Easter Pictures

Easter preschool

Preschool was at my house for the week of Easter. We had egg games, decorated bunny baskets, put eggs in a nest (chocolate eggs in a chocolate nest!) and had singing and dancing, of course! Alex and Katelyn are my awesome helpers, couldn't do it without them!

Easter 2011

Grandma and Grandpa Clift came over the day before Easter and we dyed easter eggs. Katelyn and grandpa were the big time dyers, they spent the most time very carefully making designs. I like to buy 5 dozen eggs so that they can all dye as much as they want--but now I'm stuck with all those eggs and it feels like we're eating them for every meal!
After eggs we went out to eat and then for a walk. What a fun day!

Easter morning the kids woke up to Easter baskets. Very simple this year, it seems like the Easter bunny gets simpler and simpler every year, wonder if they've noticed!?

After church we went over to Grandpa Mills' house for an Easter egg hunt and dinner. It was so great visiting, and dinner was delicious!

Spring Piano Recital

This is the first time I've done a spring recital in a long time! Usually life is just too crazy! But I really loved it. More students came than normal, I was only missing 2 families (4 kids). We played potato sack races, spoon and egg (plastic) races, and a couple of little Minute to Win it games. And we had a potluck. I always wish that there were 3 of me when it comes time for a recital. I never get enough pictures, and don't have enough time to visit with parents because I'm playing with the kids!

There are a couple pictures of students that are on my phone and not in this post because I left my camera in Joel's car who I sent off to the store to buy ice. Benjamin performed at his first piano recital, and Alex and Katelyn of course played and did fantastically! I had 3 flute students play. I only got a picture of one of them because one of my flute students I played a flute/piano duet with, and the other student I played a flute/flute duet with. (That was so much fun I really miss playing the flute everyday!)

It was a really great recital, there were all sorts of different genres of music, songs from the radio, songs from movies, classical, romantic, jazz, folk, and more!

Church Easter Egg Hunt

I made him stop to pose for a picture during the egg hunt and he said I was "cramping his style!"

Katelyn opted to just help Ben get eggs this year. I'm not really fond of this growing up thing.

Before the egg hunt.

Joel was in charge of this year's Easter egg hunt at church and I thought we were going to be really stressed about getting it all ready and getting the BBQ ready, but he did a great job delegating, and we had some great people in our ward to a ton of work so it was very enjoyable! Lots of candy, and food and visiting with good friends!

Cute

Mom: "Ben, how come you're so cute!!?"

Ben: "Because you so cute!"

Just melts my heart. All ready a lady's man!

Drive-in

Our friends invited us to the drive-in movies last week, and even though the movie didn't start until 8:00, I managed to get my husband to agree to tag along. The kids had a really fun time and want to only see movies at the drive-in instead of the theaters from now on.

Artichokes

These plants are from our garden last year. They really got HUGE! Last year we got about 2-3 artichokes. This year we've already gotten over 6! These artichokes are the best artichokes ever! (Please excuse the play house that's knocked over, the kids were cleaning it out so they could play with it again.)

Happy Spring!

This is about it for my spring decorations. We are hoping to be moving into a new house in the nearby future, and I'm packing a lot of stuff already and putting it away in the garage, and I just didn't feel like getting all of my spring stuff out. But it is feeling very lovely and springy with less stuff in the house!

Fun lunch

Every now and again the kids and I splurge and go out to eat during the day, it's usually because they've been doing exceptionally well in school and with chores.

And I don't know what is up with this lighting (it is my phone's camera) but Katelyn looks so dang old it's ridiculous!

Beautiful young woman who refuses to listen to me when I tell her to stop growing up.

Handsome young man who is so sweet!

Preschool Field Trip

Benjamin is in a little preschool group where the moms all take turns teaching a week. One of the moms owns a Grocery Outlet and took the little ones on a field trip. They went to the back and watched boxes get loaded with a forklift, boxes get smashed in a machine, went into a walk-in freezer, and even got to help stock shelves. Then they got to load up the conveyor belt with goodies while another child rang them up, then they paid with their "money" that they earned helping out, and got to take home their goodies. It was such a cute field trip! (Alex and Katelyn got to tag along and they were very helpful with all the little ones and they also had a blast!)

Etching Glass

One of our friends got married last month, so for their wedding present I bought a Pyrex dish with a lid and used my Cricut to cut out a stencil of their name with contact paper. I stuck it on to the Pyrex, painted it heavily with etching cream, let it sit for 5 minutes and peeled it off and washed it off with water. So easy, and so cute! I can't wait to do this to our dishes!

Ben's Funny Faces

Benjamin is in to funny faces lately, they crack us all up. He has always been, and continues to be our little class clown. It is so hard to punish him because he has me laughing before I'm through with the punishment. When someone is sad he does whatever it takes to cheer them up. When I'm mad he does whatever it takes to lighten me up--and it most always works. We're going to have to look out for this little charmer!

Rainbow Cupcakes

Make a box of white cake mix. Divide evenly into separate containers (depending on how many colors you're using) Add food coloring, and stir.

Put one spoonful of each color on top of one another in cupcake liners.

Bake according to box directions. Ice.

Serve.

Enjoy!

Joel's Birthday!

Joel turned 35 years old this year!(Granted it was in January!) To celebrate we had pie and presents and surprised him with a bike! (really it was a present for me so that we can have family bike rides!) And then we went to Grandpa Mills' house for a muffin cake (Joel's not huge into cake) and dinner.

We love Joel because he works hard, is extremely patient, easy going, loving, caring, thoughtful, happy, a great husband, a fantastic father and loves to be home with his family!