Sarah's 9th Birthday Luau

We had lots of fun on Saturday celebrating Sarah's 9th Birthday! She wanted to have a Luau, which was very convenient since there are tons of Luau stuff in the stores right now. Here is a picture of Sarah and Kaitlyn coloring a long box to make it look like a tiki pole. They colored two of these, and then we weighted them down with bags of sand inside. (They stood really well until William the conquerer got to them.)We had Leis and grass skirts for the girls, and straw hats for the boys.
Here's our sofa table decorated with some extra grass skirts and an inflatable palm tree.Here are the coconut glasses and palmtree straws we used for the drinks. The gathering activity we had was for the kids to decorate their own hula hoops with ribbon and stickers. I got the hula hoops from the dollar store.

Then the kids got to make Candy Kabobs.
We played alot of games, a hula hoop contest, the limbo, pass the hot coconut, but Tom and I were so busy orchestrating the games, that we didn't get any pictures of them.

Here's Sarah opening her gifts:
Here's Kaitlyn looking cute in the Luau stuff:

After the party, the kids went out side to play.

And I accidentally deleted the video of the birthday cake :( She wanted an icecream cake in the shape of a beach ball. It didn't look so great, but it was yummy. I baked the cake in a bowl, cut it in half, put ice cream inbetween the layers, and then frosted it. I put cinnamon and sugar around the outside of the cake which made it look just like a beach ball in the sand!

Sarah had a great time, and she was very happy. Her favorite gifts are an MP3 player from mom and Dad and a pottery wheel.

Sarah the artist

Sarah had an end of the year assignment to write a paper and create a poster depicting something that she is great at. The assignment was called, "I am great at...."

She decided to write about how she is great at art. She called it, "I am a great artist". Instead of just a poster, she made a giant painter's pallette with a paint brush. She put her essay on the end of the paint brush, and she drew pictures on the pallette. She also needed to include photos of herself doing art. We put those on the pallette too. She's very excited to present it because she's thinking that everyone else will just have a big poster, while she has her unique shape. She's usually is very scared to talk in front of people, but because of her excitement about the project, she can't wait! She took it to school today, and I'm sure she'll do well presenting it.

William the conquerer at nap time

Here's William's bedroom before he takes a nap: Here's William's bedroom after he takes a nap:
In case you can't see all of the conquests, here they are in detail:
All of the wipes are pulled out of the container.
A peice of his old cradle has been pulled out from under the bed... among other things...
The bookshelf is knocked over. The diapers are pulled out of the drawer we're they're kept:
The mattress is completeley flipped upside down: And when I flip the mattress over, this is what I find:
Marker on the rug... Marker on the back of the door..

And somehow, Sarah's chapstick was in his room, so he had fun with that too:

So... there you have it. William the conquerer strikes again.

I often find him asleep on the floor amidst the mess he makes.

I guess he feels he needs to tire himself out before he settles down for a nap.

I know what your thinking, "Can't she hear him doing all of this?" the answer is,

"No, he's a very stealth conquerer. "

I do go in and check on him, and he's usually in mid conquest. I make him get back in his bed, but often when I leave, he's back at again.

Mother's Day Video

Last year we started the tradition of making a Mother's Day video for my mom. They call her "Grammie", hence the title. And no, Alan is not playing the piano, but he wants you to think he is. I prerecorded the song on the piano so that I could record them.

Summer in the spring

Happy with the hose... Kaitlyn has learned how to fly!
Alan and Sarah defend themselves from William.

These pictures were taken on April Fools Day, but I'm not fooling. It was hot enough for the kids to play in the water on April 1st. I didn't post them because that was Easter week and I was doing the Easter week posts. But this week they've been playing in the water too, and it's been in the 90's! Yuck.

I went to California to decorate an arbor...

Last week I went to Sacramento to see family and help with my cousin's wedding. It was beautiful and great to see family again-most of whom I hadn't seen in 9 years, and some in over 20 years. It was a little awkward because I felt like I didn't know anyone, but I kept busy helping with everything. I decorated this arbor with organza and ivy. They were sealed in the Sacramento temple. That was really special and it was a beautiful perfect day. Her colors were blue and yellow. Very nice.

Rainbow beans

The other day I got the idea to color some of our white beans different colors. William helped me color the beans, and had so much fun playing with them! I also got out the muffin tins and my canning funnel which is always handy when playing with colored beans :) He loved dropping them through his fingers.

And in case you wondering about the giant box lid he's sitting in,

that's my attempt to contain the mess from the beans.

Flowers for mommy

William likes to pick flowers for me.


Yesterday he saw all the weeds in the yard, and decided he had to pick every dandelion he could see and give it to me. He also found some leaves on the ground that he gave me too.
I put them all in a cup of water and set them on the kitchen table.

He had to go to the other crops of dandelions after he was done picking these in the video. My hands were pretty full. And then in the afternoon during his nap I mowed the lawn, because those weeds were pretty high. :)

Frisbeeeeeeeee!

Alan throws the frisbee.Kaitlyn throws the frisbee
Sarah throws it too....


Sarah watches the frisbee land on the roof.

Sarah decides to climb over the fence to get to the frisbee.
William likes the climbing idea.

The frisbee stays on the roof until Dad can get it down.

Strawberry season!!

We had fun making strawberry jam this week. It's a good project for the whole family. William and I bought the strawberries-it was cheaper to buy them than to drive way out and pick them this year. Alan and Sarah washed the jars and lids to prepare them for the jam. Everyone took a turn at crushing the strawberries with the potato masher. Alan got to stir the crushed berries in the pot while it was cooking into jam. Then Tom and I did the last step of filling the jars with the hot jam and actually canning them in our canner.

World's Easiest Cookies

Click on the picture for these yummy cookies that we made for snack after school today.

Spring Break

For spring break this year we went camping in Talladega national forest. It's about 3 hours away. We haven't gone camping since before William was born, and we decided it was time to go again. The kids helped Tom look for wood for our fires, and Alan even learned how to build fires from only the coals of another one hours before. Sarah had fun climbing trees, but did NOT enjoy the outdoor bathroom. Kaitlyn had fun finding bugs and singing to herself around the camp. William enjoyed getting dirty, playing in the river. The night we made baked potatoes for dinner, William was so hungry that he stole a potato while I was preparing them and started to eat it raw! Tom and I just enjoyed camping and getting away from everything. It was beautiful there and we had so much fun!!

Good Friday- "He is Risen" primary activity

We did a primary/ward activity last night that was really neat. We called it He is Risen. If you've ever done the "Resurrection Eggs" with your family on Easter, this is what we did for the ward only on a larger scale.

We had each family in the ward dress in Biblical costumes, and bring a blanket to sit on the floor. We divided the ward up into families, and told the children that at other activities they can be with their friends, but for this activity, we'd like them to stay with just their family, as this would be a special activity to share with them. Each family went together around the church to find the "resurrection eggs". Each of the eggs were in front of a door. The family would open the egg and find something that would represent the easter story. Then knock on the door to go into the room and learn about the token in the egg. The presenters in the room read a Bible scripture that went with the item in the egg and then each family would recieve a small version of the item for each room.

After the 12th egg, the families would go back into the cultural hall for a snack and to view the life size resurrection scene that we set up.

Everyone enjoyed it, and we all would like to make this a ward tradition.

We took video of some of the presenters in the rooms, although the rooms were dark, I thought you'd like to see or at least hear some of the presenters.

Easter Week Day 5-The Last Supper

Tonight we ate foods that might have been eaten during Jesus's time. We had fish, olives, cheese, grapes, nuts, and flat bread. The kids enjoyed it. At the end of the meal, we read how Jesus washed his apostles' feet and how he told us we should wash each other's feet. We explained that Jesus meant we should serve each other. So after dinner, we cleaned up, lit some candles because that's what they would've had during Jesus' time, and washed each other's feet. It was a really neat experience.

Easter week days 3-4 Light of the world

On Tuesday I was not feeling well with a terrible headache-the kind that hurts when you move your head, so we didn't do anything on Tuesday night-except read some scriptures in the New Testament about what Jesus did.

Last night, we talked again about what Jesus did in Jerusalem during his last week of life. We read in John 12: 34-36 how the people were asking him who is the Son of man, and who is the Messiah who abideth forever. Apparently, they thought there was a distinction between the two.

He answered them,

"Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you: for he that walketh in darkness knoweth not whither he goeth.

While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light."

So, we made candles.

I have some candle making supplies from back when I made them for the teachers in primary, they came in handy this night.

Each of the kids wanted to make a different color, so we poured wax into little jars for each of them and let them stir in whatever color they wanted. They also stirred in a little vanilla fragrance because Jesus taught at the temple the last week of his life, and they used to burn incense in temples those days, and the fragrance was to symbolize the incense.

After the wax was thoroughly colored and "fragranced", we poured them into the jello egg molds we have. William really liked this part-especially using the funnel.

Then we put them into the freezer for a few minutes.

And here are our finished egg candles!