Easter

We had a good time at the easter egg hunt in town... and even got to meet the easter bunny.

They had a couple additional things to do at the hunt, like this giant blow up slide

 

I was trying to be creative with their baskets so i didn't give them so much candy.  They got those nifty hot dog slicers (that cut them vertically, then in slices, and also have a spot for katsup!  courtesy of wal-mart)  and logan got a little fake razor and shaving cream (below) that he LOVES. I also made them a quiet book- it turned out pretty cute.  I will make a seperate post of that.

 

Here is cute millie in her easter dress. we didn't have any colors or leaves yet so we didn't have much good scenery for photos.

 

                 millie's second "easter dress"... because it was like $5...  see our great easter scenery?

SILLY girl

of course I am partial, but I think mill has to be one of the silliest girls around.  a couple weeks ago she put on one of logans diapers and grabbed a whole carrot from the fridge and just lay on the back of the couch munching on it.

 

She LOVES to tie knots.  She will get her hands on any type of string or ribbon etc and just tie and tie.  She has been doing this for a couple years now.  Mill has been really concerned that her dad didn't have a blankie.  so, for his birthday, she wanted to make him one.  She picked out fabric and helped me do a bunch of stiching on it.  These "ropes" are pieces from his blankie.

 

This "spy" (as she calls herself) has been sneeking around our house lately.  She puts a pair of underwear over her head, and socks over her hands.  This day she has plastic forks stuck up the underwear.  I was laughing so hard when she came down stairs like this!

 

We started Mill in riding lessons.  You gotta know how to ride a horse if you live up here right? A guy in our bishopric (below) owns some stables and teaches riding lessons.  He is an old cowboy, but as nice as can be! One day while riding Millie said "I'm getting sleepy" so he says "well, you must not be having fun then"  they stopped doing their practicing in the arena and went out on a little trail ride around the lake.  (Mill was on her own big horse being led by her teacher, of course mill had no fears or reservations about this) when they came back they were singing "I am a child of god" together.  so cute.

 

Millie is really into my little ponies.  She always ends up getting them for gifts and stuff, so he has a whole ton of them.  she tries to fit them all in her little pony castle.

st. patricks

In the last few months i have gotten more into pinterest, it certanly doesn't help my over excitment for holidays! 

 Mill pretty much made this Leprechaun trap all by herself!  we used a small oatmeal container for the trap, then wrapped it with paper.  A sneaky leprechaun came to our house on st. patricks and peed in our toilet, and stole the gold that was bait on our trap, but he didn't get caught in the trap... he left some gold coins inside instead. (instructions for the trap can be found on the family fun magazine web site.)

 

 I made this rainbow jello for the first time.  I had always wanted to make it because my neighbor growing up always made it for neighborhood pot-luck's. Man was it time consuming, but fun.

 

phoenix half marathon

 

Josh and I both ran the Phoenix half marathon the first week of march.  This was the first half marathon that we had done "together"... as in we both ran in the same race, but not actually together.  It was super hard training for it!  Our winter weather is not condusive for half marathon training.  Josh was apparantly able to withstand the ellements better than I, and stay motivated.  He won the whole thing.  SURPRISE! There were 2,000 people running, so it was a pretty big race.  I, however, ran 11 minutes SLOWER thank my last one... sad day. but I was happy to be in the top 100 people (male and female)...  but I was still glad I did it.  The food afterwards was amazing!  shrimp tacos, fried chicken, cookies, chocolate milk, trail mix, scones, hot dogs, gummy worms, otter pops, sorbet, and on an on!  there was a big tent where you could sit and stretch on a yoga mat or put your feet in a ice filled baby pool, people would come around and offer you things like otter pops, or drinks.  it was great!  We ran with a team of people (some of them are pictured above), to rais awarness for mitochondrial disease.  3 of our friends 4 kids have mitochondrial disease, and their awarness team is called "hope flies."

from scratch

People up here "on the mountain" (as locals call these small clusters of town) just really are self sufficient, make it from scratch kind of people.  I often feel silly that I don't have a TWO year supply of food storage, raise my own meat, make bread from scratch, or can all of my own food.  These are the kind of people you want to know in case it all goes down....  I have an awesome friend who has helped me figure out a bit more about these ventures.  In the fall she let me can applesauce with her. YUM!  She often brings me awesome things like food from her garden, fresh bread, eggs from her chicken, meat from their cows, etc.  This day we scored big when she brought me honey butter, fresh laid eggs, and a loaf of delicious bread!

Mermaid Fairy house

This was by far one of M's favorite crafts.  It was very impromptu, but she loved it.  We just glued together popsicle sticks, glued jewls all over, and stuck foam (ocean) cut outs all over and glued on some ribbons for a room divider and she added several other nice touches like pebbles for the floor, and a umbrella to shade from the sun :)

Bald Eagles

One of the cool things about February was all the bald eagles that practically "infested" the lake across the street.  At times there would be up to 16 out there.  When I was a kid I remember them being severly endangered so it seemed amazing to me to even see just one of them. so Majestic!

 

They loved this tree overlooking the lake. They would gather there every day.  It seemed like every single time I looked out our front window you could see a bald eagle diving down to catch a fish.

 

Many of them were still juvinile. Head feathers may not be all white untill they are up to 5 years old.

 

Valentines tea party

This little gal schemed up a valentines tea party.  She had lots of specific ideas of how she wanted it done!  I thought it was so funny and cute that she had some many oppinions about it.

 

She only wanted to invite girls (and twins- because her best friends are boy/girl twins) I cut the squares of paper and millie did the rest!

 

She wanted to have cupcakes, and muffins, and sugar cookies (she wanted them to be able to decorate their own cookies and she wanted to make sure there were plenty of colors of frosting and plenty of sprinkles to choose from.)

 

She also wanted heart ice... we chopped up strawberries to put in the heart ice cube tray to make the ice red!

 

She also insisted on flowers... but she didn't want red or pink flowers, she wanted yellow... and since I was really trying to humor her and let her do all the planning (well, as much as was logical) we went for "valentines yellow,"  we also had some mini fruit kebabs.  they had a fun little tea party and mill had a blast planning it and making decorations for it!

This was our valentines dinner- heart pizza!