Easter Sunday

Things that are making me happy today:

-Easter Egg Hunt at Grandma and Grandpa's house (458 eggs to find!):
Ryker really isn't so chubby that he's busting out of his clothes, it only looks that way because of the wicked wind that was blowing out in Leeds.


-Mangoes!:

-Easter Crafts with Anicka:

-A Beautiful Easter bouquet from Adam:

-A Pretty Bowl Full of Fresh Fruit:

- Church in my Pajamas!
(imagine that there's a picture of something General Conference related right here. I'm too lazy to look for one.)
Our Easter weekend was wonderful, not counting the awful coughs that my children came down with unexpectedly. I hope that you all had wonderful weekends, as well.

it's too bad that vacations can't last forever.

I have been having too much fun the last few weeks to worry about blogging. Adam was able to take a week and a half off of work (with pay!) and we enjoyed every minute of it. Well... the one possible exception might be the day that we spent doing a deep clean of the apartment. Adam might not have enjoyed that quite as much as I did.
Christmas this year was fantastic.
Anicka was old enough that she remembered last Christmas and was excited for this one, and Ryker was old enough that he knew what to do with the presents that he was handed. The kids had a great time decorating the tree




Anicka was determined to wrap all of her gifts herself, this year. The only thing I was allowed to do was hand her precut strips of tape, since she still has a bit of trouble working the tape dispenser on her own.

As per tradition, we spent the night at my parent's house in Leeds. And by 'we', I mean 'everyone in the family', which is starting to become quite a feat. It's hard to sleep twelve people in a tiny, three bedroom house. But, as the saying goes, love grows best in little houses; and it's wonderful (and worth it) to have everyone together on Christmas morning.




I forgot to take pictures of most of the gifts that I made, but here are the pajamas that I made for Anicka: And the CD holder that I made for Evie's new car:

I used this tutorial from Puking Pastilles to make the CD holder.

And, lastly, here is Ryker devouring the first of about half a dozen of my mom's awesome cinnamon rolls that he ate over the course of the weekend.
Since there are already half a million pictures in this post, I will end it here and share more tomorrow.

Halloween in December

How sad is it that I'm only now getting around to posting Halloween pictures? Ah, well. life is busy, what else can I say? Anyway. (These pictures are just for you, my dearest Crystal. :D )

Halloween is my favorite. I can go all out on decorations and costumes, I get to try new things and let my creative side run wild... It's awesome. This year I made almost everything for our costumes. Anicka and Ryker were a Princess (Belle) and a dragon, respectively. And Adam and I went as Cleopatra and Marc Antony. My first idea was to go as Dr. Horrible and Penny, but I didn't think many people would know who we were. Anyway. Adam and I made the 'armour' out of cardboard, and I crocheted my wig and made all of the jewelry.

I made Ryker's costume out of a couple of blankets and a scarf from the dollar store. The cape/wings was my favorite part of his costume, but we couldn't get a good photo because this was about the happiest he was all night:


Here is Anicka's princess pose:
Her dress came from this:


Which I found at the D.I.
It was about three sizes too big, and pretty plain, so I spruced it up for her.
And here is a picture of the Three Musketeers, who had fun trick-or-treating together. Sienna is a ballerina and Kaycee is an old woman (complete with sagging bosom, though you can't see it in the picture):They are the cutest little girls on the planet, seriously.
Annnnnd, lastly, a few photos of our Halloween Decorations. There were the hanging bats in the window (can you guess which ones Anicka made?):

the pumpkins that we painted, plus Anicka's scarecrows (which she calls 'co-crays' for some strange reason) and her beloved stick collection:
our paper-bag pumpkins, which sadly looked more like orange pineapples:
and our cute ghost jars, which looked pretty sweet when they were lit up with glowsticks:

Well, folks. that is the end of my very verry verrrry belated Halloween post. Goodnight.

Tropic

We went camping with my family over the long weekend in the beautiful area near Tropic Reservoir. Just look at all of the amazing trees and rock formations that were just a short hike from our campsite.
(Most of these photographs were taken by Adam)

Anicka likes to help daddy put up the tent

Kaycee was very excited about catching weeds

Ryker loved playing in the dirt

Anicka caught her first fish

("...is it dead?")

In other, completely unrelated news:
I turned the book club blog into a book review blog. The new address is therecklessreader.blogspot.com

yep.

The Epic Easter Egg Hunt

Every year for Easter my parents hide hundreds of eggs all over their property, some filled with candy, others with vouchers for prizes or money. It has always been one of my favorite traditions. This year we were missing a couple of members of our family (Eric works at IHOP and is gone most Sundays and Crystal is in Logan for school) but the egg hunt was still a lot of fun. There were over 270 eggs to find, and the most coveted prize was an entire bag of Starburst. Good times, good times.

Evie wants to be an easter egg, too:

A ghost of eggs from Easters past:

Dividing up the spoils. I'll trade you a bunny crisp for your starburst:

Anicka now has enough candy to last us until Christmas. It has been in a bowl on the counter for the past two days, but I'm ready to hide it in the closet now. Out of sight, hopefully out of mind. I don't need the temptation!