Our Musketeer

Nolan starred as one of the Three Musketeers in his First-grader musical play "Three of a Kind" this week and it was really cute! Nolan with his friends Dylan and Peyton:

He had a solo that he sang and everything! Granted the solos were one-liners, but look how cute they were as they took turns stepping up to the microphone:

  He felt pretty lucky because the night after his play, the high school began showing their school play, which incidentally happened to be The Three Musketeers, and Kami asked him on a date to go watch it with her. She took him to Jamba Juice and the whole works and he felt like a million bucks!  He came home so excited about all the sword fighting and the good time that he had with his big sister. 

He had a big feather stuck in his hat that must not have been situated well enough to show up in the pictures:(

While we're on the topic of his awesome older sister, I will mention that she is also an awesome daughter! She is indispensable when it comes to fixing up/coming up with costumes...that is NOT my forte!  Whenever the kids have a school function that they need a costume for, I turn Kami loose on it - Nolan's play was no different. The things she comes up with are pretty simple, but they're always spot-on how they need to look and she always finds things to use that we already have around the house.  It amazes me. 

Censorship

A few evenings ago, I happened to see this notice taped lightly into the inside of the cover of a book that Isabelle had checked out from her school library:

She had read the book and was ready to return it, accompanied by her own fair warning to the other students!  She said that she had also scribbled out the "h" word whenever she saw it because "it made her feel better." I wonder how many books have been censored by her this year?

Anyway, this was all the more humorous to us, because Caden knew something about the book she was reading and apparently the book is about some mice that live in a monastery, so they are probably using the "h" word in a religious context. I suppose hell is a bad word no matter how you look at it:)

excuses

I can think up a lot of reasons that I haven't taken the time to sit down and blog recently!

1. I will begin my excuses with the fact that I had a lot of fun company and I didn't want to miss out on any moments spent with them!  First of all, my Aunt Ellen, Uncle Mac and cousin Jerry came.  They were followed by my cousin David and his family.  I was, of course, horrible about taking pictures, but I did get a couple of Maddie and Emmie, as they took off on a little picnic!  (I let Maddie skip school to spend time with her cousin).

They LOVE having their pictures take;)

I can't wait for Talbie to come up here for college this fall!!

2. This little fella has kept me hopping this week!:

He has been super sick with ear infections, and a horrible cold that will not. go. away.  Maybe he has allergies? But, on a happier note, he has started crawling all over the place!  He was getting to where he wanted to be for the last few weeks, but suddenly this week he really took off.  Yesterday he crawled from the dishwasher, clear back to my bedroom looking for me.  It was so cute!! I love it when my kids get mobile because they can entertain themselves much better.  BUT his mobility has also called for some serious rearranging, which led to some serious spring-cleaning, to keep him out of plants and such. I moved furniture around and redecorated lower spaces:

He has everything all over the place in no time and is so happy to find adventure everywhere he turns:)
He and Abram have been enjoying reading all of the baby books together:

Boy do I love these little boys!

3. Soccer started for Maddie and Nolan= a few practices during the week and a couple of games on the weekend.

4. We got to make a new purchase this week:

Shawn was kneeling down in the garage fixing something this week and when he went to stand up, one of his knees wouldn't straighten out!  He went to an orthopedic surgeon that said it is a "classic miniscus tear." So, unless the loose or torn cartilege moves enough that he can straighten his leg again, he will need a surgery very soon. Whether sooner or later, he will most likely need a surgery eventually to fix the problem.  Yesterday his leg straightened out, so I vote for later:)

5. While at the grocery store this week I couldn't resist purchasing the most ginormous box of bananas I have ever laid eyes on for only $5.  So...I froze most of them for smoothies, and have been baking an enormous amount of banana bread with the rest!

6. I also couldn't resist the beautiful weather outside this week, and one day left Pace in the house napping with his invalid dad and sprayed all the weeds around the yard and pruned back all of the old plants from last year.  It was heavenly.

7. Easter was on the way, so I had to research how I wanted to present everything to my kids this year! My favorite thing that we did, and do every year, is to read each day from the scriptures about what Christ did on that corresponding day of the last week before he was resurrected. Then I threw in a few more Easter things.

So there you go!  All of my excuses:)

We've had a beautiful Easter! Hunting eggs:

Maddie and Abram:

Watching the egg hunt:

Some post-church pictures:

We noticed that Pace and I matched:)  Some women accessorize with a snazzy bag or purse; I prefer to accessorize with a cute baby:)

We had Easter dinner with Shawn's family at his parent's.  We all planned to prepare food for at least 34 people! Dinner was delicious! Afterwards, all of the kids that were involved in music festival played their pieces:

Caden 14:

Maddie 11:

Ellie almost 13:

Fisher Anderson:

Abby 11 (above) Colter 14:(below):

We also did some singing, l-r: Ellie, Kristi, Kami, Colter and Caden:

l-r (above) Carrie, Tom, Terry, Phoebe, Suzette, Caleb, Abby
We sang a song that Kory wrote:

  Happy Easter everyone!!

Exploring the front yard

We just finished up another wonderful General Conference - it was so very motivating and inspiring!  I love General Conference weekend, and it goes by much to quickly!  One of the great things that I enjoyed about it this week was that Shawn got to be with us all. day. long!!

Last Sunday, we woke up to this:

Yesterday it looked like this outside:

...So we couldn't resist a family walk. It's not green yet, but the color of the dry grass contrasted against that beautiful blue sky is so gorgeous! Here is our walk in pictures:

our house in the distance