To The Rescue

I read this book last month:

It was a fabulous book about an amazing man.   It’s always been pretty obvious that Thomas S. Monson is a special person, but after reading about his life and how he has consistently reached out to the ONE as a true disciple of Christ, there is no doubt in my mind that he was prepared for the calling he holds today.  My testimony that he is a prophet of God has been reaffirmed and strengthened.  It was also very interesting to see his hand in much of the recent history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I am so excited for General Conference this weekend and to be able to hear from the prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, as well as the other General Authorities.

This is one of my favorite quotes from President Monson.  It went perfectly with the the song that I had to teach the Primary kids this month, Stand For the Right.  I couldn’t resist making little pictures for the older kids.  I hope that Emma remembers to always stand for the right.

Leprechauns and Rainbows

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day and the beginning spring (at least in theory…), we have done a lot of projects with a rainbow theme.  We also threw a cute leprechaun art project in the mix.

First we made Fruit Loop rainbows.  I tried to get Isaac and Grace to sort the colors, but they didn’t care too much about that.  Grace was totally into the whole project and made her entire rainbow with only a little help.  Isaac did a little bit of it, but then realized it was much more fun to eat the sugary cereal.  Emma was an awesome big sister and helped them, you can tell she did most of Isaac’s!  I think she also had fun making her own!

Isaac and Grace both liked gluing the marshmallow clouds on the best.

Then we made these cute leprechauns.  Grace loved this art project, everything from painting her hand to decorating the face.  Emma did too, and also had fun helping the babies again.  Isaac would have nothing to do with painting his own hand, so I volunteered my hand for his little guy.  Of course as we were cleaning up Isaac decided he wanted his hand painted after all.  I had to convince him we would do it again another time.

The leprechauns looked super cute next to the rainbows.

Then we made rainbow music.  Isaac and Grace loved all the different sounds they could make with the glasses and also liked pointing out the different colors.

Our last rainbow project this month was rainbow rice.   This sensory box was a huge hit.  Isaac and Grace played in it for hours, which is always a huge bonus for me!  They loved to bury their guys and scoop the rice over and over.  They ended up with a dump truck in the box which was fun. 

They also made a huge mess!  I decided though that the short amount of time it took me to vacuum up the rice on the floor was well worth the hours of happy playtime!  They were NOT happy when it was time to put it away.  We will have to get it out again soon.

I’m loving that the twins are getting to a good age to do little projects.  They enjoy it and so do I.  It’s even better that Emma is usually game too.  Fun!

A Little Bit of Culture

The first attempt at Spring Break fun was a success (see previous post).  The second attempt wasn’t quite as well received.  Tenley needed to go to the Portland Art Museum for a school assignment.  I have always wanted to go there and I thought it might be something Emma would appreciate as well, so I volunteered to take Tenley.   I was hoping it would be a nice afternoon enjoying a little bit of culture without the twins. 

This was one of Emma’s favorites, she liked the colors.

We all loved this piece.  It was a collection of blown glass “artifacts”.  The whole thing was huge (you can’t see it all in this picture) and really cool to look at.

It WAS nice for the first few exhibits, then Emma quickly got bored.  

She had to start taking lots of breaks.

She barely tolerated Tenley’s pauses to sketch certain paintings.

A few pieces towards the end redeemed the visit a little for her.

This sculpture was beautiful.

Emma would be thrilled to have this giant horse painting hanging on her wall.

But by the time we moved to the modern art building she was totally done and didn’t appreciate any of it, as is evident by the look on her face in the following picture.

Nobody can say I didn’t try…

Geocaching

There are 1,329,580 active geocaches around the world, and so far we’ve found six of them right around our house.  We have wanted to try geocaching for several years, but we just never got around to it.  In an effort to insert a little fun into a very busy and boring Spring Break, we finally set out on a geocaching adventure armed with Lee’s new GPS.  First we had a Family Home Evening lesson about Lehi and his family using the Liahona as they traveled in the wilderness, then we picked up the Hawkins family.  We first tried to find a cache at the park, but it had been moved so we walked to the logging trail to find some others.

I love this picture of Anna holding on to Emma.  Emma thinks Anna is the cutest thing, and Isaac and Grace LOVE her.  We can’t drive past her house without them yelling “Nanna’s house!”  She’s a popular girl with the Evans kids.

We found three caches pretty easily after that.  It was fun for the kids (and the dads) to find them and see what was inside.  Emma went prepared with several trinkets to leave behind as our contribution to the caches. 

Isaac and Grace did pretty well in the stroller until their pleas to get out finally got the best of us.  They were happy as could be to walk the whole way home.  Even after Isaac fell and scraped up his face and knee. 

It was such a fun evening spent with friends.  We topped it off with hot chocolate at the Hawkins’ house.  Thanks guys!

A few nights later Lee took Emma and Tenley out for more geocaching.  It was sunny and clear the whole day until it started raining just before they were planning on leaving.  They braved the rain and cold anyway and found three more caches.  Two other caches proved elusive for them, so another trek may be in order.

Looks like geocaching may be a fun family activity for us!

Seeing Green

The little GREEN leprechauns visited our house on St. Patrick’s Day again this year.  They left a lot of GREEN and a lot mischief in their wake.

Cushions were off the couch, pictures were askew, kitchen chairs were in odd places, the house was a mess, the toilet water and milk were GREEN.  They even left GREEN leprechaun kisses on each of the kids.  Besides being naughty they were also nice and left Lucky Charms for breakfast.

And they filled the kids’ shoes with little GREEN gifts. 

Isaac and Grace were especially excited about their GREEN play dough.

I was excited because it kept them very happily occupied for several hours that morning.

We had a lucky GREEN lunch later that day.

Leprechaun sandwich idea found here.

The kids loved it, especially Gracie who kept saying “It’s so cute! It’s so cool!”. 

Emma helped me make rainbow cupcakes while the babies were napping.  I always enjoy doing things with Emma.  She did a great job, they turned out beautiful!

We didn’t have an Irish dinner, just a GREEN dinner.  Actually, my family was pretty lucky that they got a dinner at all since I was going to be eating at our Relief Society birthday dinner later.  They enjoyed the GREEN spinach smoothies, GREEN asparagus, GREEN tortellini with GREEN alfredo sauce, GREEN and yellow glass Jell-O blocks, and rainbow fruit kabobs. 

The rainbow fruit kabobs were a hit.

Excuse Emma’s swimsuit, she had just finished swim practice.

The GREEN dinner was topped off with rainbow cupcakes.

It was a fun, GREEN day.  I couldn’t be any luckier to have these guys.  They sure are cute all dressed in GREEN!