Easter fun & a Surprise Party!

Girls Night!

Both our boys were gone, Dad was working and Ethan was camping with the Scouts, so that left just us girls all alone!  So naturally, I bought a craft for the girls to do.  I love how serious they get about painting their crafts, it's adorable.

 I found these cute little tulips and thought they were perfect to fit right in with our Easter decorations, and they are!

 Aubrey was concentrating too hard to smile for me.

 But not London, she looked right up and smiled!

We painted them, and dipped them in sparkles, and proudly displayed them on the mantle.

We spent the rest of the evening drinking our favorite soda pops and watching Tom and Jerry.

I love my boys to pieces, but I really love hanging out with my girls!

 FHE:  "Egging" houses!

We have tried to do this for the past few years, we pick a family to go with us.

We pick some families in the neighborhood, and try to do about a dozen eggs per family, we fill the eggs with candy and hide them in their yards, knock on the door and run away.

The kids love it!

 We did 6 families this year!

I got to the dollar store early and bought a ton of their plastic eggs!  It was so fun.

We went with the Sorenson's and the kids were hilarious to watch.  I am amazed we ever get anything like this done and keep it a secret.  We only got caught by one family, but they have like a million windows in the front of their house, so oh well.

 Surprise party!

My friend who I Zumba with, and who helped me make Aubrey's birthday cake turned 40 last week.  Her husband planed a big surprise party for her, and asked me a couple weeks ago if I could make her a big beautiful cake.  I was a little surprised because the only "super cake" I've ever made was with her help, and now he was asking me to make a cake FOR her and keep it a surprise!  

I accepted his challenge.

 I wanted to keep it pretty simple, just a sort of wonky present cake that was kind of cutesy with a  big bow on it.

I crash course learned how to make fondant bows.  You have to make all the loops and then let them sit out to dry, so there are my loops. 

It took me 2 days to make this cake!  I spent a lot of time on my feet, and stressed quite a bit about it, but I did it!

when I got to this point, I felt like crying tears of joy!  Nothing had burnt, or fallen on the floor, or run out of ingredients!

WINNING!

 And voila!  The bow on top, and she's ready to rock!

 I kept all the plastic wrap inside the loops until we got to her house because I was afraid the loops would fall.  It was my first fondant bow, and I may have learned that I rolled the fondant out too thick. 

Good to know.

Aubrey was my helper and drove with me to the party.

I had a brilliant idea before we left!  i grabbed one of my rug stoppers to put the cake on!  It worked like a charm!

The cake didn't move the whole time we were driving!

We all got there and finished decorating her house, then we all visited and got to know each other and then when we heard them drive up, we all hid like a bunch of 12 year olds.  It was so much fun!  Then she got home and we popped out and surprised her!

Here she is!

We sang Happy Birthday to her, and while we were singing, her husband started tearing up and just giggling, he was so adorable, he loves her so much.

ALSO, while we were singing, her parents snuck out of their hiding place (the live in Layton, and drove up to surprise her) and right up behind her, and her mom started singing really softly, and Julie just spun around hugged the stuffing out of her parents.  It was so touching.

Cute cute family!

Here's Julie and her sweet daughter!

And I had to get one too! 

I love this woman!  And she was impressed with the cake and loved it!  

Yay!

 Rabbit Ears!

Sweet Aunt Nettie sent these adorable bunny ear barrettes to my girls!  Aubrey loooooved them!  For some reason, she associated them with her super hero cape and immediately put that on and "flew" around the house in her cape and ears.

Hey, whatever works.

 Also, she got the idea to make a potion while dressed this way...it fits.

A potion in her bubble bottle with her bunny ears and cape.

Happy Easter?

And here we are, my girls and I, Easter dress shopping!  These are not their Easter dresses, but they are adorable in these little get-ups!  I love these dresses!  And I did not buy them, and that was dumb.  I absolutely should have bought them for these girls who love to be comfy.

At least I have a cute picture of them, and I also need to carve out a minute to go back to Old Navy and get these for them!  Too dang cute!

Also, my toilet phone totally works!

Amazing!  This phone has been hosed down by a fire hose, a truly honest to goodness fire hose at the water parade, the screen is cracked, and also it fell in a toilet.

Takes a lickin' keeps on tickin.  

I love this thing!

Aubrey and I had lunch with Grandpa Dan at chic fil a, and she rocked her bunny ears all through preschool and lunch.  These things are so dang cute!

Thank you Aunt Nettie!

And before we left Grandpa Dan for the day, Aubrey put on a puppet show for me.

ALSO!

It looks like Grandpa Dan is headed for remission!  All his blood counts are starting to stabilize, he is reacting to the bone infusions really well, and he is doing great!

Love that guy!

Stay tuned for Easter!

This n That

It's almost Easter!  

I have come to really love this holiday!  I find it a lot easier to focus on the Savior than at Christmas time for some reason.  And I love the comparison of the new life of spring to the resurrection of Christ.  And then there's the candy.  Holy moly, the candy!!!  Easter candy goes down in history as best candy of any holiday ever!!!  So, we are excited for Easter.

Also, my wall is blue.

Still making up my mind about it, until then, it matches the Easter decorations and I like it.

Aubrey and her friend Avri.

This was right after preschool the other day.  Avri only comes over for about an hour, and in that hour, these girls had a whole art studio going on, oh, and Aubrey was completely dressed for the occasion. 

And, I am not sure what her thing is with laundry baskets.  She loves to hang out in them.  She is eating her lunch this day in the laundry basket.

Maybe I need to try this and see what all the fuss is about...

In other news, we found a Gyro place!!!

There is a little food truck on Overland right by Deseret Book that has about the yummiest Gyro's EVER!!!!  Cris and I have found one of our new after-temple eateries.

It was seriously so good, and so so so satisfying as we have missed having Gyros whenever we want...actually, I don't think we have ever had the luxury of living right by an awesome Gyro place-no wait, when we lived in Twin.  Yep.

And see those people behind us?  They were sitting with some girl who kept blabbing on about the diet she was on so, of course, she couldn't have a Gyro because there's too much of this or that in it, and she can't even eat cinnamon...yadda yadda yadda!  

I'm all about doing a diet and eating healthy, but come on lady!  We are trying to enjoy our Gyros!!!  

Anyway, this place was perfect, and we are glad we found it!

Aubrey had her first dress rehearsal, and it was too adorable!

They are doing their dance to "How do You Know" from Enchanted, and she is getting so good at it!  Every time it comes on our Pandora Disney station, she runs into the kitchen and starts doing all her moves.  I cannot wait to watch them perform!

Here's an up-close.

I had a mom fail moment.  I was supposed to have her in full make-up with her hair done.  Basically I just pulled her out of bed and made sure we had the right leotard and tights.

Fail.

Good thing she is cute naturally!

This was also their first time with the Maypole in their dance!  It's going to be so colorful and cute!  And the little girls were so excited!  It was precious to hear them ooooh and aaaah over this thing!

And here's Aubrey and Maya all ready for their Splish Splash tap number.

I was laughing so hard getting all the girls ready, and then they would run to the mirror and pretend they were washing their hair. 

So cute!

Aubrey wants a real one for when she gets out of the bathtub.

Hey, me too kiddo, me too.

On to more exciting news! 

Aubrey can pump herself on the swing!!!  Thank the Heavens above!!!!

This girl could swing for hours, I am not even kidding, and when you are the one pushing her it can get a little old, and then it gets a lot old, and then you promise her a cookie when you get home just so you can STOP pushing her!!!

So, it's kind of a big deal that she can finally swing herself!  But now, she will always want to be at Carrie's house so she can swing.  Seriously.  We were trying out homemade tortillas, and making necklaces and doing what moms do best, talking and she stayed on that swing the ENTIRE time.

I wish I could explain how satisfying this moment is for this mommy.

Also, the princess get-up makes for a more cute accomplishment.

Go Aubrey.

London spoke in Primary this week!

I found out she had a talk in Sacrament Meeting, so I was a little nervous for her, and she was a little nervous for her, but she did it!  Sister Irish had "emergency" talks on hand.  She gave one to London, and London had no problems, she is such a good reader!  

I was so bursting proud of her!

When we got home from church, we watched Tangled.

I hate to admit it, but I have never seen that movie the whole way through!  Sad huh.  So I promised the girls I would sit and watch it all with them.  Ethan even sat through it!

It was so so so good!  I loved it!

We had strawberries and whipped cream while we watched it, and Aubrey did the sweet favor of finishing the whip cream.

Look at London's cute little feet.

So, for the moment, life is good.

Our Love/Hate Relationship with Spring

It is either so awesome outside that we have to go play, or it's cold, wet, rainy, and miserable!

So we have been in and out and in and out....ugh, make up your mind already!

This was an out day!  And the kids and neighbors were going to have another Nerf war!

 Here they are, all ready to head off to war!

 They look tough, but just tell them they're having vegetable soup for dinner, that rough exterior will be gone baby gone.

Here is an "in" day.  And Aubrey is drawing....you guessed it, dragons.

I don't know what their fascination with dragons is all of the sudden, but I can tell you this, I am not hating it.  Look how cute those guys are.  One can fly, and one is so tall he does not need to fly, and they need to get to the volcano to save the baby dragons...that is the story.

 And then it was time for beans.

She loves Edamame.  She and I can eat a whole bag together.  She loves how you have to pop the beans out of their pod.

 And another "in"day.  She made a dog sled, in case of snow.

I don't know about this team, they don't look all that trained to me.

She sat in there for hours, had snacks in there, read books in there, and they did not move an inch.  I don't think it was a very successful trek, but who am I?

 But after being in for so long, you get sick of it, and you leave the house anyway because you are tired of being inside.  Plus umbrellas are awesome!

 Here is our fat little bird who wanted to hang out on our patio while it rained.

Aubrey explained to me it is because birds cannot hold umbrellas because they have to fly, and they don't have teeth to hold it...it just doesn't work.

 Every year, my girls beg me for the bunny ears in the dollar spot at Target, and every year, they wear them until they break!  Whether they break from being slept in, or from trying to do a somersault in them, they wear them until they are no longer wearable.

 Tonight, they are bunny sisters.

Bunny sisters get along much better than human sisters...no really, they do.  For whatever reason, when they put on their bunny ears, they are best best friends.  Take the ears off, they just aren't besties anymore.

I dunno.

I think maybe, just maybe, they weather is trying to decide it wants to be nice.  We have nothing but sunny skies all week long, with some wind, but hey, this is Idaho.

FHE with our "Grandparents"

We had Family Home Evening with our sweet Grandparents the Edwards.  How we love these sweet cute people.

We have never taken Aubrey to see the baking of the doughnuts, and this was simply unacceptable to the Edwards, so we decided for FHE, we would meet at Krispy Kreme while they were making them and get a free one, and then pick another one.  They even called ahead to see what time they make their doughnuts.  

I told you they are cute.

 Here are the kiddos with Grandpa Dan.

He is doing okay so far.  He has been doing chemo for about 3 weeks now, and even though it hasn't been easy, he keeps such a positive attitude about everything!  

If I could bottle him up and sell him, I'd be a bazillionaire probably, he is that amazing.

 Here is my Aubrey with Grandma Diane.

I knew she would love watching the doughnuts, but I had no idea how entertained she would be, and for how long!  She could have stayed there for hours watching those things go by, but they eventually stop the machine and kick people out who have been there for hours.

 They especially liked the part where the doughnuts flip.

 Aren't they just the cutest standing there watching the doughnuts?!

I love these pictures!

 The Edwards and I talked forever, they are good like that-you talk and talk and talk, and never realize how much time is going by.  It was nice for the kids too (especially Aubrey) because they were enjoying themselves a lot.

 And all the kids with Grandma Diane.

Isn't she just about the most adorable woman you have ever seen?

She really is, and she is so so sweet.

I love the calming influence she has on my London.

London has been through some rough stuff, and Grandma Diane seems to have a way with her.  She just lets London snuggle on her, and hug the stuffing out of her...she's just wonderful like that.  In spite of all she is going through, she still reaches out and loves on my kids.

And since I know they will read this eventually, I have to say

I LOVE YOU DAN AND DIANE!!!  

Thank you for the fun Family Home Evening!