When Mom's away the Kid's will play!

Young Women's

This past Wednesday night we took our Young Women's group to a store called White Elegance. If you haven't ever heard of it they sell temple dresses for women and baptism dresses and blessing dresses or blessing tuxes. Very cool place. The sister's that work there do a presentation for the girls and tell them of the special importance of the temple. After this the girls get to try on a temple dress and see what it is like to be dressed in something so special. The slide show after this posting shows the girls in their dresses. They looked so special and I hope they felt the spirit and made the goal to get married in the temple! It was a great night!

White Elegance

Easter Weekend

New approach

We are trying to take a new approach to discipline. I have been reading a book called "Scream free Parenting" and if any of you know me I am a screamer! Ha ha ha! Well it has been working really well! Not only have I tried really hard to stop screaming it has also been much easier to deal with the kids and their choices. Mostly because I am more calm and the situation doesn't blow up. So with the change not only are they not getting yelled at, but I am getting a clean house. Punishments are now cleaning something hard. Austin got to wash walls the other day and as you can see he is not too happy about it. I figure if he can learn something like taking care of someone elses property while figuring out that lying gets you no where it is a win-win scenario! I must also add that he did a great job! Karlee thought it looked fun to wash a wall and me being the smart mom that I am didn't say no to it! She thought it was a blast!
I am so grateful to have learning experiences that help our family grow closer together. It has really changed the mood in our home for the positive. I only hope I can keep it up. I have learned that it isn't the kids who set the tone, it is MY job to set the tone in our home.

Too bad it took me so long to figure it out!!

Easter Eggs!

We colored easter eggs after conference was over on Sunday afternoon. The kids were so excited! I love how they use their creativity. As you can see it's a very serious thing, Austin is busy contemplating what to do with his! Karlee was all smiles! She didn't care what it turned out like as long as she got to use the green dye first! It is her favorite color after all!
While the kids were busy at work Daddy made us his famous rice krispie treats! They are the BEST! I caught him licking the spoon after he dumped the mixture into a pan!

The final product, yummy!

Austin took great care in his art form of decorating!

Karlee was nervous about holding the egg with just her hands, but she did it!

Jason even got creative and made a Boston Red Sox egg to match Austin's hat. That is the team he plays on in baseball! Go team!

And here are all the eggs. Not too shabby!

I just love this time of year, now if I can get bulbs planted for next spring life will be perfect!

Conference Weekend

How I love this time of year! Baseball season officially has started, we get to stay home and listen to the Prophet and his disciples speak. It couldn't get any better than this! I looked especially forward to this conference. Wednesday night for YW we talked about the importance of conference and I gave the girls a challenge to complete. I am hoping to get a good response when I see them next week! Friday night we went to the Temple to prepare for this weekend. I am so glad that we did. I love the peace you get from doing a session at the Temple!

Saturday we started the day with snow and baseball opening ceremonies. We had to be at the ball field at 7:45 for pictures and surprise, surprise they cancelled them because of the snow. We decided to take the kids to breakfast before the ceremonies started at 9:00. Austin said that we needed to go to Carls Jr. every year before opening ceremonies because it is so good. Funny kid! Then we headed back to the ball field and froze for an hour and a half while they finished setting up and talked FOREVER!!! Seriously, when did the men get so long winded?? Sheesh! Unfortunately they cancelled Austin's first game of the season, we were disappointed but glad to get into a warm car! Afterwards we decided to get the rest of Austin's gear for the season and visit Grandma and Grandpa!! They were happy to see us. We went to lunch with them and then headed home for the second session of conference and some good R-and-R!

Today we shared breakfast with some old friends and watched the first session of conference together. Love a big breakfast!! We came home for the second session and the kids did a conference packet I printed off for them from the computer. They did really good!! Now we are getting ready to color easter eggs for family night!!! I can't wait to see what the kids do with their eggs! Pictures to follow!!