My Grandpa, my hero passed away at the age of 97.  He was and is a great example of stalwart, faithful, hardworking, charitable, kind, generous…and the list goes on!

Richard Marden Pratt
March 14, 1912 – April 1, 2009

May 2004 Logan meets Great Grandpa.

August 2006 Ammon shows tugboat and boat plans to Grandpa.

August 2008 Logan is photographer, Sterling meets Great Grandpa!

Singing to Grandpa for Family Home Evening, 2 days before his passing.

Grandpa’s funeral 6 April 2009

Before the funeral…see the happy kids…

…after the funeral   The kids did well, but it was a long day for them.

We love you Grandpa, we miss you, and we thank you for living such a wonderful life!

Sterling has 3 teeth now.  We have not used the oragel many times, but it is a wonderful teething toy!  Sterling praising the oragel.

Bridget and Logan want in on the action.

Watch out world Sterling is mobile!  He has been crawling for over a week, but never traveled very far.  It was a one knee and one foot crawl…but today he started following after people.

Check out his new fun:  pulling himself up to everything.

Monday we took the kids swimming for Family Home Evening and it was snowing a little.  It was so cold outside.  By midnight it was a bright white blizzard.  By Tuesday afternoon the snow was all melted and we have had spring like weather every day since.  Could Spring be here?  We have thourally enjoyed spending time outside in the sunshine.  Today after Church we had some fun family time in the backyard.  Sterling loved swinging and the bigger kids loved taking turns pushing him.  It was a beautiful day…I hope spring is here to stay!

Sterling so happy!

Taking turns.

Some funny facial expressions!

Check out the grip on the ropes…Sterling happily held on for dear life.

Tidbits of wisdom from Sterling.

There are a few things I have to say:

1.  Sleep is for wimps!  My mom wants me to take two naps a day and sleep at night.  I don’t want to miss the action…I am the action!  So, I take short naps and wake up lots at night, like I said, sleep is for wimps (and mom’s)!

2.  Teething hurts!  My mom was right!  I am teething and my first tooth came in today.  You can’t see it when I smile, but soon I will lose my toothless grin.

3.  Thank you Fiona for the special blessing weekend.  I really liked having company come.  A big thanks to Uncle Justin for taking us out to dinner…I love food!

Love Sterling

Here are some pictures of our Valentines/Presidents day weekend.

We enjoyed a laid back, relaxed valentines day (Ammon only worked 3 hours!).  Bridget got out the children’s songbook and wanted Ammon to play guitar.  She has regimented routines…they stick to two songs, and she knows the right pages in the song book…She sings Popcorn Popping and Teach Me To Walk In The Light.  Occasionally she can be swayed to try a new song.  Singing is usually Dad and Bridget time but, the boys ran to join in on Saturday morning.

Happy Valentine’s Day

Monday, President’s day, we visited the Draper Temple Open House.  We had tickets for 4:20…view a 10 minute video…shuttle to the temple grounds…tour…return shuttle to car.  I think the kids would have enjoyed it much more if it had not been so crowded…it ended up being 4 hours…YES we got home and had dinner at 7:45 ish!  Wow…the next morning Kimball asked, “Why did we go to the temple?”  They were excited at first, the bus ride was pretty cool, but the cookies at the end made it better!  A very beautiful Temple.

Sterling fell asleep about 5 minutes before the tour ended!  He was a good sport and finally gave in to his sleepiness!

Sterling loves to play with  the other kids.  Here he is enjoying Logan’s lego creations on Friday the 13th.

Tuesday was a very exciting day.  Driel had her baby!  I was able to arrive at the hospital just a few minutes after the birth and experience the miraculous moments of a brand new baby!  What an honor to spend a few minutes with Driel and Evan and their new baby, Fiona.  The birth of a new baby is a beautiful joyous miracle.  Later, we took the kids to visit their newest cousin!  Grandma Diether and Breezy were also at the hospital.  We are a loud big group…so we tried to keep the visit short…and can’t wait to visit again.

Fiona, big sister Moriah, and Driel in the background!

Logan holding our big baby Sterling during the visit.

After the visit, Kimball, Calvin, and Logan made the first tracks in the hospital snow!  When they got in the car, one of the boys (I think Kimball) said “We were walking on the moon.”  A new cousin and making prints on the moon was definately FUN!

Saturday we set up the crib!  I cleaned it, Ammon put it together, and Sterling supervised!  He loved being the man in charge.  I thought having a bigger bed would be good for him, since he is both a chunk and a rolling machine.  In the end, we have had little sleep this week and a very tired clingy baby…but maybe tonight is the night he will sleep!!!  Keep dreaming

One thing our tired little boy loves is the big bath tub.  An inch or two of warm water and the bottle of baby soap and he is a very happy boy!

Look out advertising world, Sterling is about to take over!

Yesterday was a big day in history…but my personal favorite part of history is my family, and Sterling made history!  He is 6 months old, busy, and BIG!  He has almost mastered sitting and is ready to join the big kids in playing and eating   What a cute happy baby.

Check out his adorable smile!

Sterling slept through the night…and so did Bridget…and that means (Mom, me, Kathy) I got a full nights sleep!  Amazing!

Here’s to hoping for two nights in a row   I’m trying to be optimistic and positive…it is bound to bring about the best results!

We have had two very fun sledding days, on Bridgets birthday and again on New Year’s day!

Originally, the boys were confused why we would go sledding…since we had our own snow slides…but they discovered the beauty of a long snow covered hill.  It was really fun to be with lots of family.  Bridget wanted to ride on the pizza sled (triangle shaped tube).  Kimball and Calvin had a good time wrestling with Uncle Evan in the snow.  I took Sterling down one time.  Logan was quite the wild little sledder.  Kimball, Logan, and Richard all went down together, very fast.  Here are a few pics!