His and Her Weekend

The thunder and rain arrived so the boys decided it was time to go camping. From what I hear it was a super fun night of running around like loose chickens with friends, an inspirational fireside, tasty s'mores, sleeping part of the night in the mini-van after the lighting started picking up, and lots of soccer for Nate.Nate plays soccer every day at school and from what I hear is quite talented. He was in heaven playing for hours Saturday morning.

Coop was the free-chicken...just running around with new friends and not a care in the world.

While the boys were away...

Us girls headed to Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner. Then Chloe spent the evening with some of her very favorite people -- Mama Turner and her girls. When Alysee and I picked her up at 10:30 pm she was wired with candy, hot pink toe nails, watching Tangled and loving all the attention. She didn't want to home home!!!

Alysee and I spent the night at The Parson Dance Company and East Village Opera Company performance of "Remember Me." It was a totally awesome performance -- the topic was a little mature for Alysee but that was okay as the dancing and opera was amazing!

We all had a great night each doing our own special thing!

Eat What You Want Day

Who knew that May 11th is National "Eat What You Want Day". I recently gave Alysee a calendar that had all sorts of random holidays on it. I told her that she could pick one holiday that we don't celebrate and we would add it to our family traditions. She had a hard time choosing but finally choose "Eat What You Want Day" after all her siblings convinced her it would be an awesome day.

One of my favorite Family Home Evenings growing up was when my parents would give each of us a $1.00 and we would go to the grocery store and choose whatever we wanted within our dollar budget. When we got home we would put everything on the table and eat that for dinner. We decided to pattern our new family tradition off of this old tradition of my family--only with a slight inflation increase - $2.00.

So with each of us with $2.00 in our palms we headed to Safeway to see what we could bring home. Unfortunately for all of us I haven't had time to do the coupon thing for a while so we were all just looking for sale prices and mark downs. For dinner we ended up serving: chocolate milk (Chloe), pringles, zebra cakes, and Sobe drink (Alex and Tyler pooled their money), 2 boxes of mac n' cheese (Cooper), Lunchable and one fruit leather (Nate), pork steak and yogurt (Mommy), canned Mandarin oranges and butterscotch pudding (Alysee), and cinnamon raisin English muffins (Birch).

It was a random meal but quite tasty. We all had a great time and everyone looks forward to next year!

Panther Pride!

May wrapped up Alex's first year playing Junior High baseball. He was really relived when he made it on the team and thoroughly enjoyed playing all season. I don't think it would matter how long the seasons of baseball would be -- it wouldn't be long enough for Alex.

The Panthers had a great season of 8 wins and 2 losses. Alex had a great season himself and really seemed to progress in his batting skills.
Alex played more outfield than he has in the past and had some great plays.

His cheerleaders have grown in numbers a bit with a couple of friends and extended family coming to watch him. So nice to have so many supportive people in our kids' lives!

Easter - a week we won't forget

Last year the week before Easter, Alex came home from church and shared that his teacher had asked him what kind of traditions our family had for Easter. He couldn't really think of any other than our annual family Easter Egg hunt. A little later in the week his teacher (and a good family friend of ours) called and invited us to a traditional passover meal to wrap up the special Easter week their family had been having. We went and all really enjoyed the whole event.

This year I decided that I was going to make a change and start a new tradition...a Christ-Centered Easter Week. Even amongst the crazy busy schedule we live we found time each day to think about the true meaning of Easter.

The Sunday before Easter we celebrated Palm Sunday with a nice meal and palm leaves on the table.
Then I presented the L.O.A. (Love One Another) wall -- or at our house three large windows. I got these cool window crayons (that I had to keep hidden until after dinner each night otherwise I know Chloe would have been decorating our house). Each night we each got a turn to write something that we loved about someone in our family on a window.



It really turned out to be a pretty special part of the week.

Sadly I don't have any other pictures to share about the week. Each night we had a special devotional. Monday night was probably the kids' favorite of the whole week -- we talked about Christ serving others and then we filled Easter Eggs with candy and little toys. Then we went and "EGGED" five family's houses with a little sign that said, "You've just been egged!" The kids had so much fun trying to sneak around at each house. Apparently we were not very quiet and were caught at most houses.

The other evenings we shared things about Christ's life and then put a picture up on our wall representing the story in Christ's life that we had discussed. I tried to have some kind of short fun activity each night -- we made edible tombs in two different ways, resurrection cookies, and did a family crossword puzzle another night. Most of the ideas came from HERE and a book called "A Christ Centered Easter" by Janet and Joe Hales.

The end of the week changed a bit with the sudden passing of Birch's aunt and a quick trip that Birch and I made to Oakland for the funeral services. Gratefully my mom and dad we able to rearrange their schedules and come up last minute to stay with the kids and carry on our special Easter week plans.
Birch and I were grateful that we were able to spend a day or two with most of his family and many relatives to celebrate the wonderful life of his aunt. She left behind six beautiful daughters and a madly in-love husband. Having her memorial service the day before Easter brought a whole new meaningful feeling to Christ's resurrection and the promise that families can be together forever!

Sunday morning the kids awoke to "Halleluiah" chorus from The Messiah. After church we celebrated with a traditional meal that might have been eaten at Christ's time. Birch and I caught an early flight out of Oakland so we made it home for the last bit of church and the rest of Easter Sunday.

With the help of my sister, Emily and my mom we served up: barley-lamb stew, homemade pita bread, dates, nuts, lentil soup, grilled tilapia, pomegranate juice, flat bread, honey, sliced veggies, yogurt, hummus, olives, and dried fruit. The kids were all pretty daring to try some new foods and I'm happy to report we all found enough stuff that we liked that we didn't go to bed hungry.

We still had our family Easter egg hunt but really the whole week was special and something we plan on keeping as an annual tradition. It was extra special sharing part of the week with my parents and Emi's family.

I know my Redeemer lives and love me!

Hard not to love a girl that LOVES life!

This girl is contagious -- she leeks out a love of life! Currently Chloe is IN LOVE with ANYTHING pink, candy, swinging, play dates, Mama Turner, dogs, ANYTHING of Alysee's that she probably shouldn't be playing with, dancing with tutu skirts, not taking naps, coloring, having her nails painted, billions of books in her bed at night, giving kisses, Dora and Strawberry Shortcake, and fruit snacks.

Older than snot but still so young in heart and body

Most people couldn't say this line and be referring to their kids GREAT Grandparents -- I can! Recently my Grandma and her husband Rudy drove from Salt Lake City to visit most all the great grand kids. Our kids all get so excited when they come to visit. They bring fun little gifts, lots of laughter, someone to read endless stories to them, and even a trip to McDonalds. Seriously how many 80+ year old's demand that they are going to take all six kids plus one cousin to McDonalds so that both sets of parents can go out for a date?!! The kids had the best time at McDonalds with Grandma and Rudy and they were delighted that they got to order whatever they wanted plus dessert. What a treat!

I enjoyed the day time when I didn't have to share them with all the kids. We went with Emi and Ryan to the park and basked in the sun. I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful relationship with my grandparents and also so grateful that my kids are able to spend time with them and get to know them.

My grandma was a hair dresser for like EVER. We took advantage of her great skills and had her trim up Chloe's long locks.
I had to include this picture of Ryan -- he's like the best uncle! Look how he is even willing to wear Chloe's head band.
Rudy and Chloe were two peas in a pod.
Rudy had a captive audience for over an hour while he shared his scrapbook of my grandma and Rudy's recent trip to Egypt and Jerusalem.
Having a bad hair day, no time to fix your hair...no worries. My grandma has the best idea -- check out that cute pink fluffy "hat."

Love you Grandma and Rudy!!