Feeding

... the chickens.

Logan got to feed the chickens and gather the eggs this morning.

Too bad they aren't our chickens, right? 
NEXT YEAR!

The Layton girls spent the night at our house last night while their parents were gone. So in the morning we got to go feed their dogs and chickens. We should have only needed to drive to their house 1 time, but....

TAKE 1: At 7:15am Emma and Lacey informed me the girls accidentally left their backpacks at home. So I drove the jr high girls to Lacey's to get her back pack on the way to school.

TAKE 2: At 7:55am I left with the elementary school kids to take them to the Laytons to feed the chickens, the dogs and get Brenna's backpack. But we couldn't find Brenna's backpack... and then we realized after we left that we forgot to feed the dogs, ha ha.

TAKE 3: So after I drove Logan and Lily to their school (fingers crossed Logan got there in time for his turn to lead the skip counting) and Brenna to hers.... Sophie and I went back to the Laytons to feed their dogs. 

The girls thought it was the funnest thing ever to have a sleep over
on a school night! 

Even if they did have to get up at 5:45am
to read scriptures with us... ha ha.

Easter

{6 layer RAINBOW jello above... like Bruce's mom makes... And the sweetest part: Lily climbing on the counter to help me with each layer. She was the Jello-Pourer-Mixer! Every few hours on saturday her and I would remember to add the next color.}

UKULELES for EASTER!!

{Family lessons starting this week}

An Easter Morning Music Video...

{ha ha, not really. Just Logan asked me to film him playing his new favorite song he's learning... but I mostly walked around and filmed all the Easter basket aftermath.}

 Making breakfast/Dyeing easter eggs above.

This Easter I was very aware that Ashlin is a senior, and almost 18. I kept thinking how sad that its our last holiday before she's a legal adult.  So I dreamed of dressing my 4 girls matching for church. ha ha. I actually just bought a spool of cute pink polka dot ribbon and informed them that they could wear anything they wanted but they had to all wear their hair up in a bun with matching ribbon.

They were so stinking cute, the little girls loved it.

Ashlin is such a good sport, always, I love her.

Ages:↑17-7-3-13↑

 Church services were so beautiful.

I cried through most of it, the music, the speakers, so inspiring.

Then we spent most the day with my fun family.

And friday night we had a rockin ward Easter Egg Hunt/picnic.

I love our primary president!{below}

I also love that its not me any more. ha ha.

On Easter morning a little after we opened baskets, Sophie ran in and showed me, "Look what Santa brought me!" ha ha.

The night before I started boiling SIX DOZEN eggs to dye for Easter, then forgot about it. Two hours later... I was like DARN IT, the EGGS! Grrrr. We still dyed them. They were just a little beige, ha ha.

To end the day I laid in bed with Emma and Logan, 

and we sang our favorite primary songs.  

Lily's strings

I finally caved in.

After Lily begged me every day for weeks.

I don't know anything about string instruments.

She seems too little to start lessons, 1st grade!

We will see how this goes...

Hooray, a Vernon-Violin-er.

Good Friends

Written on our entry sign below:

☀Welcome to AZ Paul & Jessica☀

Many moons ago we were in Vet School in Colorado for 4 years. We had the closest friends there that we cherish. We hadn't seen Paul and Jessica in 14 years, but they came from Logan, Utah to Arizona over Spring Break!! So the Statens came up from Tucson and the Hunts came over from Mesa for a... 

This is how the reunion went: Right when Paul & Jessica walked in the door we mixed all the Hunt, Vernon and Staten children around (there are 15 kids between us)... and they had to go through them and guess which were Hunt, Staten or Vernon kids... ha ha.

Four Veterinarians below.

It did not feel like 14 years had passed. 

We all laughed and had fun, just like old times.

Such great people. So good, so humble. 

I wish we could still all be neighbors. 

But this reunion was also very tender. We sat around that table and talked about really serious things. Paul was diagnosed with a rare cancer a few years ago. They went through a scary difficult year of surgery, chemo & radiation, during which time his chances of surviving were very small. The good news is at this time he has no sign of cancer. We all had been praying for them. It was miraculous for him to have beat the odds, and we are so happy for their family. 

However if it comes back, he has already had a lifetime of radiation, and there is nothing more they can do. He really said to us, 

"So we just are thankful for the years that we have together". 

We sat around once again remembering how fragile life is. 

I am so thankful Bruce and I were surrounded by such great people those early years in our marriage. Our dearest friends were couples who truly love God, their families, and work hard. What a wonderful foundation that was for our life.

ZOO Break

Sometimes its really nice to hang out with just our family. The week before Spring Break, Sophie's preschool did a field trip to the zoo. I felt a little bad, but we skipped it. I thought to myself, we have not gone to the zoo as a family in years... so if I am going there, I would rather go with ALL of my kiddos.

So, Tuesday of Spring Break

we took all our kids to the... 

We spent 5 hours there.

Everyone loved the hands-on "Sting Ray" exhibit. Though Emma, Lily and Sophie were all too chicken to touch them. Not Dallin. We had to keep showing him the sign that said NOT to grab their tails.

FAMILY CAROUSEL RIDE

The kids rode the carousel while we sat at our shady table and ate the yummy picnic lunch we brought. Hooray for homemade lunches with circus cookies!

Emma took the smoochie picture.

After the 3 older girls posed like flamingos above,

↑I looked over and Sophie was posing like one too. ↑

CAMEL RIDE

for Lily & Logan

ZIP LINE

for Emma & Dallin

They updated the farm since we were there last!

Normally I hate the petting zoo, but now its cute. 

Especially milking the cow....

I wonder where Sophie (above) 

learned her smile from (below)...

Hooray for a 30 minute train ride! (above)

We figured out that we have never gone to the zoo with just our family.

It was a great day. I was asking everyone their memories from the zoo... Lily said the zebra's, Sophie said the sting rays.... and 
Bruce said, "that is was expensive".
ha ha.