Easter Weekend/The Fogles come to visit!

Our dear friends, the Fogles, had a friend from West Virginia who was getting married in the SLC temple this past weekend. It was a perfect excuse for them to come stay with us and visit! The kids were in heaven with so many play mates, and I'm just realizing now how little fighting their was! For having 7 kids, under the age of 6 in the same house for 4 days, I can't remember any fighting!
I tried to snap a few family pictures of them before they headed off to the wedding reception in their cute matching clothes. It was freezing outside, so when I say "a few", I mean a few. But I tried to follow her kids around throughout the weekend and snap a few more.

Lauren's mom was able to get 3 tickets to the Saturday morning session of Conference. So we left all the kids with the husbands, and had a wonderful morning. It was probably the only session I really listened to. I missed the majority of the blossoms on Temple Square, but the flowers did not disappoint! I snagged a few more pictures, and miraculously the Fogles ran into 2 different people all the way from West Virginia!


We roasted marshmellows, dyed eggs, ate our passover meal, had an Easter egg hunt, stayed up late, you know...the good stuff.


I tried to get "the Easter shot" with all three kids in their Easter outfits, looking at the camera, but how often does that ever happen.


After the Fogles left, we had our Easter dinner at the Garners. We all contributed food that Jesus would have eaten or typical Passover foods. I love this tradition so much. The kids went on a treasure hunt for symbols of Christ's last week of life with Grandpa, and then they flew kites with Dad and the uncles. Such a good day.

Small and Simple

With Spring now here, I've been thinking a lot about my role as a mother to small children. In the Spring, everything is new and small. I see the blossoms on our fruit trees and have a hard time imagining that in a few short months, this small blossom will be a peach! Or the teeny tiny beginnings of the sweet pea plants poking up through the dirt, and I can't believe that soon we will have yummy sugar snap peas to munch on.

My children are young. They are just beginning. I can no more see a miniscule lettuce seed and imagine large crispy leaves in my salad, than I can see my beautiful babies and imagine them as full grown adults with children of their own. It is because of this limited perspective that my days are sometimes long, tedious and hard. I know plenty of Moms who say things like, "It's a tough job, but I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world." I've probably said things like that before. It's true! I totally believe it! But some days are just hard. Period. Some days I want to crawl into a hole and never come out again. Scratch that, I want to be 17 again, during a St. George summer, and have NO major responsibilities. I would sit by a pool and soak up some Vitamin D, and then go to Harmons, (in my swimming suit because I'm still that confident about my body! Ha!) and get some ice cream with my friends. Yep. Some days I can't see past the poop, whining and endless chatter. I long for solitude and enough silence to hear my own thoughts.

But one day, these small and simple days of raising my young children will be gone, and I know that I will miss a lot of it. I don't think I will miss washing out cloth diapers, but I will miss a lot of things. And so I keep trying, and failing, and trying again. The scripture tells us that by small and simple means, great things are come to pass. I'm so excited to see the great things that will come to pass.

The rest of March's photos

Very thoughtful block builder.


Miles' eye therapy is going well. We just had his first evaluation and we were pleased to hear that he's right on track to be done in the next 8 weeks. We can start reintroducing reading books! Of course, we've done plenty of word work etc, but I laid off having him actually read books. I'm excited for this! At the appointments, he always gets a token for working hard to use in a little vending machine. He loves to get these mustaches. :)


It melts my heart to watch Miles and Gwen start to include Lindy on their play time. She is turning that corner from baby to toddler and is way more social with the kids. They love it most of the time. On this particular day, I snapped this picture during "the witching hours" from somewhere between 3-5pm. Richie came home and we were trying to carry on a conversation while the kids whirled around us. Then we heard them all laughing. We watched Miles and Gwen pull Lindy around the "circle" in our house in this "pot of gold" for at least 20 minutes. It was heavenly. One of those quick moments that you are smiling and laughing, and your heart is so full, and then you realize there are tears coming from your eyes.


We co-hosted homeschool group at our house this month. We teamed up with Aunt Makenna to do a fun St. Patrick's day "party". She handled doing some fun music time, and I handled the rainbow snack and rainbow centers. It was so much fun! My kid is the one wearing the spiderman mask.


I snagged a few pictures from Gwen's joy school group this month since I was assisting. They studied weather and space this month, so for our field trip we went to The Planetarium. (again!) Our kids felt lucky to go twice in one month! There's a picture here of Gwen with Drew. They both have birthdays the same week!



Lindy's facial expressions deserve an entire post of their own. I've even snagged a few more good shots of her, but for now these will suffice. She is currently mastering a new face that will debut shortly. I think she wins "most expressive kid", so far. We had dinner the other Sunday at Richie's aunt Ada and uncle Keith's house so that we could all get together with Great Grandma Garner who was in town. The kids had so much fun running around with all the other little ones.