Happy Family!

Finals are done! Check-outs and Check-ins are done! And we spent every available 30 minutes sleeping on a blanket at the park. It was so nice and relaxing to not worry about finals, school, or tenants. But like we said it only lasted a week and now Kirk is back in school and we are mowing lawns and doing spring clean up (a few months late)

Toll our Poll

We can't come to an agreement as to which one of us Kirsten seems to look most like, so we decided to ask our valuable viewers what they thought so that we could settle our dispute. So take a quick second and cast your votes and we'll post the results of the poll after May 10, 2008 when it will close. First there is Kirk...
Then there is Dynelle

Finals Week

What a crazy week it's been. It's finals time and that means chaos at our house. Kirk has worked really hard in his classes this semester (10 points for making it through alive when we had a baby in the middle of it all). He has been counting down till finals for weeks (actually months). Finals hit him hard and fast. He had two finals Friday, two finals Saturday (one being at 6:45 pm), and the final two on Monday. It was a cram fest for us at the Howcroft house. But as you can see him and Kirsten had a lot of fun studying together.

Last Friday (the day Kirk had two finals) our property management bosses came into town to do their yearly checkup and make a summer to-do list for us (they live in Nevada). Well we are happy to say we passed with flying colors and it 's a good thing too-Cause it's checkout time and we are so anxious to see some of our tenants go. We've been to court twice, spoke to multiple mothers, plunged toilets for many girls, and had millions of complaints (our favorite being "our light bulbs don't match the wattage for the light fixtures, can you come change them for us"). Only one more year of property management and NEVER AGAIN!

Between finals Saturday night and Monday morning, we made a quick trip to Vernal for Karen's big surprise birthday party. The whole family got together to let her know how much we appreciate her (and with 5 boys that's no easy task). It was a huge success. Tom bought her a 2008 Shelby Cobra Mustang. It's a beautiful car and has the nicest sounding engine I've ever heard. I forgot my camera, so we'll post pictures next time we come back from Vernal. We also made her a book of 51 reasons the boys love their mom. It turned out really cute with pictures from the boys growing up. The boys had some pretty fun memories of Karen (my favorite being Karen getting pulled over when Derik was young and she told the cop "I've never been pulled over before, I'm so sorry" and Derik pipes up from the backseat "Oh, yes you have mom" and she got a ticket! gotta love those boys!) It was fun to all be together.

The final thing we have to say for this week is Kirsten officially has Kirk wrapped around her finger. As you can see she has taken possession of his superman ring. No one but Kirsten Sue could get him to take off the ring for a smile, what a pushover!

Finally Spring

We are thrilled the weather finally let it be spring outside. We took a nice long walk yesterday (3 hours!). We came home with summertime grins on our faces, sunburns and sore muscles mean summer!

Kirsten is starting to smile. It's adorable! She's huge smiles when we get her out of her crib in the morning. She is more and more fun everyday, but still a cuddly newborn-the best of both worlds.

Saturday Karen and Liz came out to Provo. Liz and I decided to cut our hair. Below is a picture of my new mom hair do.

One Month!

Kirsten is officially one month old! It's weird to think we enjoyed life before her (granted I KNOW we didn't enjoy the last three weeks of pregnancy). She even makes getting up during the night to feed her fun. She always has big smiles to see us and rarely has trouble going back to sleep once shes done eating.
She is always bright eyed trying to take it all in. She loves cuddling but is so strong at the same time. She can hold her head for a few seconds and loves to stand on her legs. She is constantly waving her arms all around and occasionally hits her self in the head pretty hard, making her mad wondering who would do such a thing. Her favorite thing is to cuddle up and take naps with dad (which is brave of dad cause once she gets started she won't let him put her down) I'm pretty sure he doesn't mind the nap time, though.
I took pictures of her on her 1 month mark, but took them before bed at 11:00 at night. She wasn't so happy about it, it was time to eat and get to bed!

Conference Weekend

Conference brought lots of cuddle time for Kirsten. I loved Elder Ballards talk, especially because I now belong to the exclusive mothers club.
We were able to watch conference with my family, Dad, Mom, Garrett, Chelsey, Amanda, and Brett all came to visit us over the weekend. After priesthood Dad bought ice cream 5 gallons! So if anyone wants ice cream I have plenty to share in my freezer.
We made our first trip to the park yesterday with Kirsten buried under her carseat cover 3 blankets dozing in her carseat/stroller. It was awesome to get fresh air. Kirsten also went to her first movie this weekend, The Leatherheads, she slept through the entire thing (thankfully)!

First Trip to Vernal

Last weekend we made our first trip to Vernal where Kirsten met some of her cousins. We weren't very exciting between being sick and still recovering. We didn't even leave my moms house, but we made our first trip to Vernal and were very proud of ourselves.

Abby loved holding Kirsten and refused to put her down. As soon as Abby started holding her Alyviah climbed on the couch and dove across both Kristy and me to get to the baby. She was so adorable with her.

Easter 2008

Easter weekend was a lot of fun complete with dying easter eggs, easter baskets, candy and a new dress for Kirsten.
We had lots of visitors (Amanda and Brett of course, Kristy and her family, and Tom and Karen).
Kirsten was beautiful in her Easter dress. Elaine gave her the dress for Christmas and it was so gorgeous on her. She wasn't so fond of the headband, however.
I've included a few pictures, the first one of Kirsten in her basket, the second of our easter egg dying(and boy did it get creative), the third of our family, and finally Kirsten in her dress.