Easter Weekend Fun

 We had a busy and fun weekend, packed with a lot of fun things for all of us. On Friday night, Danny and I got to go to a fancy dinner/ceremony at the Convention Center in which Utah Valley honored Lavell and Patti Edwards and Steven R. Covey. The dinner was delicious(Bacon-wrapped Fillet and Lobster Tail) and it was nice to get dressed up and have a night out. The MC of the night was Steve Young, so that was kind of neat also.
On Saturday, we took the girls to see "Peter Pan" (a ballet). I don't know that I have ever been to a live ballet. The girls thought it was a lot of fun, especially when the performers would fly around the stage. They also loved the ones dressed up like animals(tic toc croc, and nana-the dog).  

 After the ballet, Danny had to work, so I brought the girls home and let them dye some Easter eggs. 

 On Ashley's last day of preschool before Easter, her teacher let them have an Easter egg hunt(which wasn't much of a hunt since the eggs were all just sitting in the grass on the front lawn. Here she is with her class after they got done gathering all of the eggs.

 Here she is with her loot. She was pretty excited about picking a treasure out of the treasure chest after she had found all of her eggs.

On Easter morning, the girls were excited to come downstairs and find their Easter baskets full of prizes and goodies. Then we enjoyed a boiled egg breakfast.

 After breakfast, the girls got to go out in our backyard and hunt for Easter eggs. Here they are with their finds(102 eggs total- I think that I need to throw away some of those eggs before next year's hunt). Then we got ready for church. I even tried to doll up their hair a little with new hairstyles. I soon discovered that a waterfall braid may look pretty cool, but it does not hold in a little girls hair for very long. Ashley wouldn't stand in the picture with Alyssa, so here they are in separate pictures.

 Now I know that most of this sounds like the commercial side of Easter, but we did spend a lot of time teaching them this year about the reason we really celebrate Easter. They both got to do/hear the 12 plastic eggs Easter lesson three different times(the one that has a different symbol and scripture relating to the events leading up to Christs' death and resurrection). Alyssa even took that lesson in to share with her class for show and tell on Friday. We also reminded them many times throughout the week and they totally understand. We ended our Easter weekend with dinner at Gawbie and Grandpa's. The girls got to do one more Easter egg hunt there, and we all enjoyed being with each other on this very special day.

Ward Easter Party

 Our Ward had an Easter Party on Saturday morning. It was pretty similar to most of the parties they put on. Food followed by games for the kids in the classrooms. The food was sweet rolls and very delicious. As usual with our ward gatherings, there weren't enough seats for everyone, so they were scrambling to set up more tables as more people showed up. After we ate, the kids were split into 5 different groups and then rotated between 5 different classrooms. The activities included stories, a craft, a relay game, and a short lesson on the events surrounding the death and ressurrection of Christ. After each room, the kids were given an easter egg filled with a prize.

Usually I wouldn't blog about a Ward gathering, but we had Stake Conference yesterday and they split our Stake. I don't think anyone in our Ward realized that splitting the stake would have any more effect on us besides us becoming part of a new stake and having a new stake presidency. However, as part of the boundary changes, we lost about 20 families from our Ward which will be quite an adjustment for everyone. It has probably also created quite the burden for the new bishopric in our Ward who has only been in place for 2 weeks now. On the bright side, our Ward gatherings won't be quite as crowded and it will be a little easier finding a seat in Sacrament meeting. We shall see what other changes take place in the next few weeks.

Abigail Adams Celebration

 Every once in awhile, Alyssa's class has a celebration to close the end of a unit that they have been studying. They have been learning a lot about Abigail Adams this past month and closed the unit with a tea/dance/etiquette party. It was a lot fancier than I expected it to be. Alyssa got to wear a nice church dress to school(which is a treat for her since they wear uniforms). Here is the table and place setting that they walked in to find.

 Each of the girls was paired up with a boy. Alyssa had 4 boys in her class that she was hoping to be paired with and this was one of them. His name is Adriel and he has become her best friend in class recently.

 After they ate, the dessert plates were brought out. They included a cake pop, a parfait, a cookie, a brownie, and a chocolate cupcake. Alyssa only ate the cookie and brownie because she doesn't like cake or whipped cream. I enjoyed the rest of her desserts from the side of the room.

 After the food, the boys escorted their ladies out to the dance floor.

 They did about 10 minutes of dancing and then the celebration was over. Alyssa said that dancing with a boy was "so embarrassing." She looked like she was having a lot of fun to me.

It was so cute to see them acting like little ladies and gentlemen and I was glad that I could be there to see it and help out.

Aquarium

 We spent an afternoon at the Aquarium last week. We bought season passes the first time we went, but I haven't taken both girls back since(I did go once with just Ashley). The girls had a lot of fun and I had to pull them away earlier than they would have liked. Their favorite part of the Aquarium is the sting ray pool that you can reach into to touch the animals. There are also some small fish and sharks in the tank.

It was a fun afternoon. We'll see if we make it back there before our passes expire.

A Year With Frog and Toad

 I tried to post this last week, but was having some issues with Blogger, so it didn't get done. Alyssa was in another play at a little theater here in Lehi. This time the play was called "A Year with Frog and Toad," based on the Frog and Toad children's books. Alyssa's part in the play was one of the squirrels. She didn't have as many speaking parts this time around, but she still had a lot of fun doing it. Here are some of the pictures we got from the different nights that we went to the play.

I think it is great that she loves to get up on stage and perform for people even though she tends to be more shy in other situations.

Photo Shoot

 I've been meaning to post these pictures for a couple of months. This was a photo shoot that we had done just before Christmas. It was meant to be done for our Christmas Cards, but Danny was super busy during the month of December and his schedule never worked with the girls school breaks and as a result the pictures got done much later in the month than we had planned. As a result, we went another year without getting Christmas Cards out. Anyways, here are some of our favorites from the photo shoot.

There were quite a few funny ones since Ashley is still learning how to do a good camera smile. Both girls also got tired of taking pictures towards the end, so it was hard to get a good shot with both of them smiling.

Sick, Sick, Sick

So after Ashley and I thought we were recovered from being sick last weekend, Ashley made a turn for the worst again on Wednesday. Her fever came back and she was more tired than normal. I kept her home from preschool on Thursday and she spent the day sitting on the couch. When Danny got home around 5pm, she was fast asleep on the couch. I was ready to take her to the doctor on Friday, but then she woke up that morning seeming to be recovered. She has been fine since then.
Alyssa had been complaining about her ear hurting all week, so I was going to have her checked out at the doctor on Friday too, but since we didn't end up going, I didn't worry too much about her ear. That is, until she came to me crying in the middle of church yesterday. I pushed her through to the end of church, got her home, gave her medicine and researched home remedies for ear aches. I found one using a little warm pouch of salt, which we tried and it lessened the pain for her. Between medicine and the salt pouch we made it through the night and got her into the doctor first thing this morning. Diagnosis- ear infection on both sides, one of them being ruptured(not sure exactly what that means, but it just sounds bad).
Then there is Danny. He, unfortunately, caught the sickness from either Ashley or myself. He was so careful to wash his hands often and avoid sharing germs. He had a couple of miserable days and then he seemed to be better, just like Ashley. Saturday morning, his fever returned, he developed a cough and then it turned into full on cold symptoms by yesterday afternoon.
We are so ready to be done with sickness. We felt like we have avoided it for most of the winter, but somehow our luck ran out.

Wishing for Spring

 This has been such a smoggy, cold, snowy, miserable winter. So you can imagine our excitement when the sun was out on Saturday and the temperatures got into the low 40's. It was cause for celebration-so we went off to our favorite park. As you can see, there was still quite a bit of snow on the ground, but that didn't stop these girls from having some fun(it also didn't stop Alyssa from dressing like it was spring weather). This is Ashley's favorite thing to do at this park. It is a double vine swing thing that she can go so high on.

With the help of her big sister, Ashley also conquered the rope pyramid. It doesn't look so impressive up close, but...

 when you step back a little you can see how big it really is. It is at least two stories high and that is Alyssa and Ashley right in the middle of it on their way back down.

We also celebrated by getting Slurpee's on the way home. We only wish that Daddy would have been feeling well enough to join us.