80 Degree weather in April

My children are taking full advantage of this summer heat in April.

Well.

Two of the children are.  Poor Oliver is taking a nap.  I'm sure he'll get his turn soon.

As soon as I pulled out the squirt guns, they forgot about the sprinkler.

Oliver is turning into quite the little jabberer.  He repeats a lot of the words that we say.  Most of the time it is really hard to understand, but he is figuring it out!  He also has his 'Batman' voice down.  I hear him jabber with his little gravely voice and I know he's speaking 'Batman'.

Ollie has also turned into another little garbage disposal.  I bought the kids fish sticks last week and figured I would give them a go.  Maycee and Cooper loathe them.  Ollie ate all of his share and well as the other two's.

Check out that picture of Cooper.  He is getting big!  He really is!!  We are working on him with pedals right now so he can master the two wheeler.  He conquered the Strider forever ago, so now we are ready to pull out the big guns.

Maycee is getting to be a good little helper.  She puts away the silverware and she even folds her own clothes!!  (They are so cute when she folds them.)  She loves having her room clean, but hates to clean it.  She also loves to 'read' books to her brothers...aka she recites the memorized books to them.  I also caught her getting the boys dressed a couple of weeks ago!  Soon, I will be out of a job...fingers crossed. ;)

Maycee just came running into the house and yelled, "Mom!  Mom!! I just found your Costco card with your picture on it buried in the sand box!!"

Sure enough.

I didn't even know that thing was missing.

I don't even want to know...

Things around here are pretty crazy.  I can't even tell you with what.  Life, I guess.

I just finished a beast of book.  Atlas Shrugged.  It taught some really awesome principles about business that I think our country has lost sight of, however, there were also some parts of the book that had some intricate detail that I didn't need....I am now reading Up To Slavery.  Totally different direction.

Life is Fun...

About a month ago, Kelsey, my little sister, decided to start a family weekly e-mail to get everyone up to date on our lives. Now that we are all "big kids" and have moved away from home, it gets difficult to keep everyone apprised of what is happening.

As I have been writing these emails for the past month, I keep thinking, "I really should do this on my blog. I'm getting very behind."

So.

Here I go.

As of April 2, I am now officially in a book club. I real one. A friend of mine invited me to join a quest with her. I love what she wrote and her purpose, so I wanted to document it.

Hi Gals,

I wanted to invite you all to join me in a book club. I have never started one myself but I have been involved in several over the years. I have enjoyed them for many reasons some being- the chance to be around other women I admire, a chance to discuss good books and ideas, and as an opportunity to continue learning myself.

Some book clubs have just been an excuse to get together and socialize for a few hours about any topic. I have really enjoyed those as well. My hope for this book club is to have a great time together while we seek out principles of truth through a variety of books. We are told in a book of scripture called the Doctrine and Covenants to "seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom". I don't know about you guys but I felt like when I left school it gave me permission to leave learning and for a number of years I did that. In the past year Ben and I came across a great quote by one of our modern day prophets named David O. McKay, this is kind of long but so good, and he said,

“Gaining knowledge is one thing and applying it, quite another. Wisdom is the right application of knowledge; and true education—the education for which the Church stands—is the application of knowledge to the development of a noble and Godlike character.

“A man may possess a profound knowledge of history and of mathematics; he may be authority in psychology, biology, or astronomy; he may know all the discovered truths pertaining to geology and natural science; but if he has not with this knowledge that nobility of soul which prompts him to deal justly with his fellow men, to practise virtue and holiness in personal life, he is not a truly educated man.

“Character is the aim of true education; and science, history, and literature are but means used to accomplish the desired end. Character is not the result of chance work but of continuous right thinking and right acting.

“True education seeks, then, to make men and women not only good mathematicians, proficient linguists, profound scientists, or brilliant literary lights, but also honest men, combined with virtue, temperance, and brotherly love—men and women who prize truth, justice, wisdom, benevolence, and self-control as the choicest acquisitions of a successful life”

This quote caused me to realize that many of these past books clubs have given me a chance to read a lot of good books but not necessarily challenged me to pull out principles of truth, justice, wisdom, benevolence, self-control and more. So, if you are interested, I would like to invite you to join me on a journey to seek these principles of character. We can look in all kinds of books: mathematical books, political books, economic books, fantasy books, classics, biographies, histories, mysteries, you name it and we can find principles there. I think it will be fun and challenging to think deeply about books and ask questions that will lead us to understand and then apply this kind of character.

I was impressed my her desire and her email, so I have joined her in the quest.

As of April 3, I finished my very first quilt. That I quilted. Yes. I said quilted. I actually, really enjoyed it! I really need to take pictures, but I still have yet to bind it so...here we wait.

On April 6, we had another appointment with Cooper's endocrinologist, or thyroid doctor. We have officially taken him off of his medication to do more tests. He will be off for 6 weeks and then we will have blood drawn again.

On April 14, we had our belated Relief Society birthday dinner. I invited my neighbor friend, who works with Stephen, to come to the dinner with me. She said yes! After the dinner they had us get in to groups of three. Stephanie, my neighbor, said she wasn't brave enough to go on her own, so we got another person and we were good to go. We were given 30 seconds to answer questions about ourselves. Example: tell life story in 30 seconds. Brag about yourself for 30 seconds. Tell us a weakness you have, only 10 seconds. Tell us your favorite visiting teaching moment in 30 seconds....This is when the 3rd partner in our group realized that Stephanie was not a member. She answered the question really well! Then we were asked to tell our testimony of Jesus Christ in 45 seconds. This is when I really learned about Stephanie. So much so that when I dropped her off at her house that night it wasn't hard to ask her if she had a Book of Mormon. And it wasn't even hard to testify and of it's truth. That was a really awesome experience.

With the 'throwing out' of the TV, there have been times that things have been a little rough, but I am so grateful for the other things that we have done to enjoy ourselves. Stephen and I have started a new tradition because of it. Once a month we invite a few couples over for a big group date night. Our first one was awesome! We had three other couples and we played games and ate food. On April 17th we did our second group date night. Having invited four other couples, I'm glad at least one couple did not bail on us. We still had a ton of fun!!

April 20 was a big day. Digging officially commenced!!!!

Monday pictures:









Friday pictures:

























I. AM. SO. EXCITED!!

My little Oliver, who is getting bigger.

Ollie is officially of the age that he is allowed to enter the blessed doors of nursery.  That was the longest eighteen months e-v-e-r!  (I love you Oliver Stephen) ;)  He is doing amazing.  He's been four times and hasn't had an issue from day one.  Honestly, we have the greatest nursery leaders of all time.  It is an older couple.  They are great with the kids.  They are grandparents and treat all of the nursery kids as their grandkids.  Anytime they see one of my kiddos at church they give them a skittle.  (It reminds me of the gum man when I was young at church.)

Well, of course, I can't have a post about Ollie without pictures of him!

Ollie found Cooper's cape and thrust it into my face with an "UH!"  In Oliver terms that means, "Can you put this on me so I can parade around like a cool looking stud?"  ...And he does!

And here is Ollie quietly drinking his milk while his sister drapes herself across him.  They both seemed content.

Easter Weekend

I am a slacker.  Every one of these pictures were taken by someone, other than myself.  Honestly, I wish that I could have a little photographer person just follow me around everywhere I go and whenever I wanted a picture taken I could say, "Okay!  Take one now!!"

I have odd wishes.  I really do wish that.

Anyway.

After having kids, and having these kids get bigger and start asking questions, I have really wanted to be honest and real with them.  I didn't want Easter to be about the 'Bunny' and the candy.  However, I am not opposed to those things.  But I wanted the focus to be on the real purpose.  Our Savior and His Resurrection.

On Easter weekend we went to farm to watch general conference and celebrate the holiday.  We still did the traditional dying Easter eggs.

Saturday night was our big Jerusalem Dinner that I had been planning for weeks.  One of my friends did this with her family for a Christmas Eve dinner, but I thought that Easter worked just as well.  I researched the kind of food that people ate during the time of Christ and their typical dinner traditions.  We had our meal just as I researched.  The people typically ate sitting on the floor surrounding a table that rose just above the ground.  I asked Dad if he could build me one.  His table was awesome.

 We ate with our fingers.  The kids loved that.  They were picking off of everyone's plates.  We ate fish, hard bread with honey, grapes, honeydew, cantaloupe, olives, cucumbers, cheese, and I'm sure other things I can't remember right now.  It was so neat.

After our dinner we rubbed everyone's feet with lotion and talked about that purpose and when Christ did it for his apostles.  It was such an amazing experience.

That night when the guys went to watch the priesthood session of conference, the ladies made resurrection rolls with the kiddos.  I found this super easy recipe, that was really yummy by the way, to help explain the Resurrection.  I found it on happyhomefairy.com.

What you will need to make Resurrection Rolls:

• 1 can (8 oz) refrigerated crescent dinner rolls
• 8 large marshmallows
• Melted butter
• A mixture of cinnamon and sugar

Directions:

Hold up a white marshmallow and tell your Happy Buddies that it represents Jesus – pure white, perfect, without sin. Dip the marshmallows in melted butter and explain that it represents the water, or anointing oils, that was used to clean Jesus’ body.

*Note – Many recipes for Resurrection Rolls say that the butter symbolizes embalming oils, but I did a little research and I learned that Jews did not embalm the bodies of their dead.  Rather, they allowed the bodies to “return to the earth.”  They did, however, clean the body with water or anoint with oil before continuing with the rest of the steps you’ll read below.*Next, dip the marshmallows in the mixture of cinnamon and sugar.  This represents the herbs and spices used to anoint Jesus’ body.

*Note – In the Bible days, given the climate of the Holy Land, bodily decay would begin quite rapidly, so the aromatic herbs and spices would help cover the smells associated with decay.  But little did they know that Jesus wasn’t going to be there long enough to need all those spices!!! :-)*

So far, these Resurrection Rolls are delicious!

Take the marshmallow and wrap the crescent dough around it.  Make sure you pinch all of the edges closed.  This represents the strips of linen used to wrap Jesus’ body.Brush the Resurrection Rolls with a little more butter, if desired. Place Resurrection Rolls in the tomb (oven) and bake according to package directions.

Let the rolls cool for a few minutes when they come out of the oven.  Sit and ponder what you might discover inside! Carefully open the Resurrection Roll.What to my wondering eyes should appear?????It’s empty inside!  Jesus is not there!  He has risen!!!!!!!

When baked, the marshmallow melts away leaving only the puffed crescent roll.  This represents how Jesus rose from the dead and all that was left in his tomb were the linen wrappings.

Eat your Resurrection Rolls and marvel at the greatness of our God and this glorious Easter reminder!

Happy Resurrection Roll-ing!

Really good.

While we were waiting for the rolls the cook, this happened:

My children thought it would be funny to do this to Lexi!  I think Lexi enjoyed it just as my as they did.

Sunday morning was our traditional omelet breakfast.  Thankfully, Shane and Dad took over while I worked on the crockpot dinner.  Breakfast was de-lish-us!

Sunday morning conference found the kiddos beginning here.  With snacks.  Right after breakfast.  In their jams.

Because Kory and Charisse had technical difficulties on Saturday ( ;) ), we postponed our egg hunt until Sunday afternoon.  I think all of the kiddos enjoyed it!  Thanks Mom and Dad!!!!

And lovely dinner pictures.  Eating.  Krystal.  I love this one of you.

Thanks, everyone, for our Easter Weekend!