Easter 2013

I have to say it's been quite a week.  My house is a mess.  I don't think I can see the carpet in the boys room there's so many toys and clothes on the floor.  I've been way to busy to really deep clean.  Parties, egg hunts, birthday cakes, and Easter shopping.  It's all okay though I'd rather party and shop than clean any day.  It gives me a good excuse to not worry about it. How do people with kids have spotless houses anyways?  Here are some highlights of Easter this year.  We attended the annual Mower family Easter egg hunt.  The kids got to find eighteen eggs.  Their baskets can't even hold that many eggs, it was crazy!  They had a total blast finding all the eggs, and it was so much fun.  My camera didn't have it's memory card in it, so sorry no pictures.  I do however have some photo's of the kids Easter morning with their baskets.  It looks like the Easter bunny found our house again this year.  The kids got some new sandals, sticker books, silly puddy, some swim floaters and of course a ton of candy.  I'm almost sick of even looking at the candy it's everywhere!  The kids also each got new Sunday clothes.  Kirk and Benjamin got white shirts, ties, and slacks.  Kate got a new dress.  She actually picked it out herself.  She found this one at Costco, and talked me into it.  I'm glad she did, it's probably my favorite Easter dress yet.  I love how bright it is.  Perfect for Kate.  Jence got a "new" (passed down from Ben) sail boat sweater.  Here are the photo's enjoy.

 I have to say It's been pretty busy but I'd like to devote a few lines to state how grateful I am for the Savior Jesus Christ.  This time of year we celebrate our Savior with our families.  I just want to give my kids and husband a big hug, and thank my Father in Heaven that he sent his son.  Because of this great sacrifice we will be together forever even after our short experience here in this life.  Life really is a brief moment in the big eternal picture.  We are here, we love each other and then we move on into eternity.  Today I had an extremely touching experience in Sacrament meeting.  The bishop asked a young man with Downs Syndrome to come up to bear his testimony.  If you knew this young man at all you would be so impressed with his deep spiritual maturity, even with his handicaps, he is a spiritual giant.  He stated something that really struck me.  I felt like he summed up Easter completely.  He said that he has felt so much love and kindness.  Truly that is what Easter is all about.  The love that God has for us to send his perfect son to die for us.  The kindness Jesus Christ shows us, his unyeilding love and patience with us.  It was a simple testimony, but shared with such perfect sincerity, and humility.  Love and Kindness is what it's all about.  Really the true essence of life.  I'm very confident when we review our lives in heaven we won't be viewing our money, cars, or accomplishments.  What we will remember is the love we felt for each other, and the kindness we shared with each other.  May we remember the reason we are here on the earth on this beautiful Easter day.  May we remember our perfect Savior and Redeemer.  His example of love and kindness he has for us. 

Here is our photo shoot I did after church.  Best time to pictures is either before or after church when the kids are already dressed up.

 I only got one good shot of Jence.  Dan had to hold him and tickle him to smile.  He is a mover, most of my photo's were a bit blurry.  This one was perfect though, totally Jence 100%.  Last year's Easter photo Jence was bald, as you can see, he has plenty of hair now.  It's so beautiful I hate to cut it.  Maybe when he's two I'll have the nerve to cut those beautiful curls. 

Our neighbor was nice enough to snap this one of the family.  It's actually really good family shot.  Usually the family pictures are so hard to get to turn out good. 

Benjamin is 4

Okay he's not officially four yet, his real birthday is on Easter this year.  This is the first year that his birthday has fallen on Easter.  It's going to be a pretty special day for him.  I was just looking at photo's of him as a baby.  I can remember what a good natured baby he was.  He was the most friendly little guy.  He would smile at everyone.  I can remember he would pick out one person in a crowd, or at church, or at a restaurant.  He would sit and smile at them until they would finally acknowledged him and smile back.  We decided to Celebrate his birthday today.  We started out with taking cupcakes into his preschool class and I was able to do a spotlight on him.  It was really fun to be able to see him in his class.  After preschool we had a huge pirate birthday party for the little sunbeams in his church class, and also a couple of his cousins.  It turned out great.  I reused all of the decorations from Kirk's pirate party which he had when he turned four.  It's strange because it seemed like I had just barely hung up all the pirate pictures and the other decorations.  Crazy how a few years feel like just a few weeks.    Here

 Jence loved the kiddie pool.

are some pictures.  Some of the highlights of the party were when the kids "Walked the plank".  They jumped off of our ottoman into a kiddie pool full of balloons, surprisingly the balloons didn't pop.  Dan's father came at the end dressed as a pirate. Ben was scared to take a picture with him.  After we took some photo's with the "pirate", he took them all on a treasure hunt.  I buried a treasure chest in the rubber mulch in the back yard.  Inside the treasure chest were the little take home treat bags.  We also made a couple of crafts, and played pass the seashell, and played a crocodile ring toss.  We still have more celebrating to do on Easter.  I'm going to make him some kind of Easter birthday cake.  For now Happy Birthday Buddy!

The big 7

Last week Kirk turned seven.  I've been reading Kirk the Hobbit from my kindle and he's been enjoying it so much that I decided to buy him his own illustrated copy.  He was pretty excited.  I like to coordinate the kid's cakes around their party theme.  I thought a cute Hobbit cake to go along with his book would be fitting.  This cake took me most of the day to whip out.  I have to admit that it turned out better than I was expecting it to.  It's probably one of my favorites, recreating the shire was actually really fun.  

Kirk got the Lord Of The Rings book series, the Hobbit, Helm's deep lego set, a beach towel, some baseball gear, and some clothes.  Then the next day he had his friend's party.  I don't know why every year I talk myself into doing another friends party.  Last year I swore that I'd go to the every other year thing.  I told myself I'd just do parties on the even birthdays.  But alas I came up with the cutest party theme, and went for it.  This year Kirk had a camping party.  It was one of the more fun parties I've ever thrown.  I borrowed a canvas from my friend and rigged it up like a tent in our living room.  Then I had my husband set up a tent outside also.  For the table decorations I just went to our local park and picked up pine cones, and pine needles that had dropped on the grass.  I figured I was doing the city a service to help clean up the some of the dropped needles.  Then I went to the fabric store and bought three yards of burlap fabric, cut it in half, and overlapped it on my table and used it as the table cloth.  For plates I used old pie tins,  When the kids arrived they played in the back yard until we were ready for the hike.  We have a fun mountain trail behind our home.  We took the boys on a walk up to the stream. 

There is snow in the background, but it was an unusually warm day so the boys didn't even need jackets.  The weather couldn't have been more perfect! Then the boys headed back down, and they helped Dan start the fire in our fire pit while I got dinner ready.  The boys then ate.  We had pigs in a blanket(or kids in a sleeping bag), baked beans, sour worms, fruit, and chips.  Then we sang happy birthday and ate some mini cupcakes.  I did mini one's this year to try something different.  I found that there was less wasted half eaten cupcakes.  Then it was back outside for more outdoor fun.  I had some campfire games and songs, and stories planned, but found out that they just wanted play the whole time.  We roasted marshmallow's and ate smore's, and then it started to get cold and  I pulled out the coats.  I found these really great camouflage coats at Walmart on clearance.  I was looking for a cheap T-shirt at first, and couldn't find any.  Then I spotted the clearance coats.  I'm not kidding, just $3.00 and no change each!  They had the perfect sizes, and just enough for all the boys.  It was the best find!  They played until 8:00 when their parents came to pick them up. Then the boys left with a little camping stick with a handkerchief tied with a few goodies inside.  It was a tremendous success.  Boys love hiking, the outdoors, food, and fire, this party covered all of the above.  I'm tired now, and I'll be doing more party planning in the next couple of weeks when Benjamin celebrates his Birthday.  We love you Kirk, hope your seventh birthday was one to remember!  

Benjamin's heart

You know the old saying "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach".  Well I guess that's true for little boys also.  Today Benjamin sweetly asked if he could have Ramen Noodles.  I told him sure and he said "Mommy I love you a bunch, and I love daddy a little bit".  Wow all it took was some roman to be the favorite parent for the day!  I just love this age, little things make them so pleased and happy.  I'm enjoying it while it lasts.  Before I know it he'll be a teenager and asking for the keys to the car.