Birthday #8

Bright and early, we woke up our birthday boy for his eighth birthday!!

He had a big pile of gifts to open! 

 A few highlights:  money and hand-knitted socks from Grandma!

 Star Wars Battlefront II...which he has been asking for for 9 months!

 New scriptures!

We love our eight-year-old!  He is so excited to be baptized in just a couple of weeks.  We are excited for him too! 

What did he want to do first thing?  Play Star Wars!

Our Guitar Player

Our oldest got a beautiful guitar for Christmas.  He has really been enjoying his guitar class in school.

He has caught on very quickly and is getting pretty good!   

Fishing

The sunny weather recently drew us to our local reservoir.

It was still too cold to swim, but was perfect for fishing! 

We tried worms, powerbait, salmon eggs.... 

 and lots and lots of patience....

We came home with three small trout....not a lot, but enough for everyone to enjoy a bite!  

Happy Easter

We love our family Easter party!

It is a special feast of creamed eggs, asparagus, fruit, and sweets.

 We met at Uncle Beau and Aunt Erin's house.

The food was delicious! 

 The company was the finest!

 The egg-hiders were pretty tricky...

 yet lots and lots of eggs were hunted and discovered.

 Full of goodies!  

The Egg Drop

In connection with a section on Nursery Rhymes, our kindergartner participated in his school's egg drop.

 The goal was to avoid being Humpty-Dumpty.  Each child took an egg and then secured it with whatever they wanted to in order to protect it from a big fall.  

 Our kindergartner chose a combination of toilet paper and styrofoam.  Typically the principal gets up on the roof and drops it down outside, but with the snow, they improvised...

 and dropped them from the gym's basketball hoop.

 There were a few casualties....

but his egg survived the drop!  Each kindergartner also got to dress up and recite a nursery rhyme of choice.  He chose:

To market, to market, to buy a fine pig

Home again!  Home again! Jiggety-jig!

To market, to market, to buy a fat hog,

Home again!  Home again!  Jiggety-jog!

My husband often says this little rhyme...he learned it from his Grandpa Black.

From the Islands

Every year our elementary school invites guest artists to come in and work with each grade.  This year the artists were from the islands.  Our kindergartner learned several Hawaiian songs.

 He learned the Hawaiian alphabet and several beautiful songs.

 Our second-grader learned several Tongan dances.  He also learned many Tongan phrases.

His costume was pretty fun...he liked to "show his muscles."

Last Snow of the Year

 Fresh  off our return from sunny St. George for the dance competition, we awoke on this April morning to our final snow storm of the year!

We had been playing outside the evening before...a few of us even got a sunburn.

 Our Spring plants had just started to blossom...

 Our bleeding heart in the snow!  We do love the snow, but we are ready to say "Adieu" for a season.  Welcome sunshine and summer!