The Somewhat Official Update

So I have had quite a few inquiries lately as to what has been going on in our family lately, and what are plans are for the future. Some of you just wanted clarity on where we are going and what we are doing when we leave the great town of Nacogdoches. Others are dear friends whom we had lost contact with and recently found. Who knows, maybe there are even some Blog browsers here. Anyways, for all those who have been wondering, I will try to remember everything.

For the past two years we have been living in Nacogdoches, Texas, where Dan has been pursuing a Masters Degree in Psychology. He has been doing great, accomplishing a perfect 4.0 the entire time, and will be graduating on August 9th. After his graduation he will be starting school at UNC Chapel Hill to begin a PhD program in Educational Psychology. With this he is hoping to teach Psychology on a University level. He has been very blessed in his Master's program go have the opportunity to teach a few classes. This summer term he is teaching a General Psychology class while finishing up his Thesis, an extremely vague description of the topic is motivation and stereotype threats. If you want to know more you will need to ask Dan, lol. I don't claim to be smart enough to understand it all.

My story isn't quite as interesting, lol. I tried to go back to school when we first moved here, but that was short-lived. Since SFA was lacking an Architecture program I decided that I try out Interior Design. I liked it a lot, but after one semester found out I was pregnant with Kate. Seeing that I had been sick nearly everyday throughout Sarah's pregnancy, and thought that Kate's would be the same, I decided it would be best not to continue. However, the pregnancy was completely opposite and I was hardly sick the entire time. Oh well, I got plenty of quality time with Sarah before Kate came along. Most recently I have been "broadening my horizons" so to speak. In the past 6 months I have made 2 wedding cakes, started making and selling Handmade Photo books, Embellished Sandals, and Tile Photo boards at the local Farmer's Market and Flea Market, am trying to create a blog store for selling my crafts, and am taking an online Medical Transcriptioning Course (Transcriptioning is a job that you can do from home, and my past medical classes are really helping me out.)

Sarah was 7 months old when we moved here, and was instantly the most popular child in the ward. We have sometimes joked that seeing Sarah made everyone want to have babies, because about a month and a half later tons of the women started becoming pregnant, including me. While I was pregnant with Kate, if we told Sarah to give the baby kisses she would kiss my stomach. When Kate was born Sarah would always put her finger to her mouth and say shhhh, baby sleeping. Ever since Kate has been born she lights up Sarah's world. Sarah is a great big sister, and is very intelligent. She loves to sing and dance, and loves anything to do with the Disney princesses.

Kate (Katelyn Gayle) was born June 26, 2007, just 18 months and 1 week after Sarah. She is now almost 1 and is running just as fast as she can to keep up with her big sister. She has a mouthful of teeth and loves to eat. She probably eats at least twice what Sarah does. She is trying to talk quite a bit, but you can't understand hardly any of it. Occasionally she does get out a clear word though. Her favorite thing is to blow on anything she can find to create a "farting" noise. It is actually kind of shocking how good she is at it. She also has just started trying to do the actions to "The Wheels on the Bus" and "Popcorn Popping". It is so fun to watch her learn and grow.

The past couple years has also brought a few tragedies.

A year and a half ago my brother Nate was in a car accident in which he received extreme brain damage. He was in a coma for quite a while, and the doctors were not sure if he would make. However, I am proud to say that he is recovering amazingly and is currently attending BYU-Idaho. He no longer has therapy and seems to be happier than ever.

The most recent tragedy happened the week after Thanksgiving. This is when we found out that Dan's younger brother had passed away while attending BYU. He was a very brilliant young man who was loved by everyone around him. We miss him very much.

Anyways, I think that pretty much sums up the past couple of years. I hope I didn't bore any of you with my lengthy ramblings, lol.

Easter

First of all, I am sorry this is out of order, but because I am redoing this sight in order to have the slideshow work, it has to have the current date; So just ignore that Easter was awhile ago. And realize that in the future, a lot of my posts may seem a little late. :)

Easter brought lots of fun while visiting at Grandma and Grandpa's house. Saturday Megan and Jen went to an Easter Egg hunt with us. Sarah had a lot of fun with the free activities that they had there. They gave Sarah and Kate free Easter baskets and Easter bunnys for being one of the first ones at the Egg Hunt. Since we got there way before the hunt started we decided to check out all the other free things they had while we were waiting.

First, we went and saw the petting zoo. Both of the girls just loved seeing all the animals. At first they were a little apprehensive to touch them, but once they realized that they weren't going to bite they had a lot of fun. Next we went to the bouncy pit/slide. Sarah was kindof small for it, but there was a little girl that was probably 4 who just kept taking her hand and helping her up the ladder to the slide. It was so cute. Then she got her arm painted with a picture of a castle, complete with glitter. Boy was she excited. We got some free popcorn, but the snowcone machine broke right before we got to the front of the line. That was too bad cause it was soo hot outside. The egg hunt ended up being kinda crazy. I don't know how many kids were there, but it was extremely crowded. When Sarah's age group had their turn she had fun looking for the eggs. It was kinda cool that they had little toys in them instead of candy. Sarah was so excited to get little necklaces and rings, and had to put on a bunny necklace right away. Then we went and saw the Easter Bunny. I wasn't sure how the girls would react since Sarah had been afraid of Santa Clause, but neither of them cried and Sarah even smiled. She couldn't look at the camera until she showed the Easter bunny that she had a bunny necklace on though. And she was so jeaulous that Kate was sitting on his lap and she wasn't. It was so cute though. The girls also got some cool balloons that were in the shape of flowers.

Sunday the girls woke up to an Easter Egg hunt around Grandma and Grandpa's house. We were quite surprised at how much Kate liked it, we figured she wouldn't even notice. Both girls had a lot of fun. Sarah especially loved her Barbie Horse, which she thought would be fun to try to ride. I don't think she quite understands size ratios yet, lol. All in all, it was a great Easter!