Easter Vacation

A whole week off of school!  You would think with it being a holiday that everyone would sleep in... but we were all awake just after 6:00am.  Grrr!  Oh well.  After breakfast, Lennard headed out to the airport to work on his plane.  I sat at the computer (all day) and scanned Nichols' family slides.  The kids played 'old-fashioned' Monopoly for a while and then got to play with Maren!  

Mike, Melissa, Makenna and Mason are all in Mexico for the week, but Maren got to stay home with Mike's cousin.  They were going on a hike in Waterton and asked if we could watch her while they were gone.  Emma was in heaven getting to 'babysit' Maren!  She did a great job watching her.

Easter

Since it was our turn to host our Extended Family FHE, we decided to hold it on Easter and do a big Easter dinner too.  We got up bright and early to get the turkey on to the smoker to cook.  It's the first time we've ever tried something so big, so we were really hoping it would cook properly!

 We had a temperature probe in and it came to temp way faster than what it said.  We tried two other temperature probes too and they all came back saying that it was up to temp.  We took it off and wrapped it in tinfoil to keep it at least warm until we were ready to eat.  It smelled SO good! 

 We'd booked the church for the dinner which was nice since it was raining outside most of the day. I'd printed off a bunch of Easter coloring pages and it seemed to work well to keep the kids occupied in the gym and not running around in the hallways!  We also brought our basketballs and that helped too.

 After dinner, we had a super short lesson about Easter.  The kids had to go find 'eggs' around the gym and then put themselves in order for the story to make sense.  I think it went okay. 

I would have loved to have had more adult discussion about what they'd learned this week too, but it was hard with that many kids and being spread out in the gym.

We missed Rachel and Melissa and their families.  We were glad that everyone else was able to come though.  It was a fun Easter dinner.

Basketball Hoop

Back in December I found a really good deal on a basketball hoop.  We bought it with the intention of giving it to the kids for Christmas, but we ended up with way too much stuff, so we decided to save it.  We pulled it out this morning and surprised the kids.  It was awesome to see how excited they were!  They both helped us put it together... for the first half hour or so... then they went to do other things.  

Ben went over to Katie Sykes house to knit with her (he learned in her school class last year and has been asking to do more ever since!).  Emma went for a scooter ride around the block and ended up playing with a Fynlee B. for most of the morning.

 Ben came back to help just as we were finishing up.  He loved getting to pull the plastic off the backboard!

We pulled out the other basketball I'd bought and we all played basketball for a bit.  It's going to be a great family activity for us!

We ended up heading in to Lethbridge in the afternoon to get stuff for our Easter dinner tomorrow (with a few extra things for us...).

As soon as we got home and everything unloaded, we were back shooting hoops!  It's been a great day!

General Conference Weekend

It was a wonderful weekend getting to listen to our prophet and apostles.  We hung out in the basement and while Lennard and I sat, the kids played quietly (and listened... some of the time).  Ben got quite inventive with his magnet tiles. 

During the second session on Saturday, Emma layed down and fell asleep (which doesn't happen very often!).  She slept through the entire session!

Some more of Ben's inventions during the Sunday sessions.  Even though they were doing other things, it was amazing how many times they would hear something and make a comment to us about what was being spoken about.

I thoroughly enjoyed conference and had a few 'favorite' talks.  I loved Sister Becky Craven's talk where she asked if we were careful or casual in things like our Sabbath Day worship, our prayers and scripture study, temple worship, our appearance, how we minister to others, in what we read or watch, our language, etc. 

I also loved Elder Holland's talk about the 'Lamb of God' and how the Sacrament should be our 'most sacred hour of our week'.  Elder Bednar's talk about learning in our homes and how to teach our children about temple worship was amazing and made me want to study more.  They were all great talks and I look forward to reading them again.

It's Started!

For the past six months, my parents have been essentially homeless.  Their house sold and it's been a long, cold winter... and now it's finally warmed up enough that they are able to get started on their house!  Ross Bishop is building it for them.  Who knew you could be excited for a big hole in the ground, but it's such an exciting first step!  

The kids loved all the huge piles of dirt to climb on!  Ross was out getting stuff done, so we didn't stay long, but I'm so excited for my parents to have a brand new house!  

 And, they're going to have a spectacular view too!  Wow! 

Grand Concert

We were excited and surprised to find out that Emma had been chosen to receive an award and was asked to perform at the Grand Concert.  She was pretty excited to get dressed up and go on stage!  She even did a quick little curtsy before receiving her award!  Too fun.

Once all the awards were presented, the program started.

Emma was the first piano player to perform and she did a great job.

She was even more excited to find out (when we got home) that along with her award, she got $25!

The Grade 3 class at CES also received an award for one of their songs that they'd sung, so Emma got to take a picture with it and with two other Grade 3 girls that were there tonight.
 

Maelle Rowe, Emma and Fiona Hodge

More Festival

The kids each performed two numbers with their grades for the Festival.  They both did amazingly good.  I enjoyed listening to them sing enough that I ended up staying and listening to all the rest of the grades!  We are so blessed to have such a great music program in our school.