Sweet moments captured

 Clara teaching Lizzy "Ring Around the Rosie"

 Taking a peek out the front window.  There are times when I leave to go walking in the mornings, and I turn back to see this.  What a delight!

Kaylie bought tu tus for the babies,  then proceeded to use them as models.  Lizzy was a little more  cooperative.  Clara's photo shoot is still pending.  I just love these pictures and could paste them all over my house.

Our Easter Tree

I found this great idea from the blog Chocolate On My Cranium for making an Easter countdown. I thought hers was so cute and such a great way to focus on our Savior instead of the worldly side of Easter.

We started blowing out eggs.  My kids had never seen this before.  At first they thought it to be quite disgusting, then they all wanted to do one.  We just used a straight pin and hammered it lightly into the bottom and top of the egg and gradually made the hole bigger, trying not to make it too big nor bust the egg.

Then we blew the inner contents of the egg out.  I then just took a straight pin and tied a piece of string to it and stuck it down in the hole.  The straight pin turns when you pull the string out and it stays put in side.  Then you can tie the other end to the tree.

I thought it would be fun to have some limbs from outside that had buds on them to be our living Easter tree.  These are from our lilac bushes. 

Then I printed off the labels from Chocolate on my Cranium, cut them out and used paper clips to attach to the tree. 

This is what it looked like about 9 days ago.  We had to put it up on our wood stove.  It is about the only place the babies can't get to.  We are not using it this season anyway because we don't want the wee ones getting burned.

 
Then just about a week later look what happens!  I just love having blossoms to look at this early in the spring.  It is such a great symbol of the Resurrection and everything new.

Each tag has a quote from The Living Christ and either a beautiful picture of Jesus depicting the message of that quote or one of His many names.  It really is a great way to memorize The Living Christ (which was a challenge given to us by our Stake President) and also study what each of His individual names mean and why it was given to Him.  I just love it!

Happy Birthday Nicolas!

Yesterday was our little angel's birthday. He would have been 3 years old.   It didn't go exactly how I wanted it to...too windy to put out balloons, to cold to take the little ones to the grave for pictures, unsuccessful at coming up with a service project.  But I hope he knows that we love him and are thinking about him often and what an impression he has made on our lives.  Happy Birthday Nicolas...we love you so very much!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Tonight we enjoyed time together as a family set on the theme of St. Patrick's Day.  I really want to add more traditions, events that my children will look back on with fond memories, no matter how big or small they might be.  So for this holiday we had a great time sitting down to a dinner of Irish Stew and Irish Soda Bread, then for our after dinner entertainment we watched "The Gnome Mobile". What a great show, and I didn't have to worry if anything obscene was going to pop up. Our dessert was a nummy homemade chocolate pudding with no refined sugar, recipe courtesy of The Nourishing Gourmet  Afterwards a few games of chess or Pictureka.   It was a great night in our cozy little home, while a storm was brewing on the outside.