Easter Fun

Easter was great this year. Although we missed out on family conference time in Provo (because Sarah was sick...it was sad), we were still able to still have a really nice, relaxing, uplifting day.

Our day started with some yummy cinnamon rolls. (This has kind of become a tradition for us.....a not so healthy but worth it as a special conference treat splurge that I look forward to)


Then Sarah had a fun Easter egg hunt because the Easter bunny had visited our home.
   
Then our day continued by watching LDS General Conference on TV. I love to hear our modern day prophet and apostles. I always feel a renewed energy to be better when I hear general conference. It gives me a good uplift. It seemed like a lot of the talks were about women nurturing the children in the home and men using their priesthood righteously in their home. It was a great conference and I loved the talks. They were powerful. Anyone who missed out should definitely hit up LDS.org and go to the general conference archives. I loved them all, but a few of my favorites were President Eyring, Elder Holland, and Elder Ballard.
   

After both sessions of conference we had Easter dinner. This is the first Easter dinner I have cooked all by myself and it was scrumdiddlyumpscious, if I do say so myself. :)

  
  
   
  
There were rolls too to go with the jam. :)

Following dinner we decided to die some Easter eggs. It was fun!
 
The above speckled egg is Tyler's favorite egg he made.
 
Sarah made this really cool speckled pink egg. It was her favorite one.

These two were the best ones I made. I know, I know, not quite as cool as Sarah or Tyler's...they've got mad skills....but hey--I still like mine too! :)

After such a good day we were all tuckered out, and our beautiful Easter ended with this:

Sarah's Easter Dress and pink Chuck Taylors

Katie and Sarah came to work to visit me the other day so I could spend some time with Sarah in the studio. We just got a new white background and I was excited to use it. It was so much fun, and we got some great photos. You can find them all on flickr and I will put a few highlights here. She got a new dress from Grams for Easter (and one from Grandma, but we couldn't find a good white jacket in time for the photo shoot, why do all cute little girl dresses h5ave to be sleeveless) and she also just got some new pink Chuck Taylors so we did a few wardrobe changes.

it was really cute, Sarah was super scared of the background. It is a big white piece of vinyl and it was impossible to tell the difference between the wall and the floor. Sarah could not tell where she could stand and was scared she was going to fall through. Once she took some with Katie she started to feel a lot more comfortable.

Here are a few of the favorites

This is when Sarah was too scared to be alone on the background.

This is Sarah shaking her booty - pretty cute :)

Sarah's dress a little closer up, and a cute smile ;)

Sarah was still a little scared, so Katie held her for a little while, and she gave me a really cute smile. I love my girls!

Cutest kid EVER!

Sarah decided to lay down, it was super cute, then she said she was going to close her eyes and go to sleep. This is how she closes her eyes. when I tell her to close her eyes and go to sleep she always says, "But that's tricky" now that I can see her in the light I can see why it is tricky, I don't think that would help me fall asleep either.

She loves to make funny faces

she ran over and sat next to mom along the wall. Turned out pretty good.

Katie took some pictures too, and some great ones, Katie was shooting and I told Sarah to do this. I love it, my favorite from the whole shoot.

This was her pose, she put her hands in her pocket, she did the sideways foot thing. ADORABLE!

cutest shoes ever.

well that was it, sorry I posted soooooo many photos. There were 245 to choose from and I skipped at least 30 more I wanted to post as well. I love my little girl and I am so glad I am able to capture these cute memories.

Royal Caribbean Cruise

A Little Background: Tyler and I both grew up in close families. I am the third of five kids. Tyler is the second of six. The biggest gap between subsequent kids in any of our families is 4 years. The shortest gap is 10 and a half months. We have both been blessed to always feel close with our siblings and feel like they are our best friends. Because of this, we have always wanted our own family to be like that. We want Sarah to have some siblings to be best buds with. We know she would be such a good older sister.

Well, Heavenly Father's life plan for us isn't always the same as our life plan for ourselves. When we had Sarah we knew she was a miracle. After a year of not getting pregnant, I went on clomid and 9 months later we had Sarah. We have the book "You Are My Miracle" and I have read it to her a million times because she truly is our miracle baby.

Well, about six months ago we went to the doctor (after about a year of hoping we wouldn't need medical help to have a second child). The doctor had me try clomid again. Well, long story short, it didn't work like last time. They will only let you take it for five times times before sending you to expensive fertility clinics. Well, the first four goes of it, my body did not react to it at all. So, in February, we were at our final shot at clomid. My doctor said I need to try to relax....so we decided to take a cruise for our last shot at it working, because hey...what is more relaxing than a cruise?! And, if it works, a cruise is less expensive than a fertility clinic, and hey...if it doesn't work at least we still got a fun trip out of it to soften the saddness, right?

So, we left Sarah in good hands (A BIG thanks to Grams and Grampy AND Grandma and Grandpa for watching her while we were gone. She had a BLAST!) and we took off to the Caribbean. We had lots of fun adventures. We stopped in Costa Maya, Cozumel, Belize, and the Cayman Islands. It was a blast.

Unfortunately, we know now that it did not work as we hoped it would, so a fertility clinic is our next step, and if that doesn't work, adoption or just waiting I guess. A quote that I like that Tyler got on a block for his birthday is by Neal A. Maxwell "Faith in God, includes faith in His timing." I know that things will all work out the way they are supposed to and I just need to remember that God knows what is best for me and for our family and have patience. We really are loving our lives right now, and enjoying having Sarah be such a fun age. She lights up our lives and we truly are grateful for the blessings that we have in our lives.

Our trip was STILL FUN and we enjoyed ourselves. Here are some pictures from our adventures.

Our first port was Costa Maya. Here is our cruise ship behind us, Liberty of the Seas. Oh yeah, and a MONKEY on my shoulder!!!!! It was so cool!

In Costa Maya we got amazing $20 massages on a beach near this one.

then went and saw some Mayan ruins.

They really like foot statues in Costa Maya for some reason, so we of course had to have pictures by them. :) (this is why it's kinda fun having a Foote as your last name)

Our second port was Belize. We did jungle ziplining and cave tubing and bonded with our tour group. It was a blast being with these awesome people. In fact, we now have two honorary sons in Chicago. Here is a picture with our "sons." :) They called us "mom and dad."

Our next stop was Cozumel. We were supposed to go scuba diving, but the weather did not cooperate (70 mile and hour winds the night before). I was sad about missing out on scuba. Instead, we rented a scooter (but sadly took no pic of us on it!) and cruised around together. We hit up the beach and ate some real Mexican food. It was so yummy!

Our last port was Grand Cayman, and we hit up Sting Ray City. This was freaking me out for weeks before we got there. Surprisingly, I thought it was awesome, and wished we could have stayed a little longer. The guide assured us that we were safe and that this was a different kind of sting ray than killed Steve Irwin. He even put the barb in his mouth to show us there was nothing to fear. The sting rays are super soft feeling and come rub against your legs like cats. It was crazy and freaky at first. Then, when I was starting to think it was cool, it was time to leave.

Our cruise ship was a blast too. When we weren't playing in port. We relaxed and hit up some mini golf, flow rider, amazing food, ice skating, shows, fancy shmancy formal night, pools, games, reading, and just had fun being together.

THANK YOU TYLER FOR TAKING ME ON AN AMAZING TRIP! YOU'RE THE BEST AND I LOVE YOU!!!!