Easter 2012

Easter was fabulous! Here's a bunch of photos and videos...

Becca was so excited to get a bag stuffed full of Easter goodies from her preschool teacher on Wednesday- and Becca is so sweet about sharing... as she examined everything in her bag of treats, she kept setting aside special items for each of her siblings :)

I threw together some little Easter bags for the girls I visit teach - inside I put plastic Easter eggs filled with little candies and Easter quotes from the Prophets

We had family movie night on Friday- Ben put out the inflatable mattress and the kids got extra comfy. We watched Tin Tin and ate rice krispie treats with Easter m&m's. Family movie night is definitely our favorite family tradition - Ben couldn't resist sticking his fingers in Emma's face when I took a picture...


On Saturday, our community did a Easter egg hunt - it was supposed to start at 10:30 and we arrived at 10:32, and we missed it. But the kids weren't as disappointed as I feared they'd be because they were quickly appeased by donuts, soda, bouncy houses, and face painting :)



The kids going down the inflatable slide... from my perspective :)






That afternoon we went to the water park... again. It's our new favorite hangout...



Look at that cute bum



Now that we've been several times to the water park, Emma's comfortable waiting in lines and going on the bigger slides on her own (which is helpful especially when I'm there without Ben and I have to stay with the smaller kids who can't ride)...





Water park induced exhaustion

Easter day was really fun and really busy. As breakfast was being prepared, the kids discovered that the Easter bunny had left them goodies in the backyard...






The kids dyed Easter eggs as Ben finished up making Easter egg pancakes :)





Claire loves jelly beans




Easter family picture at church...


Later we had an egg hunt at Grandma's and more pictures...














I thought it would be fun to do an "egg drop" on Easter - so we set some rules and designed some egg contraptions. Emma and Ben really enjoyed this project. Emma designed her own!





Ready to drop!








Ben always seems to have children climbing on him...


Happy Easter!

Spring is here!

Conference Weekend was really pleasant - we spent Sunday at Ben's parents house enjoying Conference, chatting, eating, and playing games...






Other random pics from this past week...
I gave Claire a cookie and set her outide... came back a bit later and she looked like this -



Watching her older sisters... soon she'll be riding a bike too!
The kids were getting creative in the backyard again finding things to entertain themselves...




Becca passed off another one of her Dick and Jane books this past week - the prize she chose was going out for donuts...


So, we've been at the water park pretty much everyday they've been open the past few weeks... Jake finally stopped plugging his ears while going down the slides - he still hasn't ventured to try a different slide - he only wants to do the blue one... but I guess he has all summer to get more adventurous :)

10 Years!

10 years ago I married my Ben! We celebrated by going out to a fancy shmancy restaurant. And these roses are so pretty, I almost wish they weren't real, so they'd stay pretty on my table forever....


Seeing as we are 10 years in, I couldn't resist but go back through some old scanned photos of us...

Dating...


Engaged...


Married...


I actually don't have a whole lot of pictures of us during our dating/engaged time... probably because we got married 6 months after meeting. That was crazy! But I wouldn't have done anything different. I'm the luckiest girl! Happy 10th cutie Ben!

The Man of the House

My handsome Jake is THREE! :) Where did the time go? Let's reminisce on what Jake looked like when he first entered this world...


Such a little man. He did the arms behind the head thing on his own as a newborn, and he still does that today. Jake makes me so happy and every birthday I love to think of all the joy each of our kids brings to our family. Jake is smart, witty, hilarious, loving, energetic, and already a ladies man. haha. :)

I always ask the kids what kind of cake they'll want for their birthday - the girls have always responded with "chocolate", or "strawberry cake with pink frosting"... but Jake threw me for a loop when he requested "a train cake". ugh. well, alright. I found a cute idea online that looked doable. I love baking... but I have no cake decorating skills, so I was nervous to attempt it... and rightfully so, because it turned into a complete failure. My cake was crumbly and falling apart and my frosting wasn't thick enough. I was able to salvage the train cars - once I put all the candy on it, most of the imperfections were hidden - Ben saved the day and made an all new cake the next morning when he got home from his night shift (he somehow did that amidst watching all the kids while I was at my hair appointment... he deserves the awesome husband award!) and constructed a much more successful engine car. Jake loved it, but I never want to do that again...



Jake wanted hot dogs for dinner - he was VERY energetic during his birthday dinner - he was so excited at all the attention!






We saved his birthday outing till Saturday when Ben would be able to join us. We met some of Ben's family at the train park.









A few weeks ago Jake started plugging his ears when he gets nervous about noises (remember the pic from the water park, as he plugged his ears going down the slide?)... for some reason the train sounds were making him uneasy, so he plugged his ears the ENTIRE time we road the train.

Claire LOVED the train ride! And Grandma too :)



Some of the group rode the little steam engines also... the Ben's were looking pretty funny sitting on that tiny train ;)

Grandma and Grandpa got Jake a train conductor hat while we were there - Jake really likes it.. but he wouldn't let me get a picture of him wearing it, except for when he was wearing it backwards






Happy 3rd birthday Jake man!