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

Time for a Maddie up-date

Our Madeline Mary has always been our fun and quirky child!  I love it! Lately it has been tickling me how excited she is about soccer:

 She practices her drills every day, runs two miles when her coach tells them to, and takes everything very seriously indeed!  She is especially excited for their first game this Saturday, and I can count on it that I will hear a lot about it between now and then:)

Her Uncle Terry is her coach, with her dad as the assistant coach.  Apparently their team has a motto ......which I can't remember.  Maddie felt like the motto was pretty good, but told me she thought she had a better one: "There's no such thing as a goal when it comes to our team!"  I looked at her for a minute after hearing that, processing it, and finally I said, "Maddie, that sounds like your team can't make any goals."  She explained that she was looking at it the other way around - that no one would be able to score on them! She keeps us laughing!!

For a week or two, she was writing a persuasive essay every night just for fun.  Her topics ranged from why Olympians should dress more patriotically, to why she thought kids shouldn't have cell phones until high school. She has also been writing a lot of poetry and is getting pretty good at it!

Maddie and Abram have a very special relationship.  I find this interesting because they are the two in the family that look like they were created out of the same mold.  They look alike and have very similar dispositions and personalities.  Maddie can encourage Abram into doing anything, where the rest of us fail, by saying, "Come on, Abram!  You're my twin!!"

Being a middle child, it is neat how Mads can fit in great with the older AND the younger kids.  Everyone loves her and appreciates the good sister that she is.

Maddie is also my child that, like me, loves to have a project going!  Lately I have been keeping my eye out for good bargain materials for her as she has been into making infinity scarves:

Easy, but satisfying.  She is growing up and getting into accessorizing and dressing up her outfits!

 I really like this girl.  We all do!

Spring break

Our spring break is more of a spring blink around here.  We only get three official school days off from school!! That is because we have "Spud Harvest Break" in the fall, and we sure don't want to give up that vacation, so we are okay with a shorter spring break.

This is what our spring weather looked like the day before the vacation was over:

...pretty typical...it looks like it ought to all melt off by the end of today, though!

l-r: Isaac-16; Ila-17; and Gracie 11

Because spring break is so short, we needed to do something extra fun, so I invited two of my nieces and one of my nephews to come for a visit!  I love them, Shawn loves them, and the kids love them, and I am so glad they came because I grew to love and enjoy them EVEN MORE!! They are the neatest kids: great positive attitudes, pleasant to be around, love kids and include all ages - even me;) - and they know how to create their own fun wherever they are.

The kids played endless in-door games, and outdoor badminton and soccer. We went bowling:

l-r: Madeline, Ila, Kamille, Caden

I signed Ila, Isaac, Kami and Caden up for a campus tour since Ila will hopefully be coming here half-way through next year!!:

Inside the nifty tour car (with Caden taking the picture:)

They went to the movies (and had the whole theater to themselves!!)

We attended my nephew Sam's baptism, and later that evening ALL of the girls and I got to attend the General Women's Broadcast together.  That was pretty neat!