I AM READY FOR THIS--Feast Your Eyes on a Bit of Spring

Dreary-Ohio-Almost-March is not my favorite time of the year, so I thought I'd re-introduce a bit of spring from our yard last year. First the back yard…
And Now the Front…

AND just for fun, here's ANDY at 8 weeks. ^o^
Love, Kathey

ANDY, VALENTINES, Look-Alikes and a Fun Concidence

HERE'S ANDY!

He is 7 weeks old here, and just keeps getting cuter by the minute. ^o^
And here's a drawing that his big sister, Kate (age 4) did of her daddy for his birthday earlier this month. Kate says he is holding a pet snake.

WILL YOU BE MY VALENTINE?

Here's Andy on Valentine's Day. This bib is one of a set his Aunt Karen made for him. ^o^

Kyle gave flowers to Barbie and Hazel for Valentine's Day.

Miss Hazel is now 4 months old, and this was her very own bouquet!

I got flowers too. Jim gave me the Gerbera Daisy pictured below. I LOVE Gerbera Daisies. I sincerely hope I don't kill it. I'm not very good with house plants, and I'm especially not good with outdoor plants that happen to be inside. I noticed that this one doesn't currently have any more flower buds. I plan to feed it a very mild solution of banana peel water to see if I can encourage it to produce more buds. It worked extremely well with the geranium I tried it on outside last fall, but it was too late in the year for the flowers to bloom. (It died after I brought it inside.) We'll see how this works. But as I said, I hope I don't kill it.

LOOK-A-LIKE GIRLS

Barbie recently posted pictures on her blog of Hazel at 4 months. She mentioned that Hazel's face looks older and has really filled out lately. That's her pictured on the left. I thought the shirt she was wearing looked familiar. We have a picture of Peter's daughter, Elizabeth, at about 6 months wearing the exact same shirt. Now that Hazel's face is fuller, she looks much more like Elizabeth (on the right) than she did before. I think it's really fun. ^o^

A REALLY FUN COINCIDENCE

Yesterday Jim and Kirsten and I went to a baptism at our church. The President of the Columbus Ohio Mission, Robert F. Jensen, was there. I was interested in meeting him because his last name is Jensen, which is my maiden name. I found out that his Jensens are from Denmark, and his family settled in Idaho. I told him that our Jensens were from Norway, and settled in Chicago in the late 1800's. I also told him that Jim and I are converts to the church. He asked when we joined the church and Jim told him we were baptized in 1967. He asked where, and when Jim told him Lompoc, California he told us that he was a missionary in that mission at that same time, although he never made it to that part of the mission. We asked him if he knew Elder Douglas Fuqua, and Elder Adrian Gauntt, who were our missionaries, and he did! He said he knew them well, and that Elder Fuqua was quite a legend in that mission. I would love to know where they are now and what is happening in their lives.

It's a small world. It was so fun talking with him.

ANDY UPDATES AND A BLESSING

Here's Andy at four weeks. He gets cuter by the minute. At five weeks he's still a tiny little guy, but he's growing fast. His mom said: Andy's newborn-size sleepers are getting a little harder to put on. I guess we'll be moving to the 0-3 month size soon.

Jim had a very quick trip last weekend to visit Helena's family. The pictures that Jim took didn't turn out very well, so I am going to blatantly plagiarize Helena's blog. Andy was blessed on Sunday. (Here's a brief explanation about blessings.)

Grandpa and Andy hadn't met before.
Andy wasn't so sure about this big man who was holding him.
And here's Kate too. What a delightful lapful. ^o^

Barbie made this blessing outfit for Andy. She made the dress that Kate, and cousins Elizabeth and Hazel were blessed in too. (See pictures here.)The outfit was a bit big on him, but it worked out just fine.
Isn't he just the cutest…?At the church after the blessing: Doug, Andy and Jim.
I wish the rest of us could have been there too.

Mama and Andy.
That evening they all went over to Doug's cousin Lonnie's house for a grilled trout supper. Yes, I definitely wish we could have been there. ^o^ This picture of their family was taken at Lonnie's. I really like it.

Jim left early Monday morning and got home safe and sound even though 2 of the 4 planes he was scheduled to fly on were broken and had to be substituted at the last minute.

We're planning to get everyone together this next summer so all 4 cousins can meet each other. Won't that be a blast!?