Emotions

This month has been a good month but an emotional month too. Jarod and I were able to go to Utah and attend my brother Scott's wedding. He married a wonderful girl, Kylie, that we are happy to now call our sister. The wedding was beautiful and the weather cooperated wonderfully on their day. It was so good to be in the temple with all of my family and hear the great message from the temple sealer-he said such amazing things. The temple is such a special place to be and I also feel such a strong re-conviction of my testimony. Sealings are especially wonderful to go to because it really reiterates that the entire gospel is about families being eternal-which is what I constantly think about. Jarod and I also decided we wanted to move Hope home to Quincy the weekend we were down there. The funeral home we have worked with for everything has been fantastic (Serenicare), their fees are extremely low but their services are above and beyond. They helped us set everything up and we brought Hope home with us. I really didn't like having her down in Utah and not being able to visit her grave, and we know that no matter where we go in the future we will always be coming back to Quincy to visit so we decided this was the best place to bring her. We purchased a plot next to my grandparents (and eventually parents) graves and dedicated her grave on Tuesday. It was so emotional to see her little casket again and know this she is not here to be with us. It was a bittersweet moment at the cemetery with Jarod dedicating her new grave. We still miss her so much and think about her every second of every day. In addition to all of this, Hope would have been 18 months old next Monday. I keep thinking about how she would be old enough to start nursery this month-wow. I still wonder what her personality would have been like and what she would have looked like by now. We are so happy we have Belle with us but it makes us realize even more what we missed with Hope. I am so glad for the gospel in our lives and for this Easter season that we get to reflect upon our Savior and what he did for us so we can return to our Heavenly Father and be families forever.

Easter!

Here is Belle on Easter morning with her basket from the Easter Bunny. She was very excited if you can't tell.

She got a lot of cute board books-including Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit and a Little Mermaid bathtub book. She also got a cute huge chick!

She thought the chick was great and even grabbed it for the picture.

These are the candy Easter Eggs that my family makes every year. My Grandma Winder (Maxine, for who Hope is named after) made these every year and they have continued to be a tradition in our family. My mom said the family has been making them for about 40 years! We made four kinds this year: coconut, chocolate, chocolate with pecans, and peanut butter. Tiffany and Jarod worked hard at making the flowers and carrots, each one represents a certain flavor so you can tell them apart. They are so yummy and it always makes me think of my grandmother when we make them.

Belle

This was in the hospital

I had such a hard time taking her picture like this because she would try to roll over as soon as I put her on her stomach. I wish my camera took pictures faster and better (don't know why its focused on the background in this picture?)

Isn't she the cutest thing. For some reason my camera also makes whatever is closest to the camera look huge-so her legs look big (and blurry-boooo) but they really aren't that big compared to her head.

This was right after we gave her a bath-she loves taking a bath, and after we rub lotion all over her and she loves that too.

We wanted to take some family pictures with Belle and so we took some after church a couple weeks ago (the ones with all of us aren't the greatest-but oh well). This was the best picture in the bunch. Thanks to Tiffany (my sis) who took them for me. Hopefully we will get some good pictures of us all dressed up at the wedding next week.
Belle is getting cuter all the time. She smiles like crazy and has started to really be chatty. She will talk and coo to you for several minutes. She has started to be able to hang on to toys just a little bit and she stares at her hands too. She is starting to get a lot chunkier too. She fits into her 3 month clothes really well and has almost outgrown her 0-3 month sleepers and will be wearing 3-6 month sizes soon.