Our Guitar Heros

One of Jared's graduation gifts was the nintendo game "guitar hero." He's been having a lot of fun playing it especially since he's had this last week off. On Saturday Mackayla kept saying she wanted to play but needed her own guitar. It was pretty sad and finaly Jared suggested we go look at the dollar store for a guitar. They didn't have one, so we went next door to the second-hand children's store to look. They didn't have many toys on this particular day, but AMAZINGLY we found this little guitar for only $2.00 that really makes music. It was our lucky day. Anyway, Mackayla spent much of the day standing right next to Jared playing her guitar. As soon as he picks up his guitar, she runs and gets hers and is right by his side.

Giving her dad a few pointers

Photo Album

Here are just a bunch of photos of fun times we had with all our visitors last week...

Giving Grandma Nini a hug

Making cupcakes with Nini

Mackayla and Bradley playing with Papa

Bradley's first swim at Jared's cousin Shalynn's house

Grandpa Hatfield ready to drive home with sleeping Bradley in his arms

ATTENTION: This was just a joke. The car was still parked. We would never allow Bradley to travel like this, nor would Grandpa be willing to drive like this. Our kids are ALWAYS in their carseats.

Mom and April at another party with the Tree Family Monday night

Giddy up!!
The kids loved having their cousins Jaden and Logan around. It was fun to have Bradley and Logan (only 4 days apart) together.

Grandma with the boys

The cousins hanging out in the "nest" Mackayla made

Jaden was excited to get to go to school with Mackayla one day

Sleeping with Grandma

Grandpa had to leave a few days before his birthday so Mackayla wanted a chance to sing to him and help him blow out a candle

We had such a great time with everyone. We hope you're planning to come again soon!!

The Graduate

Graduation has finally come and gone. Everything went really great with the exception of some cold weather. We had such a fun time with all our company and the festivities. Because it was such a special event, we took LOTS of picures. For the most part, I'm just going to put up pictures of graduation itself for now, and later will put up pictures of all the other fun times we've been having with everybody.

Friday was the individual college ceremonies where Jared received his diploma. Following are picture of that.

Jared's Friday ceremonies took place in the Provo Tabernacle (a very old and beautiful building). This is a picture of the entry procession of the graduates.

Receiving his diploma...

The happy graduate walking past his family.

Our "Graduation Hat Cupcakes"

A few pictures of the after party

We were so glad to have so many people here to support us. Thanks to Mom and Dad Jones, G'ma and G'pa Jones, Jason Jones, Cheryl and Chelsea LeSueur, Mom and Dad Hatfield, April, Jaden and Logan Holt for making the trip up, and everyone else who has been a source of inspiration and support over the years. We love you and appreciate everything you do for us.

He's Free!

Jared finished his last final this afternoon and is officially done with school. The kids and I decorated his truck while he was in the testing center. We even left a diploma for him. Now we are ready to start the parties. Our company starts arriving tomorrow!!!

After dinner we went to The Malt Shoppe to celebrate.

Trying out a new hairdew

Our little Mackayla Fairy

She looked out her window and what did she see? How many kids can actually see an apricot tree right outside their bedroom windows? Lucky girl.

Happy 50th

A while back Amy had announced that she had just put up their 50th post. Since that time I have been anxiously awaiting the day when we too would hit that big milestone. Alas, we have made it and I would like you all to know that this is our 50th post! I hate for this big event to overshadow Jared's upcoming graduation so try not to make too big of a fuss over it. Who would've thought last summer when an innocent young girl like myself first entered blogworld that I would have had such great success???

We've had a great weekend. Saturday we got to go to a baptism of my cousin's son (Tyler) and then spend the afternoon in Lehi visiting with family. Then today we spent the day in Manti for the blessing of one of Jared's cousin's baby. Its been wonderful to spend so much time with family.

This is Jared's last week of classes. By Tuesday evening he will be done with classes, papers, homework and all that fun stuff. He'll just have 3 finals left to take care of before graduation. Our company starts arriving for the big festivities next week and we are SO excited to have everyone here.

I only have a couple of pictures from this week:

Today I realized Mackayla was being much too quiet and so decided I better go check on her. I hollered "what are you doing Mackayla" and as I came to the bathroom I heard the responce "oh, just putting on my makeup."

Luckily, blush was the only thing she had gotten into. This picture doesn't do justice to the amount of blush she actually had all over her face.

Bradley watching a little TV

His first baby cookie thing

Oh say can he see!

Here is a picture of Jared's new eyes! He had Lasik eye surgery on Thursday and was seeing 20/20 by his appointment Friday. He highly recommends it to anyone. We had a celebratory contacts flushing Friday night. We've been planning this since we got married. It was our graduation gift to ourselves. Very exciting!

The other great part about the week was that we had Heather here with us. She spent her spring break visiting us and it was wonderful to have her here. Mackayla wouldn't leave her side from the moment she got here.

Mackayla got to do a fun painting project for school while Heather was here. She painted a little box with Heather's help. Mackayla was very meticulous about her painting, just as she is with coloring.

I was so excited to have a sling with this second baby, but haven't used it a ton yet. I did, however, try it out today and it worked great. We were going to head outside for a walk but Bradley fell asleep. We just popped him inside the sling and he stayed asleep for a long time.

Mackayla with an ice cream cone


The last two times that we've gone as far as SaltLake Mackayla has gotten car sick and thrown up. This makes the idea of road trips even less appealing to us. It was a chilli day and I didn't have extra clothes, so she got to ride home wearing Bradley's blanket.

*Photo of the Week*

taken by Jared

Now that he's had Lasik this is the next item he's saving for :)

Just thought I'd try putting a video on here since I hadn't done it this way before. Its pretty easy. I'll have to start putting up more videos.

April Fools

We had a very fun April Fools Day dinner. I had heard that Danielle was planning on making jello in cups to look like juice so I decided to join in the fun. As soon as everyone came to the table Mackayla excitedly picked up her "koolaid" and tried to drink from the straw. I felt so bad for a minute when I had to tell her it was a trick and her drink was actually jello. She took the news well, though, and enjoyed her jello very much. Jared's family always had a traditional April fools meal where everyone has to eat from odd and unusual plates with even more odd and unusual untinsels, and so we decided to give it a try. It's a tradition we'll joyfully carry on.

Some other news from the last week. Jared got to move from a cubicle to an office! This is the office he'll be working in now. It has a beautiful view of the mountains! Jared is pictured here training his little protege.

Just when it felt like spring had arrived we had another snow storm! Mackayla was excited to have one last chance to enjoy the snow.