Accomplishments!!!!

Well, it's been quite a while since I last posted, and there have been many accomplishments in our house!!! Here we go...

MCLAIN...

He GRADUATED!!!!!!! (I am so proud of him!) He is now the proud owner of a Computer Science degree from Utah State University!!! Yea McLain! This is when he got home from his very last day of school...look how happy (and cute) he is!


SHERI...

I don't actually remember what I was going to put as my accomplishment.... so.... uh.... well.... I, with MUCH help from McLain, have gotten most of the house organized. That's pretty good.


BENJAMIN...

Ben has a few accomplishments.

We went to Black and White Days this year. They had some of those sweet big blow up toys. Ben kept saying that he wanted to go on the big slide...we totally didn't believe him, thinking he would be too scared. But he was the first one up and wanted to go and go and go some more. We were pretty amazed and so proud.


He sure loved the blow up toys!

He also, with help from his cute cousins, Naivie and Norah, has actually tried new foods!!! Now, unless you know how picky he is and how hard it is to get him to eat something new, this may not mean as much. But to us, it's incredible! Thanks girls!

Some of the foods he has tried and liked are:

Ranch chicken
Nachos
Quesadillas
Hot dogs
Honeydew melon
Corn
Rice with different sauces on it, not just cheesy chicken sauce
Meatballs
Ketchup
Honey on his peanut butter sandwich
Muffins

And that's just the stuff I can remember!

He's such a stud.



BROOKLYN...

She's WALKING!!! So cute, and just in time for her first birthday, which is tomorrow!!!!

Isn't she beautiful? Look at those big gorgeous eyes.


We've also gotten a big garden in (and everything we have planted, except the potatoes, have sprouted, even though you can't tell from the picture!! It's a miracle.) And we have done a bunch of work around the house.



Life is good!!!

How much longer?

Yeah for McLain, who is going to graduate in

3 weeks!!!!!!!!


We can't wait.

"Peace Dude"

Easter Cookie Party!

For as long as I can remember, we have gone to my Grandma Stephens's (I've grown up all my life with the last name Stephens, and I still don't know if it's Stephens' or Stephens's or what. So if it's wrong, sorry.) house and had a cookie party at Christmas time. Now we are all grown and that tradition has sadly ended.
But this year my mom decided to follow in Grandma's footsteps and start another cookie party tradition. An Easter cookie party!!! And boy was it fun! The parents of the little ones, (aka my brother and sisters and I) were more excited about it than the little kids. But the kids had a blast too!

We started out by rolling out dough and cutting out cookie shapes.
Ben did a really good job!

Brooklyn wanted to help too!


Next we colored Easter eggs. Ben and Bridger sure had fun doing this!





And amazingly, there wasn't any stained clothes or big spills, just colored fingers!!!


After that was the Easter Egg Hunt!!!



Victorious!!


Brooklyn was content to stay in Grandpa's arms the whole time...and why not? She still got her Easter basket full of goodness!


And Jayanne wasn't afraid to see what she got in her basket.


Of course you can't have an Easter cookie party without frosting the cookies.


Ben somehow got it in his head that those plastic things to put around the eggs were arm warmers. Funny.


Zach just wanted to eat the cookies...who can blame him?


Yum...


We had such a good time and hope that this is a tradition that continues.

Richmond Life

My goodness, time sure has gone by fast. We have just been so busy with everything. McLain is so stressed and busy with school. Thank goodness he'll be done FOR GOOD in about 5 weeks!!!! Yeah for graduating!!!

Life in Richmond is good. We miss our old neighbors and friends, but I guess half hour isn't that far to drive to see them. And we like it here a lot. Good neighbors, good ward, good weather (the snow is almost gone!!). We don't have new callings yet, but we have already spoken in church. That's 3 times this year for me (yes, once a month...). I think I deserve a break from speaking in church, don't you?

Anyway, here are some pictures of the move and some of the things we have been up to.

This is the big trailer that was filled up pretty good with our stuff. It looks like we're going to pull our trailer along behind us, but don't worry, we left it there.


Lots of stuff in our new house. (Thanks Stephens family for help with moving, packing, and cleaning.)


Lots more stuff in our new house. This is pretty much what some rooms still look like!


Painting the basement!! (Thanks Jordan and Emily for help with painting. Thanks Jaicee for help with child control!)


More painting! In just this room below, the one with the awesome pink paint job, there were over 200 nail holes that I had to fill in before we could get rid of the pink paint. And I'm totally NOT exaggerating. Crazy. Not to mention the other hundreds of nail holes in the rest of the house.


A few stats on the house...
(Sorry, I don't actually have a picture of the house from the front...I know...I live here...I should just go out and take one.)

Location: Richmond, UT
Size: about 2100 square feet, on 2/3 of an acre (but we are probably going to sell a little bit of that soon)
Rooms: 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom, 2 living room, 1 kitchen with dining area, 1 coat closet, 1 utility/storage/laundry room, 1 sweet fruit cellar
Why we're here: This house is about 5 minutes from McLain's work...awesome!

And there you have it. We love living here!

And now for a few more pics of what we've been up to.

Here are the kids reading in the midst of many boxes. They're reading about President Monson...how cute!


This is a common sight in the mornings. Ben will just fill Brooklyn's crib with anything in sight. She can't even move in this. So funny!


Last week, we went to McLain's work to visit. This is what the kids did.

Ben ate ice cream and watched the video of the ice cream going onto the belt. (McLain works at Casper's Ice Cream for any who may not know.)


Brooklyn slept.


We tried to get Ben to put on a hair net so he could go in and see what McLain was doing, but he totally refused. So he just looked through the door and watched.


We also built a cool house for the kids out of one of the boxes that we finally emptied. They love it!


And we let Ben color the walls of the house. Note the look of concentration on his face!

Cute Brooklyn.

And that's what we've been up to. Fun times at the Knutson house!