Happy Easter, Earth Day, and more!

We had a WONDERFUL Earth Day this year...probably because 1. It's the first Earth Day we've ever celebrated and 2. Darin had it off for work!! Wahoo!! In honor of Earth day...and because we were going to anyway, we bought lots of new plants! Darin built me my very own herb box, and we bought some herbs to start us off. Darin also got some tomato and cucumber plants. We also bought some new trees!! When we moved in we only had 2 trees in our yard, and now we have 7! We have a peach, apple, apricot, pear, another peach, and a pluot in the back yard, and we just got a flowering cherry for the front yard!! Yay for trees!!



Our new tomatoes

Our new awesome herb box that Darin made!



The Easter Bunny came to our house on Saturday morning. I LOVE when the Easter bunny comes!!
Darin and Matt with their Easter baskets!!

Even Lindsay got a basket, and she was super excited about it!!






Saturday afternoon my mom and I made cookies together. Lindsay pretended to help!




I made these cookies for my Young Women lesson. I was really happy with the way they turned out. However, I left Matthew alone in the kitchen and all but 1 got destroyed. I will admit, I was a little teary over that one. So, I headed to the store at 9:30pm and the girls got boring store bought cookies. Oh well.

Easter was GREAT!! We got a few family photos:




We went to my parents house for a DELICIOUS Easter dinner!



My cute niece Becca gave a little Easter lesson and did a great job!

Ben and Kristy made some yummy dessert...and pretended it was their wedding cake. She made some darling cupcakes, and then a carrot cake/cheese cake layered together!! SOOO yummy!!


Then all the kids went on a fun Easter hunt!




Then Matthew got a little Grandpa time and Lindsay got a little Grandma time!


It was an absolutely WONDERFUL Easter!!

Dying Easter Eggs!

Cute Linds

Just two cute pics of Lindsay today! We went on a little walk and she LOVED it!


Thanks Grandma for the darling outfit!

Answer to Prayer!

Thank you so much for all of the prayers! Lindsay's head is soft again, and her eyes are up!! Wahoo!! We just got back from the doctor and the catscan went well! Her cyst is still the same size but her ventricles are a tiny bit smaller! Yay!! And her head hasn't grown at all since her last appointment!!

Dr. Kestle felt her head and was really happy with the way it felt! At the end of the appointment he said, "How brave are you?" I wasn't really sure what he meant, so he followed up by saying, "Do you think you could make it 3 months before coming back?" WOW!! We've gone from weekly appointments, to every other week, to monthly, now a three month break! That is TWICE her age!! So, happy 3 month birthday Lindsay! Here is the monthly tradition of Lindsay with her owl:

3 Months


2 months


1 month


5 days

Gunnerson Dinner

We had a fun Gunnerson "Pre-Easter" Dinner. It is always so fun to be with family! We had lots of yummy food including London Broil, sauteed mushrooms, twice baked potatoes, rolls, apricot glazed carrots, rolls, peanut butter eggs and my sisters-in-law brought some yummy salads and a yummy carrot cake!


The kiddos tables


The Adult Table

I made peanut butter chocolate eggs and found these cute boxes to put them in. Also, this is the china Darin bought for "his future wife"(aka me) when he lived in the Philipines with his parents the 1st time they were there 10 years ago. I think he chose pretty well!


All the kids minus Cooper and Hayden. (Missed you mom, dad, Nate, Janie, and Tom)

A few upgrades!

We changed a few minor things in our house, but I think they make a big difference! First- my mom made this awesome blanket and chair covers for Matthew's bedroom:

Second- We got a new faucet! Hooray! (Our water heater broke the same day so we got our plummer to instal it for us! Yippee!)


Third- I filled my jars with candy instead of pasta. I like how it turned out!


Fourth- I made these placemats using an old putting green I had but never used. Kind of silly, but I thought they were kind of cute too!

And just for fun a little mommy/Lindsay picture

(This is in honor of you Amy--"embrace the camera!" :))

Praying for a Miracle!

We have recently had a few setbacks with our sweet little Lindsay. She has been doing great for the last month with the exception of an occasional throw up. However, the last two days her soft spots have turned firm, and her eyes are going back down—both indicators of pressure in the brain. We really have appreciated all of the prayers in her behalf, and we would ask that you start praying again. We are going back in to Primary’s on Monday so we are praying for a miracle that she won’t need the shunt. Thanks for the prayers! We love you all!!

Matthew Singing

Just because I don’t want to forget…

Here are a few humorous Matthew stories:

Matthew and my mom were outside in the back yard. My mom’s glasses fell off her head and she said “Oh no, I dropped my glasses!” And Matthew picked a few blades of grass and said, “Here you go grandma, here are your grasses.”

We were reading the Book of Mormon and Matthew lost interest so he jumped on Darin’s lap, closed the book, and said “The end.”

Matthew opened up the scriptures and pretended to read and said, “Jesus book, Amen.”

Matthew was playing with the coins in his piggy bank and started to put the coins down his footy p.j.’s and then ran around the house loving the jingle in his pants.

Matthew woke up when it was still dark outside and I found him sitting in the living with a pan with left-over casserole on his lap, eating it with his bare hands and saying “yummy!!”

Lindsay threw up on my bed and Matthew came in and said, “Oh no!! Lindsay! You ok?” Then I said, Matt I need to stop playing with you for a minute so I can clean this up. Then Matthew said, “No. I keen it.” He ran out of the room and came back with one square of toilet paper and helped me clean up Lindsay’s throw up!

Isn’t he just the sweetest boy ever!!? I LOVE that kid!!

Our pet goldfish (Dorothy) died on April fool’s day. When Matthew found her dead he said, “Oh no! Dorothy not working.” After I explained that she was dead and that were weren’t going to have her as a pet anymore he said in a really sad voice, “I miss it.” (Don’t worry, he was over it and singing and playing 2 seconds later).

And last but not least, I have found Matthew 2 times with a stick of margarine, but this time it wasn’t only in his mouth but in his hair!

YW New Beginnings

Last week we had our Young Women New Beginnings program. I thought that it turned out great!! My WONDERFUL, AMAZING, TALENTED, (not to mention beautiful) councilors, secretary, and Laurel advisor pretty much did the WHOLE THING! They have been SOO SOO wonderful as I have been busy with Lindsay to just take over the whole YW. I love our girls so much and I am so excited to be with them again! They all were fabulous!!

(The invitations--one of the few things I was incharge of).







What a group!