Slot Canyons

 Half way through our Spring break Scott left with the 3 big boys to go camping with the Scout troop to the Slot Canyons in southern Utah. I knew they would have a fun time and the scenery would be magnificent. I was thrilled with the pictures from the trip! They took on a small doofy little camera, and they still came out beautifully!

 A huge turn out of leaders and youth. I think Scott said only 2 youth weren't able to attend! We are so blessed with such a fantastic ward!

 Dinosaur footprints!

Scott, Jackson and Tyler slept together in a tent while Will slept in a cave they found with some other boys. Everyone had a great time, which I am thrilled to hear. They all came home filthy dirty and stinky. That tells you right there they had a great time! :)

ROCK

One of the saddest things I can't to anything about!

     I was driving around this afternoon running a couple errands when a car pulled in front of me, of course going slow, so I pulled into the other lane. As I am passing I notice she has a cigarette in her mouth and she's waiting for the cigarette lighter in her car to get hot enough to lite her cig.
     Now, let me make something perfectly clear. Everyone sins. Everyone has weaknesses. Everyone has vices. Most of ours are probably not as noticeable as this ladies, but we are all in the same boat and are human.
     I still judged her because she was smoking and probably said she was an idiot or stupid under my breath. As I slowed down to stop at the light I looked over again and saw this adorable 3 maybe 4 year old baby girl day dreaming out the window. Right next to her was a 1 year old sister. All the windows are up except for the ugly lady who had hers cracked maybe 3 inches. How nice of her.
    I was in shock. Literally. I could not believe how anyone would be so cruel and smoke with people so close to them. Especially your own baby children who have no voice of their own. Again, we all sin and have addictions. BUT we don't have the right to push our consequences onto other people. Especially our own children. Our own flesh and blood.
     The next light I turned into Joann's and parked for several minutes wondering if that really just happened. Mrs. Ugly sat in her car so nonchalant. I sat there and balled my eyes out. Saddened for the ugly lady. And especially saddened for those beautiful girls. It took a while to get a hold of myself and went inside. Still thinking about how wrong and illegal that was, the tears kept streaming down my face. I must of looked like a lunatic. Still puzzled that people actually do that?
     On my drive home I kept praying that the Lord would forgive the ugly lady and bless those children of God. When I arrived home I hugged each of my beautiful boys, kissed them and told them I love them.
     I promise you, myself, my boys, and the Lord I will do better to be a better mother.
    

The Strip

 We love visiting Vegas. Sure, there is a lot of bad stuff here, but there is also many fun family things for the kiddos and families to do! There are a lot of free shows and activities. One day we spent most of the day walking the strip sightseeing. One time I was holding Brigham's hand and I noticed something in his other hand. When I focused on what is was, he was holding several small cards of almost naked ladies. Nice! I told Brigham to put those down immediately. "But I found them on the floor mom!" Will has been into scary movies lately. We've recorded a bunch on Tivo for him when after he always says, "mom it wasn't that scary!". Well sure, it was modified for tv! Then we came across these characters on the strip. Will was a little hesitant to walk up to the clown guy from the Saw movies. But, the guy immediately took of his mask, not to scare the kids, and chatted with us. He was by far the coolest character we met that day!

It was a beautiful day and we had a very FUN time together!

M&M Factory

 This is a must stop for families and children when visiting the strip. It's always fun visiting and we find new things every time we do. A perfect way to start off our Spring Break trip to Vegas.

The end of swimming lessons!

 Gavin had his last swimming class last week and he's doing great! He is almost there, I think he needs repetition and will get it in a few more visits to the pool. He was floating on his back, doing the back stroke, the breast stroke legs and of course the free swim. WAY TO GO GAVIN!!!

Of course Brigham was there playing away and having a blast!

Tatoo Bill

 Last week was the school play at Rosecrest Elementary school, Peter Pan. Jackson tried out and he made one of the pirate leads! He had a few lines as Tattoo Bill. They have been practicing for the past 3 months and it all came together last week. My mom flew in to see it and a few cousins came out too. It's so great to have so much family support! Scott drew all his tattoo's!

There were 8 kids from our ward in the play! Way to go Rosecrest 1st ward! Jackson made his costume and I did his makeup. It was very cute! Well done kids!! Jackson is already excited for next years play, so is Tyler!

Squishy Baff

 Have you heard of this? I saw it in the store and thought...GROSS!! Scott, Brigham and Gavin saw it and thought COOL! So we bought some. That night all the boys, excluding Will, hopped in the tub for their special tubby time!

One package didn't really make a huge difference, I guess you need like 5 packages. The commercial/ad is very deceiving. The boys enjoyed it though!

CANDID

Week 10 in my photog group was CANDID.

Debbie's Funeral

 On Saturday, March 10th was Debbie's funeral. We arrived a little early to visit Gram's and a few other family graves at the cemetery. Look at all these HANDSOME boys!

 Debbie's casket was beautiful! Lite pink and silver. Inside the chiffon material was a soft pink with a little white, Debbie's favorite color!

 The flowers were amazing! The ones on her casket but also the 20 plus other bouquets all around. Matt spoke about the bananas in his talk and Elisa spoke about the Dr. Pepper. They both went into the casket with Deb. Also, a cute stuffed bear from her two adorable grand kids.

 Here is a great picture of Scott, her husband, Elisa, Brian and Lindsay, her kids with spouses Kade and Ember.

 Elisa, Brian and Lindsay standing in front of the flowers they ordered together for their mom. Just beautiful!

 There was such a great turn out. At the church earlier in the morning the entire stake chapel was filled and it extended into the culterhall.

After Scott spoke, Richard (Debbie's dad) embraced each other. It was another wonderful moment!
We all miss you Debbie! You will always remain alive in our minds, hearts, and memories!

VERY Productive Day!

 Today was a very productive day, I love days like this. We worked in the garden, exercised, and made lots of yummy treats! One of my friends told me she ordered a bunch of Fuji apples for .65 cents a pound and was planning on drying them. I called my contact at the whole sale produce and I could order a huge box of Fuji apples for .51 cents a pound! So I ordered a box! The boys and Scott helped peel them all and we dried them in our new dehydrate that papa bought for us! We gave the chickens a bunch of the leftovers and they devoured it! The rest went into the compost!

 I also ordered 30 8 pound flats of strawberries (for only $8.00 a flat!!) for myself and some gals in my produce co-op. One entire flat we washed, took the stem off and cut in half to freeze for the summer. Yummy shakes are in our future!

 The weather has been so warm and lovely these past few days. Some of the plants are starting to come through! I bought a bunch of seed packets and bulbs so we worked in the garden and planted everything. Down our long driveway we planted those huge sunflower plants and lots of California Poppy's. Can't wait!

One of our neighbors gave us about 20 raspberries plants. I had about 8 and we yielded about a handful last year from them. Scott and planted those in our raspberry patch on the side on our yard. I love raspberries! Scott also racked and weeded all around the yard. Our chickens have made a real mess in our backyard!

Scott and I also went on a 1.5 mile speed walk while the sun was out and it was so nice. Fresh air, sunshine. 65 degrees! Love it!