April stuff

Bryce is quite the amazing young guy. All on his own, he cut out each of these letters and taped them on my door. He has such a tender, beautiful heart and the best hugs!

During spring break, we followed Sterling on a one-day trip to Beaver. Lots of time in the car. But the time was together so it was worth it. On the way, we stopped at a turkey farm. Pretty awesome. 

We had two cousins get married in April. Stuart and Ben. The kids were able to take a day off of school and attend Ben's wedding at the Payson Temple. We had fun at the luncheon reception place with our Ellsworth cousins before everyone else arrived. 

We also got to visit with Shelby Bradshaw and her mom, who were visiting their family and cousin who was competing in the Miss Eagle Mountain contest. It was a fun show and even more fun to visit with friends.

On a Sunday afternoon, before going to dinner with family, Bryce kicked his soccer ball and hit the front window. Luckily its a double pane window and he only broke the outer pane but sheesh. That's a sickening feeling to hear shattering glass.

Rachel has been texting my mom a lot. It just cracks me up. And the gifs take it to a whole new level. 

And here is some video of Syd's mad dancing skills. The first part is Syd and company doing Just Dance on the computer. The second part is Syd doing homework with Lexi. I'm not sure how much homework got done that day. 

Sydney's final Vball tourney

Final volleyball tournament of the club season. It was a two-day tourney and the girls played really well!

The first day of pool play, they won every single game!

The second day, they won half but every game was sooo close! 

Unfortunately, they were first out in the gold bracket play. But they played well and it was so fun to watch them play teams they matched in skill so well.

Here's some video footage. Its kind of long at 4 1/2 minutes. And so fun to watch.

Funny story: I was getting something out of the van (through the side door) and put my hand in the open passenger door to push myself up and Sydney closed the door at that exact moment. Only I didn't realize it. She screamed and opened the door and I felt a very small pinch. Looking at my finger, I realized my diamond had taken the majority of impact and smushed my ring into an oval. I think that ring is symbolic of my marriage and family. You can apply all the pressure and it will still be strong and be a protection!

Bryce's 1st grade program

Family of Readers

Best part of the kids getting books for Easter. They read and read and read. I love it!

Also, the other night, I went to tuck in Ray and Mill and found Ray reading her Spanish-English dictionary. 

And Millie reading the Book of Mormon.

I love my little family of READERS!

My Hike: behind Draper Temple

Goodness, it is so beautiful up behind the Draper temple!

We followed a trail (can't remember the name, Corner Canyon?, Traverse Peak?) mostly used by mountain bikes but because it was rainy, the trail was muddy muddy muddy!

Anyway, we followed the trail until it dead-ended at this lake which is actually uglier than this picture shows. Just look at T's face. So we called it good and turned around. 

Look at that mud. Zoom in and look at that mud!

And just look at that view! Hiking behind the temple never disappoints. 

The best part of the hike? Having crazy friends who join in my crazy ideas!

Easter

Our Easter seemed to last a week this year. 

Everything started with a nice easter dinner at G'ma and G'pa's house. Unfortunately it was rainy rainy rainy, so we had the easter egg hunt in the house. And it turned out great! Its always good to shake things up a bit.

Getting instructions. Each child had their own color of egg to search for. 

I participated in the "Lamb of God" production this year and loved every minute. It was hard to leave my family every Sunday night for a 2 hour rehearsal but sooo worth it. And the week of easter we practiced every night. Love Love Love!

The Saturday before Easter we had our annual neighborhood easter egg hunt. I think this is the smallest group we have ever had. That meant LOTS of eggs for everyone. Especially since Nita's kids filled and hid 200 eggs!

This was also Prom Day for Sydney!

While I waited for Syd to come home, I did a little writing and prepped for Easter morning. 

Easter morning we had our special resurrection rolls (like the empty tomb)  and hard boiled eggs (birth and rebirth).

Church was beautiful. The choir sang beautifully. "Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs." Followed by a delicious dinner with my parents and Geoff!

Happy Easter Sabbath, the most joyful day of the year!

Prom

Prom Day!!!

Sydney got a phone call from her date, Evan, the night before wherein he informed her that he had jumped over a car and rolled his ankle. But he was still going to Prom with her. 

Sydney was so funny because she didn't believe him and gave him a real hard time and then found out Evan had her on speaker phone with his family. :)

So Saturday morning, after our neighborhood easter egg hunt, Evan came to pick Sydney up for the day date to the zoo. Lucky for them, the whole neighborhood was still out talking and witnessed the pick up!

When Sydney got dropped off, we jumped into beauty prep mode. She did her hair and make-up herself and did a beautiful job!!!

When she was finished, Sterling took it upon himself to give her a quick dance lesson. 

I love this picture because Sydney is so excited and Sterling looks like he's in a bit of shock!

Evan was a little late arriving and Sydney got a little tired of waiting so she went outside and tossed the football with Sterling and Parker, which was ADORABLE!

The corsage.

The boutonniere. (Totally had to look that word up.)

Evan looks a little nervous about those sharp straight pins heading toward his chest, yes?

And... Syd poked her finger. We should have looked up how to pin a boutonniere on youtube. We all needed help.

And after a few more pictures.....

....they were off to dance the night away!

The cutest part was when Sydney came home she said, "I just want to live this day all over again!"