Easter

Easter fell on Conference weekend this year, which I love, so nice to stay home and enjoy Easter and Conference!  We had our traditional Robison Cousin Easter egg hunt at Jeff and Crystal's again.  Fun was had by all, we enjoyed a delicious breakfast of Crystal's homemade granola and yogurt and fruit and muffins, I made a new recipe of bran muffins that quickly turned into a house favorite.  We ate and played games until the McDermotts arrived later so we could have the egg hunt with them.  

 Brooke, Calli, Jens, Pierce, Matthew, Lily, Millie (on the ground) Madi, Harrison, Graci, Dallin and Ammon

 Love following this boy around and watching him, enjoying the egg hunt a lot more this year!

 Notice someone is a little particular about their egg color?  Only wants blue his "favorite color"

 Love these cute cousins!  Madi and Lily, glad they are becoming better friends.  They have become pen pals this year and their letters are a hoot.  They LOVE writing to each other and getting letters in the mail, so fun for them!

Easter Morning

 I wish I had my focus on him, blurry, but oh what an excited face!  I love it!

 Pierce thinks he's getting too big for everything, doesn't want to act to excited about anything, even though he really is.

 So excited to finally get his own Kinetic sand!  He'd been wanting some since Christmas when we gave some to Jackson and Hannah.

 And Reeses!

 And Bubbles!  I love, love this boys excitement over small and simple things, wish this could last forever!

 Seriously excited about that Kinetic sand!

 This new book has become a favorite!

Madi, very excited about her letter she left for the Easter bunny, and his paw print answers!  Wow!

We enjoyed being home all day and listening to Conference.  The kids actually do pretty well being quite now that we have been doing the "Conference Store", they love it and are motivated to be quiet and try to listen. I listen as much as I can with Jens around, but I really love diving into the talks after Conference and re-listeing to them on my phone while I get ready in the mornings.  This has become a habit for me the last few years and it has been life changing for me to really listen to and get so much from Conference.  I am so grateful for the tech that makes it so easy for me to listen to the talks any time!  I can't say enough how much I love the Conference talks!

I made a delicious Easter dinner with ham and a gratin potatoes,  I went out on a limb and tried a from scratch recipe instead of Mom's cream of chicken recipe I've always loved.  I never want to try new recipes of things I make of her's, I feel like I'm betraying her or something, silly I know.  I finally did with sugar cookies last year and I was so glad!  (Found a recipe even softer than her's!) So I tried this and it was so wonderful!  I figure if she was here with me I'd be calling her and telling her about the new recipe I tried instead of feeling bad, so I'm changing my thinking.  She would have liked these.  They were delish!  I also made some homemade wheat rolls that were the real hit of dinner.  We enjoyed our day and of course all the good food!  I am so very grateful for my Savior and His atonement, and His resurrection!  This knowledge brings me peace everyday.  I am so grateful to know I can be with my Mom again, excited for that day to come, 12 years has been a long time already!  I know that my Savior lives and loves me.

Snow Days & My Sunbeam

Snow!  Since we had our "big" snow of 2013, the kids now expect it to Snow in St. George, we've been telling them that most years it doesn't snow here and that we've been lucky the last few years to get some snow.  But they are always wishing.  Jens' Christmas winter dreams came true and it finally snowed a tiny bit on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day!  I took him out that night that it was snowing and he was so thrilled!  Ryan had Pierce and Madi out at Carolyn's for a New Years Party and I had stayed home with Jens, not wanting to keep him up late, he got his own little party when the  first little flakes started falling.  He had been wishing for snow all Christmas Season!  

This sweet face says it all!  So happy for snow!  

He was so excited to get up the next morning and find a nice little sprinkling covering the ground, he got out there fast and I was glad, most of it was gone by afternoon. 

 So fun to have a little snow for New Year's Day!

The first week of January also meant new Primary classes and this boy started primary!  Saying goodbye to nursery was a little tough, Jens has loved his nursery teacher Sis. Neumeier and she has been so sweet with him.  He also had Sis. Jewel and he enjoyed seeing her lead the music in sacrament and pointing out his teacher.  He had a hard time going into primary the first week (what no toys?) but after the first two weeks he was doing great!  He has the most amazing Sunbeam teacher, Sis. Stratford, she is dynamite!  Always has the cutest little crafts and activities for them to do and is such a fun teacher, I am so grateful for her!

 My Little "Sunbean"  I'll be sad when he stops saying "sun-bean"

He loves singing "Jesus Wants me for a 'Sunbean'"!  Love this boy more than words can say.

In February, I made some cookies one Sunday and Ryan and the kids took some over to Kimball Gardner, a sweet guy in our ward who greets us each Sunday and always has a hug for me, love him.  Kimball has a very fun backyard and the kids made a wish in his wising well, Madi and Jens wished for it to snow and Kimball told them that next Wednesday it would snow.  Well that week came and went and they were so disappointed that it hadn't snowed on the day Kimball said it would!  The next week it snowed again and they were so excited!  They thought for sure that Kimball had just gotten the day wrong and it was indeed their wish coming true.  This time we got a little more and it stuck around a little longer!

 Pierce has to leave for school while it's still dark so he missed out, but Madi and Jens were so excited!  Madi didn't want to leave for school, I was happy to hear later that the snow had stuck and they had been able to play in it at recess, her teacher, Miss Spencer, had snapped some phone pics which I was able to include in the yearbook so I was happy about that.

 My pretty girl all set for the snow day!

 Love how beautiful our house and yard look with a dusting of snow!

 My favorite Flowering Plum blossoms

 This sweet boy stayed out until he got too cold, then he was ready to come in and warm up with hot chocolate!

 The night before the snow Ryan and I had just returned home from LA, the kids had stayed with JoAnn while we had a weekend getaway!  That may be worth a blog post in itself, but we had gone down to spend some time with Gregg and enjoy a weekend alone together! We had brought the kids each a souvenir from the California Science Center, we brought Jens this little toy "Endevour" space shuttle.  I loved watching him play with it.  Of course the clothes had come off but he had at least stayed in his snowman shirt since it was snow day.

Awhile later he decided he was ready to go back out and went and put his coat on all by himself.  He came to me looking like this and announced he was ready to go back out!

 You'll need a little more than a coat Sweet Boy.

And so back to the Endevour.  Love this boy.  So glad his wish came true and he got to enjoy some snow this year!