Happy Easter

I know that this is a day late for Easter. But I was very busy that day and didn't get this out til' today. We had a very lovely Easter this year. It was the first Easter that Jack really got what was going on. He was very excited about dying the eggs, which we did on Saturday. Although I think the kids forget every year that you have to wait for the eggs to dye, the dyes are not instant.

{This is what Riian did while waiting for hers to dry}

We ended up with some wonderful eggs and now Nate and I get to eat egg salad sandwiches for the next couple of weeks, which is our favorite part about Easter.

Nate always tells me that I always fix the photos of our kids so that all the dirt and grossness are never visible and that they just aren't "real". So here is a picture of Jack in all his grossness while he was waiting for his eggs to dry

On Sunday we had a wonderful Easter lunch with Shea and her family. Church was very good that day except that I'm surprised that we didn't have a Sunday School or Relief Society lesson on the Resurrection. Riian did give a wonderful talk in Primary about the events leading up to Christs death and resurrection. Although Nate was standing behind her whispering in her ear and she turned around and very audibly told him not to say so much at a time. We had an Easter egg hunt with the kids. We get each of the kids their own color of plastic eggs and tell them that they can only search for and pick up their own color.

Isabelle was also very interested in the big basket that was sitting on the table. Curiosity got the best of her and she was soon stringing plastic grass all over the carpet.

The best part of the day for me was at the very end after all the eggs had been found and the tummies were full of candy. When the guests were gone and it was just us. We found a little bit of time to do this...

This, to me, is what Easter is about. That Christ died and was resurrected for us so that we too may be resurrected and live eternally with our families. There's nothing better then that.

Happy Birthday!!

Yes this little beauty turned 1 today. 1 year of such wonderful smiles and such a sweet baby girl. We actually celebrated yesterday because Cole had his final performance of "School House Rock" We had some wonderful friends over and celebrated both Izzy's birthday and her uncle Berns', whose birthday is on Wednesday. We barbecued, ate lots of food, ate two kinds of cake and played games. But most of all we just laughed.

I actually almost pulled a "worst mom ever" today. At the beginning of the school year I signed up to be Riian's class mom from March-May. Well between my family here all last week and getting ready for Izzy's birthday, I completely forgot that I was supposed to plan a St. Patricks Day party for today. I remembered at about 8:30 this morning. Luckily Riian is in afternoon kindergarten, and luckily the teacher assigns two room moms per session. Unfortunately this other room mom forgot as well. But we managed to pull off a little party. It's a good thing kindergartners love to color and decorate things with stickers.

Speaking of last week. We had a great visit from my mom who was up here because of my cousins wedding. She came Wednesday and left Saturday. On Thursday we went out to lunch and shopping for my sisters birthday. And on Friday we took the kids out of school and went to the Childrens Museum. It is quite the experience. 60,000 square feet of hands on play. They loved all of it, at least all that we saw, we spent about four hours there and still didn't get to play with everything before we had to go eat. They have a special exhibit going on right now that is sponsored by Sesame Street about the human body. It was very neat. My kids especially liked the "Poo factory" and the giant nose that sneezed on you. But my three older kids' favorite part of the museum was the water table. Jack was soaking wet by the time he was finished playing. Isabelle's favorite was the little table that had the trains.

Well I have rambled on enough. I'm sure I may have lost a few of you a few pages ago. But I just gotta end with saying how much we love our little Izzy and how much joy she brings to all of us (well Jack is still trying to figure out what all the fuss is about, although she did get some new toys for him to play with). Happy Birthday Izzy!!!!

I'm Back...

So apparently I am just as bad as online journals as I am real ones. It's been about a month now since I've posted, which you think would mean I have so many things to tell you. But that is not the case. We've pretty much spent the last month sick. Between six people in a household, when one person gets sick, everyone gets sick, and luckily we only get it one at a time, but that also means we are sick for like 6 weeks. But we were still able to have some fun in those weeks.

Nate finally started his new job. He started by flying out to Orlando on the 25th for a conference all his co-workers would be attending. Unfortunately, the conference was not as exciting as he had hoped. Nor is his job right now. He says he never really enjoys the first 6 months of a new job. Where he is training and trying to figure out everything that is going on. Hopefully this will be as good a move as we thought it would be.

Nate's mom came out to visit us for 4 days last week. She arrived Sunday, and then Nate left Monday morning. I was going to plan all these fun things to do with her and the kids, but then the sickness happened. Isabelle ended up catching the same stomach thing that Jack did, but after 6 days of throwing up and diarrhea, I finally took her in. The doctor said she had a pretty severe ear infection in each ear. I guess between all the throw up and poop, I didn't notice the rubbing of the ears. So he gave her a shot, and the rest of that day she was so cranky because her leg hurt so bad. The next day she woke up feeling much better, but Riian was up all night with the stomach stuff. The next day she was felling better, but then I had it. So much for our fun filled visit. Thankfully Anita was here and that was a great help as I was dealing with sick children and sick me. My laundry isn't piled up nearly as high as it should be! I tried to take some pictures of her and the kids, but Cole and Riian are too squirmy and Jack is in a phase where he hates to be photographed. So this is what I was able to get

But after a few days of being sick, everyone was feeling much better and we were finally able to see this again...

On Thursday we left for Durango to visit my mom. She was doing High School Musical so we thought it would be a great time to go visit seeing as my children LOOOVE that musical. It was a great show and trip. Despite Jack deciding to get a cold. We ate lots, played lots of games and had lots of Grandma time, but apparently not enough as my kids are counting the days until Grandma Nisey comes to visit them next Wednesday. This was probably one of the kids' favorites things to do when we went down there...

Grandpa cooks breakfast every morning and the kids, especially Riian, loved to help him. Well that's about it for us these past weeks. I would have loved it to be a little more exciting for you, but that just isn't my real life. I do have cute kids however and I'll leave you with a picture of one