Spring time girls

We were in Seattle for Easter, so we took the girls out a few days before to get pictures in their spring dresses. Kaitlin got the new buggy at a twins sale and has had more fun pushing her babies and carebears around ever since.

More Seattle

The Museum of flight museum. Sitting in some manner of fighter plane.

The Piroshky in Pike's market were out of this world. We also found amazing cabbage rolls, barszcz, pelmini, and all sorts of other food that we shared in common on our missions. We ate well!

The gum wall outside of Pikes market

The Emerald City

After nearly a year of interviews, tests, physical training (the list goes on and on) Michael was invited to Seattle for the final phase of interviewing with the FBI. Given the coolness of the city, and the chance to get away kidless for a long weekend, we decided to make it an "us" trip and a very much needed getaway. It was wonderful. Even though the weather was rainy and incredibly windy for most of the weekend, we had a really fun time. Couple of highlights.

My lasting impression of Seattle is this: extremely hilly (rivals San Francisco for that any day), very friendly and smiley people, even downtown, out of this world food (the seafood, Russian/Polish food, sourdough bread, and Thai food are still fresh in my mind:).

Milk that helps us breath.

I just love Kaitlin. She's cute and witty and oh so insightful...she truly doesn't miss much. I was packing up the kids for the babysitter this morning and I grabbed Allison's carton of whole milk from the fridge. For days, Kaitlin kept referring to this milk as "milk that helps us breath." I had no idea what she was talking about, and I kinda blew off her comment. So today, I finally asked her about it. She turned the carton over, and sure enough, there was a tiny logo for the Children's Hospital on the back of the jug.
We had visited Kaitlin's baby cousin Arabelle when she was at Children's with lung problems awhile ago, and Kaitlin totally remembered the sign. She also remembered how her uncle John had explained to her that baby Arabelle was having a hard time breathing.

They seriously don't miss much, do they?

Oh the things we learn

So Kaitlin was drinking juice out of her sippy cup during the sacrament on Sunday, and when the deacon offered her the water, she says..."no thank you, I already have a drink." Michael and I just about burst out laughing.

One year old

Favorite Allison things:

Constant mamama and dadadada. Loves to call out to the doggie (dogggagagaga!)

Loves to hug and kiss - the more slobbery the better.

Just starting to wean, and she's too enamored with grapes and cheese to miss the breastmilk too much.

Still not walking, but still into absolutely everything.

Wants to do anything and everything that Kaitlin is doing. We call her Godzilla because she just demolishes any project we're working on.

Still adores her grandpa.

Loves to pull tissues and diaper wipes out of their boxes. We wrapped up a box of tissue for her birthday and it was perfect!

Still has those gorgeous blue eyes and red hair (we've been calling it ginger). I hope she keeps both.

Happy First Birthday, Allison

Wow, what a year. It's been fast and slow and wonderful and busy. We love this little girl so much. We went out to dinner as a family on her birthday, and then had the grandparents over for a birthday party on the weekend.