Spring Break, Chicago, Easter, Oh My

Well, here's a quick update on our past month or so and I'll get to the pictures. Spring Break, we just took it easy, but we did do a day trip to Nauvoo with our friends, the Bednars, and were able to go to the temple and see some of the great sites :) The temple is beautiful, we had a lot of fun!
The following weekend, we went to Chicago and met up with Steve's parents and brother, who were there for a conference. We stayed up there for the weekend, and had a blast! We did shopping on the Magnificent Mile, ate at some really great resteraunts, went to the Lincoln Park Zoo, Wrigley Field, and the Field Museum. It so much fun, and the best part was seeing Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Scott!
Easter was fun, except for the fact that Audrey and Steve were sick, and I was in charge of our big Primary Easter activity, but other than that, it was great!
The kids are growing up so fast, they both are walking around and getting into everything, talking and jabbering away! They're so much fun, I love watching them figure things out and put things together. The other day, I started singing "Old McDonald", Audrey was singing along going "E-I-E-I-E-I....", when I got to the horse, Auston just got up and walked out of the room, and I could hear him in his room moving things around, then he comes walking in holding his toy horse! I was so surprised and proud of him! He's so smart, they both are! Anyway, enough jabbering, here's the pictures, which I know is the reason you all came here. Enjoy!

Nauvoo Temple

The kids love the playground, once they're there, we can't get them away

Chicago, We back the bid! (for the Olympics)

The view from Grandma, Grandpa, and Scott's hotel room. Ya gotta love Lake Michigan!

Auston's pointing something out to Audrey, not sure what...

So much fun at the Zoo!

Here's a really cool video of the lion roaring, be sure to mute the music before you push play

Here, the monkeys were going crazy, swinging around and fighting, and one of them only had one arm, it was amazing to see him swinging. The kids loved them!

With Sue, the T-Rex, at the Field Museum

Easter Time!

They loved the balls we got them

and their "house"!

Easter best!

Ancestry

I was approached in Church to see if I could start helping out with Family History, so I joined Family Search, a Church website, and we have become addicted! It is so amazing to see how far back our ancestry goes, and where it originates, and actual names of people, instead of just a vauge idea, and also to see if their temple work has been done. My family, the Riries, originated from Scotland, mainly Aberdeen area, while Steve's family, the Rogers, originated from Wales. To keep it simple, for right now, we mostly followed the patriarchal line, following our last names. we then googled names of family members, and we found some pretty neat stuff. Here's a picture of Steve's direct grandfather, Rev. John Rogers, who was born in Wales and immigrated to Massachusettes sometime before 1691:
We think he looks a lot like Steve's grandpa.
Also, something of interest to my Arizona friends, Steve's grandpa was William Jordan Flake, the man who founded Snowflake, AZ with Erastus Snow. Small world, huh?
This is a picture of my grandpa, James Ririe, who immigrated from Aberdeen, Scotland to Utah in 1853, after joining the Church in Scotland and serving as a missionary there:

Anyway, hopefully this doesn't bore anyone, but we thought it was so interesting!

Short but Sweet

Well, this past weekend was Steve's little brother Matt's mission farewell, so we decided to fly home and surprise him, and everyone else! We flew in late Saturday night and my parents came and got us and we stayed with them, and then Sunday, we walked into Sacrament meeting, (don't worry, we were a half hour early, so we didn't cause too much of a commotion!), and I wish we could have taken a picture of everyone's faces! We were all crying and hugging, it was so great! Steve's sister Minde also flew in from New York, so all of the kids were there to see Matt! He did such a great job, he's going to be an awesome missionary. That night, his friend, Conner, came over, whose a little autistic, and he had written a song for Matt as a gift. He and Matt have been good friends from kindergarten, and Matt's always been kind of his protector, standing up to him to bullies and always looking out for him. Conner sang about how Matt is his best friend and how he always had his back, and he'll miss him and love him. It was so touching! All of us were crying, it was like something you would read in the Ensign or New Era. It really said a lot about Matt and what a great brother and friend he is. We'll miss you Matt, but we're so proud of you and can't wait to hear about all of the amazing experiences you'll have! We had such a great time seeing everyone, we wish it wasn't so short of a trip!

Matt and Steve a couple of days before Matt went into the MTC

Matt with Auston and Audrey a couple of days before he heads into the MTC

Steve's Immediate Family

Our Little Family

It's About Time

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since we last updated. I've been meaning to for awhile, but it seemed like things just kept coming up, like the two weeks in January, everyone in our little family got a really bad flu bug, which I wouldn't wish on anyone! Also, someone, who wishes not to be named (but it wasn't me), lost our camera card with all of our Christmas pictures on it, and me being the kinda neurotic person I am, can't blog out of order, so we've been trying to find the card so we can post. We found our small card with the last couple days of our vacation on it, so I guess it'll do, on to the update, and I'll try to make it quick and get onto the pictures.
Christmas was great, all because we were able to go back home to Utah for three weeks! It was so great to see all of our family and friends and the mountains again : ) Christmas was great, we had Christmas Eve dinner with my family, and then we slept at Steve's parent's house, which was fun because 7 of the 8 kids in his family slept over! It was crazy but so much fun, especially with all the grandkids! We also had pictures taken of all the Rogers grandkids together, plus family pictures, which were freezing, but fun. We were also able to go skiing and after the first bumpy run it was a lot of fun and a beautiful day! One of the most exciting things that happened while we were there, was that my sister Amber and her husband and kids were able to be sealed in the temple. It was such an amazing experience, especially seeing Ryleigh and Braydon walk into the sealing room and seeing them kneel all together around the altar. I'm so happy for them and love them so much! Some other fun things that we did was go to the aquarium, which the kids absolutely loved, went sledding and played in the snow, (while we were there, it snowed more than I think it had since we moved there), and went to the Body Exhibit that was in Salt Lake (so interesting! but I'm into that kind of stuff). Overall, we had the best time, and we owe it all to our families! We love you guys!
Since we've been home, we all got sick, Steve started school and entered a client-counseling competition at school with our friend James, (the same partner from his other competition), and they WON Again!! So exciting! So they were able to go to Milwaukee and compete in Regionals, and they're automatically going to Regionals next year and are in charge of the competition at the UofI next year. So that left a weekend where I was all by myself with the kids, which was filled with lots of playdates and dinners with friends, and one eventful day at church with Monica (James' wife) and their girls! Valentines Day was so fun, we ate at this great resteraunt called Bacaro, and it was delicious! And we were able to go do some shopping without having to spend twenty minutes getting kids in and out and pushing an incredibly huge stroller around! It was heaven!

On to the kid-os: They're both walking! They're still both a little unsteady, but Audrey can take about ten or so steps, while Auston can take about 4! It's so exciting, but I'm a little worried about what this may bring! But no matter what, it'll be fun (I hope). They're also jabbering away, with Audrey being a LOT more vocal than Auston, but that's to be expected since she's a girl! They are both so funny, and so fun to watch! They both LOVE to dance, especially Audrey, the minute they hear music, they're bouncing all over! They fight big, but love big, which makes all the fighting bearable! Funny story: They were fighting over these two stuffed animals, Auston kept taking them from Audrey, and when she finally took them from him for the fourth time, she just started hitting him with them over and over! Auston just started laughing and rolled onto her lap while she was hitting him, but then she started laughing and rolled over on him! Steve and I were laughing so hard, I know I know, we probably should have disciplined, but it was just too funny! Anyway, there's an update on us, sorry so long! Enjoy the pics and vidoes!

Lovin' thier spaghetti!

Audrey loved her tutu that her Aunt Cara made for her!

Auston's first haircut, he looks so old!

They weren't afraid to touch anything!

Audrey loved my parents' sheep, Lady

This video is of Audrey and Auston in the bath, and Audrey was telling a big story. She tells stories like this all the time, and it's too funny!

Posting

Well . . . As you may or may not have been able to see, we have been slacking in or blog updating duties. Many of our, or should I say Auston and Audrey's, faithful fans are enraged because of the lack of updates since Christmas. Rest assured we still think about our blog and plan to update sometime, hopefully soon. Thank you for your patience and we are sorry for any inconvenience we may have caused you.

Birthday Cake!

Drum roll. . . . Here is the video of Auston and Audrey eating their birthday cakes. You can see that Auston had no problem figuring out what to do, Audrey was a little more timid. But, after the video was taken Audrey really started to dig into the cake as you can see in the pictures below. (Make sure you pause the playlist on the side)

A Christmas Blessing

Well, tonight we were the recipients of a Christmas blessing. We took the kids to see Santa Clause at the mall (pictures to come later). And decided to grab some dinner at Chile's. We were seated by an older couple. Nothing really seemed special. We ordered and were talking while helping Auston and Audrey to eat some snacks before their favorite meal arrived, grilled cheese. Anyway, Auston and Audrey always seem to draw a crowd, and a few people made comments to us, of course the standard "Are they twins?" and "Oh! Boy and girl twins?" The older couple leaned over and talked with Kristen for a little. They asked how old the kids were and commented that they were beautiful children. The lady talked to Auston and we tried to coax him into saying "Hi" but he just stared at the lady and smiled. We noticed the couple leave and it seemd like the older gentleman was having trouble or something with his credit card because he took the server aside and was talking to her about his credit card. Kristen was about ready to offer to pay, but they got it figured out and left. When we asked for our check our server informed us that the couple had taken care of our meal and told her to tell us "Merry Christmas!" We couldn't believe it and wanted so badly to say "Thank you". It was so amazing to see the potential for good we have. We felt truly blessed and were impressed with the spirit of the season that motivates all of us to give gifts, whether big or small, in rememberence of the Ultimate gift.