Talon's Blessing

Talon was blessed on August 7, 2011.  Jon, surrounded by Kurt, Tristan, and a few other close friends,  gave Talon a name which he will be known throughout his life and on the records of the church, and a blessing. Jon blessed him with strength and health to grow strong in his faith and in his life. With wisdom to be able to discern right from wrong and courage to act on that . And he blessed him with the knowledge to know that is family and those around him love him very much.

It was a short sweet blessing! I am so thankful that Jon is willing and able to bless our children, and I am thankful for Kurt and Tristan who were also able to share in this special ordinance.

If you would like to know more about our beliefs, check out Mormon.org

Easter

We had to decorate eggs on Thursday after soccer games,
it was the only time for us to do it all together.
Evey had even agreed to babysit for a neighbor,
but I had to cancel for her, so we could make pretty eggs.
Sorry Tara!!!

Jon made 4 1/2 dozen eggs!!

Winter just wanted to put the eggs in the dye.

Lovin' the team work!

She ended up liking coloring paper when
I wouldn't let her stick any more eggs in the dye

Friday I actually got my bootie in gear and
made the girls dresses. While I was sewing
the kids decided to do a science experiment,
which ended in them making ice cream in
    plastic baggies. They had a ton of fun dancing
to shake the ice cream.

Saturday We had soccer games in the morning then
Jon and I ran some errands together. It's so nice
having a built in babysitter. Although I feel her pain,
I was one too!!

There was a neighborhood egg hunt planned and
we were supposed to drop of a dozen eggs for
each of our kids to hunt. So I got the eggs over there.
But when the time for the hunt and pot luck rolled
around it was raining.  We were running a little late
and when we got there the kids were almost done
hunting. They were hurrying because it was raining.
I don't blame them!!! But when they saw us they
each threw out enough eggs for my kids to hunt and
some parents hid some to make it fun. Such sweet
kids and neighbors we have! No one stayed for the
pot luck, it was no fun in the rain! Oh well, I think
the kids had fun anyway!

Sunday we had to be at church extra early 8:15 (actually 8:30, but I had to give a little leeway!!) so I could practice with the choir and the kids were singing prelude, so that meant waking up super early to hunt baskets. The Easter Bunny left everyone a personalized hunt as always.

Everyone finding their first clue.

Winter was not happy to be up so early...

Until she realized what she was supposed to do.
She had a deflated balloon, and had to search the house
for the inflated matching one,
pop it and inside was another deflated balloon of another color,
The last balloon held a clue to where her basket was.

Lex Had a map of the house with a bunch
of numbers on it, And a math equation.
He had to solve the equation and
find the corresponding number on the map
for the next problem.

The last number had his basket.

Paris was given a rhyme and the missing word was where the next clue was.

What the heck!! Evey's clue was a long strip of paper
with a little drawing of an object and a  bunch of letters.
She had a hard time figuring out what she was supposed to do.
She finally realized she needed to find whatever the object was.
Then it took her a bit longer to figure out she had
to wrap the paper around the object for the next clue.

Her clues weren't totally obvious either. Well to me at least, she seemed to find them pretty quick!
For example, WAKE was the clue to an alarm clock, so she found her next clue there.

Each basket had a little letter so once
everyone's letter was found,
they had to make a word with the 6 letters to reveal a final surprise.

As per Easter Bunny tradition, he brought some fun outdoor games and toys.

Since it was a huge rush to get to church early,
we didn't have time for pictures,
and then after no one wanted to cooperate, As ALWAYS!!!
But they were kind enough to pose for a few
and I discovered that my new camera does not have a self timer,
for a family shot,sad, but I guess I'll live :)

The Easter bunny usually leaves an egg hunt for the kids,
but he knew we needed to get to church,
so he left a monstrous bowl full of eggs
and a note that we were to have a hunt outside after church.
Which turned out well, we waited until our guests got
here and included them in the fun.

One of the outdoor toys was a helicopter  shooter thing ??
I don't know, anyway, its little propeller things shot
 really high and we had to send Evey on the roof to get it.

We try really hard to make sure the kids know what
Easter is really about, and what is most important.
And they all know, they really do, but it bothers me
especially this Easter because we woke up to do the
basket hunt early so we could get to church early.

I heard a couple of friends say this year, that the bunny
visits their houses on Saturday morning, so that all of
Sunday can be focused on Jesus and the Atonement.
I really , really love this idea and think I will have the
kids sit down with me and write a letter to the Bunny
next year telling him we would like to do our basket
hunt on Saturday too. I think he won't mind too much :)

I am so bad at expressing my feelings and bearing my
testimony anyway, but am even worse on a medium like this,
online! I have written a few paragraphs only to erase them.
But I want you all to know how truly grateful I am for our
Savior and His Atonement.

I am so moved by music. I am the ward choir director and
picked two songs that held so much meaning for me and I
can't tell you how grateful I am for everyone who sang on
Sunday! The choir was so big and beautiful and so full of
the spirit! I even heard comments that we sounded like the
Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Such a complement!
Here is a link to one of the songs we sang,
however it is not the choir arrangement we sang,
but the words are what I want to share.
Gethsemane

 And I couldn't find a link to just the music of this song so here's a video.
Also not a choir arrangement.



 And while I'm at sharing videos here is an Easter message.





He is Risen!

Eggs and Killer Bunnies

We love the commercial part of Easter, but really we have to make sure we keep the real

meaning of the Holiday. Jon and I teach Lex's primary class with 5 other boys his age.

Kids are like sponges for sure and especially about the gospel. So it's always a priority

that we make sure they know why we celebrate these holidays. At activity days Evey

made a little kit of eggs, I've heard it called Resurrection eggs before, but I'm not sure

that's what she calls it. Anyway, in each of 12 eggs there is a scripture and a little object

to go with it. For example; 3 dimes representing the 30 pieces of silver Judas was given to

betray Jesus, a piece of red cloth representing the robe Jesus was dressed in with the crown

of thorns, and an empty egg representing the empty tomb.

Evey took it upon herself to hide the eggs and then had Paris and Lex do an egg hunt and help

her read the story and open the eggs. I didn't know what they were doing until I looked out to

see, this is what I saw. We're so proud of her for her example!

I absolutely love the colors of died eggs. We always search for kits with really cool stuff in

them

but, there didn't seem to be any

super cool ones this year.
They all had cheezy stickers and

thelittle cardboard stand thingys

and that's it, so we just grabbed

one with

just die and relied on the leftovers from previous years. Here's a few of the favorites.
Everyone is so independent and creative in their own ways.

Decorating just a couple each is just not enough, so we died 4 1/2 dozen!!! It was just about right.

We have had 3 cute matching bunny baskets since Evey was born. When Paris was born, I gave her mine and when Lex was born Jon gave him his. It's worked out well for the past few Easters, but not this Easter. We have been looking for years for the same baskets, to add to the 3, but with no luck, so the bunnies were retired this year. We wanted matching ones and spent a lot of time looking for the right ones. I like the personalized Pottery Barn buckets, but just can't justify the over $90 it would take to get them. So, we just bought some basic baskets and I made personalized liners. That way if or when there are anymore additions to the family, it will be easy to add and match.

The kids like to leave some carrots and a few eggs for the Easter bunny...

...and in return he leaves them each a game or puzzle to find their basket.

Paris received a map and a set of coordinates which led to another set of coordinates and so on...

... they were in some pretty crazy places. The final coordinate was where her basket was hiding.

Evey was given a recipe. She had to find the ingredients. Some included; 6 books made into movies, 3 yo-yos, 1 star,etc. On each ingredient was a letter, when she collected all of the ingredients, she had to mix them and make them into a word, like refrigerator, which is where she would find the next recipe.

Her ingredients were also all over the house. One finally led to her basket.

Lex was given a dvd that was out of it's case and was told to put it away. In that case was the wrong movie so he had to put it in it's case. He went on a wild chase between the 4 or so places we have movies and video games until he came to the last one that had a clue to where his basket was hidden.

In each of their baskets was a clue that they had to put together to find Winter's basket. It was hidden in the garage in a new outdoor bin...

...with a bunch of new outdoor toys. We're pretty sure the Easter bunny would have left the box outside where it belongs, but we had a fresh coat of snow on Easter morning!

Jon and my baskets were left on the counter with a new game for the family, which quickly became a favorite with not only our family, but my mom and siblings and our friend Tristan, who comes to play with us. We thought it pretty funny that the bunny brought us a game called Killer Bunnies!!! So fun!

The Easter bunny also hid eggs for the kids to do an egg hunt, however it was indoor because of the snow. Poor bunny probably had freezing little feet!

Paris wanted me to take a picture of her candy.

And here's the snow, this is after a lot of it had melted. It was pretty!