Birthday Drive and dinner...

Dave had a birthday this week!  We made his favorite bread pudding (his mom's recipe) and had a fun day with him.  But we really celebrated today.  First, I had him drive me to Wayne county to visit my aunts.  As we got closer to Wayne county, it started snowing!  It was crazy!  Then when we got over the mountain it stopped and was sunny and beautiful in Wayne County.  We enjoyed the day with the aunties, visiting and looking at pictures (for my grandparents' life histories which we are working on).  We had a pizza lunch and brownies and ice cream.  We ate a little late which made our birthday celebration a little more difficult.  We drove back to Provo and met Amanda and the boys at Tucanos!  We were still kind of full from lunch!  But we enjoyed it...they brought around all different kinds of meats for us to try, and roasted vegetables and pineapple.  Plus a salad bar...we ROLLED out of that place!  It was very good!  Dave's birthday meal was free and the boys are free with paying adults, so the meal only cost us mine and Amanda's plates.  We are happy to say now that we have tried that place!  I totally recommend it.  I tried to get a picture of the guys with the skewers of meat, but they didn't turn out too well...I will put one here that I took of the table next to us.  So it was a long but fun day.  We will be going back again to Wayne County when Amanda and the boys can come with us so there can be some hiking down in Capital Reef...looking forward to that!  Happy Birthday Dave! We love you!! 

 

Easter Bunny sighting...

I love random emails from people I don't know, that are sending me a picture of my missionary!  It always makes my day! Joel asked in his email if I had gotten the picture.  I had not.  So I guess he let them know and she sent it today!  I wish we saw missionaries more around here...I would take pictures and send to their mommas.  But alas, we never see any.  When they put two sisters over two stakes, the chances of running into them is rare.  Guess I should visit Wal-Mart on Pdays, maybe I would have more luck!  Anyway, thank you to Sis. Butterfield of Sandy for sending me this picture from the neighborhood Easter Egg hunt! Joel's smiling face truly made my day.  Love that boy!

Easter 2014...

Easter Sunday...when the boys got home from their dad's they got ready for church.  Amanda made them all match!  I wish you could see her turquoise sandals that matched everything too.  Anyway, they looked great!  After church she got Jacob to let her take his bandages off.  Still a little scraped up!  After dinner the wind was blowing so good, they decided to try flying their kites.  They got them so high up, I couldn't fit the kite and them in the picture!  It was great!  We have never had success flying them, but today was good!  My favorite picture is Jacob sitting in the airplane flying his kite.  We had a wonderful day.  We thought about Joel and wondered how he was liking his Easter basket goodies and how he did on his talk in church.  Guess we will have to wait for tomorrow's email to find out!  Happy Easter!!

Boo Boos and Egg hunting...

While Grandpa was working on the chicken coop, Jacob was outside playing.  Next thing I know, Grandpa is carrying him in and he is crying.  There is blood around his eye and he told me that he fell off the top of the playground set!  He was up on the platform part "driving" the steering wheel and apparently just stepped off!  He is gonna have a black eye!  It was scraped up pretty good.  We put some ice on it and after a little while his Mom came home from school and took over the doctoring.  He was a good patient!  Quite the bandage job...he does NOT like bandaids!  He was soon right back outside helping grandpa lay the tile in the bottom of the coop.  He helped peel the sticky papers off and stomp on the tiles to make them stick.  I love the picture of Jacobs little feet and Grandpa's stomping together.  Then just a little while later we had the neighbors over for an Easter Egg hunt.  It turned windy and cold right before we started!  But the kids didn't seem to mind.  They enjoyed their treasures.  While we had a couple of extra people here we imposed upon them to help us get the coop out to the garden spot and on it's base.  YEAH!  It's in place and about ready for the chickens to move in!  More pictures of the boo boo up close and the boys' cute Easter outfits that mommy coordinated.  

Sewing, painting, building, and dipping...

Lots of projects going on as we head into Easter!  I sewed these table runner for Teri Stringham's birthday, they were hand delivered by Clif and Lindsay a couple of days after the BIG day (she turned 60!).  I have now made her runners for most of the holidays except Valentine's and Halloween.  I will get those done for her sometime!  I love these 10-minute table runners.  They are so easy and so cute!  Hopefully Teri likes them as well!  Dave has the chicken coop "almost" ready for the chickens to move in.  Amanda has been painting it, and all the trim too while Dave works on building the roof.  Once he puts the doors and roof on, they can move in!  He still has to make the nesting box and the outside run, but that can come later.  When he got the roof all shingled, he would let Jacob walk on it to help the shingles "stick."  Jacob would ask, "Can I walk on that to flat it?"  It was cute.  Last but not least, I dipped bunny peeps to look like missionaries for an Easter basket for Elder McKinney!  Missionaries spread the Gospel one peep at a time.  They were simple and cute.  I was sure to put enough candy and other things in there for him to share with his companion, and a new tie to wear on Easter Sunday.  He and his companion are speaking in church that day.  Wish I could pop in and listen!  (I noticed he didn't tell me which ward and time...ha ha).  We will deliver it to his house tonight while he is gone.  Now that we remember how to get out there, he will probably get transferred!  Anyway, we are keeping busy and looking forward to Easter and spring weather!  Some days are beautiful and sunny, other days, not so much.  Kind of bi-polar weather around here!  

Happy 80th Birthday Mom!

If Mom were still here, today would be her 80th birthday!  We knew we needed to celebrate so we met Eric and Randa's family at the cemetery where we placed flowers, pinwheels and a birthday balloon.  We always decorate Lori's grave as well (the end of this month it will be 51 years since she passed away!). It had suddenly turned so cold and windy!  Those flower pinwheels were spinning like crazy!  I was glad I got out my coat!  Then we went to Eric's for dinner and had Mom's favorite dessert...Texas Chocolate Cake! Complete with ice cream because it is a birthday party!  We sure love and miss our mom and hope she was looking down on our celebration and knows how much we love her.  I found this old picture of her when she was just starting out as a mother, young and carefree, not knowing all the trials and experiences that would be coming her way.  She handled everything with dignity and grace and I still hope to be like her when I grow up!  Love this beautiful picture of her looking so happy...first two kids, 3 more to come!  At the end of our party, Eric entertained all the little boys spinning his ring on the table.  They were mesmerized.  It was pretty cute.  Loved our day of celebrating Mom.

Conference weekend...

We have a conference weekend tradition of making Bisquick Cinnamon rolls (not my favorite, but Dave grew up on them so now have all my kids) and I was wondering if I got some to the mission home, how could I let Joel know they were there for him to pick up.  Lo and behold, I get a text one day from Brother Schwendiman (where Joel lives) and he says Elder McKinney requested cinnamon rolls for conference tradition and if I decided to do it, here's the address to drop them off!  Oh my goodness!  He gave me the address!  Is this a test for the mom or what?  ha ha.  So I made the cinnamon rolls and arranged to drop them off Friday evening while Joel was at his dinner appointment (and he was actually going to be out until 9 p.m.).  When we got there, I met the very kind Bro. Schwnediman and he said he had not mentioned to Joel that he contacted me!  So it would be a surprise!  It was fun to meet him and see where Joel is currently living (just a few blocks from the mission home actually).  I dropped off the rolls and a bottle of orange juice and we were on our way back down the road!  A fun Friday night date!  We stopped at the Sandy Costco on our way home (Who else does date night at Costco besides us?).  Here's a pan of our Conference Weekend cinnamon rolls...I guess without Joel here, we have leftovers!  Of course Dave takes the biggest ones out of the middle...ha ha.  What a fun weekend!  Can't wait for Joel's email today!!  And wasn't conference wonderful as always?  LOVED it!

Makayela's photo shoot...

Makayela wanted some pictures in her pretty white baptism dress, so we met at the Timpanogos temple (and the rock ampitheater across the street).  Joel's camera takes really good pictures, and it's a good thing, because I am not a professional and I have no idea how to run them through photoshop and make them even prettier (working with shadows, lighting and so forth).  So she gets what she paid for.  ha ha.  We took tons of pictures to hopefully get a few good ones.  I was pretty happy with them. Wish I would have thought to bring my white frame and also a blue Book of Mormon for her to hold.  There was a dad there taking pictures of his little girl in her white dress and she was holding one...looked really cute!  Anyway, here's a few of my favorites...I can't wait to see which she picks for her favorite to blow up and frame for her room.

 

taking the shadows off her face for this one would be cool...oh well!  Joel didn't teach me the tricks of the trade before he left!!

Building a coop and some snake wranglin'

Dave has been busy building our super duper extra special heavy duty chicken coop!  It's a wood working project and he doesn't take these things lightly!  We have been helping with the painting, but that's about it.  The rest is all him.  He's doing a great job and it will soon be finished!  Good thing, because the chickens are awfully crammed in that plastic bin!  We let them out every day in a circle of chicken wire to stretch their wings a little.  The boys like to sit in there and hold and pet the chickens.  We started "saving" the snakes as Dave caught them and put them in a garbage can.  We had SEVEN of them that we finally threw out into the pasture behind us.  We have seen several more since then.  Do they just keep coming back, or are there really that many???  One got ran over by the lawn mower the other day.  I don't know if the kid running the lawn mower even knew it!  Crazy.  Anyway, they have been hanging out in our yard still, enjoying the spring weather like the rest of us I guess.  I think Dave is done trying to get rid of them.  It seems like a fruitless endeavor.  Wear shoes if you ever come in our back yard!  I am told they are harmless and will go the opposite direction should you approach them, but I don't want to find out!!  I like to keep my distance...