So in love with these...

If you don't have Blue Lily pictures gracing the walls of your house....get on it!!!!
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Thank you Blue Lily!!!!!

Easter Sunday

Well, all that preparation allowed us to make it in during the opening song. We tried. How do you do Easter morning and then get to church by 8:30am?? If it were later, I feel like we would have had more time to get a better message across other than Easter bunny and eggs for Easter Sunday....Primary helped fill in some gaps....and our FHE the week prior (thanks Kace!).
I had to get some shots of the kids in their cute Easter outfits. I totally forgot to put on Cole's adorable white linen hat for church...dang! And I couldn't find the blue button for Alli's green flower headband so we stuck with white. Se la vi.
I love this group of pictures...Cole loves to be just like his big sister...the good the bad and the ....eeeeeewe!

What are you doing?


Hmm...I think I'll try that too...






After naps (thank goodness) we headed to Shannon's for a beautiful Easter dinner. It was so nice having our families together there. It was the Dixons, us, Dan's mom and Nani, his brother Jordan, Nick and his fiance Kendra, Dan's dad, and his wife Jodi, and my parents. It was a big group and we had the most tasty food. Homemade rolls, ham, Mom Dobron's to-die-for cheesy potatoes au gratin, this addicting rasberry/cottage cheese fruity mixture, zucchini and corn. I'm salivating just thinking about it again. Jodi bought the kids little Easter gifts...the girls got cute scarves (so in style) and the boys got hot wheels with a little ramp launcher...they were in heaven. Kendra and Nick got us sees suckers (yum!) and a cute little daisy plant...mine has surprisingly lasted under my care for two weeks so far. It was a beautiful Easter Sunday!
Jodi and the boys with their new toys.

Dan and my parents

Easter

I remembered late the night before about the annual community Easter egg hunt that we're always running late to in the morning. I was determined to be on time with the kids. So we were...and we were freezing. Allison upgraded to the hunting area where no parents are allowed inside. She went for all the crayons boxes...those really sucky waxy ones that you want to throw away. She ended up with 11 of those and about 6 little drawing pads. Cole totally cleaned house in his arena. Lots of snacks...goldfish, sunchips, fruit snacks and gummy bears. Cole was nice enough to share with Alli since he got way more goods than she did. He also didn't notice as we walked back to the car that she was pick-basketing and putting his goodies in her basket. We dumped them all together in a bowl when we got home so it didn't really matter anyway I guess.


In addition to being on it with the Easter egg hunt, I was determined not to have to keep the kids up late to fit in the egg dying---until I realized that the egg dying kit we had consisted of stickers, dippers, and crayons...and no dye pellets (those were used last year and I didn't realize it was the same box. So I raced to the store and we dyed eggs late into the night. (I hate fat face pregnancy pictures of me--bleck!) Cole's a doll though.





Then, the cruelty of 8:30am church sunk in so I got EVERYTHING ready the night before...laid clothes out, bowls and spoons on the table for cereal, church bag packed....

Utah Visit

As most of you know, Dan's grandfather passed away on the Saturday morning of Conference weekend. His health was rapidly declining and we new it would happen soon. Dan and his brother, Nick had had a really great visit with him in January. Bompi (as we called him) even let Dan shave him...a task he was unable to do himself, and which he wouldn't trust anyone to do for him. Dan said it took over an hour to totally shave his beard and didn't cut him once, just as he had promised Bompi. It was a sweet visit and I'm glad that he and his brother got to spend some quality time with him before his health worsened. The funeral was held the Wednesday after his passing.
When we heard the news, we quickly planned to leave for Utah the next day.

We had gotten in late that first night and the next morning at 7am, we woke up to Savannah coming and telling us Allison had thrown up. Ugg. She spent the greater part of the day on our newly cleaned sheets (which got re-washed before we went to bed) and just drifted in and out of sleep, enduring a low fever, and coughing and puking. Poor girl. She was soo good though and by 2 that afternoon, after a nice bath, she was a new girl.

During the week we crammed in visits to family and friends while we spent a few short days there.
We visited my grandma (or GG as the grandkids call her for Great Grandma). She was elated to find out we were suddenly in town and could stop in. The kids drew her pictures and performed some songs which she loved.

The weather was so nice, Kacy and I decided to take the kids to the little zoo by Thanksgiving point. We fed the animals...when I say we I mean me and Cole...Allison loved the animals but kept a safe distance like she does with most animals. She kept talkling about going on the pony ride but when we got up close, she changed her mind. She seemed like she really wanted to but it was just outside her comfort zone and she could get herself to get over it. Cole liked it though.



We of course had to get Cafe Rio salads and hit good ole Tepanyaki (I had two salads--the dressing has no match- and fried noodles...YUM! and extra veggies... I wasn't going to skimp on my once a year visit.) Allison was scared out of her mind from the fire and decided she preferred to sit on a chair about 15 feet from all the tables. She finally braved up at the end and made us change our regrets for bringing her. Cole was stoked to have salad and noodles too and did awesome during dinner. Our friends the Gleasons had joined us for dinner and then we stopped in at their house after to see their kids.
They were so old we couldn't believe how much had changed since we last saw them. They played their hearts out and begged for a sleep over, but we decided that we had enough sleeping issues to deal with already. And Dan and Ryan of course got out their aggressions with some rough housing....I expected nothing different...but insisted Dan didn't get injured for our drive home.

Wednesday was the funeral for Dan's grandfather. It was a beautiful service. We had the viewing prior and Dan offered up a beautiful family prayer before entering the chapel. I didn't know if Allison should go to the viewing but she kept saying she wanted to say goodbye. I explained to her that he would look very different because his spirit went to heaven and it wasn't in his body anymore, and that he wouldn't respond to her, but would be lying in a casket. Dan held her as we went in, she took a good long look at him, but didn't seem disturbed. I think it made sense what we explained. She spent the rest of the time in the nursery with Cole. The Relief Society was so amazing, they had a nursery for all the kids and put on a beautiful and tasty luncheon for us afterward. Then the pallbearers transferred the casket to the hearse and it was flown to San Diego for the burial.


The last day were were there, we visited with our great friends, the Gardners. Matt was Dan's mission buddy and his wife, Alicia, and I have become great friends. We sure wish we lived closer together. The girls just got right back into the swing of things and played dress up and then headed for some fun in the backyard with their pet bunnies! Alicia gabbed away catching up. We only saw them for a couple hours. It was much too short a visit--we wish we could have stayed longer. These photos were taken by Allison:

After visiting with the Gardners, we had to make a couple quick stops to some places we don't have in Utah like the Sara Lee bread store to load up on bread (12 loaves) and then the Shade clothing store. I realized I've had my same shade tops since before I moved here to California (ewe)I bought them from the lady's house who actually invented the whole Shade clothing line. It's amazing how dark the black tops are--it was time for some new ones...yikes....by the way...if anyone needs some capsleeve Shade tops, I can get them for only 10 dollars so call me and I can put in an order. I think I need a couple more already so we could combine our purchases.
Anyway, then we caught a quick dinner with Kari, Jordan, and Nick before we all parted ways. I think Nick and Cole have a special little connection. Here are the boys.


My one concern about our visit was Cole's sleeping situation. So we brought the crib tent for Cole and Holly graciously slept in a pack n play in her parent's closet to accommodate him the whole week. After the first rough night, Cole was determined to sleep in a "big boy bed." Savannah has two beds in her room (getting ready for Holly to move in when the baby comes) and Allison was being weird about sleeping in her room so she was in a makeshift bed on the floor of our guest bedroom. So Cole got his wish and slept in the big bed. He did better, aside from a few bumps with his head on the rails. We tried to pad the edges of the bed with blankets but apparently he would wake up repeatedly throughout the night, bump his head, whine a bit, and fall back asleep. It made for a few not so great nights of sleep for Savannah (sorry girl!!) So we switched him back to the crib for the last night and that night sucked. He woke up all through the night freaking out...waking up EVERYONE (but Alli and Holly). By then, even though we were sad our trip was so short, we were ready to get everyone back in their own beds!

As much as the reasoning we were there was sad, I had been yearning to visit for so long that it satisfied my need to see my sister and her family, and other family and friends. Other than Cole's sleeping issues, our kids did AWESOME. Allison was full of "ok mom" 's and she would listen and do after asking her ONCE! I was in heaven. Now the last week has been another story...she decided to make up for lost time I guess.

Spring Break

I guess you could say Alli had spring break..no Joyschool for 2 weeks. So we did a couple fun things with our cousins who had no school!

I have to capture these...when they're getting along so nicely. It must be documented-

Disneyland....
Look at those happy faces. Man we got worn out...having fun. Thanks for the fun trip Shannon!






Then we headed to the beach which was supposed to be 74 and warm. It wasn't...the windchill factor made it like 54. See goosebumps.
Shannon and I sat in our chairs wrapped in towels to keep warm...it didn't seem to bother these content kiddos.


Where's Waldo..I mean Audrey. For some reason, they had created this huge cliff of sand at the short that was pretty steep and slanted down like 5 feet. It made it kinda hard to see the kids playing by the water. Well, suddenly, we couldnt' find Audrey. Then the people around us started looking around concerned and we were like...how would she have disappeared that fast?! So we started yelling for her, nothing. Then Shannon looked down the slope. There, hidden in the sand, was Audrey blending into the sand...the little stinker. Do you see her?


LOVE this new toothed smiley face!



Growing up, my family went to the beach A LOT...like most weekends in the summer as I remember it. We would stay aaaaaaallll day and just soak it all in. We lived about 30 minutes from the beach (when the 56 freeway wasn't built yet). Dan on the other hand, grew up 5 minutes away and rarely went. He hates the sand....and so does this fellow...

Martha Stewart Watch Out

We've been getting strawberries a lot lately and the last batch I got from Henry's looked so tasty but after a few baskets, I decided it was time to mix things up (I think I bought like 6 baskets of them.) So I decided I would attempt to make chocolate dipped strawberries for the first time. I usually only try something new when I've actually seen someone do it first. Instead, I just called my sister about 13 times making sure I was doing it right. Then when I was all prepped and ready to go, I realized I had no wax paper and I couldn't leave the house because both kids were napping. Thank goodness my backdoor neighbor came to the rescue and so kindly handed me her wax paper over the back wall. They actually turned out pretty cool. They tasted fantastic and we didn't even get to finish all of them unfortunately with our quick departure to Utah last week. On the first batch I decided I cut the whole in the bag too big so the white chocolate was thicker than I wanted. Then,as you can see, in my attempt to make thinner pretty lines with white chocolate, the white chocolate had started to harden so it was getting harder to squeeze out and the bag totally busted open and pooed all over one of the strawberries. Other than that...I'd say it was a pretty good success!