Easter Week

It was Spring Break and when we don't have a set schedule we don't do as well with regular scripture reading, but we DID manage to read most days...and when we did, we read the scriptures of what Jesus did on the days leading up to His resurrection.  This is a family tradition, and  I LOVE it!  Usually I put out pictures that go with the day, too, but didn't get that far this year.

Isabelle, Abram and Nolan with Maddie back in the corner.  Pace comes and goes:)

The thing that I will remember most about this spring break was Isabelle's restaurant that she did almost every day!

She made everything all fancy every time and even got the atmosphere just right with YouTube "restaurant music" playing.

The boys thought it was really fun the first day, but Isabelle's expectations were high:  they were to sit down and order an item from her menu, and then STAY SEATED until they were served.  It was a long time for them to sit and they complained a bit, even with her coloring sheets that were provided the next day!:D

Her restaurant kept getting more customers, and the same expectations applied to us all!

On Friday, she was excited to find out that I would be watching the Burt boys= MORE CUSTOMERS!!!

She decided, after serving even more rambunctious boys, that her brothers weren't so bad after all;)

Check out these cute menus, too! I love the descriptions for each entree:

 Her menus got even fancier as the week went on:

A multi-paged menu finished the week, and I failed to get pictures of it!  She actually took me shopping for groceries for that one:)

In other news, the Henderson family from the McKay Creek ward invited us to go with them to a trampoline place in Tri-cities on Tuesday.  Pace and Paisley:

Nolan and Abram playing dodge ball:

They got sooooo sweaty!

I didn't get pictures of the rest of us, but the kids had fun...

We watched a few movies during the week, and Pace's favorite place is perched on top of me:

I got my first letter EVER from the Phillipines!  It was all for me, and I was so excited that I got choked up and told the kids that I was going in my room to read my letter.  Maddie said, "why?  So you can cry in private?" Well maybe...;)  Four pages front and back and so much detail about what it's like for her there and experiences she is having that she never emails about.  I loved it so much!!

Also, while on the topic of missionaries, I finished a wall that makes my mother-heart very happy:  clocks that I can glance at and immediately know what time it is where they are, pictures of them and a scripture that our family memorized a couple of years ago:

We went on lots of walks this week-boy do I love walking here!:

And boy is Maddie getting great quads - because have I mentioned?- she is in track:

We see interesting things like this shrub that had beautiful flowers that looked like they had been pasted on since the rest of the shrub still looked dead! I have GOT to find out what this plant is:

I thought this sight was interesting - so did Shawn, but in a whole different way. Apparently this is what he wishes that we had for a family car?!!! He thinks taking the rack off the top and painting it would do the trick.  I think smashing it and starting all over would do the trick....:D

We went to three different parks this week and this particular time the boys all wanted to walk.  This was the day we had the Burts over and I realized on the way there that I was pretty brave to attempt this mission!  LOTS of kids!!:

l-r: Pace, Cameron, Nolan, Abram, Owen and Adam

Lots of yard work Saturday!  We pulled out lots of over-grown ugly shrubs and this yard is going to look amazing.  Especially when we have helpers like these:

Saturday night Isabelle and I went with Lisa Foust to egg some houses.  We hid Easter eggs that were candy-filled:

Belle and I thought it was pretty fun, so we decided to do the same thing for the boys.  We went out in the dark and hid eggs all over the yard so that when they woke up we could start the hunt.

I am enjoying having Easter the same day as conference. We had an investigator come watch with us yesterday with the Sister missionaries and she is coming back again today.