Easter!

We had invited the Missionaries, David Sticklebault and his girls Hannah, Miriam, and also Kendall Harris over for a nice Easter Dinner on Saturday. Afterwards, we had lots of fun decorating eggs .

Mama has a real talent for this.

Then on Easter morning we had an egg hunt in the backyard. It seems that the plastic eggs with candy and coins had more appeal than the hardboiled ones we had decorated the night before.

Luke gave a talk in primary about the events in the last week of the Saviors life and his death and resurrection.

Olivia sums it up in the clip below. Easter!

Olivia's and the EB

Happy Birthday Luke the Duke

 

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For Luke’s seventh birthday he wanted to go to Chuck E. Cheese.  We went on a week night so it wasn’t too crazy.  Luke picked out a soccer cake from Costco (the best cakes!).  And his favorite present was a Geronimo Stilton book that he started reading right there at the party.

My Sweet Olivia

Olivia is such a sweet little girl. I was looking through my photos and feeling guilty about neglecting my blog, and I found a few random pictures of my little princess.

Crazy sock day at preschool. These socks came in a two pack that we split up for crazy sock day. She now wears them as her soccer socks.

Rock climing at our YMCA. She was very brave.

Olivia has wanted curly hair for a long time now. I finally bought some foam curlers and a hair net to give it a try. She slept in these curlers all night long and sure enough, she had curly hair in the morning.

Unfortunately, it only stayed in for about an hour. Any advice??

I Guess I am Getting Old

Yesterday Olivia asked me how old I was. I told her I was 37. She said, "37 is in the 30's." I said, "Why yes it is." I was feeling a little closer to 30 that 40 at that point. Then, she said, "That means you are almost 100." Then I didn't feel closer to 30 anymore. Mark thought it was hilarious.

We went sledding!!

 

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As part of the “Festival of Angels”, a city nearby made a snow hill for the kids to sled on.  The festival is in the evening but Mark got an email from the city inviting us to enjoy the snow in the afternoon.  There were only two other families there and we played on the snow hill for over an hour.  It was about 78 degrees out which I think is perfect sledding weather.  I think we will have to make it a tradition.

Grandma and Grandpa are Coming for Christmas!

My kids are starting to get excited about Christmas. They are studying the toy catalogs that come in the mail and asking "how long until Christmas?" They are especially excited that Grandma and Grandpa Taylor are coming for Christmas. They other night, Olivia was saying her prayers. After she had blessed all of the regulars she said, "And Jesus, please tell Santa that Grandma and Grandpa will be at our house for Christmas." It was so sweet, I almost cried. I hope she keeps this innocence for as long as possible.

October Fun!

This year we bought season tickets to the Magik Theater, a children's theater downtown. The first play was "Petite Rouge", a Cajun version of "Little Red Riding Hood". It was hilarious and kids loved it!

Another weekend, we took the kids to a local pumpkin patch. There was a small hay bale maze that they had fun playing hide a seek in, we had our faces painted and I think the kids had the most fun on this hay fort they could climb on and leap from one side to the other.

For Halloween we were a Super Hero family. Luke was Batman, Olivia was Supergirl, Mark and I had super hero t-shirts. We went to a Trunk-or-Treat at the church then to a party at a friends house.

At the party, there was a small haunted house built in a tree house. At the end, my friend Teressa was dressed as a witch stirring a cauldron of homemade root beer. She was having fun telling the kids all of the gross things she put in her cauldron like lizard blood and rat tails and then she said that it tastes better with some spit in it. She told the kids to spit in it so it would taste better. We later found out that when she turned her head, Luke really did spit into the cauldron. Thankfully only one person saw him do it and everyone who drank it has survived. It makes a mom proud :)