Happy Birthday

I am wishing I was in Washington with my family celebrating Mom and Alice's Birthday. I am thankful for the web cam, though. Happy Birthday Mom and Alice! Love you.

April Showers Bring...

The other day Madi did one of her daily calendar activities for her homework. She had to finish this sentence:

April showers bring _____ _____. And draw an illustration. This is what she wrote: April showers bring rain pulls (puddles). Chris then taught her the saying: April showers bring May flowers. Now she knows.

I hope Madi's words put a smile on your face as it did mine.

AWANA Awards Night

These pictures where taken at Awards night....

Sparkies sang two songs they learned this year. You can see Madi in the jean dress up front.

Madi just after receiving her awards. She has patiently been waiting for her review patch and pin as they hand it out at the end of the year, which was different from our last club. Of course she was supper excited about her ribbon as well, but knew she had to wait for the ribbon.

Emma after she just received her ribbon.

AWANA Awards

Last night the girls received their awards for their hard work this year in completing their books....

Emma's year in AWANA was a good one. At the beginning of the year she didn't want to go to AWANA. It was a big change for her since this year she is at a new club and in her first year in T&T (Truth and Training grades 3rd-5th). As most of you know, Emma had the hardest time adjusting to our move to Utah and isn't as comfortable as she use to be in new situations. Slowly throughout the year she made friends and got use to the new program and now would say she likes it. She was able to finish her book and complete two silver sections. Good job, Emma! I am proud of you.

Madi is in her second year of Sparks (K-2nd grade). She fell in love with this club the first night. She LOVES the Director (Ms. Cassie). The Sparks theme this year was "God Made You Special." The Sparkies made a rock garden and prayer tree. They also made a Thankful Turkey and Madi made sure she put in prayer requests in their prayer jar. Madi finished her book (ribbon), book review (review patch), extra credit book (Sparky pin for the review patch), and two Psalm Stripts (2 pins that say the Psalms she recited. I put them on her pocket since they don't do Sunday School patches at this club). Good job, Madi, I am proud of you!

I couldn't resist sharing this picture. They are growing so fast. I can't believe how the years fly; I remember Emma's first year of Cubbies when she was three.

Sermon On Ruth - Week 2

Wanted to let you know that Chris preached his second sermon on Ruth yesterday. It is the second of three on the book of Ruth. If you would like to listen to it, go to: sonrisebc.org, click on this week's sermon. If you missed last weeks sermon, you can still listen to it. Go to media archives.

Also wanted to let you know that the staff page on our church's website is up and running. If you want to read about Chris, click on his picture.

Sermon On Ruth - Week 1

Wanted to let you know that Chris preached this last Sunday. It is the first of three on the book of Ruth. If you would like to listen to it go to: sonrisebc.org, it is on the front page until Sunday, then it goes into the media archives.

Note: It was not recorded on Sunday. Since it is part of a three week series, he recorded it yesterday.

Trip to Boise

Last month we took 16 students to Acquire the Fire (a youth conference) in Boise, Idaho. The girls traveled up with us; my parents met us there and took the girls for the weekend. The girls had a blast. I'm thinking that my parents and brother did too. Thanks Mom and Dad.

The youth had fun as well. God is so good; some of what we have talked about recently in youth group was talked about that weekend. There were friendships formed as well.

The bummer part was Madi wasn't feeling good over the weekend. Especially Sunday. We stopped to eat for lunch and she wanted nothing to do with food. The students were eating red vines and I gave Emma one, but told Madi absolutely not, since her stomach wasn't feeling good. Emma started to give her one, and I sad no. Soon after we hit the road again, Chris called and told me to take the next exit; Madi just threw up. Emma had it in her hair; I felt sorry for Emma, but thankful the other youth in the car didn't get any on them. One of the students helped Emma clean up while Chris and I were cleaning up Madi and the car. We soon found out that Emma gave Madi a red vine in the car; at that moment I didn't feel sorry for her any longer (okay, maybe a little bit). She experienced the natural consequences of not listening to me. I don't think she will do that again.

Uncle Rusty and the girls hanging out in the hotel room.

Laura Bush

Emma just completed her final book report for this year (three total). For this book report she had to pick a biography to read, write a five minute report on the person, give a speech to her class, and participate in a "wax museum." As you can see by my title of this post, Emma chose Laura Bush.

She wrote a nice speech on Laura Bush which she memorized. Grampy got to hear her speech on the web cam, which he said she did a great job. I have to say she looks like Laura Bush too. I looked at tons of pictures of Laura Bush and in most she was wearing similar earrings (I bet you ours were cheaper), red lipstick, dress suit, and in some, a pearl necklace. I have to say it is weird to look at a picture of my daughter with a ring on her left ring finger.

The Wax Museum

Chris and I got to visit the "Wax Museum" at the girls school today. The statue of Laura Bush looked very similar to my oldest daughter, Emma. Okay, it's really Emma. All the students did such a great job holding still as people walked by, took pictures, and stared at them....

Emma as Laura Bush

This view of the "museum" was taken from where Emma was standing. Some of the other statues on display were Amelia Earhart, Harriet Tubman, Johnny Depp, Tony Hawk, Helen Keller, Sacagawea, Steve Irwin, Shaun White, and Miley Cyrus.

The Aquarium

On Saturday, we went to the Living Planet Aquarium. It was a small aquarium, but very nice. We got a great deal.... Our church secretary gave me a heads up on a years membership to the aquarium. We spent $40.89 for a years membership for all 4 of us. If we went one time it would have been $32. This came at a good time, since our zoo membership is almost expired; it will be especially nice during the winter months.

Since we went on a Saturday, it was pretty crowded, but knew we didn't have to see everything since we have all year to explore. Unfortunately the camera batteries died soon after we left the Discovery Utah section. To see a map go to: www.thelivingplanet.com, click on "exhibits" under "Things to see and do." We still got some good pictures....

The girls favorite animal to see were the penguins which are new to the aquarium. We got to watch them eat sardines. Hopefully we will get pictures of them next time.

Easter Sunday Dinner

After church, we went to the Yearsley's for a delicious dinner. Joyce made yummy cheesecakes. I think I ate my piece the slowest I have ever eaten anything (I just recently went 45 days with no sweets); it was so good! I was still savoring each bite as everyone else went out to watch the kids search for eggs Joyce hid...

As you can tell by Emma's hair, it was a chilly, windy day. I can't believe the girls weren't cold. I had my wool coat on.

Joyce gave the kids Easter baskets. They went outside with Jim to play with a toy they got in their baskets (Chris captured the ball in the air as Madi shot it). Jim also had a marshmallow blaster they played with. To the left of the picture you can see Garret's hand holding a marshmallow.
Also to note, the snow had mostly melted from the morning; there's patches left as you can see in this picture.

Easter Sunday

The girls, in their adorable Easter dresses from Grandma and Grandpa, posing in front of the church window after our indoor Sunrise Service. Yes, that's snow outside.

Even though it was a busy day for Chris, he sat down with us to eat breakfast.

After service the girls all huddled around Caleb. He looked adorable in his Easter suit.

Bella was baptized during service. As Madi watched the baptisms, she forgot for a moment she was in service and yelled out Bella's name (with excitement) when she saw her. It was cute.

Easter Egg Hunt at Church

This year's Easter Egg Hunt at our church marks our first repeated event going into our 2nd year at Sonrise. There were around 70 children at this event. Along with candy, each egg had a Bible verse in it. Also, we had families hear the resurrection story.

First through third grade just starting on their hunt.

Emma finding an egg.

Madi enjoying her hunt.

note: To see more pictures of this event, go to www.sonrisebc.org

Basket Hunt

Since tomorrow we are getting up early to go to a sunrise service, the girls hunted for their baskets with Alice (yesterday)....

 

 

 

Easter Egg Hunt

Yesterday we did a Easter Egg Hunt...

Emma and Madi ready to hunt.

Alice enjoyed finding the eggs.

Emma trying to get one under Uncle Darryl's foot.

Cuteness.

Going Through The Treasures

 

 

 

 

After the girls opened all their eggs (finding stickers, coins and one empty to represent the tomb), they helped me tell the resurrection story of Jesus. In this picture, Alice opened the egg finding a rock, representing the stone that sealed the tomb.

Good Times With Family

We are sad that Darryl and Alice had to head home this morning. We had three full days of fun with them. The girls are on Spring Recess (three days off), which gave the cousins lots of time to play.

 

 

 

 

More pictures to come....

Happy (early) Birthday, Alice

Since Alice is turning three at the end of April, we decided to celebrate her birthday while they were visiting. We gave her two books, coloring paper, and a camera. I wish we were able to capture her face when she opened the camera (hand me down from Madi); she was so excited. She has been taking pictures this morning. So adorable.

 

 

 

 

Wind

I have to start this post by saying that Salt Lake City is the 2nd Windy City. At least to me. Although Oregon had wind storms, it isn't windy everyday. After living here for just over a year, I have to say, it's windy all year long. If I have to pick the windiest season, it would be Spring.
Monday night after the girls went to bed the wind started blowing like crazy. Tuesday it was just as bad. I had to run some errands and I felt like I got a dirt facial by the time I was done, not to mention the car was rocking back and forth on the road. That afternoon, I had to pick up our garbage can that was blown over. I put rocks in the bottom, which seemed to help.
When we moved here last March, I was shocked to see how much garbage was everywhere. I couldn't believe how messy Utahans were. Since living here for more then a year, I now understand that some of the garbage was blown from garbage cans and dumpsters. So we aren't as messy as I thought.
Okay back to Tuesday. I was in the house and I heard hail. I looked out the sliding glass door and saw nothing. Then, I realized that the noise was coming from the front room. I peaked out our shutters and saw bark hitting the window. It was blowing everywhere. Then we saw that it had blown in the house...

 

It blew in through the front door on both sides! The pictures show the worst side. If you click on the pictures you might be able to see more detail of the dirt all over the shoe mat and Chris' slippers.
My brother and niece were on their way to visit, so I got busy cleaning it up. Good thing I left the floor cleaning until that day. Anyways, by the time I finished cleaning the floors, I had vacuumed the bark, that kept blowing in, four or so times. I finally put plastic bags and a towel down, which helped. Wednesday morning I checked the front area (outside) and there was bark everywhere, with bald patches of dirt were the bark was suppose to be. I could imagine fresh bark flying around, but this bark has been there since fall.
The wind stopped blowing as strong (Wednesday), but it's been snowing. I would guess we have around 7 or so inches.