Easter 2013

Our Easter weekend started at Grandma Bevans' house on Saturday afternoon.  Leilani, Emily, Grandma and I watched the Young Women's broadcast.  Then it was time to color eggs.  We usually dye Easter eggs with all the Bevans cousins, but this year it was only us and Aunt Kim's family

 

 Robert wasn't quite sure of what was going on, but he was willing to try things out.

 Sunday we went to church in our Easter dress.  I didn't invest money in matching clothes for the boys, but the girls were at least color coordinated in pink.

Grandpa Bevans was willing to take pictures of everyone.

After taking pictures, we went inside to find Easter eggs.

 

 Once all the Easter eggs were found, it was time for the traditional Easter egg roll.  Even Robert wanted to get in on the action!
                                     
 While everyone is rolling and smashing eggs, Grandpa get to make the resulting eggs into deviled eggs.  Mmmmmmmmmm!  Delicious!

4th in State

Leilani is finished with another meet season in gymnastics.  She competed Level 7 again, because her bars were not quite ready to move up to Level 8 yet.  She had a good time, and was once again blessed with no injuries.  She qualified to compete in the state meet, and finished with 4th place on beam for the state of Oregon.

 

We are proud of her accomplishments.  Unfortunately we didn't get a video of her winning routine, but we have pictures.  We also have videos from other meets. 

These are pictures of her winning routine and her warm up - my dad took pictures of both, and I am not entirely sure which are which.

Leap...

                                                             2 back walk overs...
                                    

                                    

                                                           round off...

 

                                      

                                                                     dismount. 
                                    
There are lots of leaps, turns and other poses, but you can't get pictures of everything.

 These next shots are from her floor routine.  She is doing some sort of flip here (although she would tell me that is not what it is called).

 She actually is supposed to be bent on this, because she is pushing up and down with one arm.

 I love how high she can get on this one.

 

Leilani really likes her coaches.  This is Rosen, and he coaches her on bars and vault.  His wife, Nali, coaches her on beam and floor.  They are from Bulgaria, and he coached the Olympic team there before they moved here. She trusts them, and feels like they have her best interest at heart...which is an improvement over her state of mind at our old gym.

 

*I can't get any videos of her routines to load, but I will keep trying.  Maybe on a new post?

Quotes From Conference

I love conference!  There were so many good messages on Saturday (and I am sure there will be on Sunday too), and there are always talented people on the internet who take the quotes and make them look pretty.

Her Own Blog

Emily has started her own blog, to keep track of her travels and experiences.  If you are interested in what she is doing, the link is:   http://em-walker.blogspot.com/

I am enjoying it so far.  She is a good little writer, and it helps me be part of her life while she is gone!

I Waved Goodbye...

I said goodbye to my daughter, Emily, today.  She left on a trip with her grandparents (my parents) today, and she won't be back for a month!  Can you believe I let her go?  I have never been away from one of my children for that long. 

 We had to withdraw her from school, and we will re-enroll her when she gets back in May. It was such a good opportunity for her, though, that we couldn't pass it up.  She will get to visit my brother Mark and his family, my sister Kari and her family, and my mom's two brothers and her sister.  I am sure she will learn a lot of family history listening to them talk, and she will be able to interact with relatives that she never sees.  She is going to attend General Conference in the Conference Center. She will also get to sight see across country and then up the East coast.  They will be going to Williamsburg, Yorktown, Jamestown, Gettysburg, Washington DC, Valley Forge, Plymouth Rock, Winter Quarters, the Sacred Grove, Boston, Philadephia, and I'm sure much more.  They will also be visiting graveyards and doing some family history research.  How could I not let her go?  I wanted to go!  :)  She will learn and see so much...I wish all my kids could go.

So why did Emily get to go?  Well, she is a straight "A" student who is way ahead in all of her classes.  Missing a month is not going to affect her much.  Leilani wanted to go, but her grades are just not where they need to be, or we would have let her go.  Emily also got to go because her mother is the only one crazy enough to withdraw her kid from school to travel with her grandparents.  The other parents said, "yeah, right!"  I truly believe what she will learn on this trip will affect and shape her life more than the school she will miss, though.  It will also give her a special relationship with her grandparents, and help her to get to know them better.  I hope she will miss her family, though,  because I already miss her.

Robert Walker - 8 months old

My little baby boy is now 8 months old.  I haven't done any birth announcements, didn't send out Christmas cards, and I haven't even finished my thank you notes for my baby shower (which happened when he was already a few months old, so they aren't as overdue as the birth announcements).  But I want to start getting back to all the things I put on the back burner in the past year.  So, this seems as good a place as any.  These are pictures that my friend Kristen Moss took of Robert a few weeks ago.

 Robert has his two front bottom teeth, and is teething his two front top teeth.  As a result, he likes to go around sucking his lip like this.

 He also likes to chew on socks.  It is not uncommon for him to crawl around with a sock in his mouth!

 He is a baldy, but he does have a little bit of red hair at the very back.

He likes to chew on his finger - or any finger that is placed in his mouth!

He has the cutest little feet and hands.

He has blue eyes, just like the rest of our kids.

He can crawl forwards and backwards now, but is still meticulous and slow when he moves his hands and legs.

He loves to play peek-a-boo.

He is a happy kid, and brings smiles to our faces every day.  My sister, Kim, says I act like this is my first baby all over again.  I think she is right.  There is a 6 1/2 year gap between Robert and Benjamin, and I wasn't sure I would be able to have any more babies.  When I got pregnant with Robert, the whole family was excited, and each month of pregnancy the kids were excited to see how much the baby had grown and what it could do.  They are just as excited with each milestone he reaches now.  Nobody is jealous.  Nobody treats him poorly.  He just brings happiness to each of us on a daily basis.  He is such a blessing to out lives, and we are grateful for him everyday!

Since it was Robert's 1st Easter, I had Kristen take some shots with Easter eggs too.

He wouldn't smile for us, but he was intently studying everything.  I realized that it was the first time he had been outside in the grass.  It was a little wet and muddy, but he didn't seem to mind.  The pictures turned out great, and I am glad Kristen was able to capture this part of his babyhood for us to remember.

I can't believe that it has almost been a year since I have written on this blog.  Time to repent I guess!  My computer was having a hard time with pictures and the internet (it was 10 years old), so it was getting tortuous (is that a word?) to do any blogging.  But, I just got a new computer, and loading pictures and surfing the net is a breeze now!  So, it is time to get back to our family record.

I don't know if I will get caught up on everything that happened in the last year, we will have to see what happens, but I will mention that we added another child to our family last summer.  Surprise!  I know a lot of people thought we were done.  We had Robert Jack Walker in July 2012.  I haven't sent baby announcements yet, but I will.  :)  We are very thankful to have him!