Monday, May 26, 2014

Memorial Day Weekend

JJ and I had a very zesty weekend...


 We went to Bear World (no loadable pictures), camping, Mesa Falls, and the sand dunes.  Kim also made a surprise visit!!!! 

 

So just for cuteness sake...The main reason we went to the dunes was to re-create one of our dates from early dating.  On the date we took "Bruce" (the isuzu), sat on the hood of the car, and watched the stars.  It was one of my favorites!

Our feet...it's a must.
See there's Bruce!
All in all I am not ready to go back to school on Tuesday. 

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Van and Van

Here's another throwback to when Van met mini-van - In honor of Van's birthday!  Happy Birthday Grandpa!

This was back in March of 2012 - about 6 weeks after mini-Van was born!

Grandpa and Grandma Milner with Anna and Van

Christmastime throwback in honor of James and Dorothy's 60th Wedding Anniversary!  Congrats you two!

This picture and video are from Christmas 2013.





Monday, May 12, 2014

How to Take a Family Photo


 1.  Align the camera


 2.  Do a Test Run


 3.  Gather all participants and set the timer


4.  Encourage participants to smile

5.  Voila/Good enough!  Congratulate yourselves on the fact that everyone is smiling and most of everyone's head is visible.  Note:  Do not push it much beyond this point...pictures most likely will only go downhill from here...ending in tears and/or frowns/backs to the camera/missing children.
 


6.  Bribe!  Tell everyone that if they smile for just one more picture really nicely they will be all done! 

7.  Admire your beautiful children and thank your Heavenly Father for the blessing of having them in your life and for the blessing of being a family!

April Dixon Stuffs

 This is from March but I just found it and thought it was important to document Emma's face, you know...for posterity's sake.
 
 
 A little Conference enjoyment.
 
 Emma's preschool Easter party photo booth.
 

 It was rather imperative to document James' face from this picture for posterity.
 


 We Dixons...sometimes this is how we have fun and hang out and interact.  We are very social in these moments.  Here we are at Grandma Dixon's house, very much alive, energetic and engaged!
 


We did come around when cousins got there, and here we are enjoying the bounty of Grandma and Grandpa Dixon's Easter Egg Hunt!  Below the kids enjoyed a friendly cousins game of Bball!



 Easter morning tradition...Stair Picture, but we have a twist in our family...we wear Easter head gear.  Aren't we creative?...actually, I love it...we have done it for a long time.  So cute when they were little babies with their rabbit/lamb ears.  We may outgrow it when the kids are 20, but it IS tradition.  I believe this is the first year James wasn't the lamb though.  Marie claimed it.  Also documenting faces for posterity in this one.
 
Here is an Easter Flashback with said ears!
 
 
 We have another Easter tradition...the Easter Bunny hides a blow up rabbit somewhere in the house that we have to find.  We used to have one about 5-6 feet tall that we would leave out and he would hide, but it popped because who can resist jumping on a 5 foot tall blow up rabbit that sort-of squeaks as the air moves through his narrower passages?  This year Mr. E Bunny left a new blow up rabbit slightly behind the curtains with his feet poking out.  Emma is not so enthralled that Mr. E Bunny remembered and left a new rabbit after a year or two without as the fact that said rabbit is PINK!

Here is an Easter Flashback when Blow-up Bunny scared us a wee bit!
 
Last, but not least...you know...posterity need this one.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Anna and Van Playing 2014





So I enabled this "auto backup" via google plus... and it has this "auto awesome" feature that it does sometimes linking several similar pictures together.  Well this time it put this cool video together of Anna and Van playing.  These kids are so "auto awesome"! I love them!

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Fun at the pool!

Fun at the Pool - nothing better.

My kids love the water.  It's really fun to have them both at an age where they love playing together.

Do they look like they are having fun or what? :)

Friday, May 2, 2014

Toothless wonder

This is my first time blogging from my phone! Talk about the modern age!!! 

Okay, let me introduce you to Sessile- my new grill! She helps me be socially appropriate in social settings! Thanks Sess!!!

See what I mean...

Here is my before and after! I've never really loved my smile. Thought it was too small and cheeky... Now I think it was perfect! They pulled the front four, drilled two bent screws in, used the shavings of bone when they did that to bone graft in the front to cover up where the screws pop out, put a fake membrane over it all and stitched it up...

This is my new smile... I miss my old one!!

Let it be known my husband did call it "hillbilly hot" today! :) I miss my teeth!!!

Smores and Cousins

Today we had smores with cousins!  Yay!



We also had great fun watering plants :)  Not sure this was the highlight given the above pictures ;)



This last one is just the kids chillin' with a friend eating their grub on the deck :)