Annual Easter Egg Hunt

Grandma & Grandpa Routsong put on an annual Easter Egg Hunt for the grandkids. The little ones get so excited to see how many eggs they can find and then to see what is inside their eggs. Some eggs surprise them with candy, others with coins! So fun! Here are the younger cousins waiting for the go ahead to head outside and start searching. The bigger cousins were outside hiding all the eggs all over Grandma & Grandpa's property. Cooper & Jaxton are excited!

Ready...Set...Go!

After all the eggs were found, the kids gathered around Grandma's table and opened up each egg to find the surprise inside. They counted their candy and their coins. It was an exciting day!

Easter in Kendallville

We spent Saturday before Easter up in Kendallville, as tradition. The whole Routsong famiy comes up for the weekend and the kids get to spend time with their cousins, which they absolutely love! Once we arrive, the boys are gone - off playing games and running around with all their cousins. They are easily entertained among the 12 or so cousins that are there. It is a lot of fun. It gives Nate and I time to visit with everyone else when the kiddos are entertained! We had a nice time.

Kaylee with Christin

Christin & Jaxton

Daddy & Cooper, with Kaylee's bib...

Melissa with Kaylee

Hallie & Sydnee

Hallie & Sydnee Voge are some of the boys' good friends. We are sad because they are moving to Ohio about 3 hours away. We got to spend a fun day with them the day their family was packing up. All 4 kids had so much fun together. They ran around and had pillow fights and thought of all kinds of fun things to do together. We will miss them very very much! And I will miss Shannon, their mom, very much too! But we wish them good luck!!

Preschool Chicks

Nate's Dad just got a whole bunch of baby chicks that he plans to raise into chickens and harvest his own eggs. The kids have loved seeing the chicks and watching them grow each time we go up to Kendallville.

At preschool this week we were learning about the sound "ch." Well, it is about Easter time, so the work "chick" goes well with an Easter theme. As I got to thinking, I thought we could talk about chicks and chickens, and Nate's Dad was willing to come to preschool and bring a real chick. It was a hit! The kids were thrilled. You can hardly see the chick in this picture because the kids were so excited to see it. It was fun to bring a real baby chick to preschool! Thanks Grandpa!

Detroit Michigan Temple

Nate and I have a goal to get to the temple three times each year. It sounds like so few times, but with 3 kids that need sitters and temples 3 hours away and more, we are lucky if we make our goal! The Chicago Temple is actually the temple Fort Wayne is zoned to, however, the 4 hour trip often can turn into 5 to 6 hours when you hit Chicago traffic. The drive is nuts! There is horrible traffic and it is such a busy, confusing city with too many highways and is easy to get lost. So we chose a bit of an easier route this time. We decided to try out the Detroit Michigan Temple. It is 3 hours away without any crazy highways or traffic issues. It was a very pleasant drive. We went up with our friends, the Stewarts, in order to take turns babysitting each others' kids. The boys stayed in Kendallville with Grandma and Grandpa, but Kaylee came along with us. It was a beautiful Temple and a beautiful experience. We are so glad we could go!

Kids...

Though I am a little biased, I believe that I have the cutest kids in the whole entire world. They bring me so much joy in life. They are my world. They are what I live for each and every day. I am so grateful to be blessed with healthy, beautiful children.

Jaxton & Kaylee

Doctor Cooper with Assitant Kaylee

Indiana Sunrise

Jaxton and I woke up one morning to this. What a beautiful way to start the day! I live for moments like this, that remind me of how beautiful life is.

Favorite Outfits

So I like to dress up my baby girl! It is more fun than I ever thought to dress her up with all the accessories, bows, shoes, etc. I love it. So I had some fun today taking some pictures of a couple of my favorite little outfits she has. All 3 of these came from Grandma Hutchinson in Utah! Thanks Grandma!

Look at that cute grin!

The Girls :-)

Preschool Volcanos

At Preschool at our house, we learned about the letter V. So I thought that we couldn't pass up this opportunity to make volcanos erupt. It was a blast. I tried to make some brown play-do clay stuff, that actually turned out waaay too sticky. But we mushed the stuff together to form a mountain on top of a mini water bottle. Then we put red food coloring water in the mini waterbottles. When we poured some vinegar into the hole at the top of the mountain, our volcanos erupted red hot lava!! The kids were sooo amazed. I got it on video too. Their reactions each time a volcano erupted was soo funny. We kept pouring vinegar in each volcano and they erupted time and time again until the vinegar was all gone. Fun day!

Kaylee's Bedroom

We finally finished Kaylee's bedroom! When we built the house, we knew we were pregnant, but didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl; so we chose to paint the baby's future room yellow. The next step was the bedding. Once we found the perfect pink & brown bedding, the room decor always has to follow the bedding theme. So her bedroom theme is flowers and butterflies in pinks and browns. Lovely! My friend Marci is very crafty. She made the letters of Kaylee's name to hang on her wall. She used scrapbook paper and embellishments to make them super cute in the perfect colors. Thanks Marci! I decided to try making my own curtains for my little girl, and they turned out to be a success! I have never made curtains, but they seemed simple enough. I didn't have a pattern to follow, but it all worked out. Then I hot glued little brown and pink flowers all over them.

This is the same crib that Jaxton and Cooper slept in when they were babies. But it was all beat up from being moved across country and being kept in storage and such. Since all the wood in our house is dark, we decided to make it match all the rest of the wood in our house. We sanded it down and painted it dark. It turned out great!

Nate's sister, Melissa Owen, has a cricuit, a machine that cuts out vinyl lettering. When she was here for the weekend, we punched out these letters and put them up on the wall. They add such a cute touch to the room. Thanks Melissa!

We also painted the changing table and the dresser, all to match in the dark wood color. They all turned out great. The room was a huge project, but was so much fun! We finished it off with this beautiful picture that Nate got for me several Christmases ago. It is a painting of a little girl looking up at and holding Christ's hands. The innocence and peace of the little girl looking up at her Savior brings the spirit into Kaylee's room. I am glad we could get her room all finished so she can have a little haven of her own.

Does it Float?

The boys were watching Curious George and George the monkey was building a boat to see if it would float for a contest. After the show, there is always a segment of real children trying out what George did. So we decided to do it too! We gathered up random supplies that we didn't need, boxes, old cottage cheese containers, plastic strawberry containers, straws, skewers, paper plates, bubble paper, random lids, construction paper, stickers, and masking tape. And the boys went to work. They used their creativity to each create something very interesting. Then they guessed whether their boat would float. Jaxton guessed that his would float AND sink. Cooper guessed that his would float. So we filled up the master bathtub and let the boats go....

Jaxton had a cottage cheese container taped upside down, so yes, this part floated. However, he missed that the strawberry container had holes all around the bottom and it started filling up with water. So he was right, it floated AND sank! Cooper put his box boat right on top of the water, and yes, he was right too, it floats! They were so excited about their boats that they started finding other toys and objects to experiment with. They would guess whether the object would float or sink and then throw it in the tub to see what would happen. It was a lot of fun experimenting!

Superhero Squad

Here is our superhero squad: IronAdrian, CooperMan, & Batman Jax, to the rescue! Adrian is our friend who used to come to our house 3 times a week. We haven't kept him since Kaylee was born, but got to have him come over this week for fun. The boys were quick to decide on superheros to play while Adrian was here. They were running all over the house shooting bad guys and catching bad guys and taking them to "jail." It was super fun to watch them play!

Quiet Time

Cooper is hit and miss with his naps lately. Sometimes he doesn't need a nap, so has started having "quiet time" instead. I put one boy in the toy room and one boy in their bedroom with a box of toys and let them play for 45 minutes or so. After this particular quiet time, this is what I came in to find:

Cooper built a castle with the wooden blocks, a very intricate castle I might add.

Jaxton built a train out of cars and trucks that made a giant J shape. What creative boys!

Two Big Brothers

Kaylee is so lucky to have 2 big brothers who love her so very very much. As you can tell, they are enjoying playing with her and her toys. They are always wanting to help with her and are quick to give her her pacifier as soon as she makes one little tiny cry. If she won't take her paci, they announce to me that she wants some milk. They both love to color pictures for Kaylee and love to hold her. I am so glad that she will have 2 big brothers to protect and love her throughout her life. She is a lucky girl!

Two Months Old

Kaylee is 2 months old! I can't believe how the time has flown by! She is definitely growing. At her checkup, she weighted 9 lbs and 10 oz. She is starting to outgrow her newborn size outfits and is fitting into more of her 0-3 outfits finally. She loves to socialize. She loves other kids too. When the boys are hovering over her, she just takes it all in. She loves the attention! If you take a minute to get her attention, she will talk in baby language a lot! Her little coos and ohhhs are so adorable! Kaylee can roll over from her tummy to her back! She likes being on her tummy for just a minute or so, and then she gets sick of holding her head up so high, that she swings her head to the side and over she goes! Good girl Kaylee!! When I hang a toy above her head, she focuses on it really hard. Sometimes her little arms get moving and she will bat the toy with her hand! She still is not super sure how she is hitting the toy, or how to fully control her little arms, but with a whole lot of concentration, she can do it sometimes! It is so fun to watch!

Kaylee takes a bath in the bathroom sink every night. It's part of her bedtime routine, and she takes to the routine very well! I'm lucky she is small enough still to fit in the bathroom sink. When she gets all her clothes off and we head in to the bathroom connected to her room, she knows its bathtime and if she was crying or whining, she cheers right up. She loves it!! I plug up the sink but leave the faucet running warm water over her belly. When it gets too full, I pull the plug a little so it doesn't overflow but doesn't drain all the way out either. And she loves getting her hair washed too. I think it feels good to her to have the water over her head! She just is so content in that bathtub it is so darn cute! She doesn't even cry when I take her out of the warm bath and onto the counter before quickly covering her up with her cozy pink towel. After bath, she knows she will get to eat, and then off to dreamland she goes. She sleeps from around 9pm till around 4am just about every night! She is a great sleeper! Happy 2 months!!

Kaylee's Baby Blessing

We had the wonderful opportunity to bless Kaylee Joy today in church. We are so blessed that Nate holds the priesthood and can perform such a special ordinance. We were grateful to have Nate's parents there and his sister's family, the Owens there to support her. Since my parents were unable to be there because they live in Utah, my mom provided Kaylee with her beautiful blessing dress, complete with a headband, tights, bloomers, shoes, and white blanket. She is absolutely beautiful today! Thank you Grandma Hutchinson!

Nate blessed Kaylee that she would be successful and find happiness in her life. He told her to reflect on her middle name, Joy, and to share her joy and her happiness and the joy of the gospel with those around her throughout her life. He blessed her to have a desire to seek education as well as a desire to grow her testimony. He blessed her with a sound mind, that she may be sensitive to the spirit and would follow it's promptings to make good choices in her life. He admonished her to live her life so the Lord could count on her in the ways that he would need her service. It was a beautiful blessing and Kaylee was awake and alert the whole time, just taking it all in. I felt the spirit there, and I'm sure that she recognized it too.

Grandma Routsong & Kaylee
The Owen Family with Kaylee:
John, Jace, Melissa (Madison & Jordan couldn't make it)