Easter Weekend in St. George, Part 1

My grandparents invited us to spend Easter weekend with them in St. George.  We loved having a few days together, and managed to stay pretty busy!

Jack's favorite thing about visiting Oma and Opa is their box of vehicles.
This time, Luke enjoyed them too.

It was fun to see the kids reading with Opa.

I particularly enjoyed when they found this book on the book shelf
and asked Opa to read it to them.

Oma insisted on Cat setting the table correctly, just like she did with me when I was little.

Ben took the big kids downtown to an art festival at a park, where they rode
on the carousel, got their faces painted, and made a few crafts.

While Ben was out with the big kids, I stayed home with Oma and Opa and
napping Luke.  Oma and I spent the time going through old family photos.
Here are a few:

Opa's Parents' Wedding Portrait

Oma's Mom's Bridal Portrait

Oma and Opa on their Wedding Day

The Condo Sidewalk Mural Project

Ben got his second coat of face paint for the day.

We started watching "Mary Poppins" together that night before bed time.

General Conference Weekend

We had such a great General Conference weekend last month.  What made it so great, besides being able to listen to messages from prophets, testifying of Christ and teaching us how to be better people?  Family!  And friends!  And we loved every minute of it.

Friday morning we met up with David and Caroline and their son Elijah (two younger kids stayed with Grandma and Grandpa.  David was one of Ben's mission companions, and they both claim to have taught the other one everything he needed to know to be a good missionary.  But we've enjoyed getting to see D&C here and there over the years.  They were married the same summer we were, and we were able to attend their sealing in Baton Rouge.  (Mom - was that the same trip when we went on the air boat ride and fed marshmallows to the gators??)  Then we spent several days with them when they lived on Staten Island, and a few years later when we each had one young child, they stayed with us in Georgia and we visited Savannah.  Most recently, we stopped at their house in Arizona on our way across the country, but Caroline and the kids were gone to a family reunion in NOLA so we didn't get to see them.

On this trip, David and Caroline were bringing Elijah, who is Cat's age, to General Conference for the first time.  It was so fun to hang out with them for a few hours - breakfast at our house, then hiking the Y, then lunch at the Cougareat.  (Which, according to Carolina, is pronounced Coo-gare-ee-it.)  Unfortunately, Elijah had had an allergic to reaction and wasn't feeling great, but he and Cat still hit it off and had fun together.  And the bonus was that our kids did a lot less complaining about hiking than they normally do, no doubt because they wanted to seem tough for our hiking companions.  (And BTW, thank you to Caroline, who supplied all of these pictures!)

  

Cat and Elijah jumped out of the car at Kiwanis Park
to get a few more wiggles out.

At the Cougareat, Caroline dared Cat and Elijah to stand on their
chairs and do a dance in order to win candy of their choice.  They both did.
Then Cat knocked over the table.  But they earned their treats.

On Friday afternoon, my brother Andy and his wife Amy arrived from northern California to spend the weekend with us.  Within minutes, my grandparents were also here, having driven up from southern Utah for the weekend.  Oma and Opa didn't stay with us, but we had a nice visit before they moved on to my Aunt's house.

I loved my Oma's shoes and socks.  How cute is she???

 We had the rest of the weekend with Andy and Amy, and we loved it.  They were so fun with my kids and tolerated them very well during the conference sessions.  We did our best to keep the kids quiet and occupied, but having new people around did wonders to arouse their talkativity and silliness.

Special breakfast Saturday morning - not just doughnuts,
but doughnuts and beignets.

 

While Andy and Amy were here, they used Cat's room, so Cat was to sleep with Jack.  Jack has a double bed so they could have slept in the bed, but Cat preferred the floor, so Jack slept on the floor too.  And Eliza insisted on joining the fun.  So they all happily slept on the floor of Jack and Luke's room for two nights.

The weekend consisted of pizza and a movie on Friday night; Andy and I going on a run Saturday morning; watching conference and eating lots of food during the day; Ben's Thai food for dinner; Amy and I going out on our own while Ben and Andy watched the Priesthood session at home and the kids watched a movie; staying up talking and hanging out that night; more conference watching and food eating on Sunday (A&A had tickets to attend the morning session in SLC); and a cousin dinner with all of our local extended family on Sunday night before Andy and Amy flew home.

It was really fun to get so much time with Andy and Amy, hanging out.  And I was thrilled that Andy agreed to go running with me in freezing weather (he's not used to that!) because we had over an hour to ourselves, just to talk.  That doesn't happen, and I knew what a treat it was.  I loved that Andy and Amy made the trip and made the time for us.  It definitely made our conference weekend even more special.

Everyday Stuff - March 2014 Edition

I accompanied the Activity Day girls on a tour of a nearby theater and was tickled
to death that Cat was enamored with the whole thing.  She was begging me to sign her up for classes.

One of my very favorite things to see, one child reading to another.

Jack started getting really excited about making pictures and signs.

This is Santa, his sleigh, reindeer, and bells on the reindeer.
All Jack's concept.

Eliza was very into having bags of things.
Vessels came in a variety of forms, including purses, plastic bags, and, her Easter Basket.

Workin' it out, Pilates style, with Denise Austin.

The kids enjoy doing homework outside on nice afternoons.
Also, Eliza enjoys climbing in the stroller with Luke... any time she can.

Jack couldn't resist buying this watering can with stickers with his own money.
Then he helped me plant a little herb garden for my kitchen window sill.

Saturday morning, at the beginning of the kids' Read-a-Thon fundraiser for school.
That weekend was pretty quiet, as Cat was determined to read as much as possible.

That weekend, Jack read us this entire book.  At school a few days later, a parent was reading
"Green Eggs and Ham" out loud to Jack's class and noticed that Jack was reading along.  She invited
Jack to come to the front of the class and do some reading, so Jack read all the rest of
it (most of the book) to his class.  I'm so proud of my little reader!

Watermelon!

During journal writing time one Sunday afternoon, Jack wanted to write the entire
narrative from an episode of "Word World."

My chubby legged baby, enjoying the freedom to climb up the stairs.

Cat was dying to make Chocolate Meltaways using a recipe in the book
she bought herself from the school book fair.

They were yummy!

When the kids found bookcases and other furniture that my Aunt gave us
stacked up in the front room, they quickly got to work setting up a store.

Cutest cashier ever.

Crazy Sock Day for Dr. Seuss's birthday.
Eliza doesn't go to school, but she wanted in on the fun, too.
She's actually wearing three pairs of socks, all of which are way too big for her.
Also, the hand holding was Cat's idea.

Love these kids!

Eliza knows how to FOLD!

I found an easy (and YUMMY) recipe for beignets, so we had a special
after school snack on Fat Tuesday.  We also enjoyed a delicious Cajun-ish
dinner that night (mildly spiced chicken in a cream sauce with pasta) which I
couldn't get the kids to eat.  Oh well.  I still count the beignets as a victory.

Game night.

Jack still loves being upside down, but the poses continue to get more interesting.

On an unusual Sunday morning, we were all ready for Church early.
Then, about 20 minutes before Church started we got a call from the Primary
Secretary asking if we knew that Jack had been asked to give a talk that day?  Well.  No.
So he sat down and wrote his own talk, then read it himself in Primary.  I'll have to
find the talk and share the contents here one of these days.  :-)

Cat is such a great kitchen helper.
Here, she's helping Daddy with dinner by getting mashed potatoes ready.

Just a little friendly wrestling in the back yard.

The kids love making a fort in our front room.
This was when our friend Emma was hanging out with us for the day.

Do you see Jack peeking over the side of the couch?
The girls had kicked him out of the fort...

Looks like Luke doesn't want that pink sparkly scarf on.
What do you think?

In March, my Grandpa passed away.  He was 90 years old and his health had been
declining rapidly over the last few months.  I was sad to think that I wouldn't see him
again in this life, but glad that he would no longer be suffering from the ailments of a
mortal body.  After dinner on the night that he died, we had banana milkshakes,
one of his favorite things.  I told the kids about his life and the memories I had of him.
One of my favorite memories is that when we lived near him in Alexandria, VA when I
was a kid, he would pick me up and drive me to the Ramada, where we would swim
at the indoor pool.  I remember him teaching me how to dive.  I loved those outings.

Later in my life, my Grandpa also discovered a love of painting.  This is a painting he gave me almost 20 years ago, and I'm so glad to have it.

11 Years (and a lot of love) Later.