Thirty three bags of reeses! At their sale price, the checkout lady told us we saved $74 on them! Their expiration date is 2012, so I'd like to say I've got my year's supply, but we have other plans for these babies. There's nothing like a good sale and a good shopping spree!
Tomorrow my class will be going bowling. There will be at least one adult per child. They are going to put up the bumpers and a ramp for the kids. I think its going to be alot of fun. Then, in honor of autism awareness month, next week we are going to a movie theatre to see "Rio". They - I'm not sure if it is the whole school, whole district, or more - is renting out one theatre/movie screen for the special education classes; they will provide special accomodations for the kids, like leaving the lights on, etc. How fun is that!
The Cake: My Mom found an idea for an Easter cake in a magazine article 60 years ago. It has been part of her Easter table ever since (although its only been in the last few years that bunny "Peeps" have been available. Before that my Mom always cut the large, white marshmallows into rabbit shapes):
The Eggs: Last year Luke and I saw an idea for dyeing Easter eggs that we wanted to try; with silk ties. By the time Easter came around we hand't done it, but I promised him that we would. May rolled around and I promised Luke again - because it was still springtime. Well, summer rolled around, then the fall, winter, and now spring again. I finally kept my promise yesterday, on Easter! The eggs didn't turn out like the picture we saw, but they are still pretty:
The Hunt: The day before Easter my brother and his family came over. We had our ham dinner and then went to the school yard to do an Easter egg hunt. While us Moms hid the eggs everyone else, including the Dads, played freeze tag. They said it was alot of fun. (One of my nieces brought her boyfriend home, from Utah, to meet the family. I don't know what he thought of us, but we were impressed with him; we highly approve!)
The Pizza: After all of the Saturday fun we were pretty exhausted come Sunday. We did make it to church, but then had a "Mayberry" kind of Sunday - sitting on the front porch (well, not really) kicking back and relaxing . . . and having what I think will be our new tradition: Easter Pizza.
The Porters came over to help color eggs and eat Easter pizza with us. Hillary is missing her Andrew, so this Andrew will have to do for a while.
We are 6 out of 8 right now. Every time the house is loud, crazy, full of laughter and family activities it makes me miss Julia and Lester even more. We're almost complete. I know that they are working hard in this new semester of school and making a great future for themselves. I hope they know that we are proud of them and do miss them.
Last year Luke's car came in third of over 20 cars, after several nail-biting, extremely close races. This year, in a competition of over 20 cars, Luke's lost in the first round. It was a good experience for him to learn and apply sportsmanship. After the initial disappointment he realized that it was still fun to participate by cheering for his friends. Experiences like these will, I hope, help him to be a well rounded person.
And the best thing about the Pinewood Derby is the process of Reggie and Luke making the car together.
After 4 girls I never thought I would love Scouting so much . . . . but I do.
is coming to an end. Its been quite a week. This might just be the first time that I've done official "spring cleaning". But we've managed to get some fun in there too, especially once Hillary and Mariah came home.
I'm very proud of Samantha for getting up and going to school with a good attitude, even though mostly everyone else was home. Her spring break was a while ago. She had a good time on her spring break which included sleeping in, extra computer time, and hanging out with Grandma and Grandpa. They invited her to sleep over their apartment a couple of times, help Grandma with scrapbooking projects, and they took her out to lunch.
Now its time to get back to a routine. Wish us luck!
Tonight we finally got to see Hillary's engagement ring, wedding dress, and the invitations. My baby! I need to stop thinking about how much I'm going to miss her in 2 months; this is an exciting time that I am going to treasure. Time to get busy on this wedding!
came home, by way of Alaska . . . with souveniers. Luke will be happy to show you his "pet Moose nugget". Hillary got it from a gift shop - she says they sell these all over the place - real moose poop! She had a great time in Alaska.
On our first day of spring break the "bear scouts" (all 3 of them) came over to hang out, play the Wii, and work on their fund raiser. They are accepting donations of aluminum cans and plastic bottles for recyclying; the proceeds will be used for some summer scout activities. So on Monday they sorted what we had received so far. (At first they were a little wimpy about it. They asked me if they could get gloves out of the basement, and came back with masks.)
Once they got going they did a really good job. We then took them to a recycling place. While I stood in line the boys enjoyed playing on this hill.
I am working on the computer right now (stuff for Hillary's wedding) and therefore neglecting Samantha and Luke. They have decided to take advantage of this by crank-phone-calling each other; they are sitting in the living room - one with my cell phone and one with the house phone leaving each other rude messages. It is obnoxious, but then again, fun to hear them laughing instead of fighting with each other.
Today I had The Andy Griffith show on in the kitchen as I was making dinner. It was another episode where a scruffy old farmer out-sings Barney Fife. I thought the song that the farmer sang was so pretty that I decided to look it up on the internet: "Believe Me, if All Thy Endearing Young Charms". I found alot of info about it:
"It is said that after Thomas Moore's wife contracted smallpox, she refused to let herself be seen by anyone, even her husband, due to the disfiguring effects of the disease to the skin on her body, and because she believed he could not love her after her face had been so badly scarred. Despairing at her confinement, Moore composed the lyrics of this song to reassure her that he would always love her regardless of her appearance. He wrote later that after hearing him sing to her from outside her bedroom door, she finally allowed him inside and fell into his arms, her confidence restored."
I found this video on Youtube, which floored me; not because of the pictures - they are very random - but because of the beautiful instrumentals. They lyrics are below. ( If your going to watch it, pause our playlist at the bottom of this page).
The Lyrics:
Verse 1: Believe me, if all those endearing young charms, Which I gaze on so fondly today, Were to change by tomorrow and fleet in my arms, Like fairy gifts fading away Thou would'st still be adored, as this moment thou art, Let thy loveliness fade as it will; And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart Would entwine itself verdantly still.
Verse 2: It is not while beauty and youth are thine own, And thy cheek's unprofaned by a tear, That the fervor and faith of a soul can be known, To which time will but make thee more dear. Oh, the heart that has truly loved never forgets, But as truly loves on to the close: As the sunflower turns on her God when he sets The same look that she gave when he rose.
I wish I could put this version of the song on our playlist, but they don't have it. So I've put it on the blog itself. Someday maybe I'll figure out how to do the video with our own pictures.
at the LDS Business College, where Mariah and Hillary go to school. This means:
For Hillary: Leaving Salt Lake City. Its been a great adventure for her to live there.. She's loved the single, independent college life. She's met alot of people that she admires, and learned alot about life through her experiences. She's taken full advantage of being in walking distance to Temple Square, and full advantage of hosting friends and family at her apartment. Time for a new adventure! She will be going to Alaska for a week to meet all of Andrew's family, then home for 2 months to finish planning the wedding, back to Alaska after the wedding for a little while, and then finally to settle at BYU (Provo ,Utah) at their cute little married-student-housing apartment. One thing that Hillary did NOT do alot of in Salt Lake City is cook. She mostly lived off of Top Ramen, Macaroni and Cheese, and Goldfish Crackers. So while she is home planning the wedding, she has also offered to do alot of the cooking around here, and the cleaning to get the house ready for company. Hurray! For that, and many other reasons, we can't wait to have her home!
For Mariah: she's got 6 days to figure out what she's going to do! She has to be out of her dorm room on Monday. She is thinking of getting a job and an apartment with friends and staying there for the summer, or coming home and getting a job here for the summer. We wish her luck as she figures it all out. Either way, she'll be home for the wedding, and so we're excited about that.
P.S. funny coincidence - After I did this blog post I sat down in the living room and noticed Luke playing with pictures on the Wii (he was putting mustaches, etc. on pictures of his sisters!). I noticed these pictures that I had not seen. They are of the day that Hillary and Mariah left for school, in January. (If Mariah doesn't come home for the summer she is going to have some unhappy friends, like these 2, who came over to say goodbye to her.)
There is a little girl at my school with a full head of long, red hair. I don't know her, but she has recess the same time as our kids. She reminds me so much of Mariah and of one of my favorite Mariah memories:
When Mariah was in the second grade her class put on a play of "Pinocchio". The teacher wrote the script and filled it with humor and some surprises, tailored especially for Mariah, who played the lead. For the entire play Mariah wore her hair tucked inside of her hat. In the last scene, when Pinocchio wakes up and is no longer a puppet, Gepetto cried "Oh Pinocchio, now you are a REAL boy!" At this point Mariah took off her hat and her waist-long, bright red hair fell out and flowed beautifully all around her. She declared "No, I'm a real girl!" The funnest part for me was hearing the honest gasps from the audience around us. They didn't know that I was her Mom, and I heard alot of people saying "I thought that was a boy, the whole time!" Mariah's hair was never so famous! It was one of those moments where I felt so proud to have such a beautiful daughter.
We have lots of pictures of the play - carefully scrapbooked, but no scanner. So instead of posting one of those pictures, I will use this one from a couple of years ago. I know I've put this picture on the blog before, but I just love it and have to put it on here again!
I will conquer you! I have not found your perfect recipe or mastered the art of making you, but I will! Okay, I admit, you are not my absolute favorite dessert. Lets face it, you will never take the place of chocolate chip cookies in this house. But my Hillary is coming home and she doesn't like chocolate, so I need to come up with something other than chocolate chip cookies. So I will never give up! I will conquer you! And when I do I will give you the respect you deserve - I promise never again try to change you - to turn you into pineapple, mango, or orange bars like I did this weekend.
I have realized lately that there are some sounds that I find very comforting. These are not your typical, relaxing sounds that you find on a nature CD, but they work for me. I thought it was blog-worthy:
1. Cars on the highway. Sometimes I start work a little later than the kids or get off a little earlier than they do. I park outside of their school and absolutely LOVE the sound of the cars driving by. In fact it relaxes me so much that I recline the seat and fall asleep. I think the reason I love it is because when I was a child we took a road trip every summer across several states. My favorite part of the trip was staying in motels. We would swim until bedtime and I would fall asleep to the sound of the cars on the highway.
2. Train whistles. Although I'm not sure if whistle is the right word. Maybe it is more like the trains are honking. But I love that sound. Again, on my childhood family road trips our destination was always Pocatello Idaho. I got to sleep in one of the upstairs bedrooms at my grandparents house, where it had wallpaper and other decor from the 1940s. Every morning I would wake to the sound of a train that was several miles off. It was like it was telling me that it was summer, the air was hot, and I was on vacation.
3. Children playing. Some mornings I have enough time to drop Luke off and then do some reading or make some phone calls before my job starts. I find myself rolling the window down instead of up when there are kids out playing on the playground.
Christmas is my absolute favorite time of year, and so I usually don't get into the other holidays half as much. But, this year I find myself really enjoying springtime and looking forward to Easter. Maybe these are the reasons why:
1. After alot of rainy, cold weather, the last few days have been warm and green and beautiful.
2. We've been doing Spring art projects at school. For about half an hour yesterday each child had one adult helping them color and put the cutest foam Easter stickers on their Easter baskets. The classroom had a calm, happy feeling to it.
3. Its conference time (church is being broadcast from Salt Lake City) which means staying home in our pajamas to watch it through the internet all weekend. Luke has actually said a couple of times how much he likes conference. We were shocked, because it is 4 hours on Saturday and 4 hours on Sunday. He said he likes us all being home together, in our pajamas, with no where to go, with a peacful feeling. We are, of course, going to do fun activities while we listen to the talks, like fill our Easter eggs with candy, etc.
4. My college girls are almost coming home. With Easter being so late this year Mariah and Hillary will be home for it. Then, let the games begin! We will be in full wedding planning mode! Julia won't be coming home until the wedding so we'll be missing her a little longer. But today she and Mariah are throwing Hillary a shower with all of her college friends, and so it makes me happy just thinking about that.
So from our house to yours, we wish you all a very HAPPY SPRING/HAPPY EASTER!
