Patty Sessions is one of our relatives. She delivered about 4,000 babies. She was a strong, courageous pioneer.
With the Whittekiends by the Nauvoo Temple.
Watching the sunset on the Mississippi River.
At Carthage Jail. This is the window Joseph Smith fell from when he was shot.
Nate caught a frog almost daily. He even got Grandma Shelly to put the frog on her head.
Our good friend picked Mom up from the airport. They came first thing the next day to visit me at the hospital. I was like an old grandma waiting and waiting for my visitors to come. I was watching out the window and started to cry (because I was so happy) when they arrived. We were doing lots and lots of waving when we all saw each other. It was a happy moment for me.
Grandma came armed with fun things for the kids to do. The girls made fun flip-flops. She knows that Nate doesn't like sleeping alone, so she brought him a monkey and pillow. I was so glad to have Mom's help, and the kids were just so happy to have time with Grandma!
It was such a rough 9 days in the hospital. The highlights were visits from my family.
We had a talent show for Grandma Shelly's birthday party. This was Nate's talent.
Here are the words in case you don't catch them all.
Once there was a dragon, and he was flying in the sky.
He was flying to find people he would like to eat and kill.
Nate and Daddy were sheriffs and they got their swords and Nate was a daddy.
And there was daddy.
And they were so big.
And they can fight.
Then all the people said "Thank you sheriffs."
And Sheriff Nate said "Just doin' my duty!"
Ashlyn had 3 friends over for a little party. It was a cooking/sewing party. We sewed aprons and then made braided pizzas and braided dessert pizzas. By the way...Ashlyn's friends in this picture are all older. Two are older by 2 years. 1 is older by 1 year. And yet she fits right in with her height. 
Speaking of height...Sadie's good friend is next to her. She's about a head taller than Sadie, and Sadie is older than her by 2 months.
Ash just finished opening her presents.
Dave took the day off for Ashyln's birthday. We took the kids on post to go bowling. We had to stop to see this tank.
Nate puts his pants on backwards just about every day. Dave helped him find a frog and he was soooooooooooooo happy with his friend. He asked me: "Do you like frogs because they give you rubbies on your hand?" I guess fruvin was tickling Nate's hand and it felt like "rubbies" (our word for a backscratch). Nate had a birthday party that morning and that's why his face looked sort of like an elephant.
The girls went from sewing and cooking to shooting at her party. Ashlyn's holding her birthday present from her dad. I'm sure it's what all 10 year old girls want for their birthdays. Ash loves it. She said "I'd much rather shoot guns on a date than go out to dinner." We wrote that one down.
We've all had fun with Ashlyn's gun.
Maybe this could count as modern art? I was in a hurry to get the box of noodles down, and didn't realize it was already opened. I reached for the box and the noodles came spilling out. I thought they landed in a cool position with the oranges. Had to stop my rushing for a picture.
A cute science teacher with some cute students. They can't get enough of science time with Dad.
Doing "Horsey, horsey on your way" with Grandma Walton.
Snuggles with Grandpa John.
Grandpa Hatch lived to be 91 years old. He lived a wonderful, simple, meaningful life. His funeral was mostly a celebration of his life. There were plenty of tears that flowed from all of the love we had for him. And of couse we will miss him. It's hard not to just be happy for him that he is back with his wife and so many loved ones (I did ask if he would hand deliver a message of love to our girls in heaven...and he cheerfully agreed). 
Playing dress up at Aunt Cindy's house. This one scared me just a bit. Ash wearing Cindy's wedding dress.
We had fun playing at Julie's house! With brand new baby Luke, we have 3 boys and 3 girls!
Catching up with dental school friends. Just a few babies were added since we left San Francisco.
We had lots of fun playing Pit with Grandpa Walton.
Walton cousins! These kids had so much fun playing together.
Fishbein cousins...playing a gum trading game.
Sadie got to go on her "I'm turning 8 date" with Grandma Shelly a little early since we were in town.
Ash riding a horse...our tradition with Aunt Cindy.
Nate loved riding the pony. He fell off 3 times (the pony wasn't in the best mood at first) and Nate kept wanting to get back on. Nate didn't completely fall. Dave was holdling his shirt and caught him as he was falling...but it was still scary.
Before our trip to California, Heidi and her family came out for a fun weekend. Dave wanted to try feeding Rollo a live rat. So he saved the show for our friends. This was traumatic for many of us. Rollo never did end up eating the rat.
The oldest 4 played together in San Francisco when they were tiny.
Dave and the girls looking at Rollo through our macroscope. 
Yesterday it finally hit me that Nate would be a sunbeam and go to primary today. I remember when we first moved here and thinking how crazy it would be that Nate would be in primary for a few months before we leave Missouri. Well, here we are. Nate is officially in primary. With the theme for primary being about the scriptures and knowing that we ask the children to bring their scriptures each week, I realized I needed to get Nate a scripture bag. So Nate and I ran downstairs to look through material to find something "boyish" as he calls it. We couldn't find anything we loved. Dave started to help us hunt. He came down with an old pair of pants that we could use. They turned out to be just the right thing. Nate loves his scripture bag and held his scriptures out during all of primary today.
When Dave picked Nate up from his class, his teacher said that towards the end of primary, he whipped out his pen and notepad from his scripture bag and started drawing. Right when we got home from church, Nate ran for some paper and started drawing. I thought his position was cute. He is so into drawing and coloring right now.
