Easter Sunday

On Sunday, we went over to our friends, the Hutchinson's, for Easter dinner. It was really fun!! The Bertagnole's and the Pascual's and a single lady from our ward, Brenda Johnson, also came over. After a delicious dinner (somewhat unconventional...spaghetti, lamb and lumpia), we "hid" a bunch of eggs in the front yard and released the wolves...oh, I mean the kids. I think all of the kids ended up with way more candy than they needed!

Since our kids didn't have enough sugar in their systems already, we let them all decorate egg-shaped (that's right Teryn, eggs not cirlces!!)cupcakes.

Emma just ate the frosting of course...

We played outside for quite a while so Scott and Stacy decided to bring out thier pet desert tortoises. The kids got a kick out of watching the biggest one eat and move around the yard.

Emma loved the baby tortoises and wouldn't put them down.

We had LOTS of fun and we are very grateful for good friends who love to include us in their holiday plans (we also went over to their house for Christmas Eve and New Years Eve). THANKS GUYS!!!

Easter Saturday

Growing up, we always had the tradition of having the Easter Bunny visit on Saturday so that Sunday could be more centered around Christ and the Resurrection. Michael and I decided to keep that tradition in our family (mostly to keep the real meaning of Easter on Sunday and partly because we didn't want the kids hyped up on sugar during church). Every night, we tell Emma "Super Ali Cat" stories (if you don't know who Super Ali Cat is, just ask Emma) so on Friday, Super Ali Cat helped the E.B. hide all the Easter eggs. Emma was very excited to see what the E.B. had brought her....so excited that she didn't wake up Mom and Dad before she went downstairs on Saturday morning! By the time we got downstairs, she had found most of her eggs and was busy munching on the goodies.

Somehow, the E.B. also knew that Emma and Daddy LOVE to watch "The Princess Bride". Daddy even "reads" Emma the story sometimes (from a totally different book). So you can imagine how happy she was when she saw that the E.B. had brought her a NEW BOOK!!


Emma even helped Lucas find a few eggs of his own. Of course, he would just send them rolling and then chase after them, but really, what else could an 8 month old do?

Why I LOVE Michael's job...

Michael's students got done with their initial training a few weeks ago and were sent back to Japan to do some more training there and then will get sent back here in a few months to finish it all up. So, you might be asking yourself....what is Michael doing while they are gone??? Well, he does have to do some upgrade training to teach the next phase of his student's training (when they come back, they will be flying a multi-engine plane instead of a single engine plane). Unfortunately, when he got hired, Michael didn't have his MEI (Multi-engine instructor rating).....FORTUNATELY, he works for an amazing company that paid for him to go to Long Beach last week and get his MEI. WHAT?!?!? Do flight training companies actually pay for their instructors to get more training??? I didn't think it was possible!!!! (Just a few months before we moved to CA, Michael had to do some upgrade training for his job doing flight seeing tours over the Grand Canyon so he could upgrade to be a captain and it was all on us....all $3000)

Since he did his training in Long Beach, the kids and I decided to tag along so that we could play on the beach while he did his thing. We actually really liked Long Beach. Everyone we had talked to said that it was a dump and all industrial but we stayed in downtown and thought it was really cool. The beach was just a short walk from our hotel, so Emma and Lucas and I decided to go check it out....
The kids LOVED the beach!! This was Lucas' first time and he couldn't get enough!! He kept trying to crawl into the waves and eat up all that yummy sand. Emma kept running back and forth between the sand and the water. She didn't want to get wet but she really wanted to play with the really wet sand so she would dash out, get the sand and then run like crazy to miss the waves as they were coming in!! I had so much fun just watching them play.

Oh, and did I mention that not only did they pay for his training, but they also paid for our hotel (we tried to stay on the Queen Mary but they didn't have any availability), gave us a per diem, paid for mileage and he also got paid his regular wage while we were there!! Is this what is is like to have a REAL job????? I LOVE IT!!!!!

Service Project

A few weeks ago (I know, I've been neglecting the blog lately) we had a service project for our youth activity. We went over to Sister Hansen's house and did a little gardening for her. She had a few plants that needed to be taken out and a few that needed to be put in. I tell you, our youth are amazing.





They didn't complain at all (at least not loud enough for me to hear) and got in and got the job done REALLY fast.

Emma's hero

Emma absolutely idolizes one of my Young Women, Kimberlee. She says that Kimberlee is her "best friend" and always talks about how Kimberlee is going to teach her how to be a cheerleader (yes, she's already started on that). Well, Kimberlee is on the diving team for her school so we went to her diving meet on Thursday. Emma now wants to be a diver. I'm telling you, she LOVES Kimberlee.

Kimberlee is so good with Emma. At her meet, she was showing Emma how to roll out for a dive on the ground. It was so cute!! I did get some pictures of Kimberlee diving but I promised I wouldn't post them on the blog....so here's a picture of her from church. I am so glad that I have such amazing YW to be a good example for my daughter. Thank you girls!! LOVE YA!!

Holy COW!!!

Today for Emma's preschool, we went on a field trip to a local dairy farm. We took my niece, Kaela, with us and the kids had a blast! Emma and Kaela were really funny in the car on the way there because they were playing the "my Mommy" game. For instance, Kaela would say, "My mommy says that......(insert wisdom from a 4 year old)" and Emma would reply, "Well, MY Mommy says......(insert wisdom from a 3 year old)". It was pretty funny to listen to.

Anyway, the farm was actually really cool. It is one of the largest dairy farms in the world with close to 12,000 cows. All us moms were AMAZED by the milking machines. All the cows get milked 2-3 times a day and each one produces about 12 gallons of milk. The kids didn't quite understand what the machine was for but I thought it was pretty darn amazing.

The best part was a tractor ride for everyone! Everyone piled on a trailer with hay bales and we got the grand tour of the farm. I never realized how much work goes into a gallon of milk. I was also amazed at how clean everything was. They really work hard to keep the cows as clean as they possibly can. Did you know that the milk is tested for about 50 different things (like diseases and what not) and if ONE thing is found in it that isn't supposed to be there, they dump the whole batch? And I'm not talking about one gallon, I'm talking about 50,000 gallons!!

The kids absolutely LOVED stopping to see the new baby calves. The calves were only a day old and were so cute! Some of the kids got to grab a bottle and try to feed the babies.

I was really impressed with the whole operation! Plus it was really fun for the kids and they were pretty excited to see all the cows.

SURPRISE!!!

I have a new Beehive (one of the girls at church turned 12 so she gets to start coming to Young Women)....HOORAY!!! I wanted to make her first "official" activity memorable so we planned a surprise party for Teryn. I got together with her mom and we worked out a plan to get her to the church for it. Poor Teryn had NO IDEA what was in store. I think she was really embarrased when she walked in and everyone was there (this was right at the beginning when the boys were there too) and we all sang her, "Happy Birthday." Then we kicked the boys out (literally, they were all drooling over the cake) and started the PARTY!!

First, I gave each of the girls a pack of Bubilicious gum and told them to start chewing. They had to put all 5 pieces in at the same time. When they got good and gummed up, I had them say the Young Women's Theme (a theme we say every Sunday that explains the purpose of Young Women's) with their mouths full of gum. I think the best part was hearing everyone slurp up the slobber before it dribbled down their chins. :-)

Then we had a bubble blowing contest with our GIANT wads of gum. Lisa and Sasha were by far the best at it! They both had bubbles that went in their eyes when they popped.

After that, I had each of the girls write down something unique about themselves and put it into a balloon that they then blew up. All the balloons got thrown into the center of the room and kicked around so no one knew where their balloon was. They all got one and had to sit on it to pop it then they had to guess who the balloon belonged to based on the piece of paper inside. They had more fun popping the balloon then anything else we did. They thought it was hilarious!







I had also gotten some punch ball balloons so of course the next item on the list was a punch ball balloon fight!! They went crazy!! Lisa and I fought so hard that our balloons actually popped on us. I couldn't get a really good picture without getting my head wacked!


Last, but certainly not least, we sang to Teryn and had some cake. Since we can't have open flames in the church, I got a battery operated candle and had her "blow" it out. I thought the party turned out really good and I am SO EXCITED to have Teryn get to be with us!! She is really cute and I can't wait to get to know her better and better!