Goodbye Darren

Darren is off to preach the gospel in Columbus, Ohio. But first, he gets to be trained at the MTC. We had an emotional goodbye yesterday as we saw him off. There were plenty of tears, but even though we will miss him, we are so happy he has chosen to serve a mission.

Mom pinning Darren's nametag on his suit.

Ryan, Lydia, and Darren

Even though Darren fears baby spitup, he made an exception and held Lydia for one brief moment.

Mom's very last missionary

Dad and Darren

Abby came in her pink tutu and wanted to show us her belly

I will miss you, Darren.

We are so proud of you!

Lydia's Blessing

Lydia's baby blessing was this last Sunday. It was a really beautiful blessing and she was a really beautiful girl! She wore the same dress I was blessed in. We just added a purple bow to make it really fantastic! Here are some pictures from her special day!

With cousin Adalyn

With Grandma Brown

With Grandpa Brown

With Uncle Darren. This was one of the only times Darren held her because he is afraid of baby spitup.

With Great Uncle Paul. He is a baby charmer. She rested on his chest like this forever.

With Aunt Cindy

With Mommy

And with her favorite person: Daddy

Anniversary!

Happy 3rd Anniversary to Us!

Last year, since we were childless and Ryan didn't have to work the schedule from you-know-where (he currently works weekends and nights), we got to get away to gorgeous Bryce Canyon in southern Utah.

This year, we had to make do with an at home celebration.

We started the day off with breakfast at Village Inn, Ryan's FAVORITE place to get a skillet.

Then, we headed over to the University of Utah's Museum of Fine Arts, one of my FAVORITE things to do!

Ryan is under the belief that life imitates art.

This is how Ryan enjoys museums. Just kidding. He had a good time. He was just sleepy from the worst schedule in the world. Have I mentioned I hate his schedule?

Normally, my favorite part of any museum is the European paintings, but this time I enjoyed a trip down memory lane as we looked at Meso-American artifacts. One of my favorite classes at BYU was about the art and culture of the Meso-American people, the people of Book of Mormon times. I wrote my research paper on a vase that looked exactly like this one.

In case you're wondering why we let our child go around pantless, it's because she INSISTS on having blowouts EVERY time we try to have an enjoyable outing at a museum. If it's a silent protest to museums, she better get used to them! Her mother is an art historian, after all. (Doesn't that sound cool? I'm an art historian. Well, I took the classes to be one, anyway.)

St. Patrick's Day

We LOVE to celebrate holidays in our house. We had our nieces (Adalyn and Abby on my side and Ruby on Ryan's side) come over for the best St. Patrick's Day party ever!



Here's Adalyn and Abby in front of our rainbow. We played pin the pot-o-gold on the rainbow. The girls were supposed to wear a blindfold and spin around before they pinned their pot-o-gold. But they didn't like the blindfold idea, so they just spun around and walked with eyes open to put their pot-o-gold on the rainbow. I'm pretty sure they had no idea what they were doing.





This is what saying "cheese" means to Adalyn



We had a treasure hunt, led by Ryan, where the girls had to perform a task, such as "put your hands on your head" before they could move on. This was Ruby's favorite game of the day.

Here they are looking for the next clue under the piano bench.

We also decorated cookies and played with green footprints that the leprechaun left behind, but I didn't get any pictures of that.

And here we are, in our festive attire. (Don't you worry...Lydia's skirt is green, even though it's hard to see it in these pictures)

Piano Recital

I didn't take any pictures as proof, but I had my first piano recital! I have 11 students but 10 came. All but one of my students are beginners so they played very short songs. The whole thing lasted less than 20 minutes. And that INCLUDES eating refreshments and putting coats back on. I was so stressed about the whole thing, and then it was over before I even knew it! It was a lot of fun though. I think the kids really enjoyed playing for an audience. I am love love loving teaching piano.