Baseball

 Ah, baseball. It seems to be our life right now. We signed all three boys up to play this year. Right now, we have baseball at least 5 days a week, and Matthew's practices haven't even started. Caleb practices Mon/Wed and Jacob is Tue/Thur/Sat. I'm hoping Matthew's will coordinate with one or the other when he gets started.That means we spent a lot of time at the park, and since Jeff has been busy with institute, work, and studying, it's usually just the kids and me.
We usually do an early dinner, then head off the park for an hour. Although it's busy, it is nice sometimes to have an excuse to do nothing but play with the kids for an hour. They sure don't complain, they love baseball practice. The weather is hit and miss around here, even during the same week we might have temperature differences of 30+ degrees. Some days we're all bundled up in coats, other days everyone is running around in shorts and t-shirts.

Matthew and Emily love the swings, especially Matthew. Ever since he was a baby, this kid would be content to do nothing but swing for an hour. Emily loves them too, but she also likes to do other things. The park has two fun chair swings that the kids love. It makes it nice that I can keep track of both of them at the same time.

 These younger two can drive each other crazy, but they can also be the very best of friends. I love it when Matthew is sweet to Emily and takes such great care of her. He can be such a great big brother and Emily adores him.

 The older boys love practice too because either they're having baseball practice, or they're having fun with their friends. We've been fortunate with the team set-up in that they both have lots of friends on their teams and friends hanging out at practice at the same time.
It's been fun to watch both of the boys improve their baseball skills. They're both the very fastest boys on their teams, and they're really improving with hitting, fielding, and throwing. Most important, they're having fun, and that's what matters.

Scout-O-Rama

After our local pack pinewood derby, I put Jacob's car in a box and put it away for safe keeping. After a couple weeks of Jacob asking if he could just pleeaase see his car again, April 21st and the Scout-O-Rama finally rolled around.
I knew it might be tricky to keep all four kids occupied during the day long event, so Jeff and Jacob went by themselves for a boy's outing. What could be better than car racing and pizza?  There were over 140 scouts racing their cars that day- it was a big deal! Jacob's car ended up coming in around 50th or so. When he checked his car in, one wheel was raised slightly. According to the rules, all four wheels have to touch so Jeff had to push the wheel down and that probably didn't help the alignment, but we really weren't planning on anything other than a good time, so it was still a fun afternoon for the boys to spend together. I think their favorite part was going out for pizza afterwards.
We got a fun surprise the next morning when we saw that Jacob, Rowan, and Alish all made the front page of the community section of the newspaper. I love the smile on Jacob's face. I'm glad they all had a fun time.

Little Miss Sunshine

Emily got this cute little dress from Grandma for her birthday. After getting her dressed for church one Sunday morning, I thought she looked so cute that I decided to take some pictures so Grandma could  see. The lighting wasn't great, but I love her in the darling yellow dress.

 Of course, when Caleb saw me taking pictures, he immediately started begging to take a picture too. That kid loves cameras- and I'm always finding all sorts of random pictures on our two cameras and phones. I finally let him take one picture after he solemnly promised he would be good during the church meeting, then I put the camera away and we headed off to church. After church, I saw the photo- headless mom. Classic.

Happy Birthday Jeff

It was another birthday, and another year older for Jeff. He turned 35 this year, getting closer to that big 4-0, and still as handsome as ever. Sometimes it doesn't seem fair that men just get better looking the older they get- but I guess that's why it's good to be married to someone almost 8 years older right?! We had a low key, but fun birthday party with the family this year. 

Emily's favorite trick at dinner is to sit on daddy's lap and eat with him. I think he's pretty smitten by that perfect little pouty face and sweet voice. When I asked for a smile, this is what she gave.

 I had a hard time deciding what to do for Jeff's birthday dessert, so I decided to just do both strawberry short cake and cinnamon rolls- a couple of Jeff's favorites. I didn't have quite 35 candles, so we improvised with what we had. My favorite part of the picture is Emily's little hands just waiting to grab a strawberry.

 Jeff is such a sweet, wonderful father. I love watching him with the kids and seeing them so excited about his birthday. They all took turns blowing out the candles and making funny faces for the camera.

I think this one was my favorite!

 Jeff's birthday fell on a Thursday this year, so we did our little family party on his birthday, and then went out to celebrate on Friday night. We went out to eat at a nice restaurant that came highly recommended and it didn't disappoint, the food was delicious.
Afterwards, we went to do a little shopping. Jeff needed some new running/gym shoes and jeans, and I wanted to get him a BBQ, but there was no way I was going to pick that out myself. (I didn't want to take the blame if it ended up being dumb :) Jeff found shoes he liked, but didn't buy any because he wanted to order them online for cheaper, and we ran out of time for grills- we'll probably end up getting one online too. The jeans shopping ended up being one of my favorite parts- it was late and we practically had the place to ourselves so we hung out in the men's dressing room, playing with phones & pictures while Jeff modeled jeans for me. It was pretty funny and we had some good inside jokes. I love spending time with Jeff and laughing together, we have a blast.

Happy Easter

 It was a beautiful Easter weekend. We got an early surprise from our home teachers- they had a edible arrangement delivered on Friday. The kids were pretty excited and I never knew that chocolate covered pineapple bunnies were so good!

 We made hard-boiled eggs and dyed them colors. This wasn't the greatest picture, but we finished right before Jeff and I left on our date night, so this is what I got. Everyone had a good time and the dye stayed in the cups and on the eggs.

 Saturday morning we got a visit from the Easter bunny. He must have thought the kids were pretty good and hid candy all around the living room. I love watching the kids, they're so entertaining. It brings back so many memories of my brothers and sisters and I.

 I need to remember to get pictures before church. By the time we get home, no one was excited about smiling for the camera. Matthew had already taken off his tie, Caleb was missing shoes and socks, and there were definitely some sarcastic smiles. This is what we ended up with. That was fine with me, at least we got a couple!

 I wonder how long it will be before Jacob passes me up in height. He just turned 8 three months ago!

 Jeff was actually the one who picked out Emily's Easter dress. He found this one and brought it home a couple days before. Emily gave it a whirl to see how well it would work as a 'princess dress' and was happy. She loves her dresses and shoes. I love having a little girl to dress up.

Hunger Games- Couples Night

Laurie, Karalee, Rachael, Me, Kristie, Sharon (missing Val & Amber)

The first Friday night in April we were finally able to do a couples date night to Hunger Games. I put together a schedule for the evening and we had 8 couples for all or part of the evening. We met up for dinner at Qdoba, then headed to The Hunger Games movie, and met up at the Black's home for dessert and socializing afterwards.
The whole night was great- we loved visiting with everyone over dinner, and after the movie (and maybe a little during the movie too). There's never a dull moment when you get everyone together- especially when you include husbands. I only got a picture at the end of the evening, and we missed a few people (the husbands weren't really up for having their photo taken if you can imagine) but it was really a fun night out. We love having so many great friends to do things with.

Conference Weekend

 We had a beautiful conference weekend this year. General Conference is always such an uplifting, enjoyable experience. I love having the excuse to spend the entire weekend together as a family with no distractions and nothing to do, but listen to conference and enjoy the time together. This year was no different, and I was so grateful for the many beautiful messages that were shared. There was a man in our ward who was killed in a plane accident just days before conference. He left behind a wife and five children. It was such a shock and a very sobering time. Watching conference seemed to bring about a whole new level of meaning and comfort in the words of the leaders of the church. As always, it is a very testimony strengthening experience and also brings about a great desire for self-improvement.

We've made some new conference traditions- just a little something extra to make the kids more excited for conference.  The first tradition is cinnamon rolls! Not only are they delicious, but one batch of cinnamon rolls provides more than enough for everyone to enjoy over the two days of conference. (No, our family of 6 did not eat the entire batch- Jeff took almost half to families that he home teaches.) It's amazing how happy a batch of cinnamon rolls can make everyone.

Another fun tradition/game that I found was this cute idea on pinterest. Our bowls didn't look as cute as these buckets from the 'brown-paper packages' blog, but it was the same idea. You have key words, ours were, Jesus Christ, temple, faith, scripture/Book of Mormon, prayer, and one other that I just can't  remember. Every time the kids heard a word, they could get one piece of candy from that bowl. You could only get one per talk, so they really didn't get all that much candy, but it sure kept their attention! If you weren't paying attention, or if you weren't in the room, you didn't get a piece and I was amazed how well it worked. All the kids watched all four sessions of conference and I never heard a single complaint. They were excited and attentive the entire time. (Matthew & Emily did miss the very last 30 minutes of the last session, but they're 4 & 2) This was such a great idea and it will definitely be a tradition we'll keep up!

We lucked out with an absolutely gorgeous, warm weekend and sure didn't want to let it go to waste. I was able to get in a 13-mile run on Saturday morning before conference started, and we went for a walk together as a family on Sunday afternoon between the sessions. Both my run, and our walk were down along the river. They have a nice paved bike/running path, and there are also some trails. It's not quite Wissahickon park in Philadelphia, but it is still beautiful and a lot of fun, and we had a good time together. Matthew was in heaven with all the stick 'swords' and couldn't understand why I wouldn't let him bring about 15 sticks back with him in the car! Silly kid.

 While throwing rocks into the water, the kids even spotted a turtle in the river and had fun watching it for a while.

It was a perfect weekend with our little family. We did miss our families who were all together for the weekend, but we were able to visit with them and we're looking forward to seeing them this summer.