A Rockin' Easter Egg Hunt

The Saturday before Easter, we thought it would be fun to take grandma to the Rock Museum. We've wanted to take her there for a couple years now and it never worked out during previous visits. Grandma and Sarah both share a love a rocks and collecting rocks. It turned out that they happened to have an Easter egg hunt event going on that day - it was serendipitous! Instead, we took our empty eggs to a table where we exchanged the eggs for a mysterious grab bag.

At the gate we were given instructions to find three Easter eggs in the forest - adults and children. It was a gorgeous setting for an Easter egg hunt. I quite enjoyed the beautiful scenery while looking for colorful plastic eggs. The best part was that the eggs didn't have anything in them! I know that may sound funny, but I just get rid of candy from one holiday and another holiday comes up and, well, there's always too much.

Instead of candy, we took our empty eggs to a table where we exchanged the eggs for a mysterious grab bag. Inside we found all kinds of treasures! I think the adults in our group were just as or more excited than the kids! The picture below shows all the rocks I got in my grab bag. Everyone got four different kinds of rocks and it was so fun to look at everyone's different surprises inside. (Angela is showing off a couple of hers above.) That was the best Easter egg hunt we've ever been to and we'll definitely make this a new tradition.
When we finished the Easter egg hunt we headed inside to show grandma all the amazing rocks. We found another fun surprise inside. They were having a silent auction of several rocks starting at around $2 each. We signed up for several and came home with some additional rocks and shells and fossils for our family rock collection! What a fun day.

Sarah and grandma loved looking at each rock together. Sarah is pretty funny and explained many things to grandma because she is an expert at this museum. (o: (A funny thing too, was that she came with her class AGAIN for a field trip a few days later - I think Sarah could give tours there now.)

One of the girls thought the black inside this petrified wood looked like Twilight. (o:

Sarah's most favorite rock in the museum. Que angels singing and light shaft coming down from above.

Natalie was content to twirl and dance in the big exhibit rooms.

This was shortly before discovering the petrified dino poop. Sarah made grandma and me laugh so hard when she did a mini "show" about two dinosaurs having a conversation. "Hey do you think your scat will ever end up in a rock museum?" "No" says the other, "Well, Bob's did!"

Easter Eggs

What's Easter without the eggs!

Cutest Easter Party Ever

I have this amazing friend Elizabeth whom I just love. We have so much fun - I love talking to her and being around her. She has the most adorable little chicky just a bit younger than Angela so we have fun getting them together with a couple other little girlies in the ward every so often. The funny thing about Elizabeth is that she is the most humble person and for some reason thinks that I have a lot of "skills" (as Napoleon Dynamite would say) that I can share with her. She totally plays down all the amazing talents she has. Just take a look at this ADORABLE party she put together for the girls! It was a feast for the eyes! She had everything set up so darling and treated the girls like royalty. We had SUCH a great time. She had 7up sherbet drinks, the snazziest cupcakes, chicken nuggets (to appeal to the preschooler tastebuds!) and tons and tons of yummies for the girls. They all got complimentary bunny ears, did a fun Easter egg hunt and we did a funny bunny mask craft (see picture below). It totally made Angela's day and she talked about it all weekend. Thanks so much Elizabeth!

I've known Elizabeth for almost 9 years. She was in our first ward when we moved to Oregon. I don't know if she remembers me that well, but I remember just thinking she was the neatest person. I really admired her. I feel so honored, years later to get to be her friend. (o: I was so excited when we happened to end up in the same ward as her 5 years later. As you can see, she is a very fun and creative person and most of all so kind and thoughtful. Funny how life steers us in directions to meet certain people - I really think so many of our friendships are more than just coincidences in life. There are reasons why certain people come into our lives and I am so grateful for that!

Notice the cute carrot arrangement as part of the centerpiece. And the sparkly golden egg top left.

The huge bunnies on the table were amazing! So fun!!

Elizabeth was being a lion and trying to "get" the girls. A spontaneous game that was a HUGE hit!!

It's Always Fun When Grandpa & Grandma Come!

Easter weekend we had the wonderful treat of a visit from grandma and grandpa (Hal's* parents). It was a quick Friday to Sunday visit, but we always have quality visits when they come. As you can see the girls were not excited at all about having them here! I'll let the pictures do the talking!

Natalie was actually sooo excited that she told her teacher at school that her "eyes were blurry". It was a little mysterious, but her teacher and I deduced on the phone that Natalie was worried about missing out on grandma and grandpa time and wanted to get home. She was very sad when I told her she needed to stay at school one more hour, but she survived and was rewarded with a fabulous reunion when she got off the bus. (o:

Making More Holes in the Walls

I've had a million frames hanging around the house for quite some time now from Costco and from the awesome frame sale I found back in February, was it? (75% off - I am still on a "good deal" high from that shopping spree.) Anyway, we have many walls that I've had 'plans' for, for a long time. Well, I am so happy to say that those walls are no longer bare and I am very happy with the results. I smile whenever I walk by our "galleries". The one above is in our entryway. The one below is in the upstairs hallway and the Language Art was designed by my talented aunt Amy. I LOVE finally having my girls' blessing dress on display! This was the vision I had about 9 years ago when my mother-in-law made this beautiful blessing gown for Sarah.

My brother and sister-in-law made this cute board for us a couple Christmas' ago. I just moved it into the bathroom when I saw on a friends' blog that she made something similar to store her girls' hair bows. Our bathroom was being taken over by headbands, barrettes and bows. Now they are all organized. (Thanks for the inspiration Janessa!) I got most of the bows you see on here from "Oh So Girly" - a fun blog with homemade girly bows and clips for sale. You can click on the title above to see some of Bridgette's adorable bows. I personally love the pinwheel barrettes, especially the black and white one. She has really good prices compared to some other sites I looked at, FYI.

Last Week

Here are a few random pictures from last week before our fun visit from grandma and grandpa. The girls love to bring out these fusible beads and make cute designs with them. I am very impressed at the dexterity Angela has at 3 years old. The little beads are tiny and not only does she get them on the pegs, but she does the color design by herself - she did the different colors for the bear's face and eyes and ears and shirt all by herself. It's so symmetrical and looks like an older person designed it, but I am a little biased!
Ha! It's a picture of me! What do you know? One of my YW grabbed the camera and turned it on me last week at our service project. We did some weeding and spring cleaning of the backyard of a local shelter. It was lots of fun, I hope the girls thought so too. I love helping out in the community. I loved the girl/lady (I still consider myself a "girl", she was just a little younger than I) who worked with us at the shelter. I'm sure we'll be doing more service projects to help her in the future!

It was preschool at our house again last week. This time Kayelynn taught about zoo animals and I got to do my favorite role - the assistant teacher! (o: I get to play and have fun, but not do all the work of planning the lesson. (o: Lazy, lazy...

A Day at the Park

With the weather being so much nicer this past week - we have frequented some of the nearby parks and played in the backyard a lot.

On Friday, we invited friends to come along and we had a fantastic time playing all together. I got to be the one spinning around the merry-go-round thingy a lot and got a good workout and pretty dizzy! Every time I needed a break, I got a chorus of, "MORE! FASTER!"

Eggstuff

I had this idea to start taking pictures of and recording some favorite recipes while the girls are little. I am hoping to put together a cookbook with all these recipes and pictures of them helping me make the foods for a keepsake to take with them when they leave the "nest". I thought that would be a fun and useful way to pass on some of our family recipes.

The first recipe is "eggstuff". This is a recipe that has a lot of sentimental meaning to me because my grandma (mom's mom) used to make it and my mom made it for me and my siblings while we were growing up (and still does) and now I make it for my kids. My mom's family used to come up with funny nicknames for foods - funeral potatoes, chicken boobs (o: and eggstuff are examples that come to mind. (o:

We always had a lot of food and a lot of laughs at our get-togethers at grandma's house. We make this special every Christmas morning just like my mom always did and my grandma did. We also started making it for conference Sundays. It tastes really good, but it is so easy to make. You do have to think ahead the night before, but the best part is that the only work you have to do in the morning is stick it in the oven. That's what makes it such a perfect Christmas/conference morning dish.

Ingredients:

8 slices good quality white bread

2 1/2 cups milk

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. mustard

4 eggs

3 cups grated cheese

Grease casserole dish Cut crusts off and cube bread Spread across the bottom of casserole dish.

Beat eggs, milk and remaining ingredients together.
Pour cheese/egg mixture over the bread.
Cover and refrigerate overnight.
Bake at 300 degrees for 1 1/2 hours.

New Shower Door

BEFORE - BLAH
AFTER - GOODBYE GOLD!
And you can't really tell in the picture, but the glass of our old shower door had tons of hard water stains that I wasn't sad to see go.

I like the handle.

And there you have it. Now if we can just get our bath faucet all taken care of! Someday our master bath will be finished.

Conference Traditions

We love when it's time for General Conference every October and April. That is when we get to stay home and watch church on the BYU channel. We get to hear addresses from our prophet and other church leaders. The women and men that speak always have such inspiring topics and I always feel so rejuvenated and ready to work on new goals after hearing the uplifting talks and music. General Conference makes me happy. (o: I am so grateful for our church and can't wait to read over and study the talks again online and when we get our Ensign church magazine.

One of the highlights this time around was spotting my sister Chrissy in the choir on Saturday afternoon! The girls were very excited about seeing Chrissy on the TV. She's famous!! (o: They did a fantastic job -Tabernacle Choir voices in training.

One of our traditions on General Conference Sunday is having a brunch with Eggstuff and sticky buns or "stinky buns" as Angela dubbed them this year. Yum. We also enjoyed playing in the backyard in between and after conference enjoying the beautiful weather. The girls and I started nature journals and had fun drawing some spring things that we spotted in the backyard.

waving goodbye to daddy...

Every Saturday night during conference weekend, the men attend a Priesthood session. (The women and young women have sessions the week previous.) I always use this time as a Girls' Night. Usually this includes painting fingernails. (o: This time we also played a game called Whonuu? and I had the girls help me prepare the Eggstuff.