Bits & Pieces

Just a few of the things we have been up to over the last couple weeks.

I love it when we finally sit down to read scriptures before bed and the family decides to be good.  I caught this sweet little picture of Cris and Aubrey snuggling up together to listen.

It's kind of gross how cute they are huh.

Aubrey and I got to help out our sweet friend Heather by watching her girls so she could knit and catch up on her orders.  She has an awesome internet business and she always makes a killing when she opens her shop, so much that she cannot keep up with it.  Lucky for us!  That means we get to watch her baby Malia and Aubrey gets to play with Maya!

Malia decided that she likes me.

I was gushing at this moment!

We discovered that Aubrey LOVES Chicken and Stars noodle soup!  We ate it at our friends house the other day and Aubrey couldn't get enough, she asks for it like every other day!

Where has this been all her life???

Speaking of Aubrey, she had her very first performance!

They performed at a retirement home and it was adorable!

Here we are getting ready!  I love love love these curlers, and Aubrey loves loves loves makeup, so it was not torture getting her ready.

Hello eyelashes!!!

Here she is all ready to perform!  This is her very own pose that she almost always does when I tell her she can pose.

And here's all the girls!  They were so ready, and so wiggly, like a bunch of puppies!  I was amazed we got this picture!

After the performance, we went to Dairy Queen.

Can I just say how much I love these little jack-o-lantern smiles my kids have right now?  It makes me ridiculously happy!

I just wanted a picture of E, and here's what he gave me.

Oh well, you take what you can get huh.

It just so happened that Maya's family decided to come to Dairy Queen after the performance as well.

Aubrey and Maya sat on the stools and talked and giggled and at their treats like they were the oldest of friends!

It was precious!

And if this isn't so exciting!  E-man can mow the lawn now!  Hallelujah!  And he is really good at it too!  He has done it twice now and I am impressed! 

He also has 3 customers lined up for this summer!  He is going to be rolling in the dough!

Bird Watching!

For FHE, we went bird watching with the Edwards!

It was amazing, I have never been to this place, but they go all the time, they love to bird watch.  Grandpa Dan knows the names of so many birds, and some of them he can tell just by how they sing.

He is adorable to sit with because he will just listen and tell you, then he will get out his binoculars and find them.  He even finds them in the really good hiding places.

Birds are amazing.

And and and

Ethan has his piano recital!  

He is getting really really good!  

I am so glad he is sticking with it.  It has been a bit of a fight, but ultimately this boy loves music too much to give up on piano!

I am so grateful.

Nana and Aunt Dani showed up for the recital as well and totally surprised the kids!

It was so cute!  We saw Aunt Dani outside and Aubrey didn't recognize her at first, but once she did, she ran inside to find Liberty! 

Liberty and Aubrey are thick as thieves!  Those girls love each other to pieces!

Here is cute little Moroni with Nana!  Such a cute baby!

And sssshhhh, this is Taylor.

I snuck this picture because she is Ethan's crush, or she has been for quite a while, he may have moved on, but I needed to document this!  

She's so cute huh.

Last but not least, Aubrey and her fairy lands.

This has been the story of her life lately, she sets up everything for the fairies.  I love her little button trails she makes, and she makes sure they have a slide and something to eat, and some things to play with.  She cannot wait to plant our fairy gardens!

This is a fairy water slide....because it goes into a pool

And the block is to help them if they are stuck in the grass.

And believe you me, there is always more to come!

I love our crazy non-stop life.

Easter!

Finally, I am getting around to Easter!  

We started off the weekend going to a big Easter egg hunt at our friend's neighborhood.

Don't they all look way too excited to be there?  Especially Ethan?!

Ethan didn't bring an Easter basket, but never fear!  They had an arts and crafts table where Aubrey made him his very own Easter basket paper bag!  Does he not look absolutely thrilled?

Aubrey, on the other hand, was quite pleased with herself.

London sat down to create an Easter egg masterpiece and help herself to a balloon.

So, Aubrey and I went to have her face painted.

They had all kinds of fun little booths going on here!

Now that she has her most beautiful flower on her beautiful face, we are ready to go get us some eggs!

Just a side note, why do they call these Easter egg hunts?  Seriously?  They are not hunting for anything at all! It is Easter egg survival of the fittest!

But the kids have fun and love them, so enough of that.

Here she is waiting at the starting line.

And London decided she really had to go the bathroom at this point (I think it was just nerves)

And there's the Easter bunny himself.

And they're off!!!

They each got to pick up 12 eggs, there were so many eggs out there, and London later told me that one of the kids out there pushed her out of the way, so she pushed him back...that's right, HIM!  And she got the egg!  I would be lying if I said I wasn't just teeny bit proud of her, but then I told her to always be nice, and maybe not to push kids especially at a fun Easter egg activity...but the pride was still there.

Then, they all got a balloon sword, and we were off to the next egg hunt!

This one was at the park right by our house.  You've got to support your own 'hood, so we had to go!

We got there just in time!  In fact, Garron (our cute Sorenson neighbor) saw us when we got there, and he saw where Aubrey needed to go which was waaaaay down the line, so he picked her up and ran her down there!  How cute is that?  I love that kid!

She got there and got tons of eggs and had so much fun, they were all giggling and it was totally precious, no fighting at all! 

London was more calm too.  No body checking this time.

When all the easter egg hunt fun was over, we came home and started boiling eggs, and man does that make your house stink!  But they are totally worth it as we ALL love deviled eggs!

We dyed like 32 eggs!  

My kids love to dye eggs, they could have kept going too!

We had a package of marble egg dye and a sparkle package of egg dye, so we had to do both!

And there's a nice shot of our eggs all finished!

That night, I decorated the house, and Cris came out to iron a shirt and saw me and just said, "Aren't you just decorating your decorations?"

I laughed and told him that if I die before him, he was going to miss that I do this stuff.  He told me he would open a museum of all my decorations, from the good stuff to just the party streamers and such.

You know I believe he would.

No matter what it looked so cute and festive and happy!!!

Our Easter bunny came!

And he makes art out of the jelly beans which the kids LOVE!!!

They were careful not to step on it, and admired it for quite a while until I couldn't stand it and gave them a candy dish to put it all in!

Here they are after church.

Yep, our church is early, so I told them they had to leave all the eggs where they were even if they could see them, and get ready for church and when we got home, they could go to town!!!

But first, I had to get pictures.  

It was killing them.

Look how cute they are though!

They are so pretty and handsome!

Aubrey was pretty sure that all the pictures were supposed to be silly ones.  Ugh.

Couldn't you just squish them?

And here's my man in his new Easter suit!

Doesn't he look dapper?

He was too too serious to smile at me for a picture, but he looks so so handsome!  He even got a pocket square!  Woo wee!

Enough pictures!

The hunt is on!
We have an actual hunt at our house, our Easter bunny makes these kids work!  Then they all have to bring their eggs to one big basket so we can all share the candy.

Aubrey got a wand and a crown, the Easter Lalaloopsy and the new Tinker Bell movie in her Easter basket, she could not believe it!

And an adorable owl shirt from Grammy!  Thank you Grammy!!!  And all the kids got books about Jesus that Grammy made for them, they are so awesome and the kids love them!

London got the same shirt as Aubrey in her basket and she got the new Rayman video game which she freaked out about, well done Dad.

And also, she loved her shirt too, so thank you so much Grammy!!!

And Ethan (who would not pose for a picture) got a CTR ring which he loves!

We spent the rest of the day watching Tinker Bell, playing Rayman, eating Easter treats and had a yummy Easter dinner.

I really do love this holiday!