Celebrating Early

Since our baby is coming so soon and I will be in the hospital during Easter and Nate's birthday we have been celebrating early this week!!

Monday we died Easter eggs.





Today the girls and I made a cake for Nate.



We sang to him and let him blow the candles out early!!



Coming soon.......baby pictures!!!!

Dr. Jack....almost

Nate defended his dissertation last Friday!! I got to go see him, which was pretty exciting! He got up in front of his committee (four professors who decide if he is eligible for a Ph.D.), students in his research group, and me, and talked for about 1 1/2 hours about his dissertation. I, of course, didn't understand much of it, but he did a really good job. One professor, especially asked him a lot of questions and he answered them all very well. Besides his own adviser, none of the professors had any changes for him to make--pretty amazing.

What an accomplishment to put together 5 years worth of work in a 130+ page dissertation and he's almost done...

Way to go Nate!! I'm so proud of you!

Goodbye Nauvoo

It has been so wonderful to be close to Nauvoo for the past 5 years and we have been to visit many times. We went this past weekend for probably the last time.

We saw several bald eagles on our drive by the Mississippi!



February 4, 1846 was the day the saints began the exodus from Nauvoo, so Saturday morning we got to participate in a reenactment of the exodus. We each wore a name of someone who was part of the exodus and walked from the cultural hall down to the Mississippi River. It was raining on us and pretty chilly, but I can't imagine what it would have been like for the pioneers outside in the freezing weather with only wagons and tents for shelter! We are so grateful for the strength and faith of the early pioneers and our ancestors who passed through so many trials for the gospel's sake and that because of them we are blessed to have the gospel.

Emily's Birthday

Emmy got to open a couple presents early at Grandpa and Grandma Alder's on Jessica's birthday.



The morning of her birthday; she is showing us that she is 2!!



Helping me make the cupcakes.





Crystal and Mike came for a fun visit the weekend following Emmy's b-day. They brought presents for the girls and they got to celebrate one more time!! It was fun to do a lot of birthday celebrating this year.



Videos of Emmy on her birthday:

Jessica's Birthday

We were still in Utah for Jessica's birthday. Aunt Janice threw a super fun Princess Party for Jessica and Emily (and went to all this work on her own birthday!) She even brought supplies and guided me through frosting a Cinderella cake for Jessica and a Tinker Bell cake for Emily. The girls had so much fun dressing up with their girl cousins and being princesses!

Christmas

Here it is 1 month later--I have lots of catching up to do!

Here's the way our Christmas Tree looked most of the time this year! The usual decorations were way too fascinating to touch and play with, but the girls had lots of fun coming up with their own decorations for the lower half of the tree (over and over again.)



We had a wonderful trip to Utah for the holidays to be with our families.



We met up with our friends, the Richards, who were in Utah for the holidays as well at temple square.



The Alder Family had an awesome Christmas Party.





We spent Christmas with Nate's family. Christmas Eve we went to the Martineau Christmas Party.





Jessica was very excited about her Cinderella dress...almost as excited as she was about the candy cane!!



Emmy and her new doll and stroller.



Trying out Grandpa's new drill press.



Jessica ate her lollipop from Alden and Kira in one sitting (she even took off her Cinderella dress for a few minutes so she could eat it!!)



We hiked to a missile crash site.



And to some Indian ruins.



Making ice cream for the New Years Party.



We had such a wonderful Christmas--thanks everyone for taking time and thought for us!

Thanksgiving

We had family for Thanksgiving!! We haven't been with family for 5 years, so it was a lot of fun to have Crystal and Mike come over from Indiana.

We started off the feasting with a pie party on Wednesday night. We had way too much pie--it was great!







Thanksgiving we cooked and cooked all morning (well Crystal and I did while Nate and Mike played football at the church and the girls happily made messes all over the house:)
Then we ate and played all afternoon and evening.



Sadly, Crystal and Mike had to go Friday morning.
We went to St. Louis on Friday and Saturday so we could go to the temple. We also walked across the Mississippi River on a bridge that used to be old Route 66--it was amazing!