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.

Birthday Pictures

I can't believe that they are getting so big already!

John's 4 year old pictures


April's 2 year old pictures

Vacation

If you know Adam you know that we have TONS of pictures from our vacation. I've just picked one from each place we went. We drove huge circle- up the eastern part of California and up to Crater Lake, OR and then down the California coast. I love taking driving trips. We get to go lots of place that you can't see another way and there is lots of time to talk and sing and have fun together.

Sequoia National Park- in front of the General Sherman Tree
Yosemite
Lake Tahoe- we took a lake cruiseLassen National Park- playing in the snow. It was SO COLD camping that night!
Crater Lake National Park
Redwoods- the kids loved climbing on the trees
San Francisco- too bad it was so foggyLA Zoo

Grandpa Comes for a Visit

At the end of July, Grandpa John had a convention in Vegas and then was able to stay with us for a few days. The kids loved having all of Grandpa's attention and, of course, Adam really likes having his dad around, too.

We went bowling down at Sam's Town. John is still asking to go bowling with Grandpa again. Maybe next visit.April and John would give 10 every time someone bowled the ball.

The big boys playing with the kid toys.

Parenting Skills

I was questioning my parenting skills in the car yesterday.

John: What's this?
Adam: It's a napkin.
John: What's it for, Daddy?
Adam: To keep you clean.
John: Oh.