Sunday, April 11, 2010

Happy Graduation

Congratulations to my brother Jared Fife who graduated from BYU-Idaho on Saturday in Interior Design. All of the siblings plus my husband and aunt were able to attend. We are so proud of him for this great accomplishment. If you need to design a kitchen or bath, that is his specialty, he is your man.

Snow Day

Yes, I said "Snow Day!!!" Tuesday morning I was willing myself out of bed after my alarm went off when Kris called to inform me that school was canceled because of snow. "What!!!" I said. But this look out my front window told me why. Absolutely crazy that our only snow day of the winter comes on April 6th.
To add insult to injury as I checked my e-mail that morning I had a notice from Henry Fields Nursery that my flowers had shipped. Fine time I would have trying to plant them in this.
We took advantage of the day though. I went back to bed and slept in until Leah woke up after 8:00. Then after breakfast my kids put on their snow clothes over their PJ's and went out to play.
Tal pegged me with a few snow balls.
Leah was delighted by the "now, now" and loves wearing her boots. I had to drag her kicking and screaming into the house later.
Abi was a great helper trying to clear the heavy wet snow off the driveway. By the afternoon though most of it had melted and we were back to normal the next day.

Spring Break In Idaho

Disclaimer: I've given up on scrap booking for lack of time. As my blog, if I ever get it printed into a book, will be my only record of my adorable family I am cramming as many pictures into a post as I think bordering on decent.

Perhaps it was because I actually planned fun things to do over Spring Break that Mother Nature played tricks on us. But then again, it truly was representative of spring in Idaho that it rained, snowed, rained, snowed, blew and rained some more throughout my kids week off from school. However we tried to make the best of it without going crazy.

On the Monday before Easter for FHE we celebrated Passover. I loved this Jewish tradition when I was at the BYU Jerusalem Center and we've adopted it into our family tradition. Each year we tweak our Seder dinner a little to fit with our family or friends. Abi and Tal love the hiding of the Afikomen and of course the finding of it. We have a short little Haggadah ( book for the Seder) that we follow. The kids really enjoy drinking the grape juice and eating the matzoh and eggs. This year I made sure to have at least 1 egg per person. We do a little finger puppet show to tell the story of Moses going to Pharaoh to ask for the release of the Children of Israel. Tal loves the Hillel sandwich which is matzoh, horseradish and haroset ( I cheated and used applesauce this year.) He will eat and eat the stuff. For each of the blessings we have scriptures about Christ that show how Jesus Christ fulfilled the Passover with His Atonement, death and resurrection. Our Seder dinner is so much fun and a nice way to begin the Easter Celebration.

On Tuesday it rained and rained so I took the kids to Blast Off. This time I only bought them playground passes but they still got to run around and get some energy out. We invited friends to come with us which made it all the better. Leah loves the ball pit and the slides.
Tal loves everything. He just ran and ran and ran until his "hair [was] sweating." My pics of Abi turned out blurry but she had a good time as well until she got too hot. Abi was a great big sister and helped Leah navigate the tubes to get to the big slides.

On Wednesday we dyed our Easter eggs. I saw this tip in Family Fun to have the little ones put their egg inside a whisk. Well, it worked well except that Leah liked dunking and lifting and dunking and lifting her egg. After she climbed onto the table and spilled the whole cup of blue dye onto her she made a quick exit to the tub.
Tal got quite creative dipping his eggs in more than one color to come up with various shades of colors - many variants of brown and weird but fun.
Abi of course had plans and designs which she followed of drawing patterns on them with a white crayon or making sticker patterns and then dying her egg to reveal a different color under the sticker. Once they were dry she decorated them with more stickers and glitter glue.
On Thursday we made a big batch of Playdoh and colored it different colors and had fun playing. Leah really got into the smashing. Saturday and Sunday were General Conference so on Friday I took the kids shopping for their General Conference activities. I let them each pick out a new activity, or coloring book etc. to help keep them occupied during Conference. This year they had origami kits, Tal had a little beading project and Abi made friendship bracelets. I also set out a bowl of candy for Conference Key Words. We pick a key word for the session like Jesus Christ, scriptures, temples, etc and when you hear that word you get a piece of candy. Tal swears he hears the key word 5-6 times per talk.
On Easter Sunday our kids woke up to their little Easter Baskets and egg hunt. Then for lunch we went out to Grandma Hayes' for lunch and out to Nana and Papa Fife's for dinner. My mom always does a fun little egg hunt for the grandkids. This year it had to be inside.
The grandkids gather plastic eggs that have slips of paper or money inside them. Each child gets so many of each size of egg.
Then they get to redeem their eggs for corresponding prizes from the prize table. They get royally spoiled with little toys, bubbles, Capri suns, cookie packs, little prizes and candy. Leah loved finding the eggs but wasn't so sure about having to trade them in. (Post nap/I pulled out my pigtails hairdo.)
My mom just adores spoiling her grandkids and giving out the treats. Then after a delicious Easter dinner we headed home hoping to get our kids in bed to be ready for school the next day. But crazy things happen and my brother in law ended up in the hospital with appendicitis so I hung out with my nieces and nephew. After I put them to bed I found my sister's book "The Hunger Games" and practically devoured it. I kept telling myself that I would go to bed after 1 more chapter but I couldn't put it down. I had to leave it after she came home but she later lent it to me and I'm afraid I'm going to have to pull another late night to finish it.