Easter 2009

Brace yourselves, here comes another post with a lot of pictures. Each Easter helps strengthen my testimony and makes me more grateful for my Savior. Here we have the Easter Pageant, it is a huge production that shares the life of Christ and the reason we celebrate Easter. The spirit is so strong and I love being able to help remind my kids of the true meaning. This is a picture of the end where Christ appears(at the very top) triumphantly as our Savior. I am so grateful for my Savior and his willingness to suffer and atone for our sins. There is a primary song that is one of my favorites called "He Sent His Son" in it says "How could the Father show the world the pathway we should go? He sent His son to walk with men on earth that we may know." That says it simply we have it all laid before us and so many things to help us along the way given to us by a loving Father in Heaven. What a blessing!

Kaili was very cute during the performance. She kept saying "Oh I learned about that from my teacher in primary!" And then she would proceed to tell us all about it. Aren't primary teachers wonderful?!!! At one point it shows Christ being baptized and then you hear the voice of Heavenly Father saying that he is well pleased. Kaili leaned over to Dave with wide eyes and says-"Dad, that's just a speaker, right?" She wasn't sure if she was hearing the real deal. :)

The girls and I got to spend the Friday and Saturday before Easter with Dave's brother and his family while Dave, his dad who flew in from California and the boys went on the Father and Sons camp out for our ward. The Easter bunny comes on Saturday around these parts. :)

The girls with their cheesy smiles.

We love going up to Taylor and spending time with family! The boys enjoyed the camp out but were a little cold and wet. It snowed and rained, but they had a fun time anyway!!

Kalani and Grandpa shooting the air soft gun.

Kawika in the falling snow.

They stopped on their way to his brothers house at the Red Onion for some tasty burgers.

The Easter bunny left eggs for Kawika and Kalani to find when they got to Uncle Jason's house.

Before the boys got back from camping Anna took the girls and I out to lunch at a cute little place called Celebration. The girls dressed up in princess clothes and got to sip lemonade out of their tea cups. We had a great time, thanks Anna!!

After we ate our delicious lunch and sipped our lemonade with our pinkies out, the girls played dress up with the hats they had there. They had too much fun and it was cute to watch.

April Fool's Day

So last year I went a little crazy with April Fool's day, I was playing tricks all day! Dave thought I had gone crazy. I froze the milk in the kids cereal bowls and gave them mashed potato ice cream just to name a few. I had a great time :) The kids were very leery of me all day-not really sure what mom was going to do next. This year I was going to be gone all day so I didn't do as much but we had fun anyway. Dave was able to be home that morning and made pancakes-and the kids got a little surprise when they tried to cut into their pancakes. :)

I put saran wrap across the boys door so they couldn't get out. I was hoping they would be sleepy and run into it but not this time. :)

We'll see what we come up with next year! :)

Spring Break in Califonia

I know these next few entries are all old news-but better late than never. :) Get ready for a crazy amount of pictures. I tried only pick a few but that is impossible when we had so much fun! For part of Spring Break we went to southern Cali to visit family. Dave's grandparents live there in a little town called Ojai in a beautiful picturesque valley with lots of orchards. Ojai has a lot of memories for Dave and now it has become a place our kids love to go! Grandad and Grandma Owens have been so gracious to let us come and visit and invade their home. We love it!

Dave's sister Amy and her husband JR live in the next town over. His dad and sister Melanie and her kids came down from northern CA and his brother Stephen flew in from school at BYU Idaho to join us too!! We were so excited to get to spent time with family!

Grandad and Grandma Owens

They have the perfect grandparent backyard-lots of room to run and a very cool tree house.

Dave's family is a hunting family, hence the reason there is a stuffed grizzly in their living room. :) The kids think it is so cool and love to sleep out by the bear when we come to visit.

Stephen grew antlers while we were there

Melanie is a FABULOUS photographer and was nice enough to take our family pictures for us. She did and amazing job! We were excited to have them taken on the beach(we would have loved them on the beach in Hawaii but that will have to come another time). Thank you so much Melanie!! And thanks to the rest of the family who sat around waiting for us and making our kids smile!

One of the main reasons for this trip was for Dave and Stephen to go surfing. We also wanted Kawika to be able to try it out. So Grandpa surprised Kawika with an early birthday present-his very own surfboard! He was very excited!

We went fishing on Ventura pier.

Grandpa, Jacob, Lydia, and Kalani

Horse back riding with Amy

We went to Aunt Patti's farm and rode Amy's horses. The kids loved it and Amy was so nice to take each kid riding till their heart was content. Thanks Amy we had a great time!

Melanie with her daughters Lydia and Elise.

The girls and Jacob

A Day at the Beach

We got to spend a day at the beach while Dave and Stephen went surfing. Amy and Kaili had fun building a mama and baby sea turtle.

The kids loved playing in the surf. I still can't figure out how they weren't frozen popsicles-that water is soooo cold. I steered clear of the cold water.

We found 3 cute little mermaids on sunning themselves on the beach.

Kawika tried to catch a couple of waves and got up on his knees!! Wooohooo! He was freezing after this wave and promptly got out. He had fun but we'll have to try again in warmer water.

Dave and Stephen had a great time surfing. Dave loved being back out in the ocean-that is something we definitely miss being land locked in the desert.