Easter dresses, billy goat gruffs, and afternoons at Freeman Park

I have been informed that I have really fallen behind on the blog, and it's true! I finally sat down today and got everything together. :) I'll try to be better....

For a little catch up, here are some pictures I took of the girls in the Easter dresses (forever ago, I know). This happened to be a particularly frustrating photo session with them--anyone have any tips on how to get a 2-year-old to not just hold still in an attractive position but also look at you and smile at the same time???? At least I got some really cute pictures of Ashtyn, which have been lacking lately--she tends to like to make faces for the camera, but she's been a little better lately. I think these ones are adorable.

Ooops, camera focused on Corinne's hand. Suffice it to say that this is literaly the best picture I got of Corinne for the 100+ I took....

 This is pretty sweet though.:) Few things are as wonderful and precious as when these two are happy and loving one another.

Also in April, Ashtyn participated in her first ever play--The Three Billy Goats Gruff in which she played the littlest billy goat gruff (and then took her turns as a "trip-trapper", aka sound-effects girl for several other rounds of the play).

She agreed to be in the play as long as some one "sweet like maybe Caitlin" played the part of the troll. Evidently, some kids were too convincing.... She actually did a really good job, and we felt quite proud of her. You could tell she was feeling awfully stage fright and embarassed in front of all those parents, but She Did It! Big step for her. I've been noticing little steps towards being more comfortable socially--last night at our ward fiesta she even left us to go sit with the kids on the floor for a while during the entertainment part of the fiesta.

Here's a few quick shots of the girls after church one day.

On one of our glorious spring days we've been having, the girls and I spent the afternoon over at Freeman Park and had a great time. I've decided it's one of my all-time favorite spots to go in Idaho Falls. Quite pretty and so fun to play by the stream.

All-in-all we're doing really well. Tyler has had the whole month off, but he hasn't had much of a break--we've been working hard on a house we bought down in Pocatello. We bought a nice home up in the Highland area--we love the neighborhood and it has a great location within walking distance to Ashtyn's future school and our church meeting house. The house is a nice split-level home that, like I've said, we've been working on. We put new laminate flooring in, painted the kitchen cupboards, and are installing a new countertop--the improvment has been amazing! I have before-and-after photos to show once we finish, but we are really loving the way it is coming along. We've also been doing a lot of work on the yard--mostly just clearing out the insane amounts of weeds, dead stuff, and branches. We're hoping to actually Put-In something nice, but we'll see how that goes. :) Next up is trying to get a garden in and a chicken coop! yea! I'm super excited. SUPER excited. Did I mention how nice it is that we can do whatever we want to the house? Paint it whatever color we like, pull out whatever ugly bush we don't like, plant yummy things, raise some chickens.... I am getting a little burnt out on all the decision-making and home improvement projects (and I haven't even started DECORATING the thing yet) but also feel very happy with how everything is turning out. I have a (not-yet-finished) beautiful blue and white kitchen that is all light and airy and I love it.

Anyway, I'll show pictures here in a few weeks when we get it all finished and let you see for yourself!