Favorite Friends

Our best friends from Spokane stopped through and squeezed us into their busy schedule.  We met up at a fun park for a while, then came to our house for dinner, playing games, and ice cream.  It was SO fun to get together.  We miss them!  This was Isabelle's little friend Josie when we lived up there.  She still talks about Josie. 

We used to hang out with them alot.  Julie and I have stayed in pretty good contact with random phone chats and plenty of texting, but it's just not the same as hanging out for an evening here and there.  I miss them!!!!!!  Thanks for taking the time to see us!!!

Happy Easter!

 We had a fun little Easter. A little egg hunt in the morning with a basket. Sticky buns for breakfast (which is actually a conference tradition.  It always throws me off when we have Easter on conference.  Difficult to shove two sets of traditions together with still keeping the sacred nature of them both.) This year the kids each got their own picture of Christ to put in their rooms.  I was originally going to let them pick them out themselves.  But it came down to a rush before knee surgery (weeks before Easter) knowing I wasn't going to get around to much shopping.  Luke was with me, so he helped me pick them all out.  It was so funny the one he picked.  He picked the same picture of Jesus we already have in our house.  I kept saying, "But we already have that one. How about you pick one we don't have?"  He refused!  They all loved them. (And months later, are still enjoying them.)  When we hung them up, They all wanted to be able to see Jesus from their bed.  Michael explained, "I like to look at him when I try to sleep." 

Isabelle loved the candy, of course.

I love when I catch an excited face just right. :) Really they all just love an excuse to eat candy for breakfast. 

This face makes me laugh.  I now don't remember what he was so excited about, candy, or the couple of little cars he got, but he was SUPER excited Easter morning.  

He definitely caught on quickly that there was something yummy in the eggs.  He had to open the eggs before he could find another one.  

After our short little Easter stuff, we watched conference and then went to Mike's parent's house for the last session and a delicious Easter dinner and egg hunt from Grandma and Grandpa. Such a wonderful holiday to remember such a wonderful event. 

Conference

My kids always surprise me at conference time.  We've done a bunch of different traditions over the years and this is the one that has stuck.  Snacks for words.  We have bowls of random snacks with words on them. The kids get a snack from the bowl when they hear the word.  We usually switch it up each session. The kids listen really well for 3 sessions, by Sunday afternoon they are all over the place, but I consider that a win! We always have a family question and the kids get so excited when they hear our question answered.  I love seeing them as they are learning how prayers are answered when we are spiritually prepared for conference.

We bust out this little table and the coloring books and everyone pays attention, somewhat.  

Except for the baby....he liked the candy bowls. Haha.  

For Saturday afternoon we had a couple of visitors, my cousins Nadine and Lisa. It was so fun to have them join in some of our fun!  

After, we made home made pizza and colored eggs for Easter. 

Such a fun, spiritually inspiring weekend!

So Blessed!!

Ok, I'm getting back to this, for reals.  Blogging has been difficult.  At the end of the day, I have needed to lay down with my knee up.  Have you ever tried to type laying down with a laptop on your stomach?  Yeah, it's not pleasant.  I had more typos than legible words, so I gave up.  I'm now back to as normal as life will be for a while. I rarely have swelling and can catch back up.....So here we go! I'm starting right where I left off, just 2 MONTHS later.....  

I have to brag about my mom.  Serioulsy, we would not have made the knee surgery situation without her. At the end of the two weeks when she left, I could move around enough to feed people on paper plates and get around on one crutch really well.  She left my house clean, with no laundry, a few meals in the freezer, pantry and fridge full, I could just focus on survival mode when she left.  

Her very last night here we celebrated.  I GOT OUT OF THE HOUSE! We went and saw Cinderella in the theater.  This is the first time I have ever taken a kid to the movies.  It was a really fun girls night. And I really enjoyed the movie.  Isabelle said at the end, "Mom, that movie was beautiful!"  What a fun night together. 

While I was laid up, my mom was fantastic with the kids!  She took them to the park a couple times and just played with them (while also completely running my house).  

She did other fun things around the house with them.  Educated them on selfies. Ha!  My kids learned about selfies from their grandma! :) Love it!  

We were so sad to see her go.  I love when my mom comes! There have been plenty of times when I drop my mom off at the airport (with moves and having babies) and cry the whole way home saying, "How am I going to do this alone?!"  But this time, I felt confident that we were going to make it.  (And sure enough we did.)  Thanks again, Mom!!!!  You're THE BEST!!!!!!