Just a little money on the side kind of thing. I was trying to get just a picture of the bed, but of course Eliana wanted to be in it.
Kenzie at the pond. The other night we went fishing for the first time this year as a family. Notice her fat lip. She tripped a couple days prior and had an enormous fat lip. She just sat there and throw rocks in the water most of the time.


Walking down to the ponds that are down by the river by David's parents' house.

The other day it was super nice out and we spent a while at the park that day. Porter in his first swing at the park!

We try to attend an exercise class at our church 3 times a week, but have a hard time making it most of the time. Well this was taken on one of the days we did make it. The girls were playing with Porter.

I watched my nieces Siosi and Kalo and of course they were playing dress up. How cute are they?

More dress up.

Porter getting ready to eat!

Kenzie in some dress up shades, she always seems to put them upside down. Silly girl.

Kenzie eating her favorite food, goldfish crackers.