Easter

Our sleepy bunnies up before nine o'clock church to do a quick indoor hunt for breakfast eggs.

 All the eggs were located which means we won't find any weeks from now. Heather displays an egg she made with a sponge technique. 

Remember how they wanted all traditions to remain in place? This is one of them. We should have had video this time though. The girls raced around the yard laughing the whole time. Once they even tried to keep each other from getting to an egg. It was hillarious.

 Winston didn't know what to make of all the running around.

 The Easter baskets had a lot of See's Candy in them, so instead of putting a ton of candy in the eggs, we chose two kinds of candy and added a secret message from the Easter Bunny. The girls found an egg hidden in their rooms with some money inside. That was right up their alley!

We haven't had a nice ham dinner for a while, and it was delicious. We took our traditional 'who's at dinner' picture and since the camera decided to take multiple shots, we made multiple faces. We ended the day with a family night lesson discussing friendship and how to deal with people you are getting to know, and then a couple of Easter messages about the Savior.  It was a beautiful day.

Coloring Eggs

After a long morning and afternoon of volleyball, we were able to finally get some egg coloring in.  When I asked the girls which Easter traditions they wanted to keep up with this year (they are 11 and 13, and I didn't know if they wanted everything), they said, "All of it!"  So we colored our eggs.  Grandpa was napping during the process, but we caught him for a photo before the girls were done.  The eggs turned out nicely, and I was happy we could get it done.  Our local farm stand had some lovely strawberries, and we cut some up and enjoyed them for a snack before bed.  Have you dipped strawberries in Nutella yet?  It's divine!

Volleyball Morning

We were up bright and early for Heather's games today.  The tournament was local and since Grandpa Ron was here, he came for a bit to watch Heather.  The team was rather out of sorts today and only won one of their three matches, but it's always fun to watch.  Hopefully they'll be back on next month!

Building for Real

Our daughters LOVE MineCraft.  It is all the rage, and I have to say that the concept is great.  The kids can uses resources available to build houses and farms, and raise farm animals and crops.  They can mine for minerals and gems as well, and the whole thing is very creative.  We laughed when we first saw it because the graphics are so 80's pixel style.  But they love it.  The downside is that they can spend hours, and hours, and hours on this computer game.  On Friday, a non-school day for us, Heather and Jenna had spent a few hours playing on MineCraft when suddenly Jenna came and asked for the Lincoln Logs and blocks.  She and Heather got them out and started building.  Building for real is right up Kelly's inner-boy alley, and he joined in.  The fun continued later in the evening when Sarah came to spend the night.  She and Jenna built a log cabin and block tower together, and then had fun destroying the tower.  Even when the computer games are educational and have a great concept, I still get a much better feeling when the girls are engaged in play away from the computer.  I have to attribute that good feeling to the Spirit helping me discern between what is good and what is better/best.  I'm so glad my girls were the initiators today.  I hope they have the same feelings and continue to choose this kind of creative play on their own, or at least balance it with the computer play.

Randomness

 Wondering what happened with our grass seed?  This did!

We attended High School orientation this week.  Mom and Dad are not ready to have a high school student.  Just sayin'.

This was an amazing read that made me think a lot about how we look at others versus how the Lord sees them, as well as the amazing miracles that happen when the Lord uses ordinary people to do extraordinary things.  When we have willing hearts, we can be instruments in His hands.

The Fountain Valley Body Works has this quirky smiley face sign that draws the eye which, I'm sure, is the intention.  They change the face seasonally, and we always get a kick out of the way they dress up the face.  

While filling up my car with gas, I spotted this working pay phone.  I had to take a picture because it occurred to me that my kids have probably never seen one, nor do they know what it is used for.  I haven't seen one in a long time, so it seemed like a good idea to capture the image for posterity.  Tee-hee.

Family Time

After Jenna's soccer game, the girls and I went to Target to pick up a few things.  Two requests from the girls were for a bubble blower and a large ball from the ball bin.  They were so tickled to add these things to our cart.  When we got home, we promptly tested out the bubble blower which worked most excellently.  Kelly set up the volleyball net, and we used the big ball to play some funky 'volleyball.'  I love these times with our kids.  My own memories of my parents playing with us are few, but they are imprinted in my brain because they were fun.  Playing a game around the table, taking a walk or going on a vacation with my family was super special.  My girls get time with their mom and dad every week if not every day.  Will they remember the moments as special, unique moments?  Will they assume that's how it is in every family?  Or will they know, as we hope they do, that they were loved and cherished and thoroughly enjoyed by their mom and dad?  I hope above all else that the last question will be a resounding yes because we absolutely cherish and enjoy these girls beyond what words can express.

Soccer & Friends

 Jenna's friend, MacKenzie, came to her soccer game today with Sarah, their mutual friend.  It was so cute to see them so excited to be with each other.  Ava and Grace V. joined in for a picture too.  The girls were all students at Moiola together before the school was closed.  It's so great that many of the girls from Moiola are on the soccer team together even though Jenna has been separated from them at school.  

Seeds and Spring

 3•15•13  Planting grass seeds in containers; Jenna names her Eggbert

 3•20•13  First day of Spring, and the first day our grass seed sprouted

3•20•13  Jenna makes a spring lamb and a egg-shaped marshmallow pop at Activity Days

St. Patrick's Day & Gratitude

The best we could get going for Saint Patrick's Day was two of us wearing some green to church.  I know, right?  I think the Sunday holiday just threw me, and I came up a little short this year.  Oh well.  Heather did back us a cake after church, all by herself, and she decorated it for St. Patrick's Day.  We called it good.  Thanks Heather!

For family night, which we've been doing on Sunday because of Monday night sports, I taught a lesson about gratitude based on Henry B. Eyring's talk, "The Choice to Be Grateful."  He challenged the youth to make a list of 100 things they were grateful for and suggested they accomplish this by using ten categories with ten items in each.  We got out our white board and used categories I had pre-chosen.  Everyone was having fun shouting out their items, and our list filled up in no time.  In December, I had made Gratitude Journals for my girls, but they didn't really take off with the concept right away.  We re-intoduced them pointing out that if we could think of 100 items in one sitting, five a day should be a piece of cake.  I got out the Gratitude Journal I had started in 2008 and read an entry which they enjoyed hearing.  The lesson was a success.  Heather doesn't enjoy writing as much, but she used drawings and speech bubbles for her first entry.  Jenna did the five items and elaborated on two which we had talked about doing if you feel like it.  Her entry astounded me (she wanted me to read it).  I love it when the kids catch on and run with it!

Soccer & Volleyball

 Divide and conquer today! Kelly and Heather were off at 6:00AM and heading out to Mount SAC, and Jenna and I headed to the hills in Newport Beach for a 9:00AM soccer game.  It was cold and foggy outside!  We were done in time to dash up to Heather's second and third games.  We love watching our kids' sporting events.  I love taking pictures, but Jenna's game was a little foggy.  Heather caught me shooting at her game and performed accordingly.  Then she got back to business.

Why I Love Heather

There are many reasons why I love Heather, but here are just a few.  Heather is happy 99.9% of the time.  She does not complain, she smiles and laughs easily, and she bounces around the house doing whatever it is (playing or working) with a happy attitude.  The other thing I love is her sense of humor. She is gifted when it comes to the deeper meaning in literature and in life, but she can be simply silly at any given moment which keeps us smiling.

The top picture shows Heather eating breakfast on a tournament morning...it's really early in the morning, it's cold, and she's happy.  The bottom picture shows some notes I found on my desk while cleaning it off today.  Heather uses our office computer to play games, and apparently she has time to artistically practice her name writing or see humor in the to-do list I left lying there.

I love this girl.

Why I Love Jenna

There are many reasons why I love Jenna, but here are two.  First, she loves to display her work.  In the top picture you see a picture of the Super Shaggy Sandwich she made for lunch on Sunday (3/10) along with her white grape juice spritzer and herself eating her creation.  She sat down in the living room and said, "Mom! Where's your camera? You need to Pin this!"  She meant put it on Instagram, but it was very cute.  She photographed her sandwich, drink and had me take her photo all so we could share it via public media.  She is kind of artistic this way, and I love it.

Another thing I love about Jenna is just when you can't figure out if she's taking information in in general, she notices a detail that lets me know she notices a lot.  On March 13, she noticed that our oven clock read 3:13 PM, and she exclaimed, "It's 3:13 on 3-13!"  We tried to photograph the oven clock, but it switched over to 3:14, so we quick grabbed a screen shot of the calendar on my phone.  This isn't the first time she has noticed detail and frequently notices things from a witty play-on-words in an advertisement to sunsets she runs to tell me about because she knows I'll love them.

I love this girl.