Yes, we're still alive...

and...we made it through another tax season. Wednesday turned out to be a good weather day for us and our trip to the zoo. I think the rain scared most of the zoo visitors away because we pretty much had the zoo to ourselves. Hannah's big highlight of the zoo was seeing the "big bear", the baby tiger that was oh so cute, oh and we can't forget the Orangutans who were getting their lunch when we walked by. Hannah was absolutely facinated that they were eating her favorite fruit...oranges! Imagine that! She's totally obsessed with zoo animals now. When we see one on TV she freaks out, screams one of her highest pitch screams and then yells "mama, we saw that"! I think we'll be putting our zoo pass to good use this year. Thanks again Nana, you're the best.

After the zoo we came home and got back into a "normal" way of life for a day and then went to Spokane or as Hannah calls it "poe-poe-tan". We hadn't seen that side of the family since Thanksgiving so it was a long overdue trip to see Nana and the gang. It was a busy weekend starting with the long drive over. We pulled into Nana's house around 10:30 pm, visited for a short bit and then we hit the sack. Saturday we had the pleasure of going to a birthday party for one of the cousins, Olivia. It was a princess/prince themed party at which the girls got to make crowns, wands and necklaces while the boys made armor masks, swords and necklaces. Hannah was in princess heaven. She enjoyed playing with all the girls and appreciated Olivia saving her from Prince Jakob and his wild sword. =) Saturday afternoon Tom and I took a drive around Spokane, we drove by his dads old house and then found a nice little community that I'd really love to move into. As nice as it sounds, I'm not putting it on my list of things we'll actually do. *sigh* Sunday we took Hannah down to Riverfront Park before we got in the car for the long haul home. We rode on the Carousel, twice, walked around the park and then played on the giant Wagon slide. Hannah couldn't believe that there was a giant wagon. It was pretty cute. It was a really nice weekend and Hannah had so much fun playing with the "boys". Sorry Kendra and Ashlie, she just groups you in with the boys. =) She is still asking me where the boys are and if they're still at Nana's. I'll leave as I always do...with pictures. Enjoy!

Hannah and Jakob working on their necklaces.

Getting some help from daddy

Princess Power

The birthday gang. Jakob cracks me up in his mask!

Wiping Jakob's nose. Notice Hannah's new tatoo.

Playing some harmonica type instrament while Parker plays his new guitar!

Yee Haw!

Feeding the goat her garbage

Hannah and Daddy in the Wagon

Weeeee

Lil' Miss Independent must walk ahead of Mommy & Daddy!

Did you notice in the last picture the absence of "diaper butt"? I think we're almost totally potty trained! WAHHOOOOO!

Woo-Hoo

No pictures for now, just a big WOO-HOO! In less than 10 hours tax season will be officially O.V.E.R! I just got off the phone with Tom and boy did he sound giddy. I think in the office, tax season is already over. I'm off to work my last day and then the office is taking us all out to Alfys (pizza) to celebrate. I'm hoping that the weather holds for tomorrow so that we can take Hannah to the zoo (thank you Nana) - so I'm sure I'll have pictures later this week. Happy April 17th to you all and hopefully you're taxes are done. =)

Easter Re-cap

Finally, Easter pictures! I left the camera at Aunt Joanne's house so the afternoon was picture-less for the Walkers. Hopefully Aunt Susie got a few of Hannah at the second egg hunt. Here are a couple of observations from our morning.

Hannah is no longer interested in smiling for the camera. I think that I've had the camera in her face a bit too much, she sees the camera and she's off. There is no getting her to stand still or even smile for the camera...at least when Mommy or Daddy is the one asking for the smile.

Hannah didn't care much about "hunting" for the eggs she just cared about what was IN the egg. It was like pulling teeth to try and get her to go after her second egg.

And finally...we discovered that Hannah could be standing right in front of egg and still not see it. The Easter bunny put an egg in one of my plants (who am I kidding, I only have one plant), so I told Hannah to go smell the flower, she looked at it, sniffed the air, and went right back to her egg stash. It wasn't as if the Easter bunny put a green egg in with the flower, no, it was a bright blue egg. Tom and I got a couple of good laughs watching her.

Hannah smiles for the Aunt's along with Brittany, Caitlin, Madison and Jacob.

The hunt begins with a dive...

We hope you had a wonderful Easter. Love to all.

* *

HAPPY

EASTER!

Nana's house March 2006

Daddy sheep - maaaddd!

9 working days left of tax season! Tom's feeling completely overwhelmed and stressed out. I'm sure that working 13 days in a row, without a day off has NOTHING to do with it. I keep reminding him that a busy tax season really IS better than a boring one. =)

Last weekend Hannah got to stay the night over at her Grandma Judy and Grandpa Kevin's house in Issaquah. Isn’t she quite the big girl. She had lots of fun playing with her cousin Jakob who was in town as well. Whenever we talk about her weekend she immediately starts talking about the "daddy sheep - maaaadddd!" and then that's all we hear for a good 20 minutes. Apparently, Judy and Kevin took the kids on a walk and went by a farm where there were sheep...a mama sheep, a daddy sheep and baby sheep. They had to keep telling the kids that the daddy sheep was mad so they wouldn't get their fingers snipped at. I think Judy said that they had a baby sheep get eaten by a neighbor animal, so the daddy was being a bit protective. =) At least that's the story we're hearing from them...what happens at Grandmas stays at Grandmas, right?! Hannah's Auntie Kim got her a Dora scooter while she was in Issaquah and boy was that a hit. I'll have to get some pictures of her on it, it's pretty comical. She doesn't quite get the concept of it. She just stands on it and waits for it to move on its own - she doesn't realize that she needs to work to make it move. It's pretty funny.

This picture cracks me up - according to Hannah her and Jake were watching Happy Feet. =) Don't they look thrilled.

I'll leave you with a picture from the other day - I was doing laundry and Hannah wanted to help (she's quite the helper these days), so as I was folding the clothes she was in our closet hanging up her little clothes on our big hangers. If you ask me, I think she did a pretty good job.