Spring Break

We had our spring break last week and so the kids and I headed out to visit family. For the first part of the week we went to my sister's house in Utah. We had a fun time there, despite the snow. We were able to hang out with all my siblings and had a great time with them. We wish so much that we could do that more often. We painted my nephew's room (still waiting for a picture from my sister), took the kids bowling, visited my grandma, and ate dinner with everyone at the burger/pizza place where I had my first job (and my first firing; still great burgers!).

For the rest of the week, we headed to Rexburg, Id and more snow. Did I mention that this was SPRING break? Again, we had a great time with cousins. We played at the high school gym (Justin's brother is the principal), played at one cousin's house, went to another cousin's house, visited the cemetary to find family graves (I have ancestors from Rexburg area), told the kids stories about our ancestors, toured the college campus a bit, found the picture of my graduating nursing class on the wall in the nursing department, hunted easter eggs in the high school band room (remember the snow?), and played games until midnight.

Whew! and now we're home again and trying to remember how to work. Not having very much luck, although we are doing better as the days go on. I actually cleaned a bathroom today and washed up the baseboards in the entryway. Okay, that's only because the kids' ball games were cancelled and I had extra time at home. Otherwise, nada.

Art projects and new hats

Royal didn't have school on Friday this week. We still had Internet school so I knew that it might be hard to keep everyone going with Kale at home. It turned out that everyone did a really great job of staying on task. Actually Kai went with Justin to work. They planted new trees all day. We also had Sawyer here at our house and he had agreed to do school work with Hadley. Isn't he awesome? It was fun for Hadley to have a friend to discuss her work with. Sawyer kept right up and had fun playing homeschool with us. It really was enjoyable to have him here with us. They finished all their work before lunch! After lunch I talked Hadley, Sawyer, and Kale into starting an art project. We worked for an hour making crayon rubbings in different colors and using different textures, then doing a paint wash in a contrasting color over the rubbing. We learned about Cubism art. Anyway, I gave them a little break and then Kale was the only one who wanted to come back and finish. It took us another hour to finish the project and I was so excited with Kale's finished project that I had to take a picture. He had fun and is very proud of his art. He wanted a picture of him playing his guitar picture.

Saturday morning Hadley went to Othello for a Stake Achievement Day activity, Kai and Seila had a service project for mutual, Kai stayed home with me. We sewed a new car seat cover for a friend. Then I finished 3 hooded bath towels that have been waiting for me. I decided that I'd better start Seila's new dress (we picked up the fabric and pattern last week) while I helped Kai finish up school work that he didn't do on Friday. Kai was able to finish his essay and I was able to finish about an hour before we were supposed to leave for a Stake dance in Othello. It turned out pretty good. She chose black with white polka-dots. This is a style that she has been wanting for several months. In this picture she has a yellow shirt, yellow ribbon, and blue ribbon on but at the dance she wore a white shirt with a green ribbon belt. She made sure to buy several different colors of ribbon for belts.

Justin and I were able to find a hat on-line that had spf and a wide brim. He's supposed to wear one now all the time. It came the other day and he wore it on Saturday. He said it was a tough to get used to but he'll keep trying. He's also supposed to wear sunscreen but we haven't gotten that far yet. If anyone has any suggestions for a sunscreen that isn't greasy and you can wear comforatbly all day, we'll listen. Anyway, he came home and said he is of course having to deal with comments from everyone he sees and yes, Uncle Vard actually laughed. Good thing Justin loves his Uncle Vard! Not to worry, Justin will find plenty of opportunity to return the friendship.

I haven't seen a softball/baseball schedule but the first games are next week. Kai's still not sure what position he gets to play but he thinks it's looking like outfield. We'll see. Seila is going to be one of the pitchers again this year.

We've had a good week and every night I've thought about blogging because I've had something worthy of remembering but I never get around to it, and of course, I've forgotten it all now. I'll upload a few pics that I took and maybe that will jog my memory. . . .

Ah yes, Sunday after dinner Justin had the kids take turns helping him clean up. I had my back to the sink and when I turned around, my heart was touched and filled with love. I thought it was the perfect picture. Justin still in his church clothes, teaching Kale how to serve others. Moments like this are what keep my spirits up and keep me going. Moments like this are what I dream of and hope for. When I keep my eyes open, I see. I mean no offense to anyone but I really believe I have the best husband and children on the earth!! So, because of this moment, my entire Sunday turned out great!

The sad thing is that I tried to make rolls and this is what we ended up with. When I turned them out of the pan, they fell apart and they did not seperate into rolls. I mean they fell apart into chunks. For some reason, I cannot make rolls. I can make bread and other pastries but not rolls. Go figure. The picture does not show the full effect.

Tuesday night we decided that for dessert we would play a game. The game is called "dollar dessert". I gave everyone one dollar and they could buy whatever they wanted for ice cream toppings. I bought the ice cream. We kept all the toppings secret until we got home and Justin and I layed them all out on the counter and then called the kids in for "dollar dessert". Okay, we pulled out the toppings from the fridge too. This was one of the creations that we ended up with. We had Fun Dip powder, Rocky Road candy bar, Peeps, sour gummy worms, Rolos, and Nerds. It was fun and as anticipated, they asked to do it again the next night.

Friday after school Justin and I loaded up Seila, Becca, Hadley and Kale and headed to Tri-Cities. We needed to do some shopping and we had a wedding reception in Mattawa that night so Justin thought it would be best just to do the shopping in Tri-Cities and then go home through Mattawa so that we could stop by the reception. Seila and Becca were originally planning on painting their fingernails and watching a movie but eagerly changed their plans to go shopping with us. JCPenney was having a sale and Seila had some money for new clothes. We also bought some fabric and a pattern for a new dress for her. Of course, we were late leaving Tri-Cities and we were about 15 minutes late to the reception but we made it there before the bride and groom left. Kai had been at Jacob's house so on our way home we went to their house to swap the Becca for Kai. We got home at about 10.



Saturday morning we went to one of the orchards to do some work. The kids loaded pruned branches onto a trailer pulled by the 4-wheeler and then hauled them off to a growing burn pile. I drove the pick up through the next field while Justin burned weeds so that Cameron could disk it all up. Justin is going to plant new trees there this spring. We worked from 9 until about 1. We stopped at the Chinese restaurant in Othello for a late lunch. It was also the meal to start our fast for fast Sunday. Sean and Amber's new baby is in the hospital in Spokane and they are not sure exactly what is wrong with him so we will fast for them. The rest of the day was spent at home. We did manage to get the front yard mowed; we had beautiful weather again today. We were all very tired from all the hard work and so we lounged in the family room in front of the TV and then went to bed early.

Friday was the last day of February and as the day moved on, I soon recognized that all three kids were very capable of meeting all of their goals in every course for our Internet school. That has never happened! I was so excited! We worked hard in the month of Februaryl I decided that we had to do something to celebrate so at about 4:00 we all headed in to Moses Lake. We went bowling and then pizza for dinner. Kale had earned a free personal pizza at Pizza Hut for reading every day at home. He has been dying to use it so we went. We had a great night.



Wow!~ We've had some great weather lately! Last Saturday Seila packed a lunch for us and we went over to the ball fields at the school. Seila invited our neighbors to come with and we stayed for a couple of hours just playing around. Justin and Kai took Kai's church class fishing that morning. They had fun too, although their weather wasn't quite as nice.

Saturday afternoon Justin had church meetings for Stake Conference in Othello. I drove in with some other women for the evening adult meeting. It was such a great meeting! Justin and I love the Saturday night meeting; it's always so uplifting and spiritually energizing.

Sunday morning I went in early to Stake Conference because I sang in the choir. It actually was nice because then I was able to save Justin and the kids a good seat. It was another great meeting with uplifitng messages centered on the Savior. We had awesome company for lunch and then another visitor for the evening. It was a wonderful Sunday.