My hUbBy HaS a 4 YeAr DeGrEe

Last night Alma got his Bachelors Degree in Accounting at BYU-Idaho.
He Graduated Cum Laude which means top 10% of the class!

Graduation was great and we are so proud of him!
Way to go!

Me sporting the Cap!

This is Alma and his friend Brent! Good Job guys!

Getting his name called

Walking in the Academic March

The group!



And of course, we gotta have pictures of Kate...


We have started to pack and so there are a couple of boxes in our living room. She loves standing up by them and being a big girl~

Time for the next chapter....

So Alma is all done with school and is graduating from BYU-Idaho this Thursday! We are so excited for him and all that he has accomplished!
As you know, we are heading to Utah so Alma can start in the Fall at BYU for the Accounting Masters Program.

We are starting to pack since we will be moving at the end of next week.
We are both pretty sad to be leaving Rexburg. We have both been here since 2002-2003.
It has really become home for us and we are going to miss it a lot.
Our ward, neighbors, friends.
But we are exciting about having more things around us. Like restaurants and airports.

It has been a great time here at BYU-I and it is time to leave. But we will definitely miss it here!
Congrats again Alma! You are so awesome and we love you and are so proud of you!


And here are some pictures of our recent happenings:

Eating Spagettios! YUM

This was at like 11pm. She was suppose to be sleeping but she was giggling and standing up! So we decided to drop the mattress.

This is what i see all the time. Little eyes peeking.....

Kaitlyn is CrAwLiNg!!!!!!!

Today Kaitlyn started to crawl. I must admit that it was a little unexpected. She has been getting a little closer but we still didn't think it would be for awhile. If you would have asked me 2 days ago when I thought she would be crawling I probably would have said maybe by Aug. at the earliest~

But, through out the last 2 days she has just been improving and then right before bedtime she just started moving all over the place.

Her style of crawling is a mix between crawling and bear crawling. She loves to walk so she kind of does that as she crawls, but hey, to us it is progress!

We love to watch her grow and learn and progress!

Great Job Kaitlyn! We are so proud of you!

Recent happenings and...OuR 4Th Of JuLy!

Kaitlyn loves to stand. She stands by the couch and walks along the couch to the recliner and today i took this picture of her standing holding onto her stroller~ she would stand all the time if i would let her~ She gets so happy while doing it! She is growing up fast.

Not too much progress on her crawling, she is getting a little bit better about moving around on the ground though~
After Church on Sunday we went outside in the grass. She loves to play with cookie cutters.

Our 4th of July was awesome. Alma went Golfing in the morning with "the guys" and then at 10am we went to the Rexburg Parade. Then we came home and BBQ'd Ribs with our neighbors and friends. We hung out all night and watched fireworks from our front lawn. It was such an awesome weekend! We are really going to miss Rexburg and all of our Awesome friends!

Our tarps to keep us cool in the heat!

Sweet set-up!


Relaxing!

Carter getting up close and personal with Kaitlyn.
It really looked like he was going to kiss her!


The 3 babies, all a day apart!
( i think Carter (middle) and Kaitlyn could be siblings!)


I Love how Kaitlyn and Carter have there feet up and Lilly is just chillin'

The Bates at the Parade!

KDB and Daddy looking at the floats going by

Family shot!

Being a big girl on dads shoulders!

Hope you all had an AWESOME 4th!

OvErLoAd Of PiCtUrEs!

Kaitlyn is turning 7 months this week and i can't believe how fast time is going.

Here are some pictures of her that i have taken recently
ENJOY!

She no longer wants to wear headbands... she doesn't wear them that often but when she does she pulls it off. This time it got stuck in her mouth and she was sucking on it. It was funny.

She LOVES to stand, she gets a hold of the couch and stands FOREVER! she is starting to slowly scoot across the couch. And when she is sitting i put my hand in front of her and she pulls herself up. Growing up so fast!

Mom and Kaitlyn!
(i got a hair cut last week and i love it!!)

Close up!!

Dancing and being silly!!

We started packing a few things since we are moving next month. She was playing with the boxes FOREVER!!! So we put her in it to play with!


Every night we give her a bath and she always grabs our toothbrushes and plays with them~ Tonight we were taken off her adorable shirt and it got stuck on her head so we took a bunch of pictures!
WE LOVE THIS GIRL!!!!

Here is another view of my haircut. not the best picture but it is an a line cut. the back is a lot shorter than the front. But not too much.
It is so much cooler for the summer!

All tied up.... turning 25.... & a Naked Baby...

So Kaitlyn found our Atari game and was playing with it. I turned away for a second and when I came back she was all tied up in it.
It was cute because she had this look like, "What have I gotten myself into?"

Alma turned 25 while we were camping last weekend so this last week I decided to do a couple things for his birthday at home. I made a Peach Cheesecake for him (he loves cheesecake and peaches so it was perfect) and I made him a dinner with Cheese Fondue. It was so much fun!

2 nights ago we went to a ward camp out activity. It was a Blast. Unfortunately, it was so much fun that i didn't get a chance to take any pictures. HATE WHEN THAT HAPPENS!


When we got home we had tons of Camping stuff in our living room along with Blankets, we stripped Kaitlyn down and let her roam around with just a diaper on for a good hour. I think she really loved it.

Too much fun just knocks her right out! We sure do love this little girl!

cAmPiNg FuN!

So this last weekend we went to Almas family reunion. It was out in Gandy, Ut in the middle of no where~ It is so fun to get away from everything! We were talking on the way home about how nice it is to not have cell phones or anything for a couple days. Just getting away from it all while enjoying spending time with his family.

Friday was also Almas 25th Birthday! Happy Birthday Alma!
(He is getting old but I guess I can't tease him because I am right behind him in August)

We were a little worried about the long drive and it raining and camping with a 6 month old but Kaitlyn did great!

We had such a blast with his family and look forward to this every year.

Here are a couple pictures of our trip:

Hanging out in the Tent!
I am not sure what they are both laughing at but I guess it was pretty funny!
Chilling with mom, all bundled up warm.
Being silly!
Hanging out in the pack n play~

3 Babies... and my attempt at being a photographer...

The best thing about being in Rexburg is all the couples our age. We have so much fun where we live, being able to hang out with all of our neighbors.

In our 4 plex apartment, 3 of us had babies in December.
One had her boy on Dec. 2nd and then me and the other neighbor had ours on Dec 3rd.
All in the hospital at the same time! So fun!
So here are just a couple of pictures I took of these three "almost" 6 month olds.

I love this picture because Carter was the only one with a toy and Lilly and Kaitlyn were both trying to steal it from him. I love his face here, guess he is having to learn early about girls and just how high maintenance they really are.

Top of their cute little heads.

Close up on Kaitlyn!

Closer Close up on Kaitlyn!

Lilly- I can't get over these beautiful blue eyes!