Easter 2016

This year Easter was the last Sunday in March.  I had my usual preschool parties. 

Because the boys had short day on Wednesday, they came home while I was still teaching.  Cedric wanted to help with one of the games.

 A few days before Easter, Nana and Maren (& Charlotte & Steven) came over to decorate sugar eggs with the kids.  My great-aunt Marion had made the sugar eggs and had given them to Tom's mom (they are in the same ward).  She was nice to share them with us.  (Cedric didn't want one, so he helped Nana).

 They turned out quite cute.

The day before Easter, Tom took the kids and went to my cousin's real estate Easter party.  It was nice to have the whole day to myself and I got a lot of preschool stuff done.

They had a nice lunch (and nice weather). 

 Then all the kids got to gather as many Easter eggs as they could!

 My kids ended up with quite a few.

Sophie even got to meet the Easter Bunny.

 The next day was Easter.  We let the kids hang out in the basement until 8:30, which is when we told them we'd get up.  We also said, whomever slept in the longest got to go first for the egg hunt.  Surprisingly, it was Jeff (he does amazing things when motivated, since he's normally the first one up on the weekend).  We first had family prayer and talked about the Savior and the resurrection and why we celebrate Easter.

(During the preschool Easter party, Cedric made this picture and told all the preschoolers that this was more important than eggs.  I was proud of him for sharing his testimony with them.) 

Then the kids headed upstairs.  Usually, they have to find their baskets, which are already pre-loaded with several surprises, but this year was a little different.  The baskets were empty, except for this note...

 They had fun trying to find all their stuff and all the eggs.

 (Can you spot Cedric's goldfish crackers hiding behind him?)

 In the end they all ended up with lots of eggs and candy, Minecraft shirts, Pez dispensers, goldfish crackers and a large hollow chocolate bird or squirrel.

 After the egg hunt, we had breakfast and then colored Easter eggs. 

 Then Mom and Dad had one more Easter egg hunt for the kids to do.  They each found three eggs which all contained clues (Pesos, swimming, Cabo San Lucas, etc.).  The final egg said to look in the closet under the stairs. When they opened the closet they found these beach toys with a note that told them our family was going on a Mexican cruise this summer!

Sophie didn't quite understand what that meant and was mad when we told her we couldn't open the toys until our trip.  But since then she's gotten more excited for it.

 We then got ready for church.  I didn't get new clothes for the boys, and Sophie's dress was a hand-me-down that was a bit too small, but still cute.  Lily insisted she needed a new dress and used her own money to buy this yellow one.

 They are sure cute kids!

 After church, we quickly ate dinner and then headed over to Tom's parent's house for another egg hunt.  The kids always line up in age order.

Again, we couldn't have asked for better weather. 

Happy Easter!

Winter Youth Conference

This year our ward did a winter youth conference.  In February, we went on a Friday afternoon, and it lasted until Saturday evening.  Because I'm a leader, I got to go.  They also let the 12-18 year old's go (normally you have to be 14), so Lily got to go too!  We first went to This Is The Place State Park.  It was a beautiful winter day.

Selfie with Lily and her best friend, Amanda.

We first had a yummy pioneer dinner.  Here I am with Helen and Carolynn, two of the other leaders and my friends.

Then we learned some pioneer games and how pioneer teenagers used to flirt.  Lily volunteered to be the flirtatious girl.

Then they had a big pioneer dance.  It was fun to watch over a hundred youth, from three different wards, learn dances together.

After the dance, just our ward headed to the KSL building.  Our youth leader works for Deseret News so he was able to give us a tour of the building and the different ways the church business produces newspapers, internet, radio and television.

We got to go play in front of the green screen.  The kids thought this was so neat!

Kevin Eubank, who does the weather for ksl news was there and talked to us about how he shows the weather on the green screen.

He gave the kids a green sheet to hold in front of them to show them how they disappear.

While Kevin was talking, Lily was behind him playing with the green screen.

The 10:00 news was just minutes away from airing, so they let us stay and watch!

It was such a neat experience to see how they made the news.

Here's our whole group with the news cast.

Me and Nadine Wimmer.

We also saw where they did the radio shows too.

By 11pm we finally headed to the hotel.  Lily and Amanda shared a suit with Kensie, Kyleigh and Eleora.

I had my own bed and shared a room with Libby, our YW secretary.  Libby took some kids out to McDonalds (which was closed), and Mavrik for snacks since many were so hungry.  I stayed back and showered, watched a movie on my iPad and ate some snacks.  I tried to go to sleep around 1:30am, but didn't fall asleep until closer to 3am.  The girls started waking us up at 7am, so I did not get much sleep that night.  Lily said she only got two hours of sleep, I don't think any of the kids got more than just a few hours of sleep.

We got up and had breakfast and got ready, then headed to Temple Square.  we enjoyed some neat talks by the sister missionaries and by Brother Sweat.  He gave a very touching talk about the Atonement and the justice of our Heavenly Father.  Life is not fair, because of the fall of Adam.  No matter what unfair things happen to us in this life, it will all be made up to us through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  It was such a good talk.

We then headed to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (JSMB) and enjoyed the Family Search center.  They had some fun, interactive activities about us and our posterity.  here's a picture of Lily and I looking at each other through a box.  With the help of mirrors, it shows my forehead, Lily's eyebrows, eyes and nose, and my mouth and chin.  It was remarkable how much we still looked like ourselves.  Lily really is my "mini me".

It was fun to learn about our ancestors.

We also enjoyed the newly renovated Church History Museum, where we played a game using clickers to pick the multiple choice answers to questions about things in the museum.  We then wandered through and looked at the things there from the pioneers and past prophets.

Then we went to the new church genealogy library where they have many archives, including the manuscripts that the gold plates were translated onto.

One of the highlights of the day was getting to watch a chef from the Lion House Restaurant teach us how to cook, to date and other uplifting things.  Then we all got to try a taste of the yummy Alfredo sauce he'd made.

It was such an uplifting, spiritual day!  

We enjoyed watching the movie "The Testaments" (I actually slept through half of it, but I do enjoy that movie and had seen it before).

We ended the day at the JSMB and had a nice dinner.  During which, we had a testimony meeting where we were able to stand and share our testimony that was strengthened through youth conference.

As we headed home, around 8:30pm, we saw several police cars down the street as we got on the freeway.  We ended up passing about a dozen other police cars all heading downtown.  We found out there was a shooting and were glad to be heading home.

I am grateful for the opportunity I had to go to this youth conference.  I wish the youth appreciated opportunities like this more.  I feel some took it for granted.  But for the most part, I feel their testimonies were touched and strengthened, as was mine.