Primary presents

As the Primary President I had to come up with something to give out for the birthdays next year. I put a lot of thought into it and came up with a picture of the resurrected Jesus in a frame. Our theme for Primary in 2010 is 'I know my Savior Lives' so I thought these pictures would correlate with that quite well.

Here is a picture of the teacher/worker gifts. The frames were $2.99 at Michaels. I painted them and my awesome neighbor Megan did the vinyl for me. I found the picture online and just printed them from my computer. They were super easy and I am so proud of how they turned out.

The pictures for the kids are much smaller. I found the frames at Dollar Tree and the picture is different, but I found it online as well and just printed them too. I don't have a picture of them, but I really hope the kids like them and will put them in their rooms.... I tested it out on Morgan and she thought they were really cool, but Morgan is such an unusual child that its hard to know if other kids will like them too.

Christmas 2009

Well, Jude's first Christmas came fast. He was the happiest once he found the big yellow truck under the piano, his favorite place to hide and pound on the pedals. He pushed it all morning peeking each time around the room at his olders sister's gifts.
Morgan picked up one of her small gifts and said, "what if this is a ring box from Santa, because Mrs. Clause is being mean". Where does a 6 year old come up with things like that? The whole family had a great Christmas!

Halloween-yes I know that was forever ago!

We decided that this year we would go to Gardener Village to check out the witches they have there. We have never been but I have heard that they are really cool and that the kids love them. We had so much fun walking around and seeing all the silly witches. Morgan loved the one that was riding her bike!

Here is our pretty cheerleader and cute little lamb.

And here are the pretty cheerleader and cute little lamb with their party pooper parents who didn't dress up for Halloween.

Could there by two cuter kids?

We don't think so! Here are Morgan and Jude enjoying the fountains on temple square yesterday after our Regional Stake Conference meeting. Just wanted to share...

Park City

We have a family tradition that we try to go to Park City on Labor Day to hang out and eat and just have fun. This year we went up and John took Morgan down the Alpine Slide. The wait was about 2 hours, but Morgan said it was well worth it!

Here is a self portrait of John and Morgan on the chair lift up the mountain.

Morgan preparing for the big ride.

Here is the crew waiting again to get into Baja Cantina to enjoy some delicious Mexican food.

And here is a completely unrelated picture of Jude in a hat. Doesn't he look so cute!!

Piano recital

Morgan had her first piano recital last week and she did amazing. She was the first player and she remembered her song perfectly. Lots of her family came to see her play. Grandpa and Grandma Burton, Grandpa Nelson, Ra Ra, Jessie, John, Jude and me.

Then we continued on with our tradition of Maggie Moos ice cream to celebrate a recital. She enjoyed the all the attention and also the ice cream.


She did a lot better than I did at my first piano recital. I faked a stomach ache so I wouldn't have to play...

Morgan's turn

We have been watching kids go back to school for two weeks now and today was Morgan's turn. It was her first day of Kindergarten and she was so excited. She has been waiting for Kindergarten for about a year now, she was ready! I did get a little teary-eyed watching her walk into the school, but she was so confident and excited that I felt much better.



And here is Jude wondering who is going to play with him while mommy works and Morgan is at school.

Last bit of summer fun

With Morgan starting school this week I decided we needed one day of fun. I woke her up in the morning and told her to get dressed and come help me make some lunches because I had a surprise day for her. She was so excited! I took her and Jude to the zoo and it was such a great day. Not too hot, not too crowded. It was awesome.

Here are Morgan and Jude in front of the penguins. These were Morgan's favorite animal of the day.

Here we are at the bird show. Jude was bored until the doves flew over. He liked that part but then quickly went back to being bored.

And last, here are Morgan and Jude in front of the elephants. Jude was more interested in the people next to us than the animals.

She can now start school and I can have some peace in the mornings!

Jude's favorite things

I thought I would do a post dedicated to Jude because he is learning something new everyday and growing so much!

1. He loves his ExerSaucer. He gets in and spins until he has played with all of the toys, then he starts all over again. But it is hard to take a picture of him in it because he never holds still!

2. He loves to eat. Here is a picture of him sucking on a peach. He just kept smacking his lips and saying "Mmmmm"

Here he is with a piece of licorice. OK, I know that 5 month old babies should not have that. But he is just so dang cute that I gave him one to suck on for a few minutes. I am a sucker for my little boy!

3. He loves to roll all over. He is so pleased with himself after he rolls over that I had to take a picture of him.

4. We love to look out the window and watch the cars drive by. I prop him up on my leg and a pillow and he plays with the blinds and follows the cars as they drive by.


5, And last, he LOVES Morgan. She plays with him all day and can make him laugh more than anyone else. He smiles the moment he sees her in the morning. She is a great big sister!

Congrats (?) to me

Yes, congratulations are in order, or condolences... I am not sure which. I am now the Primary President of our ward. And for those of you keeping tabs, John is still the Young Men's President.

So, for those of you that are in Primary or have been, feel free to leave a bit of advice for me. I am a novice, especially after teaching Relief Society for two years. This will be quite a change for me....

Help!

24th of July

Morgan got to do something really fun for the 24th of July this year. Her grandma and grandpa invited her to ride on the Wells Fargo stage coach in the Bountiful parade. She was so excited! This is a picture of Morgan and grandma Hatch and great grandma and grandpa Hatch too. Grandpa Hatch was helping to drive the team of horses.


And Jude found something fun to entertain him during the parade...his foot. This picture makes me laugh every time I look at it.

Morgan's new ride

Morgan learned how to ride her bike a few weeks ago. John took her to the school across the street from our house and she rode for an hour straight and loved every minute of it. Now we just need to work on the start-up. She is still too scared to start on her own and needs our help.



And here is Morgan's fan club after the ride.

Check us out

We got some new family pictures and I LOVE THEM! We actually have never had a family picture taken professionally since John and I got married and we were long over-due. Our friend Rochelle took them and I seriously am in love with how awesome they look. I can't wait to get the pictures back and update all the frames we have in our house with new pictures!!

Check out her photography blog at all-seasonsphotography.blogspot.com

Thanks Rochelle!

Summer Haircuts

Morgan decided this week that she wanted a summer haircut. Here is the before picture. As you can see, she was over due for a cut.

Here is the after. Isnt it so cute? Morgan climbed up into the chair and told the lady exactly what she wanted. Major improvement....

And here is our self portrait showing off our new haircuts.

The graduates

After many hours of coloring, gluing and cutting Morgan has completed her last year of preschool. She had her graduation last week at Jordan High. They performed a couple of songs such as 'Going on a Bear Hunt' and 'It's a Small World'. The teachers made a scrapbook for each student that had pictures of them from the first day of school, every holiday and their VIK (Very Important Kinderbeet) Day, which is their birthday. It was really cute. This is my favorite picture from the graduation because of the little girl next to Morgan, she was a hoot the entire program...




Next was my graduation at the E Center. The program was slightly less amusing... but it was fun to see all the people I spent many hours with over the past two years. I thought since Westminster was a small school the graduation would be a small affair but it was a jammed-packed three hours of sweating under my gown.

I had no idea what being hooded was before I got there, but for a Masters Degree you don't move your tassle from right to left you get a cape put over you instead. Which does not help the sweating situation in the least!

Here are my two biggest fans. After the ceremony John, Jude and I were treated to an awesome dinner at Famous Dave's with my parents and John's parents. It was so delicious and a good time just to sit and chat with our parents.

The happenings

It has been a busy month. I am back at work, well back at home at work and it is very stressful to juggle being a mommy and an accountant.

Morgan had a dance competition at Taylorsville High and did awesome. She was so stinkin' cute. Here is a picture of her cute costume.





Jude is growing so big. Here is a picture that shows off his "healthy" body. And by healthy I mean chunky. Isn't he sooo cute? We had his two month check up last week and he is in the 75th percentile for weight and over the 100th percentile for height. He is going to be just like John!

We also had Jude's blessing this month and it went very well. We were worried because it was supposed to rain that Sunday and we have a small house. But there was no rain and we were able to fit everyone in the house and yard. Here is a picture of Jude in his full blessing outfit. He didn't debut the hat that day but I just had to get a picture of him in it.

One year ago

It was one year ago today that I was half way across the world in Cambodia. I can't believe it has been one year, seems like five years. But I think any year you are pregnant seems longer than a regular year... way longer!

Easter

In typical fashion, I am blogging about something that happened two weeks ago. Here is the whole Burton Bunch on Easter morning... this was the best picture we could get with 4 kids.

As an added bonus, here is a sample of the 570 pictures I keep finding on the camera of Morgan (self-taken). As if that needed to be said.

Two kids

Now that I have two kids, I have twice the work, but twice the fun too. Here is a picture of Jude smiling while he watches Morgan dance around.

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Morgan and Jude. Morgan asks to hold Jude about 50 times a day. He usually ends up crying and she says, "OK, come get him!"

Can you tell what we have been up to?

The other day Morgan was playing with a stuffed animal and had been carrying him around in a blanket then put him down for a nap in his cradle. She then tells me:

"Mom, I already fed him, I am breast-feeding."

Jude's stats

I took Jude to his two-week checkup last week and thought I would post his stats:

Weight: 9lbs 10 oz. 90th percentile
Height: 22 inches 80th percentile
Head: 30th percentile.





What a cute little bug!

Morgan's new hobby

A couple of months ago we inherited this hand-me-down piano from my sister who got it from my mom who got it from her grandma. My mom just told me that it is over 100 years old. I thought that was pretty cool.

Anyway, we have a neighbor who teaches piano and I signed Morgan up for lessons with the agreement that we would see how she does, since she is young. We have been doing this for about 3 months now and Morgan is doing so awesome. She loves to practice and even goes back and plays the songs that she has "passed off" over and over. I just wanted to give a blog shout-out to Morgan for doing such a great job.

Meet Jude

Here are a few pictures of Jude born March 8 at 2:21pm. He weighed 8 lbs 9 oz and was 20 inches long.

Big sister Morgan is over the moon about her little brother. She has been such a great helper and loves to hold him. Let's hope this feeling lasts...

Guess what I woke up to this morning

Ok, so we know we don't live in the best neighborhood, and we have accepted that, but come on!

This is what I see out my front door. This is my neighbors house. I looked out this morning and was so mad that I called the police and told them to come take a look at it. They were there within 10 minutes and said it is not gang-related but just some punk kids. Oh, yeah, I feel better....

Anyway, the people that live in this house are in their 80's and he has dementia. So it is basically this old woman that lives there. Maybe that is why I am so mad, what is she supposed to do to take care of this??

Well I talked to her and her son and grandson happen to be visiting from Nevada so they are going to try some different things to get it off, but if anyone has any suggestions, let me know.

On another note, no baby yet... but I am hoping soon.

Accomplishments

I have been busy this past week and I wanted to brag, I mean share. I finished a scrapbook of all my pictures from Cambodia and China. Isn't it pretty?

It didn't take too long. I just glued my pictures on plain paper and wrote a little explanation with each one.

Then I also got to pick up my diploma from Westminster. It was very anticlimatic, they just handed it to me with no wild applause or confetti or anything! Our graduation is in May, I guess I will have to wait until then...