Teague's trip

Teague got to take a special trip.  Here he is all ready to leave Canada.

Mommy was his chaperone of course.

The trip was so he could be the Ring Bearer at Scott and Lynn's wedding.

We stayed at Gramma & Grampa's.

We got to visit Uncle Coleman & Auntie Mandy,

Uncle Jared & Auntie Erika,

Auntie Devin & Uncle Kris,

and of course, Lily & George.

We sure missed Uncle Brent, Aunt Whitney, and their fam, but cousin Jackson was just born the week before!

The week went way too fast and it was time to say goodbye.  Gramma hated to see her boy go!

Getting ready to leave the Las Vegas desert, we'll be back this summer!

At the Races

These 3 boys are peas in a pod!  They had so much fun building this race track and changing it all around with bridges and tunnels, then watching the cars fly around it.

Best Friends Forever!

Meet Jackson

My newest nephew was born yesterday on his Gramma's birthday and named after his Grampa.  I can't wait to hold him and smooch those sweet cheeks!

 

Getting loves from his big brother and sister, so sweet!

New Beginnings

Even though I went to New Beginnings six times in my youth, and five times as a leader, this was my first time going as a mother, so it was definitely the most special!  Noé gave a talk on Good Works and all of the girls did a great job with the program.  Noé's favorite was Chloe's talk about having faith (in the Lord), trust (in yourself), and pixie dust to take care of the rest.  I'm sad I didn't get pics from Kaleb's Priesthood Preview, but I didn't take these pics either- thank you facebook!  Here are 3 of the 4 leaders and 10 of the 20 young women (one of my darling CTR 4's is standing in for a camera shy Laurel, so cute).

Noé and I LOVED the rainbow Jell-O salad, fruit kebabs, rice krispy treats, cupcakes, skittles, and napkins.  Rainbows are just fun!

April Fool's

Noé made a plate of "brownies" for her teacher today, "brown e's"- ha, I love it!  I asked her where she got the idea and she told me from Pinterest.  A girl after my own heart.

Today I am taking down our St. Pat's décor and putting up our Easter stuff.  Our neighbor put hers up on Sunday.  I just wish her Easter bunny was a chocolate bunny instead of a snow bunny!  Oh well, all of our snow played into Leonard's April Fool's joke this morning.  After all the kids were up and eating breakfast, he told them it was too bad they weren't still in bed since it was a snow day.  He got them good!  Yes, we still have mountains of snow, but the icebergs are *starting* to melt (it will probably take a month before we are snow free, but here's hoping we'll have warm weather soon!).

April Decor

I probably have too many Easter decorations, but since it is the most important holy day to us why not make it a big holiday?  Plus, I am a child from the 80's and I adore pastels!

The tablescape is my favorite.  These eight pictures of Christ's life by Simon Dewey are so beautiful to me!  I bring them out at Christmas too.  Even though we have snow outside, I still have tulips inside (artificial of course, but they still make me happy).

 

I love our four-day Easter weekend in Canada.  On Friday we usually clean house and prepare.  On Saturday the Easter Bunny visits us with fun baskets filled with goodies and we dye Easter eggs.  On Sunday we worship at church and usually have a new Sunday best outfit.  After church we have a fancy dinner and Easter egg hunt.  On Easter Monday we just enjoy one another's company.  This year Teague's birthday falls on Easter Monday, so we'll get to celebrate him.  I love Easter!  I love Spring!  (I hope spring will come soon.)

Shopping Spree

I took Kaleb shopping a few days later with his birthday money and he stocked up on some media entertainment.

 

  He got the entire Septimus Heap book series,

Three new Wii games,

 

A new Imagine Dragons CD (since his old one got scratched) and a new game- Eleminis,

 

And some more books- how to make potholders (His fingers are always busy.  I often tell him he should become a surgeon, he has the brains and dexterity for it.), a mixed puzzle book, and a new journal to record his dreams in.

 

When he was finished shopping he had $0.15 left.  He gave me the nickel and he took the dime and we made wishes in the mall fountain.  Afterwards I treated him to a Cinnabon too.  It's always fun to go shopping!

Fashion Show

Usually, the kids like to spend their birthday money on family outings- to the movies, out to dinner, etc.  However, this year I have big 12 year-olds who wanted to go shopping for themselves.  I couldn't blame them, shopping is fun!  I took Noé out and she got a whole new wardrobe.  She needed new LONG skirts and dresses for church and she got a few really cute ones. 

This long black skirt is perfect for year-round wear.

(Target)

 

This pink and blue striped one is lovely.

(Target)

This rainbow dress is probably my favorite.

(The Children's Place)

I also adore these floral jeggings.

(The Children's Place)

She has several shirts from Justice (thanks to the hand-me-downs of our awesome neighbors), but I could never bring myself to buy her any.  I mean $27 for a t-shirt, are you kidding me?  Luckily, they were having a 40% off, with an additional 20% off sale (basically 52% off the original price), so she got this cute monkey shirt for just under $13.

(Justice)

A new swimsuit with little shorts.  The two came together and the shorts were marked as a 10/12, the suit as a 14/16- ugh!  I would take them back to exchange, but all the other suits in this style were 7/8s.  She will probably fit into it properly in 4 years, which is how long it's going to take for all of our snow to melt anyway.

(Target)

The pajamas are also hand-me-downs (so cute), but she bought this cute little sleep mask and wears it every night.

(Dollarama)

 

I think she made some great purchases (including rubber band refills for her rainbow loom bracelet maker) and afterwards I treated her to a Cinnabon.  I like this new era of shopping with my girl!

Men at Work

Leonard is a great cook and makes dinner at least half of the time (yes I know I am a LUCKY lady!).  Kaleb also enjoys cooking and has become our Saturday morning palachinkas (aka crepes) maker.  It looks like we now have a new man joining our cooking team- Teague.

Before he started school he was my assistant cupcake maker.  But last night was the first time he asked to help with dinner.  Leonard was thrilled with his desire and hoped it would help him eat dinner better (he is our pickiest eater, ugh!).  They made a delicious hot beef and pasta on Caesar salad.  Teague ate some of the salad, lots of the pasta, but alas he wouldn't try the beef, sigh.  Maybe if he keeps on cooking, he'll start eating better!

Patty's Pies



We celebrated Pi Day (3/14) and St. Patrick's Day (3/17) a little belated and together this year.  Here we all are sporting our green!  Outside it still looks like we're living inside a snow globe.  I really can NOT wait for spring to come!

 

I can't wait for next year to get a pic of Baby Girl in this little hat!

In honor of our green holiday I made a Pistachio Pudding Pie.  I made up the recipe myself.  It probably should have had a graham cracker crust, but I love pasty crust so that's what I did.  I just whipped up a box of pistachio pudding using half of the milk and substituting the other half with sour cream.  I topped it off with coconut cream (like I made for Noé's birthday party) and sprinkled crushed pistachio's on top.  It was pretty tasty.

We did eat dinner first, two chicken pot pies.

We may have had an extra dessert.  I love me some peach pie!  I only wish I had put an extra crust on top of the chicken pot pies and this peach pie.  Like I said, I LOVE pastry crust!

I think vanilla ice cream is my new favorite flavor of ice cream.  It's because I serve it with other yummy desserts- pie, cake, brownies, cookies, etc!