The Conservatory

And now we come to my favorite part of our trip - the Conservatory. How completely gorgeous is this?





Grandma and Kyla walked through the beautiful flowers. Kyla need to take a "rest" half way through.

Isn't this just beautiful?

The Carousel

I think this was Grandma's favorite part. What a great end to a fabulous day. Here's Grandma and Kyla waiting so patiently for their turn on the Merry-go-round. I don't know who was more excited, Grandma or Kyla!

Well if the smiles don't just say it all...

Colton was a little upset when his ride was over...

The New Playset!!!

"Hey, Everybody! Look what my daddy built for me!!!"

"It even has a slide!!"

"Isn't this cool?"

"It even has a telescope!"

"Yeah, what she said!"

"Everyone can swing!"

Ride 'em Cowboy!

Colton takes on the big bad vacuum cleaner. Get 'em Colton, get 'em!




Atta boy!!

Picnic at the Peterson's!

Here is the new and improved Madson family!!!

Becky (29), Jakob (2 mos.), Tim (29)

Daddy Tim and Jakob

And you may remember Colton's girlfriends, Emily and Ashley. Well, here they all are enjoying a wonderful picnic lunch.

Emily (20 mos.), Colton (18 mos.), and Ashley (20 mos.)

Oh, Abby...

"What? I'm on my bed?"

Happy Birthday, Caden!!

For Caden's fourth birthday, we all met at a local park to barbeque and play. Look at this cool cake Auntie Sara made...



Here's Dad and Colton on top on the slide...

Here Dad is showing the kids how to fly airplanes while Colton cuddles...

Kyla Dresses Herself!

Kyla is such a big girl now. She insists on dressing herself! Here are some examples:

One for the record books. Kyla was going to run errands with Daddy. With snow still on the ground, Kyla came downstairs in her tank top and shorts. Brady sent her back up to put something on her legs and arms. She came back down with her shorts over her sweat pants and a sweater over her shirt. Cute! And yes, Brady let her wear this out in public. We've come to the conclusion that it's really not worth the fight. People will obviously know we didn't dress her. Right? Right?




Very colorful...

Again, colorful...

Now this one has a story. It was a Sunday morning. Kyla loves to wear dresses and wanted to wear her new spring dress. But because it was only around 30 degrees outside, I told her she needed to either put on somes pants or some tights, but her legs needed to be covered. I also told her she needed to have her arms covered and maybe she could grab one of her nice sweaters. This is how she came down the stairs...

She covered her legs all right! With lavender pants that matched her dress! She also grabbed her "nice" Christmas sweater. When I told that it didn't really match her outfit very well, she informed me that the white in the snowman on her sweater matched the white in her skirt! Duh, Mom!

Meet Our New Nephew!!

Max Kristian Parks
Born 8:43 pm on Tuesday, April 8th
7 lbs 1 oz
20 inches long

and that's right folks - red hair!!



Ahhh...

Kris and his boys.

Auntie Sonja.

Judaya and Will showing off the T-shirts they made.

Hey, his eyes are open.
"Hi, grandpa!"




Who's the weirdo with the camera? Please don't tell me we're related.

The very proud Grandpa. The Parks name lives on!

Little Dancer

Kyla has been talking about going to a Dance Class for quite a while so I decided to put her in a little dance class through Community Ed. The first night I had Kyla dressed in a cute little pink sweat suit and shoes (the note had said to dress comfortably). We arrive about 10 minutes early (I know I was early - call the press). There was about 4 other little girls there and they were all dressed in little tutu's with little ballet slippers. Clearly this wasn't their first class. Kyla was unusually quiet and I was encouraging her to go and make some new friends. She would just sit quietly in my lap watching the other girls playing in the gym. Finally, she looked up at me and said, "I want to go home and change. I want to wear a dress too." Crap! I was telling Grandma MariBeth about Kyla's comment and she found this adorable little tutu for Kyla that she can pull on over her clothes. Perfect! She loves it!!

"You go, girl!"