Little Things in April

I love everything about this picture.  Double goggles, new teeth, braided hair and tub toys floating all over.  I just wish I could freeze time.   This girl is adventurous loves to play.  

Another day in the tub with her sister.  Their co-bathing days will soon come to an end so they are taking advantage while they can.

Had a baby shower for Heidi and her twins.  We had a great turn out and everybody was so generous.  We are truly blessed with great family and friends. 

Lincoln aparently decided he didn't like his cereal so he unloaded the bowl and played in the milk. 

Molly in her fantastic 5 year old outfit.  I love that she even thought to tuck in that shirt.   

Went for a bike ride.  We are so thankful for the weather warming up! 

Miss Ella exploring her fashion options.  Who said she could grow up?

Went to the school one afternoon to play on the play ground.  I was blown away at the bravery and coordination of this girl.  She swings around just like a little monkey. 

Molly went to a birthday party at the zoo and the mom of her friend sent some pictures.  I love it when they share pictures like this.  Her friend Khloe is one of her favorites. 

I guess I just loved that Lincoln had a ball in his hand.  My girls never really wanted to keep things with them when they went to sleep but this boy always has something in his hands.  It's cute. 

Dustin and his favorite things.  :) 

School pictures came back cute as ever!!

Having an apple and watching a movie in grandma Debbie's car and taking selfies before school with big sister.  She's teaching him some weird things. :)

love this sweet sleeping boy. 

The girls had a family FAME night and we got to see their beautiful art work.  They were proud to show it off and it was fun to go see them hanging on the walls of the school.

Ballroom

This year Ella has taken ballroom from Rocky Mountain Ballroom and has had such a blast.  Her favorite partner BY FAR was her cousin Ian.  They don't like to admit it around each other but seriously, look at them!  Their faces are like that most of the time they are dancing.  I know it's because they feel like they can just be comfortable.  I asked them to pose and this is what they gave me.  ha!

They performed the same dance they won 3rd place on at Gem State competition earlier in the year. 

We had a great time watching her bloom in this new experience this year and are excited to see what happens in the years to come.

Senior Pictures

I got to trade some piano lessons for doing some of my nieces senior pictures recently.  It was a lot of fun to take pictures of such a willing participant.  These are a couple of my favorites.

Razor Ride in Bone

Mom and dad called and invited us to go for a drive up Bone on the razors.  We had a great time together and just getting outside in the fresh air.  The kids enjoy any opportunity to get outside and especially when they get to hang out with grandma.  :)

And what would a razor ride in the spring be without doing something a little bit daring and getting stuck?  Leave it to Dustin.  I couldn't help but feel my dad was slightly happy at that moment though?  Strange?  Maybe reminded him a bit of himself at 33?  ha

National History Day in Boise

Ella and her friend Dani recently took first place at the Regional National History Day competition that the decided to do for fun a few months back.  This qualified them to go to Boise and compete on a state level.  They made a complete new poster and stepped up their game for this.  Dani's parents bought this kit to build a house to represent Frank Steunenberg's house as a display.  It took us HOURS to put together painting and gluing each piece on.

Finally when it was said and done we headed for Boise.  Ella rode with Dani on the way there and had a good experience spending time with her and her mom.  We met up for dinner and went to the Capitol to see the statute of Frank Steunenberg that we had never paid much attention to.  The girls LOVED it!

So great to have such a fun friend! 

First thing Saturday morning they checked in and set up their project.  They were pretty proud of themselves and feeling quite nervous about presenting their project.

This is my personal favorite part of this is that she got to stand and be interviewed for 15 minutes and asked any question the judges felt inclined to ask.  So good for her confidence.

The anticipation of the award ceremony dwindled as we waited for over half hour for it to start.   I got a little crazy trying to handle the little kids waiting for that long.  However we survived!

They were awarded 2nd place in their category!  Good job girls!!

This was their prize!  A 2 headed cow!  Made us laugh pretty hard.  Ella was emotional by the time the whole thing got over.  She was just so tired, hungry and probably emotionally/mentally exhausted.  We stayed with cousins the night before and didn't go to bed until after midnight and were up by 7 so poor kids were all pretty wasted.

We stopped and got an ice cream because goodness it just makes things better.

Testimony

My grandpa and grandma Wheeler have been getting Alzheimer's for a few years and progressively have gotten worse.  As of this week their house in Idaho Falls will be sold and soon they will be moving into my aunt's house and the house in Utah will be sold.  All the kids and grandkids that wanted were given the opportunity to go to their house here in Idaho Falls and take whatever they wanted.  My grandparents have A LOT of stuff.  Even after all the cousins had been through I found some treasures.

Nothing upstairs really struck me but the basement had all grandma's decorations and instantly made my heart race a little faster and tear up a bit as I feel sadness about grandma and grandpa being unable to do all the used to do.  I found some sweet decorations that I wanted to take and put in my house to remind me of my grandma.  I also found everybody had passed over their food storage supply.  They had a pretty great supply of #10 cans so I took about 20 trips and loaded everything into my car.

As I was putting it away today I keep reflecting on the goal Dustin and I set and wrote down back in December to save some money and then build our food supply by June.  We made a pretty concentrated effort and saved most of the money and then decided to put a fence up this past few weeks which put us a little behind our plan.  I keep feeling so overwhelmed with gratitude for how my grandma and grandpa have continually blessed our lives and our marriage.  I also know Heavenly Father blesses us so much when we focus on keeping the commandments and making righteous goals. 

My testimony has been strengthened and I feel blessed.  I know Heavenly Father lives and loves me. I am so thankful for my testimony of that.  I know he listens to me as I ramble in my head little prayers to him all day long and sometimes really, really long rambley prayers.  He always blesses me.

Easter

We did things a little bit differently this year.  Since we were at Ella's ballroom competition most of the morning I took the kids to an afternoon Easter Egg hunt while Dustin went to a baptism for a young man in our ward.

We had to wake Lincoln up from his nap which was kinda sad but he was ok after he found out the eggs had a treat in them.  This was his first egg hunt but he caught the hang of it pretty well.  

Ella scored the biggest.  She took my advice to run to the middle and work your way out instead of starting at the front with the rest of the kids.  Molly came out with about 3 eggs and Alissa didn't get as single one.  This is really the first time the little girls have been to a competitive Easter Egg hunt so it was a big overwhelming I think.  If Alissa hadn't been so concerned I'm sure Molly would have went to town picking up eggs.  She was being a good sister though which I am glad for.  One sweet little boy walked by and asked why Alissa was crying.  I told him she didn't get any eggs.  He sat thinking for a few seconds and reached inside his bag with probably 3 eggs total and handed her one.  My heart just swelled.  I wanted to go find that good boy's mom and dad and tell them what a kind offer he just made my sad girl.  She immediately wiped her tears and was over it.

Sunday morning we had Easter bunny fun with baskets and hidden eggs.  Lincoln wasted no time with the basket and started grabbing those eggs he knew were so full of candy.  He started shaking he was so excited.

You can see by that dripping colorful drool what a happy boy he was.  We had a good time laughing at him.

We had bunny pancakes for breakfast.

And I had to take a picture of this because I didn't appreciate the goodness of these girls organizing things until I had Lincoln.  They set things just right and he will crash them all down.  

I was lucky to get a picture of these guys before church because Dustin had to leave early.

But after 10 shots we finally got one that was pretty good.  The girls even got new dresses this year which hasn't happened for a lot of years so that was fun

After church we went to grandma Debbie and grandpa Jeff's house for our annual egg hunt there.  Each age group of kids got to do their own little hunt.  The 5 year old girls...

The almost 2 year old boys...

And the 7-11 year olds.

We even got to sing Happy Birthday to Lincoln with the banana Bunny Cake we brought.    It was a great day.