Easter Sunday 2013

Our family has enjoyed a beautiful Easter morning.  Abe, Clark, Bethany and I all got to speak in Sacrament meeting on the Atonement and the Resurrection.   For Abe and I it was especially rewarding to watch Clark and Bethany as they prepared their talks and to hear their understanding of the gospel increase.  They did a marvelous job and we were very proud of them both.  

Everyone was looking snazzy in their new Easter threads.  Cannon and George have never been dressed so fancy-- and they were not digging it.  They both informed me that they did not like their new clothes.  Too bad their mommy thinks they look cute.

Abe gave such a great talk today.  He told a story to the children about the great knight (Christ) who slayed the two-headed, awful monster (death and hell).  At the end of the story he asked the children who this great knight was.  From the congregation Cannon shouted out, "Jesus Christ!"  It was so cute and sweet and the timing couldn't have been better.

We did our little Easter Bunny festivities on Saturday morning.  It was simple and fun.

There was the little foil-wrapped egg hunt around the living room.

The kiddos checked out their baskets.

And then they tore into their books.  The Easter Bunny always brings everyone a book.  Clark spent the day in deep study of Backyard Ballistics.  

What on earth was the Easter Bunny thinking?  I came home last night to open flame on a cookie sheet on the living room floor. 

And everyone was okay with this?

Pete the Cat was my favorite literary addition to the family yesterday.  It's adorable-- you really must go read it.

St. Patty's Day

St. Patrick's Day is not an overblown event at our house.  I don't know why I can't pull it together enough to put a few drops of green food coloring in some pancake batter and call it good.  But I don't.  I do remind the kids to wear green, but they're not going to school, and I won't allow them to pinch each other, so it doesn't matter anyway.

So although I don't do much to celebrate the day, I am so happy that Clark sees to it that St. Patty's Day is fun for the little kids.  For may years he has put together treasure hunts with clues for the little ones to follow to help them find the stash of gold coins.

And the clues are written in rhyming verse and they are so clever.  This year there was a clue in a word search as well.  It took all of us working together to figure out to head to the playroom.

As much as I don't really care about St. Patrick's Day, I think I will cry buckets of tears the first year that Clark lives away from home and isn't here to do his Leprechaun hunt.

A Tale of Three Sisters

This weekend the three girls and I took a trip to St. George for a dance competition for Bethany.  This was the first of such trips we've done with all girls and it was great fun.  I think the thing that stands out most in my mind is just how different these three sisters are.

BETHANY

Bethany did so well in her two dances--a ballet dance and a lyrical dance.  She was so responsible in taking care of all her costume pieces, shoes, make-up, and hair accessories.  I loved watching her.  I cannot say I loved watching all the other studios' dances and I cannot say that I love dance competitions in general.  I have quite mixed feelings about it, but I will say that I was very pleased with the level and styles of dance at Rocky Mountain Dance.

We had time in between dances to do a bit of shopping for Easter dresses and Bethany is an invaluable shopping partner.  I don't shop very well (I lack the funds and vision) but Bethany advises me and stays cheerful and never runs out of energy.

ELINOR

Elinor has a style all her own.  She likes pigtails and overalls and wearing bandanas.  She's doesn't have much use for the froo-froo of dance competitions.  We played a lot of the dot-game and she played Minecraft on the Kindle while we waited for Bethany to dance.

Her one desire in St. George was to climb some red rocks.  We found these just behind the outlet stores where we did much of our shopping.  The same stores Elinor had no interest in going to.  The same stores where she hid in the clothes racks because she didn't want to have to go try on a dress in the dressing room.   That's my Elinor!

FAITH

We drove down on Faith's birthday.  She is officially seven years old now, but every one of Faith's birthdays comes as an unpleasant surprise to me.  WHAT?  She really is getting older?  It doesn't feel like it.  She still seems so young to me.  She loves Jake and the Neverland Pirates.  It is a show on the Disney channel for young children.  It's really aimed at a younger age than she, but she discovered it when we had cable during the Olympics and she was still asking for the toys.  And since she doesn't really need anything, we just got her what she wanted.  And from the pictures you can see she was thrilled.

I say let them be little kids as long as they want.  You want three year old pirate toys?  You got it.  Except that Cannon and George are going crazy for her toys.

This game, "Who Shook Hook" was actually pretty fun and we ladies enjoyed playing it in our hotel room.

We had a great time together, not doing much besides going out to eat and shopping and watching dancing.  I love how different they are, but I love even more how much they love each other, except  when they don't.  Then I force them to say sorry and be nice or walk home!  That's just the kind of good mom I am!

Faith's 7th Birthday

We celebrated Faith's 7th birthday yesterday with a Big CARNIVAL Party.

Of course we went overboard, but the kids and I had a great time planning and decorating.

 At any good carnival you must have carnival games.  We had 10 of them.  And instead of scary toothless carnies (carnival workers), we had older neighbor kids come help run the games.

Here they had to guess which cup had the ball.  They could play the games as many times as they wanted and they could collect lots of tickets.

Ring the Root Beer was popular and not too hard.

Throwing a ping-pong ball into the fishy cups was a little tougher.

Eventually I had to shut down Bethany's game because the kids were racking up way too many tickets on it.

The hula-hoop throw.

Elinor manned the penny toss.

You can imagine that this one was popular with the little boys.

I particularly enjoyed Jacob's enthusiasm in being our carnival clown.

All those tickets they collected playing games were then to be used to buy their concessions.

The kids and I spent some time trying to decide how much everything should cost.  We wanted to make sure everyone would have enough to buy lunch.

It worked out just right and I love that George is wearing his doggie costume.

We even had a little petting zoo in the backyard with the rabbit and the turtle.  Which turtle escaped from it's enclosure and is currently AWOL.  

After lunch the kids went to play more games and earn more tickets so they could go visit the prize shop.  

Once again, it was a trick to price things just right so that everyone could get some stuff, but not everything.  We had fun planning the prize shop.

Our decorations did take quite a bit of time, but crepe paper and tape are cheap and it was our art project for the week.

A few more pictures of the fun.

Everything worked out just as we hoped and it was great fun.  Happy birthday, Faith!

A Night of Dancing

You know I love to go to our Romance Regency Ball each February with Abe.  I have not been shy about talking it up among my ward and book club friends, who were intrigued, but doubtful that their husbands would want to dress up in costume and pay money for such an experience.  My friend Stephanie (in brown) and I decided to bring the vintage dancing to them-- in casual clothes and at no cost with a free nursery provided.  How could they resist?

My wonderful friend Andrea has become quite the expert on these dances and she was so good to come and teach us-- for three solid hours!

Not everyone had the time or stamina to stay the entire time, but at the height of the night I think we had well over 25 couples dancing.  I couldn't believe what a good turn out we had!  I was so sure that even the men would have fun that I promised a home delivered dessert to anyone who could honestly say they didn't have a good time.  I haven't received any complaints so far:)

I think this kind of activity is healthy on so many levels.  Physically it is quite the workout, but even more than that, it is so social.  Facebook has got nothing on vintage dancing.  You talk with and are in close physical proximity to so many people that you might not otherwise have any interaction with.  It was so much fun!

Several people have requested that we having another vintage dancing night sometime in the future.  I couldn't agree more!

And as part of Bethany's birthday celebration, she and her girlfriends were little angels, providing the free nursery for the evening.  We did all sing happy birthday to her and she got to show off her new earrings, so it wasn't all bad.

Thanks again to Dave and Andrea for being such fabulous teachers.