Easter and stuff

On April 10th, Tina called me up and said that I needed to see her hair. I asked her what she did to it and she replied that I would just have to see it in person and that she would be over within the hour. Faith was worried that she dyed it a strange color or cut it super short, but Tina was just freaking out about the adorable highlights that Chelsea put in for her! Of course, because I'm never with it enough to get pictures of everything I want, I don't have one of Tina and her cute hair, but I do have this one of Zach playing football with Christian.

I had to add yet another picture of Dusty because this one turned out so cute!
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Saturday, April 11th was a very busy day. It started at 9 am at the Albertson's Easter candy scramble. They had the 0-3 year olds go first and Buddy completely cleaned up. This was not like the Smith's Easter to-do of my youth where they offered up the crappy candy that didn't sell out of the bins the previous year. I always ended up with a bag of plain hard candy, circus peanuts, and big rectangle gum drops (which I actually enjoyed because we didn't get much candy). Albertson's put out Reece's peanut butter cups & peanut butter eggs, Kit Kats, Whopper Eggs, bubble gum and such!
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Next was the 4-8 year old group. Faith's in here somewhere, searching through the shredded paper for the goodies. She got quite a bit as well, but there were more kids in her age group so her loot was smaller than Christian's.

They both had a fun time there!

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At the last minute we decided to go to the Kaysville City Easter egg hunt that started at 10. Last year it was horrible because they had the kids line up outside the fence of the field, then when the whistle blew they could start entering through the four foot wide entrance. We were late and were at the back of the line, so it took ten minutes for us just to enter the field. By that time, all of the earlier entrants had found every egg! This year they were smarter.

They had the kids all go into their designated field and stand around the perimeter. That way they could all start hunting at once when it started. Tony had Christian and said that the younger kids (with over-eager and rule-breaking parents) started right after they announced the two minute warning, but both our kids came away with plenty of plastic eggs filled with small candy or plastic bugs!

At 11 was Faith's soccer game. She was a little timid at first, but by the end of the game was really getting in there and almost scored a goal!

Christian saw some birds out on the field and wanted some bread to feed to them. I didn't have any on hand and told him so, which led to an hourlong fit of screaming "bread birds!!!"

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At home after the soccer game, I got a picture of the gorgeous blooms on our magnolia bush.
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After getting the kids a quick bath, we got on over to Braegger's for their Easter Egg Hunt & Dinner. Tammy made 14 plastic eggs for each child with their initial on it that they had to find.

It's always a fun challenge to locate them in the groves of scrub oak. Some of the eggs had candy, some had gold dollar coins, and others had slips of paper with prizes on them. When all the eggs were found, we went inside so the kids could collect on those.

They each got two outfits, bubbles, and other treats. Tammy got Faith this shirt since she's so excited to get braces. Man, she doesn't know what she's in for!

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The kids have suckers in their mouths that had bunny nose, cheeks & teeth for the handle. Cute!

Tammy showed Christian how you use Whopper Eggs as lipstick,
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and shared a "blue lips" kiss!

The next day was Easter! Even though we were running a few minutes late, I managed to get this pic of the kids in their Easter duds before 9 am church. Thank you mom for Faith's dress and Tammy for making sure Christian looked extra spiffy!

When we came home from church, we found that the Easter bunny had visited while we were gone. He was one sneaky guy this year--he hid their baskets way up on the plant shelf. Tony had to use the ladder to get them down!

Luckily, the kids found all 27 eggs that the Easter Bunny hid

because they both gave it their best effort. Christian & Faith had been practicing with plastic eggs a few days before by hiding them for each other. :)

Crumpet just watched all the action from her perch on the couch.

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Buddy was amazed by the size of his chocolate bunny

and Faith loved that her Peeps were hot pink--her favorite color.

Here they're displaying some of their finds.

They needed me to blow up their punching balloons right away and ravenously devoured the ears of their bunnies!

Later that afternoon, my mom did her annual jelly bean & Easter gift hunt. Here is the starting with Faith helping her brother strategise where the most candy he could reach could be found.

Faith was most excited to find this lamb Webkinz inside a giant egg with her name on it!

Here's Buddy's candy haul.

And the cousins posing with their matching lambies. I thought it was hilarious that Alaura named hers "Lamb-Bo."

The little boys got dinosaurs that make a chomping sound when you put your finger in its mouth. Sometimes they burp afterwards, you've gotta know that's Christian's favorite part!

We had a wonderful Easter with all of the fun activities, but also with the celebration of the atonement of our Savior, Jesus Christ. He lives!

And since I finally updated with kid pictures, I feel that I can add yet another video!! I've been meaning to post this since I saw it on Good Things Utah the first week of April. Sorry that you have to sit through a commercial to get to the song, but I promise it's worth it!

Sam Payne and Russ Dixon singing "Lullaby"
(no longer available to embed--CLICK HERE)

March into April

Time to play catch-up again! Here's Dusty Kitty getting big (this was taken March 18th).

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On March 21st, it was finally a nice, windy day and we had great success with our kites. When we got to the park, there were probably 25 other kites being flown!

Christian loved holding onto his for awhile, but then he wanted to play on the playground. Faith and Tony kept the kites going for a few more hours (!) and got them so high that they had out the entire spool of string. This was not the wimpy string that came with the kites, oh no, it was a separate spool that Tony bought for each that was much longer. It took Tony and I about 15 or 20 minutes to roll all that string and reel the kites in when we were ready to leave!

I took some of Faith's artwork off the fridge to put in her memory box and wanted to document it here also. Isn't she just the best little artist?


And this one made me laugh. In school they were supposed to make the cabin out of construction paper strips, but Faith had to add some extra flair to it! She made a door that would open, Abraham Lincoln, his mailbox (which opens and has a little pocket to hold mail), and a tiny envelope. When she got home and was showing it to me, she decided that there needed to be a mail carrier to deliver the mail, and she made him riding a bike because she knew cars hadn't been invented yet! The bike basket also has a pocket that holds the mail. I digitally labeled everything for your convenience :D

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Christian took this photo and I posted it to document Tony's new facial hair style--the "soul patch".

On April 1st, we didn't do much by way of April Fools pranks, but I did make Christian a turkey/tomato/spinach sandwich wrap for lunch. He enjoyed the heck outta that thing!

That night we went over to Joy's house for a homemade sushi night! Jordan was out of town for a business trip, so Tony wasn't too sad to skip it and stay home with Christian who was having a really late nap. Joy showed me how they make their own take on the California roll:

on seaweed sushi wraps she puts mayo, sushi rice (short grain rice cooked, then mixed with sushi rice vinegar), imitation crab, and cucumber and avacado cut in rectangular sticks.

She then rolled it tightly on the mat and sliced it. Before you eat it, you dip it in Kikoman soy sauce and then in toasted sesame seeds. I didn't know if I liked the flavor of the seaweed at first, but it grew on me and I really liked these rolls!

Faith and Sierra, after enjoying their dinner (that Sierra can put away sushi rolls like you wouldn't believe!!), ran around like crazy kids. Thanks for the fun girls' night, Joy!

April 5th was Noah's third birthday and Sarah threw a Thomas birthday party for him at my mom & dad's. Here they are playing "pass the Thomas" for a chance to win a striped engineer hat. (The kids LOVE that Eric's a good sport and always joins in on the kiddie games!)

They all ended up winning at some point! Here's Eric rocking his,

and my kids looking adorable in theirs.

They also played "pin the number on Thomas"

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and a relay of sorts where the little kids were train cars and they raced to shake (Brendon)Sir Topham Hat's hand. Christian got confused about where to run to and took off down the sidewalk! He finally responded to our calling and turned around after he got a couple of houses down the block.

On the 8th we had Ann & Natalie and the kids over for an Easter party. The kids first made cake pops. Instead of the cake & frosting mix, I food processor-ize a package of Oreos, then mixed in a block of cream cheese.
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They were so yummy! Here is Faith showing off her creations,

and Maddie assisting Christian with his.

They turned out so cute!

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Next, I had the kids put together some felt finger puppets that looked like bunnies and chicks, but had egg shaped bodies. Moms had to help a bunch (sorry moms!), but the kids loved the finished product!

Poor Brody thinks that most of our craft projects are too young or "girlie" for him, so he hangs out with the toys or just playing with Hunter while we do them.

I even had a mom craft this time--we made plastic egg wreaths!

After Faith took that picture, Christian wanted to take some, too. He got this great, albeit close-up, picture of Kynan.

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Then it was Ky's turn and he got this super-attractive shot of Christian! We had such a fun time playing and visiting.

The next day we had over my friend Brandy with her daughter Kelsie and twin boys Bridger & Garret. First we colored Easter eggs. Brandi's boys were so quick at egg dying, they loved plopping the egg into a color, pulling it out and moving on to the next egg. Christian, on the other hand, took 10 minutes to dye one--dipping it partially into one color, turning it, then putting another part into another color. It took forever, but his eggs did turn out awesome!

Then the kids decorated egg-shaped creamy Jello Jigglers with frosting.

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The boys all did big mountains of pastel colored frosting which reminded me of your windshield when you go through the carwashes that have the pink, yellow and baby blue foam soap :)

The girls took their time and turned theirs into masterpieces. We had a great time with Brandi & her family, we hope to get together with them soon!

On the evening of April 9th, the kids enjoyed some cantaloupe after their bath.

They were eagerly awaiting a visit from the Easter bunny! Here are some of their cute eggs. (By the way, Christian tried really hard to hold his towel closed and showcase his eggs at the same time, but it was too hard and I guess he just decided "what the heck!" Luckily I edit all these pics before posting!)

I know I'm a bit video happy today, but there may be one or two people left in the world who didn't see a clip from "Britain's Got Talent" this week on a news/talk/entertainment show. I love the simple underlying message of not judging a book by its cover, and Simon's reaction is priceless:


Susan Boyle Stuns Crowd with Epic Singing - Watch more Funny Videos

This reminded me of another performance a few years ago:


Phone Salesman Amazes Crowd - Watch more Funny Videos

(If you'd like to watch them in high quality, click here for Susan Boyle and here for Paul Potts on YouTube. Currently embedding is disabled on these.)

I saw this on Ikeagoddess's blog and, although it starts out pretty slow, ends up being kind of a fun Twilight parody:

WARNING: this post features pictures of hot abs!!

I want to preface this by saying that I'm not a huge Robert Pattinson fan--he is not Edward from the Twilight books, in my mind. That being said, my heart skipped a beat when I saw this poster for New Moon on Rachel's blog:

I've since learned that it's not the one put out by the film company (theirs is just the bottom fourth of it), but photoshopped together by a fan! I will concede, now that I've seen the movie twice, Robert is looking better and better to me :)

Of course he's still not at the top of my "vampire hotties list". I definately have a penchant for bad boy, bleached blondes after becoming enraptured with Spike (James Marsters) from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel TV series' many moons ago (and yes, I did enjoy James in the Twilight movie).

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And although Angel wasn't as hot as Spike in my book, this picture of David Boreanaz certainly sizzles--am I right, girls?!!?

And since this has started out as a "hot guys I've been noticing lately" post, lets keep it going with some more eye candy! This is Ryan Conklin from the latest season of The Real World. A cutie, great singer/songwriter/guitar player, and soldier (who already spent a year in Iraq before the show, who just got called back for another deployment there).

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Because he looks so young (he's 24 now but was only 19 or 20 when in Iraq before), he reminds me that our babies are across the sea risking their lives for us and that absolutely breaks my heart. Whatever your political views, lets work on getting these heros back home!!!!!!!

I haven't seen him in the Sex and the City movie (& don't plan to since I've never had an interest to even see the series), but French actor Gilles Marini sure has been heating up Dancing With the Stars lately! Check out his Samba, and especially this week's Tango for proof of this.

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Jonathan Rhys-Meyers is certainly a sexy Henry VIII in the Showtime series The Tudors,

this season he even has a menacing goatee! Which vampire character could we petition for him to be cast as in one of the upcoming Twilight movies????

And, since I'm me, I have to throw in one baffling, eclectic choice: Russell Brand. Trust me when I say that it's only safe to watch American television interviews with him, and not his BBC stand-up specials! Because he was politically insensitive and also made some snide remarks about the Jonas Brothers' promise rings, I was one of the few who really enjoyed his hosting the MTV Video Music Awards last year.

Lastly, I just happened across this pic of Christain Bale and felt that any post of hot guys would be incomplete without him!

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Sorry mom, I know this is far from your favorite type of post (which is chuck full of wholesome pictures of your grandchildren)--I'll get another one of those up soon, I promise!

And in conclusion, speaking of cravings, Tony and I have been eating healthy and excersising a lot these past 3-4 weeks and are losing some weight! Officially, Tony's lost 12 lbs. and I've lost 12, yay us!!! Still, I just had to post this darling idea and beg my friends and/or family to make them with me soon (and then take them all away so I don't eat them):

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They're cakeball pops from Bakerella's awesome blog (see posts from March 25-April 1 for how-to's).