Easter

We tried to be extra intentional with Easter this year, and I really enjoyed both our old traditions and adding a few new ones. How grateful we are for our Savior.

Eli, Jake and I headed to the church the Saturday before for a lovely Easter open house our ward put together. There were bunny crafts and an egg hunt, as well as videos, decorated rooms, and visual aids to teach about our Savior. 

We tried a new way of dying eggs.

And I demanded an egg nose picture as payment for any and all Easter fun I'd provided. They humored me-barley (and some were happier about it than others). 

I'm thankful that because of Him, I get to keep all of them.

Jr High Dance

When your son's friend's mom is in charge of school activities, sometimes you get great pics from her:)

Artists

One afternoon (probably to earn extra technology time) Eli taught Jake some of his artist skills.

Sweet 16

Happy 16th to these two! We took them out to Buffalo Wild Wings to celebrate.

Ali went with some friends to the mall to do a scavenger hunt for a party:

Logan got the classic Dodge Charger he was hoping for...sort of...

We also had the church friends over one evening for a party. These two are definitely worth celebrating!

Stake Primary Activity

Our Stake planned an activity and invited all senior primary kids and their families. I double-checked that families included teenagers, and was assured it did. So I told my older kids Jake supports all their events so they could come with us and support this one for him. And they have lots of church friends with siblings Jake's age- they would probably be there too. Turns out, it was not for really for teenagers and they were BY FAR the oldest ones there (none of their friends came). After a bit of grumbling (and perhaps reading my body language about how I felt about their grumbling). they ended up being pretty good sports and got an ice cream on the way home, so all's well that ends well. 

Selfie

Always selfies on my phone from this one. Always.

Talented Friends

I love going with my kids to their friends' events! Eli and I loved cheering Troy Bolton, I mean Mason, on at the Junior High's musical which was High School Musical Jr...(confusing sentence, I know!).

Seminary

Ali and Logan's seminary teachers have been posting photos on the group chat so parents can ask specific questions rather than, "How was seminary?' to which we always get one or two word answers. It's been fun to get peeks into their classes! We are so thankful for good seminary teachers!

 

Elvis in Third grade

Here we have Elvis- I mean Jake!- on a school spirit day:) 

 

Dune 2

We went to Dune 2 as a family, with very high hopes because of all the raves we heard. We did enjoy it, but save for a few really great scenes we all agreed we liked the first one better. 

I bought tickets at the top of the theater on the edge for this reason- so Jake would be able to sit (or lay!) by the floor lights and read his books once he got bored of the movie...he brought two books and read through most of them (it was a long a movie).