Easter

It was kind of nice to have church early this year on Easter Morning.  No time for Easter baskets and eggs.   It was nice to concentrate on the real meaning of Easter first.  We started a new tradition this year.  The kids had to follow the clues to find their Easter baskets.  They loved running all over the house to find their baskets.

This was the first year I can remember having an easter egg hunt outside.  No Snow!  A beautiful sunny day.  The kids had fun hunting for eggs.

 So this year after the kids were done gathering all the eggs, I told them who ever had the empty egg was the winner.  Then we were going to discuss why the empty egg would be the best egg. Trying to reinforce the real reason for easter. No one could find the empty egg.  Well, while Devo was  taking care of the eggs, he realized it was empty and filled it with candy.  Too funny.  Next year we should do a little more communicating.

Spain Sword

This is Devo's new toy.  An authentic Spain sword from Toledo.  Britney and Jeremy did a great job picking it out.  It puts the one we bought when we were there look like trailer trash. Now Devo can start turning our exercise slash office downstairs into his Spain room with all his collected paraphernalia.  

Happy Valentine's Day

For Valentine's Day Jake got to go to the orthodontist. We made it back to school just in time for the last hour of school for his Valentine's Day party.  He got a metal spacer glued onto his bottom teeth.  Which was a little painful for him.  He also got a retainer for the top teeth.  It was suppose to have a spider on it but it just ended up glowing in the dark.  Mom gets to turn it twice a week to move his molars back to make more room. He sounds pretty funny and has trouble swallowing his spit.  Devo and I giggled all the way home listening to him slurp every few seconds. To celebrate the day Jake got some florescent green tennis shoes.  We went to several stores and he has figured out that he likes the feel of expensive shoes.  Takes after his Dad!

                         

                                                   Lauren Originals

                                                               
My niece, Lauren is studying floral design and is working in Provo at a flower shop.  I knew Devo had ordered some flowers for Emily.   As we walked in I told him, "You didn't buy me any flowers right?"  He said no, but as we walked by the glass refrigerator I saw a calla lily bouquet and said to myself,"Yes you did that one is mine."  When he proposed 16 years ago, he had this huge bouquet of calla lilies with one red rose in the middle with the ring box open in the middle.  He had described it to Lauren and she designed it.  Loved it, and Love him for recreating the memory.

After school the kids convinced Dad to build a snowman since he missed it the day before.  We are loving the snow paint. This snow man is even more fancy with clothes. While Dad and Emily built the snowman jake drew pictures.  You probably can't see them but there's a t-rex, crocodile, and a spider.  Devo gave a few lessons in beginning snowboarding.  He pulled the kids around on the sled for old times sake. Jake kept throwing snowballs at me up on the deck.  Even Maddie joined in with all the snow fun.

Devo's Valentines Day gift: a weekend of golf, in Saint George, with his incredible wife. We played Sky Mountain on Friday a little too cold and windy for me.  Our friends, the Welburns, were on their way home and they played the back nine with us.  It's always better to play with people you know.  Saturday we played Sandhallow, a favorite of ours.  It was a lot warmer and we played a lot better too.  We found a great breakfast place called the Bearclaw.  The best crepes and waffles! Thanks to Aunt Jill for watching the kids!

It Finally snowed!

For Christmas Aunt Terri bought us a snowman kit.  In mid February it finally snowed.  So the kids managed to drag me outside to help build our best snowman ever! Thanks Aunt Terri!

Grandma Due gave Emily some snow paint for Christmas that she finally got to use too.  We wrote a message for Dad.  He was at church still, missing all the family fun.

                                                                  Classic Jake always on the ground

Creative arts contest 2012

This year at school the creative arts theme was Helping Hands Makes the World Go Round. Emily had a hard time coming up with some ideas this year.  So she only entered one category and she won 3rd place.  She drew a picture "Mom's make the world go round."  She also won $6.oo.  

We were very proud of her!

Emily is 9!

Now that Christmas and Emily's birthday is out of the way I can get back to blogging.  Emily turned 9 on Sunday January 8th.  She was sad that it was on Sunday and we couldn't have her party, so we invited the family over to celebrate.  

This is Emily's owl cake that she helped decorate.  We had fun!  She was a great froster of all the cupcakes.  She is growing up so fast.  She loves to help in the kitchen whenever she can.   She is so creative and is always making things to give to others. 

 
The day started with a Crispy Cream donut with a candle of course. We had ribs and heavenly potatoes, green jello with pineapple, and green salad for dinner.  We played "Who Knew" Emily's favorite new game.  The night ended with Just Dance 2.  Sam wins the award for the cutest.  Everyone was involved.  Even Aunt Jill was doing the moves from the couch.  Quite entertaining.

On Monday Emily had a Birthday baking party with a few friends.  My sister Jill got me started with this fancy party from this website One Charming Party.  I made aprons for everyone and Jill made all the fun decorations and invitaiton.  She ended up sick with kidney stones on Monday and I was in a panic.  Thanks to Lauren for coming to the rescue we had everything ready in time.

 According to Emily party was the "Best Birthday Ever!" The girls made flowers for their hats and decorated cupcakes Emily picked out.  We had hot fudge cupcake sundaes for the finale.  Once all the preparations were done the party was lots of fun.  

All the girls had fun with Kiwi.  Jake tried to chased them around the house with his snake, Crusher. They also had fun playing Kinect sports.  After the party we decided to go out to dinner to Quizno's and while we were gone Maddie ate all of Emily's cupcakes, paper and all.  I had put them on the little table to take a picture and left them there when we left the house.  Needless to say there were lots of tears by Emily "I didn't even get to taste one!"  We told her at least we put Kiwi away before we left, so Maddie didn't eat her!

Halloween Fun 2011

This year for Halloween we went trick or treating with Tommy and Sammy.  The boys went pheasant hunting in the morning.  In September Devo and Troy joined Paul's hunting club.  We've enjoyed seeing Terri and Troy a little more often.

 Jill always throws the greatest parties.  She had swamp juice, Frankenstein brains, and a scary snake calzone for the kids.  Sam was the cutest "Blue" from Rio you ever saw.  Tommy was a lego head. Jill loves making their costumes. Paul had the greatest set up for trick or treating with a lighted trailer hooked up to 4 wheeler with music and all.  Aunt Terri and Uncle Toe (The empty nesters) stayed home to hand out candy.  Sam started with them first.  Jake loved trick or treating running from house to house with his pillow case. Sometimes he hit the house twice waiting for the other kids to catch up.

 Carving pumpkins was fun.  Emily pick a complicated pattern but did actually quite well with just a little help from Dad.  Jake wanted to do it himself. After he got started I stopped worrying he would cut off his fingers.  Devo had fun doing some etchings on Jake's dinosaur after he was done.

The school has a parade every year and Aunt Terri help Emmy get ready.  She loved wearing Aunt Terri's big hoop earrings and makeup!  Always fun to have Aunt Terri around to share in the fun.