Happy Birthday Ashlyn!

Yeah, we know it's a month late... spring is pretty much the busiest time of the year for us (well, mostly for Corbin!). We can't believe our little baby turned 3 YEARS OLD last month (March 29). This picture of her at 6 months literally seems like yesterday. She was the happiest baby I ever saw and so easy to take care of! She is the first of our two wonderful blessings... and we can't imagine life without her! We are so grateful for everything that happened to make it possible for her to become part of our family.
Somehow she just keeps getting cuter :) And her laugh is even more contagious now. We love you, Ashy! Don't grow up too fast.

The rest of these pics are of things we did for her birthday or on her birthday. The day before her b-day Ashlyn, Sam, Aunt Amanda, Grandma H. & Mommy all went to the zoo. I think Ashlyn would live there if we would let her :)
Ashlyn saw these two lion cub statues and she wanted Sammy to sit on the "baby" lion and herself to sit on the "big girl" lion. Couldn't pass up that photo opportunity :)

We celebrated Ashy's birthday a week early at Grandma Talley's house. I told her we were going to have cupcakes and she couldn't stop talking about it. The whole time we were there she wanted to sit by the cupcakes and she kept pushing on the plastic wrapping with her fingers (undoubtedly hoping one of her pokes would break through so she could steal a taste!). To this day when we tell her we are going to the Talleys she informs us that she wants a white cupcake when we get there.
Had to take a break in the birthday action for a quick shot of these two cuties! Even when Parker is crying he is adorable :)This was the actual, official birthday day. The Hansens came up to our house to celebrate. One of these days I'll learn my lesson- I don't need to buy her anything because Grandma Hansen has got it all covered and then some! What a spoiled but happy little girl!Ashlyn has known she was getting a princess scooter for her birthday since Christmas when I actually bought the thing on sale. I really thought she would forget that we had it but she's so dang smart! (must take after her mom).Can you believe I made this cake myself? Okay, it's not that spectacular, I know, but for someone who doesn't bake much (okay, at all) this was a proud accomplishment. Ashy wanted a pink cake with pink frosting but we compromised and went with a funfetti cake with the pink frosting (too much pink is not a good thing). Ashlyn helped me decorate it and then I had to spread back over the finger marks she kept leaving! No matter what I said she couldn't keep her fingers out of the frosting. I don't think she had more than one bite of actual "cake", but she ate all of her frosting :)

Stef's Running

It has been a while, and we have a couple of posts we would like to put on here. Time is flying by so fast, and we are already looking forward to the summer - when I am done with school and track. This first post is dedicated all to Stefanie's running. She ran her first 1/2 marathon on Saturday, and although she insists it was just a training run, she did a great job - finishing in 1:32.08 - good enough for 5th place in the Striders Winter Training Series 1/2 marathon (out of nearly 200 women). It was a cold morning, and the last 3 or 4 miles were into a pretty strong headwind. The girls and I were proud of Stef and how well she ran. She also ran a great mile at the Simplot Games in February (5:31). I will add some Simplot pictures soon. I also recently added some Salt Lake 5k pics to the end of this post.

This is pretty early in the race (about 4 miles) coming out of the canyon that leads up to Causi Reservoir Ashy and I stopped to pet the horse. After the race - at Red Moose Lodge


Here are the Simplot photos:


This is the last time I was in the lead in this race. The later pics don't look so good.Ashlyn was there to support both of us.

Stefanie didn't want me to make a whole new post about this - so I thought I would just add on to the end of this one. She ran the Salt Lake 5k yesterday and finished 4th out of like 1500 women. My wife is smokin fast :) Her time of 19:02 was her best since the college days - way to go Stef. I captured a few shots near the end -