Missing: One beautiful smile

If anyone has seen a beautiful, real smile hiding somewhere please let me know! Katlynn seems to have misplaced hers and we have looked everywhere for it but haven't had any luck! She has taken to replacing it with a variety of other expression like the half-smile:Or the I'm not even going to try to smile:Or the smirk:Or the I think I'm a teenager:Or one I did when I was little, the underbite or "monster face" as my sister calls it:Or my very favorite, the I'm not even going to look at the camera:I know that beautiful smile is here somewhere because I've seen it before and it looks like this:

Has it really been two months?

I can't believe it has been two whole months since I have posted anything! Time definitely flies when you're having fun (and working and doing school stuff and cleaning,ect.) We have had a very busy year so far but we've had a lot of fun too!

Alden had his first piano recital (in December but I just now got the pictures on here) He did really well even though he tried to talk Jason's mom into letting him not play.(which she did not even consider, thankfully) He played Mary Had a Little Lamb with two hands and Lightly Row(I think)We had Jason a surprise 30th Birthday party at Olive Garden this year! He had no idea until we pulled into the parking lot and he saw Ebo's truck parked right up front, thanks guys! :)

But really it was a lot of fun! Thanks to everyone who made it!Jason and Alden have started BMX racing this year and they both love it! Alden has gotten first or second in every race and so has Jason (granted there are only three to four people in each of their classes but at least they are beating someone!) Alden actually got first place in his first moto ever! We are so proud of him. We knew he would be a natural at it since he's been riding without training wheels since a few days BEFORE his THIRD birthday! Amy had little Addison Grace on February 9th! She is so cute! I couldn't hold her much because Katlynn wouldn't let her go! Katlynn keeps asking when we are going to have her a baby sister so I'm hoping she gets her fill of Addie and Atticus so she will stop asking because she will always be the baby at our house :) Unless God has some major other plans for us :)We had lots of fun playing in the snow this year!And yes that is my son with no hat and no gloves on! He refused to wear them at first so we let him and a few minutes into playing he realized why he should trust Mommy and Daddy and changed his mind!

We had our first couples game night on March 7th and it was tons of fun! The adults ate and played Rockband and passed Atticus and Addie around!And the kids watched movies and played dress-up upstairs!Except for Gabbie who joined in the Rockband fun!Alden played drums for the talent show at Willis Road on March 27th! He did a great job just getting out on the stage but he cried after he got finished because he didn't play what we had practiced. Being the great mom that I am I tried to joke with him and said "You're in trouble silly" and he burst into tears. I guess he was hoping no one else knew that he hadn't played the right thing and I blew it! I felt so bad! After he calmed down though he asked if he would still get Mario Kart (which is what we told him we would get if he did a good job) and I said of course you are and the tears magically dried up. That was all he was worried about!He didn't want to be on stage by himself so he asked if I would stand behind the curtain so he could see me while he played!

We couldn't get the video camera to work at the talent show so here is a video at the house of what he was supposed to play :)

Patti and I did the Spring pictures for Cornerstone this year and I think they (mostly) turned out okay! It went smoother than I thought it would and the weather was beautiful so other than trying to get the one and young two year olds to smile, there was really nothing bad about it!

Here are Katlynn's pictures! She's getting way too big, way too fast!

Mrs. Mary Jane, Helga and I gave Dawn a shower for baby Samuel at Helga's house a couple of weekends ago! It was fun to get to see people that we don't see a lot now that our church has two locations! I miss everyone! And Dawn got a lot of cute stuff for the newest Coffman! Katlynn can't wait until he gets here and we start keeping him while Dawn works. She loves Will being here but he's as big as she is now so she's ready to have a baby again.We are really blessed to have had such great friends in our lives for so many years! I have known Helga for at least 12 years (maybe more) and Dawn for probably 10 years! They are great and I'm so glad God put them in my life!I took some pictures for the Elder family recently for their newletter and because we hadn't done any since little Addie has joined the family! All the girls are so cute!I wish we had waited just a little longer to do the picture though because I took a great workshop with Sara Anthony last week and learned so much more! Now I just need to practice, practice, practice so maybe one day, I'll be as good as she is!

Here are a few of the pictures that I took at the workshop:

This one we were practicing getting a smaller focus and that great blurred background. The thing that threw me the most was trying to get a great shot without using the flash! All the photos below are flashless :) This one we were practiced locking your focus and then repositioning your frame.And this is Sara showing us how to freeze action shots!Both of the kids' school Easter Egg Hunts had to be moved inside this year because of all this crazy rain we have been having! But they had fun anyway!Alden had his field day on Friday and it was the most miserable I have been in a LONG time! It was freezing and windy and all the kids were complaining! I ended up just checking Alden out and leaving a little early because he was doing more whining than playing towards the end!Patti and I did Easter pictures this Saturday and we had some BEAUTIFUL models to work with! Here's a peek for all of you that came! They should be on our proofing site in a few days! Enjoy!And we had a sweet little helper!The wonderful Reuter Family let us borrow their sweet little bunny, Flopsy-Mopsy-Cottontail-Susan, to do a few pictures with. That bunny was so great! She just sat there most of the time even while the kids were pulling her ears and poking her eyes! Thanks guys are letting us use her for the day!