Halloween

John and April loved trick-or-treating. Every time someone would give her candy, April would rush up to me and say, "Look, Mommy! Candy!"

Carving pumpkins
John and April had no qualms about reaching in the pumpkin.
Katelyn's first Halloween.
Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!
April and John LOVED passing out candy.

The Pumpkin Patch

How appropriate that we would go to the pumpkin patch with Grandma Pumpkin! We had fun exploring the farm- from the sheep and horses, to the tractor ride. The kids loved the animals, but April did NOT want to sit on the horse. Who would have thought you could find a place like this just a couple of miles from the

Katelyn's Vistitors

Here are some of the pictures from when Grandma Pumpkin and Aunt Alli's family came to visit.

Seth is the only cousin that my kids have close by for the time being.
Grandpa Cal
Aunt Alli

Sightseeing at the Bellagio

Coming to See the Baby

The weekend after Katelyn was born my family came up to see her. These are just a few pictures of them with the baby.

Uncle AndrewAunt BriannaUncle Jason
Aunt Sara
Grandpa and Grandma
Uncle Matt

Katelyn Joyce Archie

Katelyn Joyce Archie was born October 7, 2010 at 4:46 AM. She was 7 lbs. 7 oz. She looks so much like April did as a baby. We are all head-over-heels in love with her.
She has so much hair! (Even more so in the back.)

Proud daddy
Mommy loves her baby.Grandma Peterson and KatelynJohn wasn't too sure what to think about Katelyn. We had to bribe him with cookies to even sit for pictures. But I am very happy to say that he now always wants to hold her and tells me that she is happy to see him. April thinks that Katelyn is her own real life baby doll to play with.Our first new family picture.

John

John is a great big brother. He loves to help April in the ways that Adam and I would help him. He finds her food out of the pantry, will pour her glasses of water, open doors that are still tough for her and give her toys to play with. It's fun to hear him ask her, "April, wanna play in Johnny's room?" I love that they get along for the most part and spend time playing together.

John loves building things. He loves his Lego's and gears and putting his train tracks together. He will take his play tools all over the house and tell me that he is fixing something. But I guess it shouldn't be any surprise. He was always fascinated to watch Adam work around the house. It will be so nice to have two handy guys around!

John is very independent. He must dress himself, strap himself into his car seat, turn a movie on and off, and basically anything else I will let him do. I guess there are lots of good things about it, but when did he get so big?

Heavenly Father has blessed my with a very special spirit.

April

I just wanted to write down a few thoughts about my April Beth. She is our princess. She loves to dress up and tells us so. Almost every Sunday as I dress her for church, she will look at her dress and tell me, "So pretty, Mommy!" It's fun to have a girly girl that I can dress up.

April loves babies. Anyone remotely smaller than her is considered such. She's drawn to them instantly at church, in the store, at the park, anywhere really. She LOVES feeding her baby dolls. Yesterday I found her Cabbage Patch, Betty, with Lucky Charms marshmallows squished into her mouth. Her favorite doll is Ashley, who she cannot sleep without.

April always dances everywhere. She doesn't walk away, she dances away. April will be in the middle of almost anything and start bouncing up and down and announce to everyone that she is dancing.

I feel so blessed to have such a special little girl in our family. She makes all our lives brighter.