Easter

Every year, my mom hosts an Easter egg hunt in her palatial, park like back yard and we totally lucked out this year with actual sunshine.  My two younger sisters came over with their kids and we had a nice little party.  I decided the day before that I wanted to make sugar cookies for the kids to frost so I spent all morning rolling and cutting out and baking.  I loved it but I made way too many cookies.  The kids frosted like one each, basically.  I had lots to give away to my friends and visiting teaching ladies.

I have to say that these cookies were awesome.  So.  Dang.  Good.

The creative process is about to begin - Mom is already sampling in the background!

Beautiful Rylee

Carsen not wanting his photo taken

Nice frosting job, Matthew!

The kids ready to go hunt eggs.

Kenna and Natalie...can you tell Natalie was getting sick? The only kid with a coat on!

Someone found a golden egg!

Sisters!

Thankful

I'm thankful for the sunshine.

I'm thankful for stake conference.

I'm thankful for this fun little surprise that was waiting for me when I came out of the Saturday night session of stake conference (I'll blog more about this later this week.)

Hey, there's my head!

I'm thankful for the cute family who sat with me at Stake Conference today.

I'm thankful for goodly men who serve as my home teachers and who willingly gave me a Priesthood blessing when I started crying during their visit today.

I'm thankful for the sweet words of the blessing reminding me how much I am loved by my Heavenly Father and that He knows my tender little heart.

I'm thankful for the encouragement and reminder that I should continue to love and serve others while I wait for the blessings that will eventually come (just, please...before I'm 80...is that too much to ask?)

General Conference

For the past few years, I've driven a few hours south to spend conference weekend with one of my dearest friends, Patty and her darling family.

Her husband and oldest son were doing some humanitarian work in Guatemala (installing stoves in homes - so awesome) but cute Cameron (age 10) and Thys (age 7) were there and ready to play. I used my iPad for the pics. Not bad! I also started this using the Blogger app but they loaded in backwards order and then I couldn't do anything with them from the app.  Ah, technology.  I'll caption and it'll be fine...right?

My favorite talks were by Elder Hallstrom, President Uchtdorf and Elder Ballard. I also really liked Elder Rasband's talk.  Oh and the cute Scottish GA who talked about single parents was fantastic.  Oh and Elder Holland was great as usual.  So much goodness this time around. Hope you enjoyed conference as much as we did.

I helped Patty redecorate her oldest son's room during conference breaks.  We love the way it turned out.  Inspiration from here

The cute girl on the top was one of my YW - she's was in the MTC choir on Saturday. So fun to see her!

The remnants of monkey bread and my boring raspberry limeade on the table. I've decided I just really miss the fizz of DC. Well, amongst other things.

Cute boys doing their conference packets

The beautiful redhead in the center was one of my camp girls, also in the MTC choir. Yes I was just as excited to see my girls as I was to see Archie.

Copied this idea from Pinterest and it was a HIT.  It really helped the boys to listen and pay attention.  If you can't tell, the word "prophet" or the names of prophets were the most said during conference.  

I love my friend.  Patty and I are like sisters and we always have the best time together.

Matt/Matthew

This is Matt.  Matt is married to my youngest sister, Jenilee.  He's in the Army and they used to live in Hawaii but now they live about 45 minutes south of my house (which is even more awesome than Hawaii.  Yes, I really mean that.)

Matt is a wonderful husband to my sister and a fantastic father to their four children. Matt and Jenilee are one of those rare couples who truly love spending time together and really are each other's best friend.  Matt is hilarious, smart and kind.

This is Matthew.  He's Jen and Matt's second child and oldest son and he turned 12 last week.  He's getting so grown up that he asked for clothes for his birthday. 

Matthew is super smart, loves to read, is the ASB president at his school and has a solo in his upcoming school play. He is a sweet boy and I absolutely adore spending time with him.


I drove down to their neck of the woods last week for Matthew's birthday dinner at Red Robin.  This is why their living here rather than Hawaii is way better because I could jump in the car on a whim to go see them.  I'm so grateful they're close!

Jen and Nathan

Natalie & the birthday boy

Natalie, Matthew, Nathan and McKenzie

On Sunday, we drove down to their house to attend church with them.  When a boy turns 12 in our church, it's a big deal because he is given the Aaronic Priesthood.  This ordination was even more special because we worried for awhile that it might not happen.  As I mentioned before, Matt is in the Army and he had his third deployment coming up.  For several weeks, we worried that Matt would deploy days before Matthew's 12th birthday.  My family prayed hard that somehow, some way, Matt would be able to stay home until March 15 and Heavenly Father answered our prayers.  Matt ordained Matthew a Deacon on Sunday and he left for a far away land two days later.

Sunday was wonderful and lovely.  Matt's parents and his brother and family were there as well as my mom, the Kings and me.  After church, we went back to Jen's for a yummy dinner.  After a fun day together, we said goodbye to Matt and I had to practically run out of the house before I started bawling.  I'm such a baby about goodbyes! Ugh. Thankfully, this deployment is relatively short and we should have Matty home by Christmas.

I'm grateful for family. I know I'm supposed to be in the family I'm in and I'm thankful to know that we are sealed together forever.

Time for a random list...

• I woke up to snow again today.  I think that's three times in the last week?  It seriously makes me laugh out loud when I go outside and find snow.  In March.  In Western Washington. It's not been bad enough to wreak havoc on the roads - just enough to make everything pretty and white.
• I got my new iPad.  It's lovely.  I also got the red smart cover.  Big surprise if you know me at all.
• I have a new found love of Instagram.  I'm ohstop1.  Follow me if you don't already and tell me your name if I don't already follow you. It's just fun.
• My upstairs neighbor got a dog.  So annoying. I'm beyond tired of condo living.
• I have a new mascara that I am loving - it's called "They're Real" and it's made by Benefit. I first heard about it on this fabulous blog and decided to make the switch from the mascara I've been using for the last 20 years (no, not the same tube - that would be disgusting.)  I love this mascara because it's long wearing but not waterproof so easier to remove at night.  I also love that it makes even those short little lashes in the corners of your eyes look longer.

• Six plus weeks without Diet Coke. Who'd have ever thought?
• I have tickets to see the amazing and fabulous Kristin Chenoweth in concert in a couple of months.  I cannot wait. I'm going with Lynda and Tyler and Jeni who will be celebrating their 14th anniversary the night of the concert.  I seriously cannot believe that 1. I've known them that long and 2. that they're old enough to be married that long.
• I haven't read any of The Hunger Games books but I think I still want to see the movie.  I want to read the books but I just can't seem to make time for reading right now. However, I just learned that I can borrow the book for free on my Kindle because I have Amazon Prime.  I heart Amazon Prime.  
• Speaking of books, my mom just read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet and it is now one of her all time favorite books.  If you're a reader, maybe you should give it a whirl.
• And if you'd like to read a simply amazing testament to the power that comes from reading the Book of Mormon, please go to my friend Michelle's blog and read about her brilliant son Stefan and the ACT.  Michelle and her husband are raising truly incredible children.

Catch-up post #5

I went to Yakima!  Ben's high school varsity team made it to the state playoffs so Lonnie, Ben and I drove a couple of hours east to watch them play.  Cindy recently started a new job so she didn't get to go with us so it was just me and the boys (scary, I know.)

There was a lot of snow on the pass but the roads were clear.

  

Ben stayed awake exactly 17 minutes of the car ride, I think.

We went to Miner's and Ben did his best to put away a double Miner's burger.

Lindbergh won their first game (yay!) and we had to wait until 9 PM the next night for their next game.  We went shopping to kill some time and while we were at the mall, someone stole my iPad and jewelry out of the car.  I was super sad.  Beyond sad.  Thankfully, I either left my car unlocked or they had some other way to open it without breaking any glass or anything.  It would have been a huge pain to have to get that fixed (gotta look at the bright side.)  I'm also thankful we didn't have anything else of value go missing and I'm especially grateful I was wearing my Tiffany key necklace so it wasn't in the bag of  jewelry that was taken. 

But seriously! Why do people have to be such jerks???  Sheesh.  Get a dang job and buy your own stuff and quit stealing from people!

We had gotten to the stadium to watch one of the other games when I realized my stuff was gone and I made the boys go inside so I could cry alone.  They got tired of waiting for me so they came back to the car, told me jokes to make me smile and then took me to Sonic.  Now, if you remember, I'm off DC so I got a yummy raspberry limeade to help ease my pain.  So dang good.

Ah...Sonic. 

The basketball team lost their next two games so they ended up taking 5th in state, which is awesome.  Even though I lost three pairs of earrings, two necklaces and, sigh, my iPad, I really did have a great time. And yes, I've ordered the new iPad but that's another post for another day.

Catch-up post #4

I gave up Diet Coke.

Yes, it's true.  I haven't had a sip of the sweet nectar since February 6th.  It started out as a little competition (with no official bet or stated reward) but I'm still going, which is just shocking to me.

Why am I shocked?  Well, I love the stuff.  I don't drink it every day.  I don't even keep any in my house. But I drank it a lot, by my own standards, and probably by others'.

I'm a fan of the fountain variety so I miss that the most and I HAVE been drinking a ton more water, which I know is a good thing.  But I haven't noticed any physical changes since I've stopped drinking it.  I sleep the same.  I had a mild headache on the second day but nothing since.  Other than that, there is no real change except for one big thing.

I miss it like crazy.

Isn't that weird?  I just love it THAT much so maybe it's a good thing I'm not drinking it?  Who knows.  And I don't know how long I'll go without it.  I'm really just taking it a day at a time (haha.)

So like I said, I'm in sort of a non-competition with a friend of mine.  In fact, I came home one night and found this waiting for me on my porch.

Seriously?  How rude is that**?  And yes, it's still in my fridge, thank you very much.  I also have like 9 bottles people have given me in my desk drawer at work (what can I say, people show their love by giving me Diet Coke!)  But having it all around doesn't tempt me at all, which is weird. But yeah, I still miss it a lot.  Have I mentioned that already?

**Okay, fine.  Full disclosure. I might have left a Big Gulp (festooned with ribbons, no less) at the home of my non-competitor...but, really, it was all in fun.  Seriously.  Maybe it wasn't even DC in the cup - maybe it was root beer.  Yeah, root beer.  I wouldn't purposely try to tempt someone else like that.  Honest!