Evan's Birthday

We were excited when Evan came home so we could celebrate his birthday with him! He won't be able to fit his fan club on his lap for much longer!!     

 Mom and Dad were able to come over for cake and ice cream since they were at the MTC getting ready for their sudden mission call. It was a great couple of weeks having them in town!

 Dad could finally hold the grandkids again after his radiation treatments. He is officially cancer free. We hope to have him around for a good long time!!

 Evan always amazes the kids with how fast he can blow out his candles. I wish I had it recorded. We are sure thankful for him and all he does for our family.

Ballet Recital

There is the sweetest lady in town who wanted to give service so she decided to teach dance classes to girls in the community. My girls have loved doing dance. This year they got to do the Wizard of Oz.

 Addie and Livi have loved doing dance together. They want to be just like their big sisters.

 Emery, Gracie and Cambree all the sudden look so grown up to me. They are all wonderful little dancers.

Hannah was excited for this concert to come, because now that it is over she gets to start ballet. She was trying out her own dances during the concert practicing up for when she gets her moment on the stage!

Visits

We love when people come to visit us and where thrilled when my brother and his family decided to go to Goblin Valley and stop to stay with us for a few days! Gracie was in heaven having older cousins to play with. She is always saying she wished she had an older sister, and these girls always pay her so much attention she feels like they are as closes as she can get! She loves it!! 

Poor Amy was probably exhausted from all the late night talks I made her have with me, but she has so much insight that I love to get advice  from her. Shaun was very patient with me making them stay up and visit with me. 

Hannah and Abram were partners in crime, when Hannah wasn't attacking him! I love to see their cute little faces. Abram has the cutest little voice that I just had to smile every time he had something to tell me. 

 Sander wants to be just like Caden when he grows up. Caden was very patient with all the attention he got from Sander. He is a great example to his younger cousins and brothers.

Easter

I was ready to send the kids to bed when Evan realized I hadn't let them paint Easter eggs. Because he is super dad, he got some eggs boiling and told the kids they got to stay up late. They had such a fun time. I think Hannah's eggs all turned out to be black, but the rest of the kids came up with some really great color combos for their eggs. They were excited to share them with the Easter Bunny. They set out a plate for the Easter Bunny and some carrots. They were thrilled to see a little trail of carrot crumbs in the fridge!

This was our first Easter at our house, so the kids all ran into our bedroom to wait the word to find some candy. It was hard for them not to start eating the candy on the way from their rooms to ours.

 Once the hunt was on, it didn't take long for them to all have bowls full of candy and big smiles on their faces!

 Once we got them all ready for church, Evan and I started to get ready for church. I could hear the kids laughing and laughing and then I realized they had found their "after church" easter egg hunt. ( Evan and I couldn't decided which family's tradition we wanted to follow, so we were going to do one way before church and one way after church) We made the kids put all the stuff back that they found and wait until after church.

It was a perfect Sunday and wonderful to hear the kids laughing together and enjoying being with one another.

Sander turns 7

Sander woke up to his favorite cereal...Raisin Bran Crunch and his special "place mat" for breakfast. 

Sander worried he wouldn't see Stratton on their birthday, so he was relieved when Strat had time to come to his cupcake party.  What a couple of cuties! 

Once Evan got home he went straight to work on Sander's Elk birthday cake. I don't know who was more excited about it Evan or Sander. But I have to say, Evan could do a little work on the side with his cake decorating skills. Sander LOVED the cake !!                     

 Pretty good if you ask me. Now they just have about 6 months until hunting season starts!

A little catch up time- Valentines day

 My Sister-in-law has the cutest tradition where her kids play cupid on Valentines Day. I decided to give it a try, and my kids LOVED it! We made giant cookies, the big cupid hearts for the kids to wear, then came up with a little poem to tell the people we visited. We visited about 6 people from our neighborhood, and the kids were sad when we were done.

 On pinterest there were some cute treat ideas, but my neighbor put a twist on these floats that my kids loved. It turned the drinks red to match the holiday.

The kids were excited that Evan was home this Valentines Day!! We love our dad. We ended our day by having a candle light dinner with the kids. You can't go wrong with a heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphys.

Baby or No Baby?

So we had a pretty hectic Saturday and ended up dragging all the kiddos to the grocery store for some fun "family time!"  Things were actually going well considering we had all five of the crazies with us. As we were walking down the isles, Hannah was running up to people, saying hi, being her usual energetic self! I must admit I was laughing at the things she was saying to the people we would pass. All of the sudden there was a nice "grandmotherly" looking woman that Hannah saw and took off towards. I was interested to see what she would say. My amusement quickly turned to horror as Hannah ran up and patted her tummy and with a huge smile said "Oh you have a baby in your tummy!" Coward that I am, I quickly started walking away, pointing out to Evan that he was on Hannah duty! He was pretty quick to catch on to what was happening and intervened, trying to smooth things over. Not knowing how the sweet lady was really feeling, I was sure to avoid her for the rest of our grocery trip. But as luck would have it, she was leaving the store the same time as we were. Evan was behind me so I couldn't disappear again! She came up and said, "oh there is that cute little girl that I would love to take home with me!"   Phewsh... I gave a quick sigh of relief that she at least laughed about the whole thing, but I was quick to tell her that while we love Hannah, she sure keeps us on our toes. She smiled and laughed and said she could see how we could feel that way. Hannah gave her a big smile and then we made a hasty exit to our car and locked the kids away where we could all be a little safer!! As Evan and I were talking about that adventure on the way home, I asked him what he said to the lady. He laughed and said he told her "don't worry, she says the same thing to me all the time!" Nice one Ev....