J had a gingerbread house party at her preschool. Miss Susan is such a wonderful teacher and she is always doing something fun and special for the kids. She invited the moms to come. It was such a privilege to come to this little party to see J in action as well and to see all that Miss Susan had done for them.
You might remember a post from several months ago about the child size china cabinet that is special to our family. A few too many projects took over and I did not get to finish this when I wanted, but it is now repainted with new hardware. The doll bed in the corner was my mom's and grandma's. For the playhouse, we have turned the closet under the stairs into a little play space for J. I always dreamed of having a playhouse as a little girl and since I never had my playhouse I have always wanted to build one for my children. I still have that dream, but the closet is perfect for now until J grows too tall. She loves it!
I have not blogged about our move yet and I will have to post some pictures later, but with the move came a few new changes for our family and one of those changes was moving into a new ward. We started to hear wonderful things about Miss Susan's preschool from friends in the new and old ward and I called her after the school year had already begun fully expecting to get on the list for next year and she happened to have one opening. J has 8 children in her class and she loves going to school! I'm the one who had a hard time. Miss Susan even made an accommodation for J's friend to be in class with her and we also found out that Miss Susan's mom was one of my favorite professors in college. 
I am so behind with our blog, but better late than never right? My niece, Gabrielle, is engaged and we are so excited for her. She met Jordan at BYU Idaho and we love him. J loves being with Gabrielle and Jordan and she loves all the attention they give her. In this picture, J is reading "Who stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar" and it is so cute to hear her tell the story in her little voice. 
A couple of weeks ago I was able to see these two special friends. It does not matter how long we go without seeing each other, we just pick up where we left off. Amber (right) and I were in first grade together and then she moved and we were never at the same school again until college. Marielle and Amber are cousins and they are so much fun to be around. We had some fun group dates together in high school and then we all were in college together. When I was a nanny, I got Amber to work with me and we worked our school schedules out so that our nanny family could have full-time help. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love my nanny family and how much I treasure that time I got to spend with their family. Amber and her kids and J and I went to visit our nanny kids last week and how wonderful it was to all be there together. She is such a special friend. Marielle is one of the sweetest people I know. I have always admired how special she can make anyone feel when they are in her presence. She has developed such amazing photography skills and I love to see her share her talents. 
My sister and brother-in-law hosted their annual 4th of July party that we all love! They work so hard to make this the perfect family party. This year our cousin from Colorado was here with her kids. We loved spending time with them. I love this last picture of all the big cousins with J; they include her in anything they are doing. We are so fortunate to have such a wonderful family.
Last week we had a perfect day at Lake Tahoe with my two sisters and my cousin from Denver and all the kids. J just loves all of her big cousins. I love the picture of her sitting in the middle of Sam and Taylor. This was the longest we were able to stay at the Lake with J and she loved it! Now we can't wait for next week to come so that we can see my brother and his family who will be returning from Mexico. We have not seen them for a year and it will be so fun to have J see her same age cousin.
We hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter! My parents are in Mexico visiting my brother and sister-in-law and their family and so we did our own Easter at home. We decided to have our Easter egg hunt inside because it has been so cold here. We had some of our friends over for a fun visit and egg hunt in the morning and then we had the Lytle's over for dinner. It was nice to watch Conference at home and to have our first Easter at our house. We are so blessed to have our family so close that we are usually with them on the holidays. We hope that everyone had a wonderful Easter!
