Easter Bunnying

The older our kids have gotten, the more laid back our holidays have become.   What fun is the Easter Bunny when your kids don't even like candy (much) anymore?   Or when you wouldn't dare buy an item of clothing for any one of your five children, because chances are, they wouldn't wear it in a million years.   Combine that with Glen being in Colorado for the weekend helping his mom with a few things, so I decided I needed to liven things up a little. 

Instead of playing Easter Bunny for my kids, I decided I'd be Easter Bunny for a whole lot of other people.   First off, I made a bunch of little goodie bags...

and printed this note for about 10 missionaries (some of Adam's friends, some of my Thailand peeps, a young man from our ward, and Adam of course), and enclosed a pack of small pictures of Jesus!   Then I traipsed to the post office and sent them off all over the country!

Sadly, I doubt that a single person received them before Easter, but, hopefully they'll smile anyway.  

Then, I realized that I bought waaaaaaaaaay too much candy and I decided to make a bunch more goodie bags...

This time the goodie bags were for kids at church who brought me pictures of Christ at the end of church on Easter Sunday.   Yes, I bribe children for pictures of Jesus.  No, I am not embarrassed by this fact whatsoever.   In fact, I rather enjoy being the candy / picture of Jesus lady at church and I was quite happy with my picture haul!   They'll take care of the artwork for the cover of the program for weeks!    

 

So don't mind how completely exhausted I look in this picture...or all pictures, for that matter...

But it was very fun to have Ellie (freshly home from Vietnam), and Emma up from BYU for the day.   Spence was also there, but, for whatever odd reason, he didn't voluntarily join me for any pictures.  If you could see the live version of this one taken a few days before, you'll see he was still for about 1.7 seconds and was ducking out by the end.   😂

It was very fun to have Emma and Ellie together for the first time in a few months.  The G Girls vibes were strong and there was a lot of loud singing along to Disney songs, laughter, and much cooking going on.   Sadly, we were off our game in the kitchen that fine day and most of the food was lackluster and bland.    The best part of the meal was this cake Emma made and the ham and rolls my Mom and Heather brought with them!   

Speaking of Easter dinners, I was happy to hear that Adam and his companion were invited to several!  They only ended up eating one, but it sounds like it was a good day.   Four of the people they are teaching opted to sing with the ward choir for Easter, so that ended up being a special experience for them.  

Last but not least, what would a holiday recap be without pictures from my favorite Alabamans?!   Lucie and her matching friends were as adorable as can be...

And check out this over the top preciousness!   I adore these peeps and can't wait for them to come visit in a couple weeks. 

Also, let's take a closer look at that last cheesy grin!   I'm dying at the cuteness!    😁

Hope you all had a very happy Easter!   💗

A Good Friend and a Birthday

I'm going to start off this post about Glen's birthday with a little side story about our friend, Connor.    He may only be 13, but, I tell you, everyone needs a friend like Connor in their life!   He was one of our Sunday School kids, then became our Trek son {at his request}, and now is one of my greatest artists for creating artwork for the cover of the program. 

He and Glen connected over fishing and hockey while he was in our Sunday School class and they still chat about such things whenever they get the chance.   So we weren't too surprised when Connor rushed to greet Glen at church a couple Sundays ago, but we were a little more surprised that he knew it was Glen's birthday.  What better way to start your birthday in public than with a warm HAPPY BIRTHDAY from a good friend?!  

Then, after church, he brought Glen a cake that HE'D MADE HIMSELF!!!!   Isn't that the sweetest thing ever?!   After blowing out the candles and having a piece, they chatted about the best roller coasters and ended up watching roller coaster videos.   It literally made Glen's day. 

Though I think Glen would have been totally happy with his birthday at that point, we did make him a nice crepe dinner (a family tradition).    Emma and Ellie did the crepe, bacon, and egg cooking...

And I made him a carrot cake.  Yes, he got to have two cakes in one day...isn't that what birthdays are for? 

We finished up with him opening up the present he really wanted... a rock tumbler. He was so excited about it that he spent the next hour getting his first batch of rocks up and running, even though that meant arriving to SG around midnight.   

It was a low-key birthday--just the way we like them at our house.  

Happy {belated} Birthday to Glen! We love you! 

Lucie is One!

Our grandbaby, Lucie May, turned one on December 7th and we were so happy to be able to celebrate with her.  Technically it was a couple days before her birthday when we were in town for Cami's graduation, but it was close enough to embrace it and make it a full blown party!  

She's the daughter of a baker, but she'd actually only eaten refined sugar a couple of times before, so having a whole little cake to herself was pretty much the most exciting thing in the world for her!    She very much enjoyed herself!   😂 

Here are a few little details about Lucie at this stage of life:   

*She's a very happy, easy-going baby. 

*She LOVES people and can push through being exhausted to be social.  

*She's got a sense of rhythm and loves to dance.   If she hears music, she'll often break into dancing and if you say the word, "DANCE," (even without music) she'll often break into dancing as well!  

*She's got a lot to say and babbles in her own language all day!  She is very animated and often uses her hands while she talks.   She understands a ton, uses some simple sign language, and can say a few words. (Hi, dog, more) 

*She's big (height and weight) for her age, but doesn't have much hair.  

*She's crawling, pulling herself up and cruising along the furniture, but not quite walking yet.   Cami didn't walk until she was 14 months old, so I'm not surprised at all.  

*She loves to "read" books.   She loves being read to and loves looking at books and "reading" them by herself too.  

We are quite enamored with our Lucie May and hope it's not too long before they make it out here for their belated Christmas trip.  I need me some more Lucie snuggles!    

Speaking of first birthdays, I thought it would be fun to include a little collage of all of our kids at their first birthday.  

Oh my goodness!  I can't believe all these people will be adults within a couple months!  How has time flown that quickly?   

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Happy Birthday, Adam!

It was Adam's 14th birthday last week!   

Celebrations included:    

Crepe breakfast made by Glen

Lasagna made by me

Breadsticks made by AnnaLisa

Carrot cake made by Ellie

And he got his one and only request as his gift....

a cool drone.    

And a dollar from Tim. 

 

Random facts about Adam:  

1.  He's grown A LOT the last year and is looking like he might end up the tallest one in our family.

2. Math and science are his favorite subjects

3.  Writing is his least favorite

4.  He loves taking things apart 

5. Most people would be surprised to know that he's actually quite talkative

6. He is very good at strategy games

7.   He wears a size 11 shoe now

8.  He loves to figure out how things work

9.   He makes a deliciously mean panini

10. He loves birds and all things nature

11.  He forgets his toothbrush more often than not when we go on vacations.    

12.  He loves to ponder the "what ifs" in life.     

13.  He willingly does all his own laundry and actually gets annoyed if I try to do any for him without his permission

14. He is the cookie making expert in our family! 

We love you, Adam!   

Happy birthday! 

Stake Conference and Missionaries x2

oops!   I was trying to schedule this for a future day, but messed up and accidentally published it too soon, which is why you've seen this in your feed before!

June 11:
At stake conference today,  Cami and her roommate, Katy, ran into one of their good friends from BYU, Ty, who is now serving as a missionary in our stake.  They were very happy to see each other, but  said it was very weird  not being able to give him a big hug.

Emma also had her voice recital today.  I missed her first performance, but was able to see her performing, "Hark, the Echoing Air".  The camera's sound quality is very poor and does not capture the clearness and the beauty of Emma's voice very well, but hopefully this will give you a glimpse of the difficulty of songs she performs.   I love hearing her sing!  

June 12:   Speaking of missionaries and stake conference, today I ran into the missionaries serving in our ward at stake conference and spontaneously invited them over for dinner.    We made lasagna, breadsticks, salad, and this cake.   It looks all fancy, but it's actually just an overcooked cake mix cake on the inside.   I may or may not have eaten more frosting than actual cake.   

It was a lot of fun to have the missionaries over.  We saw some cool birds on our deck during dinner (a bluejay and a ruby-throated hummingbird).  We ended up playing Telestrations with them and they shared a message about redemption.  

Other than Glen being out of town, it was a great day!


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The Gravity Cake

June 6:  My sister, AnnaLisa, asked for Emma's help to make a cake for her FHE group.  Me?  I would have used a cake mix and slapped some frosting on, or maybe made my favorite carrot cake, which is delicious, but decidedly not very pretty.

But that's not Emma.

Here's her labor of love:   The Gravity Cake!

Not surprisingly, it was a huge hit among AnnaLisa's friends!   

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Patriotic Food

May 30:  Happy Memorial Day!  

Today involved long overdue yard work,  planting my birthday flowers (a month late), having a fun outing to the gym, putting flowers on our grandparent's graves....

and this lovely culinary creation by Emma!

Rest assured, that it was as delicious as it looked!

We also had watermelon and sandwiches for dinner and Ellie made our patriotic layered drinks.

Yum!

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Hardcore!

April 18:  

This actually happened a few days ago, but I finally got around to capturing the carnage for the blog.   

How did he sustain his injuries?    

You decide:   

1. Fending off a rabid grizzly attack and saving four people's lives in the process

2. Running through a parking lot with friends and tripping over the curb headlong onto the pavement

3.  By contracting leprosy

You'll never know, but you will now know that cakes are serious business around our house. 

Emma created this piece of art for Tim's birthday.   It's a funfetti cake with Cami's famous berry frosting.  We all really, really liked it, but I think next time we'll add more sprinkles.  

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The Birthdays

April 15:   

April is a big month for birthdays on my side of the family.    We've got Andrew (on the 5th), Tim and Tom (on the 15th), Lauren and McKenzie (on the 17th), Mika (on the 24th), Me (on the 25th), and Spencer (on the 30th).   So that means that there are four family members celebrating birthdays just this weekend and we got to celebrate with three of those four!   

The twins had a day off of school today, so Ellie went and spent the night at their house to help celebrate their birthday.  She excitedly bought presents with her own money and came home giddy and full of energy.  It was cute to see how much fun the girls genuinely have together.  

I took Ellie straight from the cousins' house to an evening of cake decorating at a friend's house.  She could barely contain her excitement when she got home and got to deliver her special creation directly to the birthday boy of the day....Uncle Tim!    

We also went out and tried a new ice cream shop tonight.   The ice cream was creamy and delicious. 

  

 Cake, ice cream, birthday goodies....I can't figure out why, but my quest for healthful eating is not going so well this month. 

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What are we up to? {January 8-14}

In continuing with my effort to take a picture a day, I'm discovering that it's not often as easy a task as I originally thought it would be.  Most of our days are rather routine and somewhat boring, and it's easy for me to forget to take any pictures until the end of the day when the lighting is poor and all of the "excitement"  (although that's a generous term for what we do around here) of the day is over.   Even still, it is fun to keep a daily record and remember what makes up the fabric of our days.    

January 8:
Ellie made her own cake today and was very, very excited about it!   It's a tropical orange cake with homemade marshmallow frosting and a mango/pineapple topping  which she made for our Mommy/Daughter book group.   And in case you're wondering, yes, it was as delicious as it looks!

January 9:   Our kids aren't doing any sports this season, so our Saturdays are actually more relaxed than they are in other parts of the year!    Today we got the kids going on their Saturday chores, then Glen and I bailed and went for an 8-mile hike on the CCT.  Our long hikes together are one of my favorite parts of the week!   Later we went to cheer on our  YW at a basketball game.     In the evening, Adam made a music video at a friend's house, Ellie had a jumping and junk food fest at her friend's house, and Emma had a friend over to watch Ant Man at our house.  Sadly this photo of Ellie and friend, Adelaide,  standing in the dark and the pouring rain is the only picture I took all day!    

January 10:  Today was the 4th year anniversary of Spencer's diagnosis with leukemia.   It could have been a hard day, but between this beautiful breakfast (a perk of having the 1:00 church schedule), the fact that Glen and I both taught lessons at church, a powerful experience I had at church, and the fact that I ended up with meetings from 11-5 and 7-9, meant we didn't have much time to dwell on the gravity of the fact.    

January 11:  A trip we've been dreaming about and saving for for years is finally in the very beginning stages of being planned!

January 12:  Adam and his friend, Andrew, are working on the Bird Study merit badge, so we decided a field trip to Mason Neck State Park was in order.   Right on Pohick Bay, eagles, ducks, geese, and swans are often plentiful there and we figured it would be a great way to see some more birds to fulfill the 20 species requirement for the badge.  It was a quiet day, but we did see a bald eagle from a distance.

January 13: You may be sensing a theme, but I love being outdoors and I pretty much need a good dose of fresh air and sunshine several times a week to maintain my mental health.  This year I was very excited to arrange Emma's voice lessons to be at the same time as Adam and Ellie's piano lessons.   I take this time that they're all occupied and  go on a walk by myself.   I treasure this solitude and built-in time in my schedule to get some exercise.  Today, Emma's voice teacher had to delay her lessons by an hour, which meant I had kids with me during my walk--first Emma while the kids were at piano, then the kids while Emma was at voice.   I actually very much enjoyed the company, although two straight hours for me out in the 29º weather meant that I was feeling  a little frosty by the end!    And I know that based on what Adam was wearing that it   looks like he must have a little of my Minnesotan blood in him, but I will tell you that he was actually shivering and was the first one to beg to go back to the car!

January 14:  Glen has perfectly straight teeth that never have needed orthodontic intervention.   I, however, was born with  a mess of crooked buck teeth that needed braces TWICE to correct.   While all five of our kids inherited Glen's beautiful brown eyes, unfortunately not a one of them inherited his teeth.  Here's kid #4 in braces, with one more to certainly follow him in a couple of years!