Smorgasbord of happenings

Life has been coming at us quickly the past few weeks it seems, and we still have a lot of fun busy-ness to come. (We have Easter, Carter's birthday 4/3, my birthday 4/8, Mother's Day, anniversary 5/21, Ryan's birthday 5/31, Josh's birthday 7/4, and Fathers Day...we like the spring). Carter took his first steps on St. Patrick's Day and is walking more and more every day. (I'll have Ryan post a video:). We also have been celebrating his birthday for the past couple of days. It was our turn for babysitting co-op (I highly recommend it) on Friday, so we decided to turn it into a birthday party for little Carter. We didn't end up doing much since we were busy watching a lot of kids...but we did open a few gifts and have birthday cake. (I also made wands, but they turned out to be more like whips....sorry parents:).Then Saturday we went to watch Ryan play football, opened more presents, had Carter's own personal cake, watched conference (a broadcast meeting of our LDS church, for those who might not know), dyed Easter eggs, tried to have dinner, and said goodbye to Ryan as he went to the priesthood session of conference. Sunday we celebrated Easter and enjoyed another day of relaxing and watching conference. We got little gifts from the Easter bunny (Ryan surprised me with a piano book and the Percy Jackson book series) and also spoke with Josh a little on why we celebrate Easter. I've come to love speaking with Josh about our Savior and about the gospel in simple terms that he can somewhat understand. The gospel is beautifully simple and also so profound. Simple enough for anyone to understand and yet so profound that we always have more to learn. I am so grateful for my Savior; that he suffered and died and was resurrected so that we might have joy in our lives, comfort when we face sorrow, and peace in the knowledge that we will all be resurrected.

Carter and his birthday cake. We couldn't get a straight shot of him smiling. He was done, so we had to jump and dance and pull funny faces to get any kind of smile.

Carter looks pretty happy with all of his presents. Thanks to all the grandparents for the packages and cards!

Carter entertaining the guests at his "birthday party".

One of the "guests" decided they wanted a bit of Carter's cake! And believe me, that cake took a lot of effort from a non-crafty person like myself.

The cute birthday boy.

Josh helped decorate the cake for the friends.