Dad comes for lunch

Dad came home to visit us at lunch time a few days ago. Of course in all out cool Dad fashion he brought his new truck! He came home and told Michael he got a new truck a few weeks ago and Michael has been excited about it ever since. So when he pulled up for lunch in this the kids could not wait to get out and see what it does.

Showing the controls. Watching the bed raise up and down. Jordan and Michael got to try it out and thought it was the coolest thing ever.

Climbing on! Ora was terrified!! I had to convince her that she would be sad if she missed it and to trust me, she did eventually climb on but, was not so sure about it.

At the top she was still scared! But, she made it and when she got done she told me I was right. She would have been sad to miss it.

We are so blessed to have such a great Dad!! He is so much fun and even when he was running a little bit late took a few minutes to make our kids day. They have not stopped talking about it.

A couple tales of ORA

Yesterday I was in my room folding some laundry when I heard Ora yelling, "Mommy, mommy come here!!" So I went outside to see what was happening and there she was, swinging herself! A few days ago we were at the park and we had a few lessons on the swings. I tried to teach her by doing the spider swing thing. You know, where you sit on the swing and then she sat on my lap with her feet behind me. It did the trick perfectly. She learned how it felt to push off from the swing and do it yourself. But, she was too afraid to try it on her own there. I was so excited to come out and see her swinging on her own. She has been on the swings ever since. Yesterday she sat and was smiling for hours.

Ora is such a girl. On Saturday We needed to mow the lawn. It was the perfect day warm and sunny, and beautiful. We played most of the day outside and then it came time to mow and Ora FREAKED OUT!! She came running inside and grabbed the basket we keep our family scriptures in. She had to save the dandelions! She ran around the yard grabbing up as many of those precious flowers as she could get her hands on. Her sweet brother Michael, saw her worries and helped out. they 'saved' a ton before Dad could run them over with the mower. We kept them safe all day and then the next day they were magically gone. Michael is such a sweetie he kept our little secret about what happens to flowers after you pick them. Once again the pictures kind of suck but, hopefully soon we will have a new camera and we will be able to share more perfect pictures.

A Short Easter

Or not so short, this year Easter at our house was 7 great days. I read a quote recently that hit me like a ton of bricks, don't you just love when that happens.

"There would be no Christmas if there had not been Easter. The babe Jesus of Bethlehem would be but another baby without the redeeming Christ of Gethsemane and Calvary, and the triumphant fact of the Resurrection" Gordon B. Hinckley

Last year in the Ensign at Easter there was an article all about the week before the Crucifixion and resurrection. It stood out for me and the minute I was hit with the Gordon B. Hincley quote this year I went right back to this article. The author, Eric D. Huntsman did another work. He put together a Holy Week packet I went straight to Kinko's and had a fabulous time printing and putting together our Holy week packet. We began on Palm Sunday. We talked about the Triumphant entry of the Savior and our week began perfectly. The kids had a BLAST talking about our perfect KING,our Savior Jesus Christ. They had a ton of fun doing Hosannas!! We ended up having several Hosanna parties, hosted by Ora during the week.

On Monday we had F.H.E. and talked about the cursing of the fig tree. we helped them understand that we need to be producing "good fruit" for our Savior in order to call ourselves his servants. We continued to have F.H.E. every night during the week. It was a week full of spiritual thoughts and precious moments shared with our children. I highly recommend you guys try this in your own families. We did have to modify the packet to fit our family and our own children's ages. Our plan is as the years go by this week will become something our family looks forward to every year. We had so much fun playing and having Family Home Evening for 7 days straight. It was something that I hope sticks with our kids and as we come to this time next year they will remember and be excited to begin again.

As for Easter Day we had a great time. After Christmas Joe and I were able to go to a clearance store closing and got a fabulous deal on these wiggle carts. It was so hard to wait for Easter morning to give them to the kids, but we made it and then on Easter day it was snowing. So we had wiggle cart races in the kitchen. So fun. I even got on and had a ride and race with Michael.

Abby broke into the candy and did not stop till she was done!

Ora spent her whole day in between conference on the cart. She ate and had a blast hunting and re-hiding the eggs all day. They put together a egg hunt just for Joe and I. It was so much fun to have it be conference weekend. We just stayed home and had a ton of fun together.