Easter Festivities

We had a really low key Easter this year. It was nice to have the change this year because I felt like we could focus on teaching our kids the true meaning of Easter. This year was also so much fun because all of our kids could get into the festivities. Fun for all...

We planned on making these cookies to take to our neighbors and invite them for Easter dinner but when we all came down with the stomach flu we thought it best to spare them our germy cookies and company. But once we were done throwing up we loved eating them ourselves. Didn't the kids do such a good job? I helped some, but seriously I was impressed.

We had our annul Easter egg hunt with the little kids in our ward. It was a lot of fun. I loved watching Benjamin have his first Easter egg hunt. Here they all are on the hunt!

With their loot! All the Littles that took part in the egg hunt. When Daddy was at priesthood we got to our egg coloring. I never really look forward to this but I always seem to be surprised how much fun it is for the kids.
We got glitter eggs this year. Very fancy.

Easter morning they all climbed up on our bed and we read about Christ's visit to the people in the Americas and talked all about the resurrection. After we said our morning prayer the kids were ready to storm the living room.

Benjamin screaming because he saw the eggs scattered outside and thought we were the meanest parents for making him wait a second more!

This is what they found. Lucky kids. The Easter bunny sort of went crazy this year.

Maybe it was because we thought to leave him a little snack. ;)

We spent the rest of the morning watching conference and it was fun to see the kids working on their conference packets so intently. We loved conference, so uplifting.

It was a great Easter. I am already looking forward to next year!

BBQ

I know this will look and seem lame but keep in mind that the last couple years have been hard. We have not had a lot of things we've wanted. Its not that we sit around counting all the things we want its just thoughts in passing like, "I wish our kids could run around outside without us being afraid of them running into the street" . Little by little things have come together and each time a little wish comes true I cant help but feel so excited and grateful for their achievement. Last summer I remember telling Stewart how my dream was to have a patio and a kids table where the kids could eat on so we could have real BBQs outside together. When we tried to do our family BBQs they were more like picnics which is fine except we live in a windy canyon and thus picnics are annoying to do and the kids always spilled something and we'd have to all jump of the blanket and thus a big lame-ish BBQ experience. Yesterday we had a "real" BBQ.

As I sat there looking out our window at us I saw in real time my dream coming true. I almost cried. There we were having a BBQ! I know that is mundane and simple to most but to me it was a moment to realize that Heavenly Father cares about giving me my little mundane wishes. I just feel so cared for and so grateful for that. Here's to many more BBQs!

Spring Break Recap

This past week was Stewart's Spring Break. We had fun, did some much needed yard work, battled the stomach flu, wished the weather would get the hint that it was Spring and not winter still, had a great Easter time, and enjoyed conference. Here are some pictures and some highlights of the fun activities we did as a family.

Several nights we went swimming at our club house. I decided it was time to start teaching the kids how to swim. We bought them some swim gear and we had a ball. Our kids have never been "fish" but I think they are getting there. We decided we'll be going one night a week as long as possible. Except for Benjie we all love it. I hope in a couple weeks Benjie will be a fan too!We did a lot of movie nights with us each taking our turn with the stomach flu there wasn't much else we could do. It was fun though. We'd blow up the air mattress, pop some popcorn, and watch a movie we've been wanting to watch for months. We all had a great time. We finally saw The Princess and the Frog, and Planet 51. Cute shows.

We visited the UNR Planetarium. It is a little ghetto but it was still super fun. Bridger is doing a space unit in preschool right now and he is obsessed with space so it was absolutely perfect. If you ask he'll tell you all about black holes. We think we'll be buying their family pass so we can hit up all their shows and then get into lots of museums in Utah and Los Angeles for free this summer! We are museum geeks. :) They have little trials outside the planetarium that we had fun running around on after our show. We finally took the kids to ride the Ferris-wheel at our HUGE Scheels store. They loved it. Then they played on the kid area with rock walls, slides, and stuff while I bought myself some new really nice running shoes. Its been 4 year since I have bought myself a nice pair. My feet are in heaven! Eeeee, pure bliss for me. :)They look pretty now but I hope in a couple weeks they will be brown and dirty!

We planned on spending a day at the Carson City Children Museum via the recommendation of Bridger's teacher. Um, it had been like three years since she had gone and I think it must have gone down hill a lot since she last went because it was the most pathetic "museum" I have ever seen. Almost everything was broken! It was so tiny too. The kids were too young to know any different but after a little over an hour we were all done.With a wide open day we hit up Mc Donald's and got the kids their first Happy Meals and let them play on the play stuff there that was much more fun then what the museum had to offer.

Then I took Benjie home to nap and Stew took the big kids to go see How to Train Your Dragon. It was their first movie in a movie theater and they all had a great time. They loved that their happy meal toys were the main dragons from the movie.I finally got Stew to go up the Canyon with me. We live at the mouth of a canyon. From our house you'd think it'd be the ugliest canyon known to man but I kept telling him it was actually really pretty up there. It was too cold to walk up there so we piled in the car and went "exploring". After we passed the super exciting trailer park we entered wild horse country. We saw five rather big herds of horses. They were super close, like we could have touched them if we wanted. We saw little tiny new babies. They must have been days old they were so unsure on their little legs. We felt like the lady in the Cloud documentaries. We even named a few of the babies and colts. ;) I was so excited to find a trail up there. As soon as we get some warmer weather I am dragging the family up there for some hiking. Oh, it looked like heaven to me!
So there are some high lights. It was great to have some time away from our normal drill. One of these days I will post about our kids crafts and our yard projects. Being a mom is so much fun! I want to remember it all.

I Believe

I believe in miracles. I think most miracles are made possible by the Spirit of God prompting people like us to meet the needs of others but I do believe in the honest to goodness miracles. The kind where God bends the laws of nature to bring about a tender mercy. I really do. I have to because they happen in my life. I am not sure if I can explain this one well but I am going to try.

The other day I loaded my kiln. It was pretty darn full. As I was loading the kiln it just starting heating. I was going to stop it but heat felt nice. Its been snowing out here and those of you who know me well know I HATE being cold. I finished and closed the lid and walked away. I couldn't remember if I had set the setting completely - I knew I had at least started to program it but I couldn't remember finishing. I have to hit the start bottom like fifty times to get it to actually start so I figured I must have REALLY hit it - not a slight brush of the button or anything, which meant I must have really gone through all the settings...Mom, brain I swear! Cant remember what I have done or not done ten minuets ago. Plus, to be totally honest I was eager to back in the house where it was warmer.

Twice later that day I found myself wondering if I had turned it to the right settings before it started. I would go out there check what I could and they figure I had and go back in the house to warm up again.

That night as we ate dinner Stew ran out to the garage to get something and commented on how hot it was in there. Suddenly it hit me, I had not set the temperature and thus it would run on default. I ran outside but it was too late the kiln had completed firing. I cycled through the settings and found it had fired two settings too hot. This on a glaze fire is a disaster. I knew this meant all my glazes would be burned, pock marked with bubbles, and their colors would be chard and ugly. If the glazes were super intolerant to high heats it could mean that they would melt so much that they would have dripped off the pieces and all over my kiln . If that were to happen we'd have to spend hundreds of dollars to repair it and buy new shelves. I was devastated.

I walked straight into my room and began to pray. My stupid slip-up could cost us up to a thousand dollars, weeks of my hard work, and some of my glazes were recently discontinued I would never be able to remake what I had just done. I had done impressions for a family that lives far away that I was going to ship their chain plates to - I'd never be able to redo them, the other family wanted to capture how tiny their infant was and now they'd have to redo them and babies grow so fast. I had also made lots of pieces for my new line of products for my business and I felt so devastated that I would have to start all over again. I felt like I should just give up on my new products and not remake them at all, just call it quits. I prayed hard for a miracle. I didn't feel I deserved one but I prayed hard for one anyways. Bridger came to my side and tried to help me feel better. He bushed my tears off my face and said a little prayer for me and asked that "mommy's stuff in the kiln didn't get too hot." I prayed for comfort and my sweet husband comforted me. He started to tell me what we could to do to make it better but I told him I was holding out for a miracle. He said ok. I thought about how there are blessings that Heavenly Father wants to give us and sometimes all we have to do is ask and they are ours. So I asked and asked.

This morning as I went out to my kiln to open it for the first time I pushed up the lid and to my utter delight I saw perfect plates sitting there! PERFECT. I was so grateful. It was a honest to goodness miracle. It was still too hot to unload and see each shelve but I went back to my room and prayed a prayer of thanks. Stewart even knelt with me.

I didn't deserve it but Heavenly Father granted me a miracle. He saved my creations, every one. I will forever remember how He did that for me. Always.

Happy April Fools!

To celebrate I tricked the kids with "Fakin' and Eggs". They thought it was pretty great. I got the idea from The Disney Family Fun Magazine - Thank you sweet sister for the subscription. The bacon is made from tootsie rolls and caramel chews and the eggs are made from melted white chocolate ( I added some butter to the melted chocolate to make it softer so they could actually eat it) and butterscotch candies for the yolks. The kids were stoked to have candy for breakfast...I did make them eat some real food too don't worry. I loved watching their faces as they tried to eat their fakin' and eggs. Bridger said, "Mom you're so tricky! I love this bacon its my favorite food ever!"

I hope you all have a happy Aprils fools too!