Happy Birthday Elijah and Richie

We celebrated Elijah and Richie's birthday yesterday at Grandpa, Grandma and Aunt Tammy's house. We had a yummy dinner and then opened presents. Elijah got some fun gifts from everyone. Aunt Desi and Uncle Nick took Elijah for a birthday date on Saturday since they wouldn't be able to make it. It was a great birthday weekend. I also taught my Mia Maids class at church. The theme this month was the apostasy and the restoration. I focused on the restoration and genealogy as we will be doing some researching of family names at our mid week activity. My mom forwarded me some neat stories of my 4th great grandpa that I shared with the class. I learned he was actually given the priesthood by Joseph Smith.

After Mike left for school this afternoon Brandon and Elijah wanted to take some pictures. I told them to pose for different expressions. Some of them were pretty funny:) Fish Face Shy face I'm going to get you face Dad Face Mom Face I'm going to Disneyland Face

Elijah is turning 7!

We got to take donuts to Elijahs class this afternoon in celebration of his birthday on Sunday. He got to pick 3 helpers to pass out the treats, napkins and clean hands. When the kids sang happy birthday to Elijah he stood up in front of the class. He wouldn't crack a smile for anything. All the kids were very polite and came up to me afterwards to tell me thanks for bringing the treats. Tonight we had Elijah's friend birthday. We played about 4 games and then after pizza and presents we had a brownie bar. The kids had lots of fun decorating the brownies and putting all sorts of candy on top. I think Elijah had a really good time.

Goodbye Pacific Coast

Mike sold his Honda Pacific Coast bike tonight. He has been trying for a few weeks now, since he bought his new CBR. He finally had to lower the cost to get some bites on the bike but we are grateful that he was able to sell it. We have some good memories of the bike. My favorite, of course, is when Mike and I took it along the Oregon Coast and went all the way down to Coos Bay, OR and all the way back up to Astoria. It was super fun-pretty darn cold that first morning but oh so worth it. It was kind of bittersweet seeing the bike riding off into the sunset.

Birthday Gift

My cousin Taylor and his wife Branda had their first baby a couple weeks ago so I wanted to do something special for them. Mike helped me by embroidering the baby's name on a blanket. I think it turned out pretty cute. It had a little giraffe print around the edge of the blanket. We also bought a pack of onesies that had the same print. Welcome to the family Elsie! I also wanted to post my post conference experience that I did with the kids. I ended up using an idea off pinterest that involved candy. I had several different types of candy and put different words on the jars with topics that may be covered in the conference talks. I then put the jars on the tv stand and then when the boys heard the word or the topic that coordinated with the candy, the boys got to take a piece. There were a couple times where one boy would hear one word while another would hear something else. I think the boys liked it. I even let them help pick out the candy so they would want to listen and get the candy. Last of all, I got myself an early birthday present. I had a coupon for bracelet that I saw online. It is my Alma Matter!

Happy Easter

Well I was just to tired to get my easter pictures up yesterday. We had a great Easter and had lots of fun spending time with family for an easter egg hunt and dinner/fhe later in the day. We had really nice talks and musical numbers in church. It was such a gorgeous day here in Washington, such a fitting way to celebrate easter and reflect on the Savior and the wonderful Atonement that is ours to take advantage of. I'm so grateful for my Savior and for the sacrifice He made for me. Mike gave a wonderful family home evening lesson on the Resurrection and the Atonement. I love my family so much and I'm thankful for the knowledge that I have of what is to be if we live worthy. Our Savior knows us and loves us and wants us to come back to Him. He hasn't left us here alone to find our way back. He has left us so many tools and people to help us know what we need to do. When we need help, we only need to ask. I'm so excited for general conference this next weekend and to see our prophet, President Monson, and all of our other leaders who have counsel for us. We need to ready ourselves and be open to receive the counsel given to us by our wonderful leaders. I have found some really cute ideas on getting kids ready for conference lately on Pinterest and how they can get the most out of conference and the talks, so I'm excited to try those ideas out. (I will post later with what I actually use and how it works out) Now onto some pictures: Dallas had a runny nose, sneezing, etc..so he stayed home from church and then Cody changed before we could get the picture but here we are:) Easter egg hunting at Grandpa and Grandma Stones and Aunt Tammy's house:) Mike leaving this morning for school-new semester!