Clare's Blessing!

Here is my gorgeous girl on her special day! It was so nice to have Clare's blessing in California so that all of her family could meet her. We loved performing the blessing in our old ward with all of our friends and family there. It was wonderful! Thanks to our great family that paid for us to come down it was a day to remember!

Clare looked so beautiful! She was a little tired before church, so she looks like she's about to nod off, but her dress was soo pretty and she is such a pretty girl that we couldn't resist snapping a few pictures while her eyes were open! Great Granny even got a chance to hold her and pose for a picture.

After church we took more time to take pictures. Here she is with her mom.

A sweet picture with Granny and Papa Thorne.

Grandma and Grandpa Zitzelsberger had a turn as well. They were very happy to have another grandaughter, since there are so few girls born on the Zitzelsberger side!

Here we are together. All six of us in the David & Shawna Z Family!

Our wonderful Daddy, David, gave Clare a beautiful blessing.

Here is Clare with her second cousin Claire.

Here is Clare with her Great-Uncle Jim and Great- Aunt Roselyne. As well as Sammy's favorite of my cousins Jeff Shutts! We had a great day!

Fun at the Santa Ana Zoo!

We went to the Santa Ana Zoo the day before we left California with Aunt Erika and Aunt Biss. We had a great time! We rented a wagon to pull the boys around in. They really liked that. Especially Jake, who wasn't feeling so hot that day, poor boy.

We also went on the little train ride they have. The kids always enjoy that! Even Clare got to ride with Aunt Erika.

We also went on the new and exciting carousel that they have at the zoo. They have really nice carousel animals. The dragon that I rode on was really pretty. The boys rode in the eagle's nest and Clare and Aunt Erika rode on the swan bench. Sammy liked the elephant of course and Aunt Biss got the Black Panther.

The Santa Ana Zoo has the perfect amount of wild life to fill one morning. They have plenty of cute monkeys, birds and turtles. Sammy was very excited that they also had King Julius. Ya know, the lemur from the Madagascar movie that sings "I like to move it move it." The kids also enjoyed this red bird who was picking at this turtles rear end. They thought it was hilarious!

Fun at Scandia!

We went to Scandia for some warm weather fun in California. Sammy and Jake are right at the perfect age to enjoy a family fun center, so we had a blast! Granny and Papa came with us and it was a fun day. David, Sammy and Jake had a great time on the bumper boats! Everyone got totally soaked, especially David, because the bumper boats have water guns on them. The kids thought that was great and of course Dad is the favorite target. Surprisingly David had never been on the bumper boats before and we fulfilled a childhood dream of his that day!

Josh really wanted to go with everyone else on the bumper boats. Sorry!

Sammy and I had a great time on the Go carts. She loved going really fast. It scared Jake and that's why we don't have a picture of him on the Go carts.

The kids went on alot of fun carnival rides.

Clare and I had fun feeding. That is the only excitement she had there!

We had a great time miniature golfing. It was the kids first time going, and although they got tired of it about half way through, they really had fun during the first part. True to form Granny, who wins every game we play together as a family, had the lowest score.

Even Josh wanted to try it out. We had to get him his own ball so that he would stop stealing everyone else's ball.

A Multi-Party Birthday for Sammy!

Sammy turned 7 on February 26th and, lucky girl that she is, had 4 birthday parties! This is her first party which happened at school. Sammy is in 1st grade, so this is a big deal. We had lemon cupcakes with strawberry frosting. Sammy picked it! She also got to show her class her baby sister Clare. It was very exciting!

Sammy's next party actually took place on her birthday at a Lewis park in California. All of her old friends came and we had a great time eating more cupcakes and playing!

Sammy's next party was at Granny and Papa's house in Claremont. All of our family came over for dinner and Granny made Sammy a special cake shaped like a flower. She got lots of fun presents and had a really fun time with her aunts and uncle!

The last party took place in part at Chuck E. Cheese, which is one of Sammy's favorite places to play, and the rest of the party was at Aunt Erika's house. We had a special Barbie cake and ice cream at Erika's house and opened all of the wonderful presents. It was fun to see her uncles and aunt as well as Grandma and Grandpa! What a fantastic birthday!