Easter 2014

We got home for Spring Break just in time for Easter.  It was a great Easter day and I even pulled off a nice easter dinner (even though we had arrived home the night before).

Jake got this rubber band gun and LOVED it!

Here they are in their Easter outfits.  I almost forgot and Chris got a quick picture before the clothes were off or ruined.  It isn't the best picture, but at least the outfits/day were captured.

And then for our Easter FHE lesson, Hannah built the Garden of Gethsemane, the cross and the tomb out of legos.  Pretty clever if you ask me?  and it was a great lesson :-)

Spring Break 2014

This year for Spring Break we went to St. George.  My brother and his family were going to spend time with my parents, so we decided to go to, so the cousins could see each other.  And because the kids love hanging out at Grandma and Grandpa's house.  They live 15 mins. outside of St. George and there is so many fun things to do where they live, my kids love visiting them.  And was even better this year, because the cousins were there to make it more fun!

Here are just some of the fun things we did.

We went for a hike.  The hike was perfect for the kids and at the end they got to climb up the rocks to a grand overlook!  We were holding all the kids by their shirts to make sure no one fell off.  What a stressful situation with so many kids.. not enough hands :-)

Grandpa made sure the kids got their first taste of fishing.  My kids were so excited to do this.  They have this stocked pond where the kids were sure to catch a fish.  And they all did!  It was one of the highlights of the trip for sure.  Here is Hannah's fish.

And here are all the cousins with their fishing poles. 

We had to stop off at the Temple grounds and everyone got to touch the temple.  What a great bunch!

We decorated easter eggs.

And we went to the Rosenburch Wildlife Museum.  This is one of my kids favorite thing to do when in St. George.  They have so many animals to see and the museum is so well done.

We might have gone to Iceburg once or twice.  We love their shakes and ice cream.  And their fries are so good too!

My parents have a water feature in their front yard and my kids love to get rubber ducks and watch them slide down the water/rocks.  

We also always do s'mores in my parents "wall of fire".  This is after eating s'mores.

We rode the carousel in St. George while we were visiting their annual art festival.  

Everyone has horses were my parents live, so we had to find the neighbor's horses carrots.  Man do these horses love carrots.  They saw us coming and galloped to greet us.

Everyone also has ATVs, so we borrowed some and went for a ride.  Like the nice volcano in the background.  Seriously so much to do where my parents live.

We also made easter bags for the easter egg hunt.  Each kid got to make their own bag.  It is fun to see what each kid created.

We also decorated easter cookies, watched Star Wars with the cousins, the mom's went shopping at Tai Pan, we went hot tubbing, and much more.  It was such a fun spring break.  We decided to do it again next year... just a new location (somewhere closer to home :-)  Can't wait!

April Happenings

To continue with the catching up.  Here are some of the things that happened in April.

Hannah had to give her California Mission report and project.  She decided to do a cookbook and then had to bring in some food to sample from her cookbook.  She really wanted to do Sopapillas and then we decided Champarrado (a version of hot chocolate) would be fun to.  The kids in class loved it.

Then we had our General Conference Baskets that have become a favorite with my kids.  They think it is like Christmas morning on General Conference weekend.  They loved trying to match the picture of the general authority with the picture on their goodies.  It isn't as easy as it seems for little kids :-)  But it is good for them to learn and helps them pay attention (somewhat :-)

And I decided to make cinnamon rolls.  I totally botched the recipe twice, but somehow the rolls turned out awesome.  They were so good and always a yummy treat.  I should do them more often :-)

Hannah got Principal's honor roll for the third straight quarter in a row.  She works hard at it.  And every quarter I am super proud of her.  Ok, I am proud of her all the time... don't worry. But I get to be publicly proud of her :-)

This is Hannah with her friend... she too has made principal's honor roll three quarters in a row.

Jake had his easter egg hunt at preschool.  It doesn't matter how many easter egg hunts you have... they are always a blast for the kids (and the parents :-)  This was no exception.

For Christmas, we gave Hannah tickets to Wicked in April.  So, this is a picture of us at the show.  Hannah was so excited and LOVED the show.  She now has the soundtrack and listens to it every day.  (it has replaced Frozen, which is totally okay with me).  I love that she loves music so much.  We might have to start bringing her to the shows that we go to.  Chris and I love Broadway shows :-)

We went to a little carnival in our neighborhood that other day.  They had this thingy.  I am not sure what it is even called.  But everyone took a turn.  Jake thought he was so manly.  

Here is a little craft project the girls did one weekend.  I love that they love crafts too!

And here is a little gift I gave to the teachers for easter.  A chocolate bunny in a mason jar.  What's not to love... chocolate, mason jars, and a tag. 

Destination Imagination State Competition

In the month of March, Hannah and her Destination Imagination team went to the State competition.  It was so exciting and the kids worked so hard to get there.  It was a great experience and such a fun way to learn, lead and problem solve.  Someone called it "olympics for the brain".  And that is so true.  Our kids did the Tension Builds challenge.  They had to build a structure out of wood, glue and fishing line and it could weigh more than 120 grams or be higher than 7 inches (or something close to those numbers).  This structure was supposed to hold as much weight as possible before it broke under the pressure.  Also, they had to put together a skit about how tension/pressure builds and how to solve the problem.  They didn't move on to Nationals, but they did a great job and we were so proud of them.  What a great experience!

This is their structure and the weight it held.  The structure they built is at the bottom in the middle of the wood square.  It is the light colored, small, structure.  It is hard to see it.  

March Happenings

Life is so busy these days, that I don't even think about my blog, but then I remember it is my journal and how I capture our life's moments and that is when I decide I need to take the time to write the things that are happening in our life.  Even if it is brief and sporadic.

So, here is what happened in the month of March.. or the small things that happened in the month of March.

I am not sure what this picture is even from, but I thought I would post it because that is about as blue as you can get.  Seriously, what is that?  Whatever it is, I'm pretty sure it shouldn't be consumed.  He must be being supervised by his dad :-)

Jake had a Trike-A-Thon at school.  He loved bringing his helmet and circling around on his trike.  He still talks about it.

This is a picture of Jake's bed in our room.  He has been coming into our room in the middle of the night for a year now.  Everyone tells me it is just a stage, but this stage doesn't have an ending in sight as far as I can tell.  I am considering getting him a better bed, since it might be used for another year.

At the kid's school carnival they had a fire truck, police car, sanitation truck and a Police Motorhome (I am not sure what it was really called).  My kids loved it!  I couldn't get Graham to stay away, he loved them and that is not an exaggeration.  I spent most of my time at these vehicles because i couldn't get Graham to leave.

Here is the St. Patrick's Day treat we gave to teachers.  I love giving them special treats to show them how much we appreciate all they do.  It doesn't seem like nearly enough.

A little time with cardboard.  It is amazing how much fun kids can have with the simplest things.  This became an airplane for days :-)  I'm pretty sure it didn't pass inspections!

I love this kid.  He is so lovable, sweet, tender and my little buddy.

Chris was asked to speak at a women's conference for our church.  He did a great job as usual!  They took our picture together and thought I would post it, since we never get a picture of jus the two of us :-)

Jake started swim lessons.  He loves it and can't wait each week for his class.  I can't wait for him to learn how to swim.  That would be really nice this summer!

Brotherly Love... some days we have it and some days we don't (at all!)

Ella lost her first real tooth (the first one came out because she was prying off a lego, so that doesn't count).  But this one does!

Hannah's Birthday Camp'in Party

Hannah has asked for a camping party for 3 years and this is the year she finally got it.  I wasn't too thrilled about the theme (that is why each year I steered her to other themes), but then I started to think about all that I could do with a camp'in theme and I got hooked.

My little girl isn't so little anymore.  She has turned 10 and now I realize that she is growing up and fast.  I try not to think about it too much, because it makes me sad.  But I do love having her older too.  She is a great girl and one of my best friends.

Here are the details of the party.  Starting with the decorations.  I got the huge camping icon signs at Oriental Trading Company.  They were perfect and cheap for what we got!

Some other cute decorations.

  What is a camping party without a camp craft?  The girls were able to decorate their initials with all kinds of goodies.  I love this age, because something like this they can do for hours.  And I love
how each girl did something different.

Next was dinner.  Hannah loves hot dogs, so we had to have those.  I made "ants on log" because it went so well with the theme, but no one ate them.  My favorite part of the food table was the felt flames to make it look like it was a real campfire.  I love the way it turned out.

After dinner, it was off on a nature scavenger hunt.  We separated into two teams and the team that found the most items won.  (Although I forgot to get the winning team a prize.  Luckily they had so much fun it didn't matter.  They didn't even ask.)  In each backpack a girl got to pick out:  a whistle (to help their team know they found something), a water bottle with their names on them, a magnifying glass, and a clipboard with the list of things to find.

Because I forgot to buy prizes for the winner,  I told them they were all winners and they got to fill up their boxes of trail mix.  They loved this.  What's not to love.   Making your own goodie mix.  Let's just say the M&M's were almost gone, while everything else had plenty left :-)

Also, what is a camping party without s'mores.  And we had plenty of S'mores.  We had s'more pops, s'more dippers, old fashioned s'mores over an open fire and a 6 layer s'more cake.  I think we had the s'more portion of the party covered :-)

For the favors, the girl got to take home their own old fashioned knapsack with a s'more kit inside. I painted the dowels to match the party colors and to make them look extra cute.  

The girls had fun and Hannah kept telling me it was the best party ever.  Now, she says that every year, but as long as she thinks it each year... than I am a happy momma because I did my job :-)    Hannah is already talking about next year's theme (it is Wicked by the way).  We will see.  It is 364 days away.