Easter Egg Hunt

Because Easter fell on General Conference weekend, we didn't attend the annual egg hunt in Colville. It worked out that my sister was out of town that weekend so we decided to get together the following weekend and hunt eggs and candy then.

It was a wonderful day! The weather cooperated! Grandma brought frosted sugar cookies...



...with lemon frosting...



...and I got to be 10 years old again and eat a cookie with my name on it!



We had a lunch of mostly frosted cookies and a little taco soup on the side.



After lunch it was all about the eggs!!!



Meredith really had fun this year!




Melanie left no stone unturned!



Madilyn took a lot of these pictures...I'm glad her dad got this one of her - look how beautiful she is!



Jared spots an egg!!!



Joseph was thrilled with each piece of candy...



...and even slowed down long enough to share a little with Grandpa Gary!



Sour??



Grandpa & Auntie Lindsay batting clean up looking for any unfound eggs....ha ha ha - like that would happen!

Easter Sunday

Easter is my favorite holiday! My next favorite thing is when Easter falls during General Conference weekend!! Costco Muffins for breakfast. Costco Croissant sandwiches for lunch. A ham. Dinner with China and Crystal. Watching The Ten Commandments...yes, the whole thing! It all makes the perfect weekend!



While Brandon and the boys were gone Saturday night, I made a "Sunflower Cake" for Easter dinner!



There were countless wonderful talks given during General Conference. This is one I'd like to share. I'm so grateful to be a mother!

Colored Eggs

Color kits sure have come a long way since we used to sit at my Grandma Margaret's kitchen table, the house reeking of vinegar! The most impressive magic of the kits was those rub-off images of Lilies and Crosses that we could put on the eggs after they were dry!



Now we put sticky stickers of goofy faces on the eggs. MUCH cuter!!

The Forgotten Dinner

Parent Teacher Conferences were the week before Spring Vacation. I am not a huge fan of that ritual. This time around I opted to get them all scheduled on the same day. Jacob and Maddie had their Student-Led conferences at 8:30 am. Jared's & Megan's conferences started at 2:30 - them Malorie's and Melanie's started around 4pm. My plan was to be home the same time Brandon got home from work at 5pm.

Before leaving the house for the afternoon conferences I put some frozen Rhodes rolls into the warm oven to thaw and rise so we could have scones for dinner. The conferences started to run late. Before I knew it I was calling home close to 6pm.

I told Brandon abt the plan for scones and this is what he found when he opened the oven.



"Scones, anyone??"

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Well, of course I bought everyone St. Patrick's Day clothes and made them wear them!

Here's the early-early morning crew. They're up and gone before anyone else even rolls out of bed in the morning...(And Brandon got away w/ wearing an old green shirt b/c we didn't get his new one ironed in time...story of my life!)



Here's the second wave of up-and-at-'ems.



And then there's Little Miss Wake-Up-Whenever-She-Feels-Like-It!



I know the day will come when these two won't like to dress alike - until then, I'm going to enjoy every second of it!



Dinner was wonderful! We had Irish Stew, Corned Beef & Cabbage (which I had never made before and was pleasantly surprised at how good it was...even the kids ate it). We also had Irish Soda Bread, Green & White Cupcakes and Ginger Ale - seemed like we needed to have "Ale" with an Irish Dinner! We also invited "Grandma Betty" to come to dinner. We had so much fun with her. She goes to church with us and will sometimes sit with our family. The kids smothered her after dinner with books and "watch this" tricks. It was a GREAT St. Patrick's Day!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Meredi!!

On Friday we were at Grandma Janet & Grandpa Gary's house and Meredi got to open her gift from them...this cute dress and a pink sweatshirt to go with it.



Tonight we had a fast family part since everyone had somewhere to be...



Blowing out the candles and eating her cake...



Reading her card from Great Grandma Margaret...

Seuss Olympics IX

It's hard to believe it's Seuss time again already! Many of our games stayed the same...a few minor tweeks here and there...

Malorie trying to "Ring the Gak"



Building and measuring towers for "Yertle the Turtle"



Jared beating mom at "Tweetle Beetle Battle"



Madilyn playing the "Geiling on the Ceiling" game (aka The Purple Dot Game!)



The "Zizzer Zazzer Zuz" Cake...as you can plainly see.



"Hop On Pop" - Race to the end and then...

...Hop On Pop!

No School

I swear our school district has the most "no school" days on the planet!! We decided to make the most of the most recent day-off and we headed to Grandma Janet & Grandpa Gary's house! Lindsay came and saw us before work!



We got there early - earlier than Grandpa gets out of bed! This is the crew he woke up to!



Grandpa decided to make the most out of having some young legs around for the day...



Who knew having a tractor to drive would make my kids HAPPY to help out! I wonder if I could get one for them to use while cleaning their rooms??

Still Cool After All These Years

Tonight we sent dad and the older kids off to their various church activities and the Littles and I broke out Shrinky Dinks!!



Much to our dismay, the light bulb we had to put in the shrinky dink shrinker wasn't a high enough wattage to shrink the dinks...



So we had to do it the old fashioned way!



I totally remember doing these as a kid!! (I also had vivid memories of cutting out Jell-O jigglers for the very first time using mom's Holly Hobbiey cookie cutter...but that's another entry.)



The finished product!



The kids took great joy in explaining to Meredith that THIS is how she got her nick name of "Dink". Those who know our family well know that hardly anyone goes by their legal given name. Meredith is no exception...it's no joke that she has been known as Dink for over a year now. She is just so much smaller than any of our other kids were at her age that we started telling her she was dinky. Dink has stuck ever since.



(For those interested...she also responds to being called "Do-Dah". It stems from Dink...Dinky...Dinkity...Dinkity-Do-Dah (ZippityDoDah)...Do-Dah. I swear, I could go on and on!)

Wii Love Grandpa

Grandma Janet emailed the pictures of Grandpa and Joseph playing together to me this weekend. She took them while they were here spending the day with our littlest ones. Last night while I was sifting through the memory card, I found these on my own camera!

Joseph teaching grandpa the tricks to Wii Bowling.



Joseph getting tired of waiting for grandpa to finish his turn.



The dad I know and love! No kids around and here he is working on improving his gaming skills! (I'm having Atari Space Invaders flash-backs as I type!)

That was a pretty good day!

Tuesday was "Jason Day"! He started off the day getting his braces off! The dentist provided a Survivor themed party for all of the patients complete with Caramels, Snickers Bars, Cheetos, Gum, etc!



After he got his braces taken off, dad took him to get his Driver's Permit!

Valentine's Day 2010

Here's what happens when you have a 4GB card in your camera - it never fills up and you forget abt pictures you've taken! :) Last night I found Valentine's Day!

Heart shaped pancakes - not very original, but a fun tradition for us nonetheless!



Each of our little Valentine's got an itty bitty box of chocolates from mom and dad - we opted to go with itty bitty since grandma Janet and grandpa Gary spoiled them with wonderful Valentine treats and grandma Margaret sent a fun package of goodies too!



Still sweethearts after "all these years"! Brandon made reservations at our favorite Thai restaurant - it was heavenly!!

Love and Trust

Joseph got to spend a fun day with his buddy, Grandpa, on Friday! It's always fun when you think the world revolves around you and then have a day when it really truly does!



We can't imagine our children not having the influence of grandparents in their lives. It warms my heart looking at these pictures and knowing that Joseph spent this entire day being the most important person. His needs were met, he laughed, he felt safe, he had fun, he was happy.