A silent plea

On Friday I gathered some stuff up around the house I was wanting to garage sell, and pulled this old chalkboard out of the craft room to sell.  The next morning I came down to find the following note:

Funny how an old neglected item takes on new meaning when it's about to disappear!

Growing like a weed

Kind of gives new meaning to the term, doesn't it?

What we did for Spring Break

Since the entire state of Utah was on Spring Break at the same time, and half the week we had snow and freezing temps, we had to get creative with our time spent.  On Monday the kids just played with neighbors.  On Tuesday we had a Henry family spring cleaning day.  I took inspiration from Mymixofsix and paid the kids in tickets for each chore completed.  I made a list of chores needing done, and they chose which ones they wanted to complete, by initialing next to them.  I told them ahead of time what was "on sale" and for how many tickets, so they could choose how much they were willing to work for.  To their credit, they completed enough to buy everything.  Even Irelynd was able to stick with it until she was done, which is a HUGE accomplishment for her, with her ADHD.  I was so proud of my girls; we cleaned for hours and they stuck right with me, with very little reminding.  I will definitely make this a yearly, or maybe a bi-yearly, tradition in our house.  It worked beautifully!  And it was fun!  (Well, the movie night, maybe not the cleaning!)  Some of the chores I listed included wiping baseboards, cleaning windows, and wiping down walls and doors; pretty much the stuff I HATE doing, because of all the bending over.  Now I have clean baseboards, windows, and blinds!

This is the "store".  Target sold all out of their popcorn holders just days before we went to get some, so Scott got creative and bought mini-planters.  The tickets we found at Walmart for $3, and the candy was leftover Easter candy.

Even Brighton got involved and was able to earn some tickets.  He held on almost until the end of the movie, but crashed before it was over.

Wednesday and Thursday were more play days.  Friday we went to Goblin Valley in central Utah.  It was a 2 1/2 hour drive each direction, but the kids watched a movie both directions and it went quickly.

This is called the Three Sisters and greets visitors on the way in.

We started with a picnic lunch in the parking lot.  Even here in the middle of the desert was crammed full of people.  Luckily, the park is large and it didn't feel crowded.  It was such a nice change from the cold, snowy weather we left behind!

We discovered letterboxing last summer and have fallen in love with it.  We looked up a few clues for the area and found the hidden boxes.  The first one was stashed in this cave, below, where the people are climbing in.  We felt like Indiana Jones.

I had to laugh as I was taking this picture of Savannah.  We finally, after over a year, changed the batteries in her camera before we left, and she kept stopping her siblings to pose for a picture for her.  Like mother, like daughter!

After a few hours of climbing over, under, and through the formations, Brighton could go no farther, and lay down in the dirt to rest.

After leaving Goblin Valley, we went to Little Wild Horse Canyon to hike the slots.  We found our second letterbox clue here as well.  As we had to get back to pick up our twins from Scott's parents, we only spent a short time here.  I would have liked to hike the entire 8-mile round trip, but it'll have to wait for our return trip next spring. 

Best seats in the house are portable

I love to see the things these two come up with together.  Luckily, this one caused little clean-up, which is always a plus.

Spring Toddler time

In honor of the newly-budding "popcorn trees", Brighton and I decided to make one of our own.  We finger-painted the trunk and grass, and he glued on the popcorn.

I think his favorite part, though, was what we did with the left-overs;  I melted some yellow candy melts from Easter and mixed it into the popcorn.  We had to add some Oreo crumbs, too, of course, for the dirt.

Teacher's Valentine's gift

This is rather late, but I found this photo on Scott's camera recently.  I saw these on someone's blog back in February, and decided to try it for a teacher gift this year.  They were so easy!  It's hand sanitizer that we bought at the dollar store; I soaked them in water to remove the labels.  What didn't come off with water I scrubbed off with an adhesive remover, like Thoro.  Then I just cut some scrapbook paper to fit, glued it on with glue dots on the back side, and used rub-ons for the front.  Then added some ribbon around the neck.  And, voila!

UVMOM Easter egg hunt

For playgroup this month, we got together with our twin Mom friends and did a small egg hunt at a park in Orem.  It was a good rehearsal for my twins, and we had fun visiting with everyone. Only 6 of us showed up, but it was good.

Easter 2010

Ok, another l o n g post with lots of pictures, but you didn't expect me to skimp on photos, now did you???  The details you can skip if you want.  Here are our baskets, ready for hiding: Savannah, Brighton, Waverly, Keaton, Irelynd, and mine.  Scott had one, too, but as it only contained candy, I didn't get a photo of it.  I was really excited to see Fablehaven 5 in it!  Man, that Bunny loves me!  We started doing our Easter baskets on Saturday morning instead of Sunday so we can focus on Christ on Easter, and I love it.  The kids even love it, too, as they finally see the benefits of it.  In our house, the Easter bunny hides our baskets and the kids have to search for them.

Easter morning...the kids popped into our room at 7am ready for hunting.  Notoriously mean, we made them all go back to bed for an hour, until 8.

Funny story about Waverly.  When we got the babies out of their cribs and told them to go find their baskets, Waverly got really excited and went running to her room.  I was curious to see where she was going at a dead run, as this is the first year that they have really been able to participate.  I followed her, with camera in hand, of course, and she promptly grabbed her book basket and started back into our room with it.  She was SO proud of herself.

Years ago, I made the girls some hooded towells; Irelynd a duck and Savannah a horse.  As they are no longer little girls, I felt they needed something girly and up-dated, so I made them new hoodies in their favorite colors: bright pink and lime green.  I love the ric rac and polka-dotted ribbon on bottom!  And, true to my book-lovin' nature, what's a holiday without a new book?

Table set for Saturday morning Conference breakfast of cinnamon rolls, fresh fruit, and little smokies.

Between sessions we attended our neighborhood Easter egg hunt.  I just love spring pictures!  The colors are awesome in photos!

The babies finally "got it" this year, picking up their own eggs during the hunt.  They even managed to leave the eggs in the basket until they were done, before eating the contents.

This is Keaton attempting to retreive the yellow egg in the end of the drain pipe.  Instead, he found a jelly bean to eat.  Hopefully it was recently put there.

Next we ate a potluck lunch and the kids decorated some eggs.  Then home for the pm session of Conference.

Sunday we went to Grandma's house for Easter dinner and another egg hunt.  I saw this recipe for cream-stuffed strawberries on this site (linked indirectly to Martha Stewart) and made some.  They were very disappointing.  If anyone makes them in the future, skip the cream recipe and make whipped ganache instead.  Mmmmmm...now there's an idea.  Me and ganache are well acquainted.  Does make a pretty picture, though, no?

I think Savannah ate too much, judging from her slouch.

We had yummy orange rolls along with dinner.

We enjoyed dinner from the kids' table.  It's not often that I get to sit and talk to my niece and nephew, so it was nice!

I just love this picture.  Waverly loves my mom.  She was slow to take to her, but she adores "Nammah" now.

On the hunt...my mom has a tradition that she hides one Easter egg with a $5 bill inside; this year she hid two.  And the hunt includes adults and kids alike.  It's always competitive to see who gets the money egg.  This year, even with everyone hunting, we ended up with both.  Irelynd picked up exactly 3 eggs before she switched to hunting snail shells and other oddities.  When I expressed surprise to my mom later, well, in order to protect the innocent, and not-so-innocent, we'll just say there may have been some cheatin' goin' on.

Savannah was mad that her little brother and sister found both eggs.  The next day Brighton told me that "Dad took 5 of [his] monies".  Savannah was $5 richer.

Don't you just love the look of pure strategy on his face?  Maybe there's a reason he ended up with the lucky egg...

Keaton got a hold of this egg half and found that if he held it between his lips and teeth like so, then he could do it with no hands.  Man, was he proud of himself!  Waverly demanded one too, but after one try, insisted that hers was "broke."  At least there's one thing he can do and she can't..

It was a wonderful holiday.  I love when Easter falls on General Conference.   What better way to spend it than with family and the prophet?  Perfect.