Seriously....

is she not one of the cutest things you have ever seen??!  She is such a smiley little girl:

We're here!

Well, we are here in Lawrence, Kansas!  We had a long couple of weeks getting ready, driving, and settling in, but we are here and doing well!  First we drove up to Utah, where we blessed Colette at the same time as her new cousin Zerin.  It was nice to gather with family and have a day off in the middle of the drive.  Then, my mom came with us as we drove two straight days to Kansas.  The kids actually did really well with 10+ hours of driving.  Some stretches we stopped every half hour or less it seemed for potty breaks, diaper changes and feedings.  The second day we drove through the most horrendous thunderstorm ever.  We even had to pull over and wait for a while.  But, it was pretty exciting too because I love me a good thunderstorm!  When we got here, we had to unload our belongings in the rain, but some guys from our ward here were nice enough to come and help.  Now we are just unpacking, exploring and taking care of business.

On the drive we played our Doodlebops CD for the boys to dance to in their seats to burn energy:

Here we are at Colette's blessing:

We have been exploring since we got here.  We live right next to a lake, so we headed down there and the boys tried to fly kites:

Our bedroom window faces west, so we were able to watch a thunderstorm move into town.  I'm hoping we get to do this often this summer!  The boys loved it, especially since they have never really seen one before!

Here are the boys enjoying their new backyard:

And, my baby Colette rolled over for the first time yesterday!  We thought it might be a fluke, so we put her on her back again and she rolled again!

And she is so smiley now, I love it!

New tricks

We are doing well here.  I can't believe how fast time is going.  We are getting ready to move on Saturday, and the reality of that is starting to sink in.  As we think of the friends we have made here and the ward we have been in for three years now, we are sad to leave.  But we are excited to be entering the last stage of this phase of our lives - after this next year, Mike will be done with school and will have his Ph.D.  So, on Saturday we will begin our trek to Kansas.

Jordan is becoming very good at the Wii.  I can't say I'm terribly proud, but it is really cute!  He can navigate it by himself and is an expert at bowling now.  Anyway, the other day he wanted to hold Colette and play Wii, so here he is, picking up on one of Daddy's favorite tricks:

Colette is smiling a bit more.  I was trying to get her to smile at me today and this is the best I got:

Hanging with Daddy:

Jordan has just been amazing us more and more lately.  He is such a cute kid, but I think sometimes we expect too much of him because he seems older than he is because of how smart he is.  The other day Mike was asking him math questions, like if you have three and get three more, how many do you have, and Jordan was able to answer them pretty quickly without help.  Tonight we were getting ready to read Book of Mormon stories and we were coming up on Nephi building the ship.  Mike asked Jordan if he remembered what Nephi builds and Jordan said, "A boat!"  When we told him he was right and that he was so smart, he said, "That was an easy one."  He's a funny kid.  Anyway, I just thought I would share a little update.  We are all doing well and getting ready to move.  Jordan was a little worried when we told him we weren't coming back to this house, and he said, "But I like the toys at this house!"  We reassured him that the toys were coming with us, so he's feeling a little better about the prospect.

More

So, I just can't get enough of my pretty baby girl, so here is more!

Jordan still loves to hold her, and he wanted to hold her like Daddy was the other day.  He gets so happy to hold her and then when he is done he let's us know that we can have a turn with her now...

Colette is starting to smile a bit now.  We will keep trying to get a good picture of it, but here is a glimpse of that cute smile!

So pretty...

And the photo shoot is done... but she is cute when she is sad too! :)