Birthday/Easter/Conference weekend

We had a wonderful Easter/General Conference weekend. It was actually kind of a long weekend since my birthday was last Thursday. The big 2-6! It was great. Joe made me an awesome birthday dinner and the girls were in celebration mode all day. Elizabeth even made my bed and decorated my room with balloons. Joe set up a night out Friday night, too. We left all three behind for the first time in awhile and Nate did great, apparently. I wish our time out had gone better, though. We had a nice dinner at P.F. Chang's and within about a half hour of eating we were both sick in the bathrooms at Target. After about an hour we had pulled ourselves together enough to get home. Yuck. Not the best end to the night. I don't think we'll be going back there for awhile. Anyway, enough about that...

We dyed some Easter eggs on Saturday:

Funny sidenote: While we were dying the eggs, the girls kept saying how fun it was and of course they enjoyed eating them, too. Then, when Easter morning came and Natalie saw the plastic eggs in her basket with candy inside she said, "These eggs are way better than dyed eggs!" It's so cute how they are still young enough to not really remember much from the year before and so everything is fun and exciting. I'll be sad when that's not the case anymore.

We had our sunrise devotional Easter morning. Even though it was too cloudy to see the sun, it was still so fun to snuggle up under blankets outside, watch the sky get lighter and lighter and read from the scriptures about the resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ. What a great way to start the day.

Unfortunately, my cinnamon rolls turned out horribly again. One of these days I will get it right!

We went to my Mom and Dad's to meet up with the CA crowd for Conference and my Dad's famous omelets. Conference was amazing, as always, with so much good counsel on teaching children and on family relationships. Very much needed for me!

We even had an egg hunt between sessions. Thanks to Uncle Brad and the older cousins for hiding eggs and helping the little ones.

A few eggs still unclaimed:

I love this action shot:

Grandma and Nate watching from the safety of the house:

Cute Lily

Enjoying the chewy spoils:

My Dad made a cake for the early April birthdays: my sister and I, and our niece Lily.

We love getting together with family. Thanks everyone!

A Sick Easter

We had a nice Easter, even if it didn't quite go as expected. The girls both ended up too sick to go to church on Sunday so I stayed home with them. Nothing too bad--just coughs and colds. We tried to still enjoy some of the spirit of Easter with different activities. We had our very first sunrise Easter lesson out on our back patio which we hope to make an annual tradition. I didn't even have to wake the girls up since they were up way too early for some reason. It went pretty well, despite some complaints from Natalie about having to wait a few minutes for her beloved "frosted wini-meats". It was nice to have a chance to reflect upon the real reason for Easter: the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

We did manage to have a little Easter egg hunt in the backyard after Joe got home from church. Here are some pictures:

The thrill of the hunt

I love Natalie's expression in this one:

In the evening, I found them pretending to sleep again, looking like this:

I love the basket as a hat and that they're snuggling with their chocolate bunnies.

Here's our eggs that we made on Saturday. No one but me wanted to make one with designs. Obviously, they regretted that when they saw my masterpiece. :)

We were busy all morning on Saturday having our garage sale. It actually went really well, thanks to all the people who donated things. We've made $325 and counting (we still have some things up on craig's list that are getting interest). It was stressful but actually pretty fun. It reminded me of the garage sales I used to attempt as a kid.

We've still been sticking around the house until the girls recover so we had a lazy day today. It also happened to be kind of a disastrous day for Natalie. First, she fell on the stairs and bumped her head pretty hard on the iron railings we have. Then, later she fell outside and scraped her chin. She actually fell again and hurt her stomach but that one wasn't too bad. Combine all that with not being able to stop coughing during nap time and getting almost no sleep and it was a pretty rough day. It certainly didn't hurt her spirits, though. She was still as happy as ever for the most part.

Look at that angelic face
(can you see the goose-egg and the scrape?)

Speaking of the little one, I should give a potty-training update. We had a pretty tough week as far as accidents go but she finally stayed dry all day today. And, despite the accidents during the week, she has been staying dry at night and during her naps, too, which is really nice. We're doing our best to persevere...

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter!

Easter Egg Hunt

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter yesterday. We had our egg hunt on Saturday and it was a lot of fun. It's the first year we had a hunt and Elizabeth loved finding the eggs. Natalie didn't really get the concept and mostly just held on to this green egg. (I know she looks a boy in this picture. Elizabeth had a lot more hair when she wore this outfit so she could pull it off better :)

Crawling after an egg

Elizabeth would shriek with delight when she found every egg.
Savoring the spoilsYesterday, Joe and I spoke in church about faith in Jesus Christ, specifically the Sacrament and the Resurrection (respectively). It was a great way for me to be able to celebrate the true meaning of Easter. My testimony of Jesus Christ and His Resurrection was strengthened. I'm so thankful for Him and that because of Him, death is not the end of life. We can live with those we love in heaven just as we do on earth.