April Fools! and FHE

 Lily and Amara concocted a plan to fool grandma, so before she got up in the morning, the kids took yarn and taped it all across her door in a criss-cross fashion. Grandma loved it and laughed when she opened her door.  Then she crawled out the bottom so she could keep it up!  That got old fast, so a few hours later it came down.  But she loved that someone remembered her on April Fools day!

Fierce Amara

Cyborg Dad

Unicorn Abby Taylor

Fierce Grandma

Masked Amara

Spectacled Lily 

Amara was in charge of FHE.  Yay!  That means games!  We invited over the Taylor family, a family that we minister to.  We first had dinner which was taco soup.  Then for Amara's lesson, she created a game about deception.  There were 6 plastic Easter eggs, each had a poetic riddle she created leading you to the next egg, and each egg also had a scripture challenge.  One that I remember was "look up a scripture, or quote on deception and share it."  I thought that was fitting for April Fools Day to get to solve riddles and learn about deception.  

Afterward, we went inside the house and played WhooNu together while eating the dessert popcorn Tami had brought.  It was delicious!  She made it by heating up 2 bags of microwave popcorn and stirring it up with a bag of melted peanut butter chips.  She also did one with butterscotch chips.  That dessert was so delicious!  We love doing family home evenings with the Taylors!

Wonderful Moments From March

Amara and I went on a date to the temple one morning.  We should do it again soon.  Lily was sick so she stayed home to rest.

The snow took it's sweet time melting this year.  We are thankful for that because too quick of a melt means flooding for us.

 I love ward activities! The ward auction is a big event.  They feed everyone a spaghetti dinner, people bring mystery bags for silent auction, and there's a bake sale and live auction as well.  At the end, you pay whatever donation you'd like for the dinner and any of the items you purchased throughout the night.  The relief society was asked to arrange the bake sale.  I made the fliers and on them included a picture of some really tasty no bake preacher cookies that we made for Lily's mutual activity one night.

For our mystery bags that we donated to the silent auction-
Amara created a dog care kit: collar, leash, dog treats, dog toys
Lily made a babysitting bag: toys, waterbottle, book, coloring stuff
I made a peanut butter lovers bag: peanut butter, 3 peanut butter recipes, a batch of PB no bake preacher cookies, Reeses peanut butter cereal, Reeses candies.

 The bake sale was at the back of the gym, the mystery bags were along the edges.  The live auction was at the front.  The spaghetti dinner was in the middle.  The gym was really packed.

 Amara was in charge of helping with the bake sale. Lily was in charge of helping serve food for dinner.

We were so pleased to see that Heather and Alex welcomed baby Solene into the world that same night as the ward auction.

Steve asked the girls and I to be judges at the 5th grade science fair.  We enjoyed getting to judge one of the classes and see the projects.  The overall winner did an experiment where she took eggs and immersed them in different things overnight (gatorade, grape juice, dr. pepper) to show what could be taking place to our teeth if we don't brush them and they sit and bathe in the sugary substances we consume.

St. Patrick's day was on Sunday.  I loved St. Patrick's story and his Lorica.  To me it was what we really should be celebrating, not silly leprechauns, clovers, and green.

 I love our traditional St. Patrick's day dinner.  I'm the only one  that likes corned beef apparently.  Too bad, though.  I'm still making it because it's tradition that goes back to my great-grandpa!  I suppose it's sorta like my dad- he makes fruitcake every December, no one really likes fruitcake except him, but it's tradition!

 Amara decorated the table with some cute homemade decorations.  She used yellow playdough stuck to pennies to make gold for the centerpiece and drew each of us our own namecard.  She also drew a couple comics.

Amara and Lily have been using their creativity to learn different things.  Amara taught herself to crochet  using a youtube tutorial.

 Lily has been creating new hairstyles on her long gorgeous hair.

Steve and I offered a 10 week photography class and had a small group of 4 awesome teen girls.

My committee and I put together a really enjoyable evening for our Relief Society birthday party.  We had dinner (Indian tacos), Birthday cake (people signed up and we had them as our centerpieces and dessert), we had an inspiring speaker talk about Pres. Nelson's plea to the sisters to participate fully in relief society, and we did a game (the cold wind blows) to do a service exchange.  It was great fun!

Amara was a sweet heart and made me breakfast one morning.  She went out and picked me a fresh spray of what she could find, dried sprigs of this and that.  Then she made me toast with jam and an adorable clementine elephant.

One of the fun days we did for photography was composite pictures.  Here was one Steve put together as an example.

The girls and I had dresses made for us from Steve's cousin, Chelsea Fox.  She has a facebook business and custom makes dresses.  We got to choose everything from the fabric to the cuts, lengths, and fitted exactly to our measurements.

Our 16th Anniversary: Park City & Salt Lake

Toasting with our garlic toast at Denny's

 For our 16th anniversary we stayed in Park City at the Landmark Inn, a hotel that Steve's dad helped design many years ago.  My family stayed there when I was a child on a few occasions when we'd visit Park City on vacation.  It now has a Denny's on location, which happens to be one of Steve's go-to places he likes to eat at. 

My mom's manager at the Best Western Hotel was able to get us a discount, room upgrade, and an anniversary basket.  It was a nice touch. 

We really didn't do much other than sleep and eat in Park City.  We did go for a walk, but it was still really cold in May, snow was still hanging around. 

My meal was good.  Mushrooms, onions, and gravy smothered beef roast.  Jalapeno creamed corn (yum!), and broccoli.

One of Steve's favorites is the Slam Burger.  It's a burger layered with bacon, hashbrowns and an egg.

For dessert: a strawberry-nutella crepe

For second dessert, cinnamon roll pancake with horchata ice cream

This fun basket was waiting for us in our room.  Don't tell anyone, but the popcorn and pretzels were stale, and the fudge was rock hard and had expired a few months previous. haha!

Selfie on the bridge over the freeway, nearby our hotel.  It was getting dark and actually it felt a little sketchy, so we just walked across and went back to our room.

The next day we traveled to Salt Lake, got up early to hike Ensign Peak and for some lovely picture taking opportunities.  It was beautiful!

Anniversary selfie on our way down the mountain

A legacy garden across from Ensign peak

Spring flowers!

 Our next stop was touring the State Capitol and the nearby gardens down the hill.

We happened to be one of the first tourists to view the Golden Spike on display.  We showed up at just the right time to get to go through with renowned historians, legislators, and TV crews.  It was fascinating.  No pictures were allowed in the exhibit. 

The park down the hill was absolutely gorgeous!  It was in beautiful bloom.

It seemed like a fitting idea to go to the Cheesecake factory.  We also found a theater and went to a movie.

 On our drive home, we took our time, stopping at pretty locations for pictures.  It was another enjoyable anniversary together.  I'm glad we took the time to celebrate. 

The following photos are from Steve's camera.