Easter Activities

First, I just love what a small child can do with frosting! Yummmmy!!!

The following pictures are from the Lewisville Easter Egg Hunt the weekend before Easter weekend. We had a good time! The worst was athe poorly designed parking lot with only one entrance and 4 different activities taking place at one park. It took over an hour to get out of the parking lot.

Run Jon, run!

As you can see the kids scored! Each egg only had one peice of candy but there were little booths and they won more candy at those.

For Easter Weekend (and this last week), we were so lucky because Grandma and Grandpa Rabner came to visit. We loved playing with them and having them go to all of our activities with us. The kids of course loved coloring eggs! Arabella thought stirring the colors was the best part.

Dad and Grandpa were busy in the yard and missed out on the "dying" fun!

We built a tent to watch conference in, just like the people in King Benjamin's time. The kids did okay with the coloring pages and bingo cards the first session but after that they just wanted to play. I have already shared how wonderful I thought conference was.

Saturday, during priesthood session Lanell and I took the kids out to eat and then to see How to Train a Dragon. The kids were really good at the restaurant and the movie was so good! I really liked it and the kids all enjoyed it.

Joey was so determined to catch the Easter Bunny but was unsuccessful. He did wake up at 5:30 but Peter sent him back to bed. At 7:00 we discovered all of the eggs and baskets.

Grandma and Grandpa even got in on the fun!

Jon was so excited to get bubbles.

Monday we all, Peter too, headed for the zoo. We loved the zoo! There are some great animals that I do not believe I have ever seen before.

Grandpa treated the boys to a camel ride. Pretty cool, eh?!

Joey really did enjoy the ride despite the look on his face in this picture.

One thing we loved was the water feature and little farm area. I also loved that in the reptile house the really big snakes were nearly all very active, something I have never seen before.

We had packed a picnic lunch and after we ate the kids did not want to see the other half of the zoo. We had bought an annual family pass so we can go back. They wanted to take G & G to the discovery museum. The zoo and museum are nearby each other so we decided why not.

Fireman Jon

Joey had a great time with the seeds in the farm area.

My little pesky litte Peter.

Grandma and Arabella waiting for the boys to make their squished pennies.

Arabella really warmed up to both G & G during their stay. I was so glad because when she and I were in Utah she would not have anything to do with pretty much anyone.

Wednesday night was pack meeting and it was a crossing over ceremony and an arrow of light. This is good because both of these are part of Peter's wood badge goals. Peter loves to make really cool awards like this great arrow.

Peter made this bridge with the help of Bro. Dunstan. They had a great time using their tools. I think it turned out awesome! All of the boys seemed to think it was pretty cool too!

Grandpa is a great gardner and was super helpful in the yard this week. He helped Peter figure out what to do with our yard and then he made huge progress in carrying those plans out. This included tilling up the back 1/4 of our yard and getting all of this great soil. The boys were in heaven having all of that dirt to play in.

We also tilled in 15 bags of peat moss. We will have the most amazing garden. We are also planning to plant raspberry and blueberry bushes on the side of our house.

The lava rocks have been removed! When I left for work tonight Peter was just finishing the tilling and mixing of the soil and fertilizer. Flowers next!

We had so much fun with G & G Rabner. Thank you so much for the wonderful week!

Wonderful Conference

Yes, I am a week late in posting this but I wanted to let whomever (whoever) reads this know how very much I loved conference. I loved that they talked so much about family and home. I loved that Sister Beck is not afraid to say what many don't want to hear and many others would not be brave enough to say. She has such strength. I loved Pres. Monson's distinct voice brining peace to my heart and spirit with each word he spoke. Heading into conference, I was praying for inspiration to know what I should teach for my upcoming Presidency lesson. Home and family will be my topic. We need to teach our families and love them and be true to them. I am going to strive to be a better person especially to my family. My kids and my husband desreve the best of me and I need to try harder to always present the best of me.

Happy Birthday to me!

It was my 31st birthday on Friday and it was a great day!

My sweet husband woke up very early to make this delicious birthday cake from scratch for me-my favorite German Chocolate! Yummy! He also made a great breakfast. I went for a run while he was busy cooking. It was a great start to the day!

For an adventure, we went to the Stockyards in Fort Worth for the day.

This was as the cowboys were taking the cattle out to drive them through the streets.

This was my favorite longhorn becuase the horns were pointing down and not up or out to the sides.

Arabella was not too thrilled to take this picture. While we were waiting in line the longhorn took care of business and Jon would not stop talking about that.

The kids loved feeding the animals in the petting zoo. This experience led to something you will find at the end of this blog.

My chariot and drivers!

Jon saw this as we were walking out of the parking lot and wanted to ride the mechanical "bolt". He kept asking and asking. He loved every minute of it. I will have to post the video sometime.

Joey did really well on the "bolt" as well. He actually got going a bit faster and stayed on pretty well. What little cowboys we have.

This train pulled up right next to the restaurant while we were eating and Joey was more than excited. Peter and Joey went out and watched it pull on to the turntable. We took this picture after it was turned around. They had this candy store there that sold old classics. I bought Zots. It made me so happy to have that fizzy sour taste in my mouth. It was a step back in time.

It is sideways but this is my delicious cake before I blew out the candles. A friend and her family came over so that Peter and I could go to dinner. It was so nice to spend some time together out just the two of us.

This is what we did with our time together- we got a pet guinea pig. We named him Chester. We also bought three goldfish: Buzz, Lightning and Dusty.

Saturday night it did this again!!!! Friday was beautiful weather and then freezing on Saturday. We had planned to go to this preserve and museum but decided it would be too cold so we spent the day running errands around town. That resulted in the picture below.

That would be Rusty in Peter's left hand and Chester in the Peter's right hand. Apparently, guinea pigs do better in pairs and so, well, we have two now. They are loved nearly to death by our children but they seem to be tolerating it well. They are both males so there will not be any little guineas around.

We ended the weekend with a fabulous ward conference. We have a great ward and we love the people in it. They are a joy to serve with and get to know.

While Mom is away the boys will play...

This is what Peter did with the boys while I was gone.

Jon has been asking to go to "Chucker Cheeses" for months and months. He finally got to go and now he knows it is called "Chuck E Cheese". They had a great time!

Mmmmm Pizza!

Then on Saturday, they went to a Flight Museum. They fly some of the airplanes on the first Saturday of each month. Peter said you could only see the plane for a few minutes and then it disappeared for an hour. Oh well.

Nice cars!

This is the plane they flew that day.

A little boy had his birthday party that day and as part of the activities they (he and his dad) got to drive the tank around. Pretty cool, eh?!

I came home on Monday afternoon and that night Joey started to throw up. He had a 24 hour bug and felt great by the next afternoon. Jon was diagnosed with bronchitis possibly pneumonia on Friday but is back to himself now after a weekend of breathing treatments and antibiotics. The boys had testing on Saturday but Jon still had a fever so he could not go.

Joey did great he did his form all by himself. Jon actually tested this Wednesday in class and passed with flying colors. I did not have the camera to take pictures of Jon-sorry buddy!

Blurry, but a nice action shot!

Another action shot!

Proud daddy, sister, and student! Joey really is doing very well! He is getting stronger and more accurate with his moves. Jon is listening better and pays attention. He is responding really well to his teacher and we are thrilled.

I had to add these pictures. Peter mowed the lawn on Tuesday evening (while I was doing RS stuff) and caught a couple of these little pencil snakes. As you can see Jon thinks they are really cool. The educational aspect of this occurred when the snake pooped in Jon's hand and he is now intensely fascinated with the fact that snakes poop and pee. Oh boys!

But wait, yes that is my little peanut/pretty girl holding the snake. Apparently, she had no fear. Oh my! I guess it is good to have a girl that is not too squeamish.

Visit to Utah

So, I have been home for a week and I am just now getting a chance to blog about my time in Utah. I left on a Thursday and came home on Monday and it was a most wonderful weekend. On Thursday, my parents picked me up and then they took me shopping for my birthday. We had a delicious dinner at Olive Garden and then I went to a card making/stamping night out with my sisters.

Arabella helping grandpa shovel the snow.
And there was some really good snow!

Sadie did manage to catch a ladybug despite the snow. The next day when the snow started to melt she also found a lot of roly poly bugs and asked me all about what kind of bugs and animals I have in my backyard.

The whold family got together to celebrate the March birthdays while I was there. Yes, that is Calee, I can not believe how tall she is! Carson has grown a lot too.

This is my new nephew Will (William Eric). He is so cute and I loved to hold him. There are more adorable pictures of him on my sister Jana's Blog (The Cleggers).

This is little Addie (Carla's little girl). She has the longest blonde eyelashes you will ever see.

Party goers!

What a pose?! I chose a german chocolate cake with coconut frosting (my favorite) and Randy chose strawberry pie. It was all very tasty! We also had Zubs sandwiches for lunch and it was so good!

This is how Arabella reacted anybody tried to hold her. My dad, mom, and sister Carla each had a 5 minute holding without any crying. What a little stinker.

I also while I was visiting spent a wonderful evening with Peter's family. It was great to see Megan and her family before they move to France. I met baby Lyra for the first time and she is super cute. I was a nerd though and did not get any pictures. You can check her out on the blog Joy in the Journey. Will was blessed on Sunday while I was there and it was a beautiful blessing. I loved my time with family and love my husband for letting me visit.

My next post will be the adventures of Peter and the boys while I was gone.