April 2017

Grapes had an Odyssey State competition in Tucson.  The Doctor and Pencil accompanied her.

Their team got 4th place (out of 11 teams) and unfortunately that meant they were ineligible to move on to Worlds.  Thankfully this trip went much better than the last time these three went to Tucson. (Dad didn't get sick this time!)

They didn't  forget to stop by and see the nearly completed Tucson Temple!

Pencil puked on this trip though... right before this picture was taken.  

(Salt River Canyon is no laughing matter for this boy!)

Feta discovered the many remarkable qualities of Chapstick. 

It makes very nice window ornaments, in case you didn't know.

Grapes entered the Navajo County attorney's office art contest (the theme was preventing suicide)

She won second place overall, and first place in people's choice!

It was so fun for me to accompany her to the conference they held that day, and to watch her win!

Feta continued to be wacky and adorable. She discovered the rips in her old blanket (not to be confused with the pink blanket of nearly same size, shape, texture and color) made for a fab-lee-us "down" for her to wear at every possible occasion. Never mind that it didn't have a back. It was her favorite!

Unless she was wearing nothing. She liked that a lot too.

She helped Grapes pick out new glasses (Grapes didn't get pink though... much to this little girl's dismay) And we only spun one rack of frames (launching them EVERYWHERE) so it was, all-in-all, a very successful optometry visit.

Socks designed (and wowed) with a pickachu pine-wood derby car.

Pencil successfully compiled his first report. He was very excited to include the important facts and display it in a artful way.

EASTER!!
We are beginning to need more eggs for coloring than we can possibly eat, but it is still a very happy tradition that we cannot hope to complete each year without our dad helping us. (it's probably one of his favorite things for us to do as a family that isn't Christmas related!)

The warm weather brought lots of dandelions, and Feta fell in love.

She would blow the 'pon-pons' for as long as we would let her.

Grapes and S-- you don't often find one without the other.
We loved seeing "Singing in the Rain" at the high school.

What follows here is simply evidence of our silly family and how much fun we have together.

I fiercely love these faces!

To celebrate Easter

 Our Easter Weekend was simply lovely, thanks for asking.
Some of the things we want to remember...

The True Meaning of Easter

We have a family activity that we have done every year for Easter and I have had a few friends ask about it lately. I thought I'd share it here so you can do it too.

This bag is falling a part! It holds 11 plastic eggs (ours are all different colors, but you could do it however you like) Each eggs holds a scripture reference and a small item to help tell the story of the first Easter and the reason we are really celebrating this time of year.

We usually just take turns opening the eggs and reading and talking about the insides, but you could easily hide and find the eggs first.  This has been a family night activity for us, but some years it has been an Easter Sunday activity instead (because we invite the chocolate and bunnies on Saturday)


I suggest labeling the eggs with numbers.  We just have a ratty paper that tells the order by colors, which is bit of a pain, and if we ever lost the paper we would be in trouble!

So here you go:
 The True Meaning of Easter

Egg #1- Matthew 26:39
Small cup

It is the weekend

Happy Easter!

Our Grandma Jen is here, and my sanity has returned to nearly normal levels.

Turns out some Pack Rats are here too... but that is another post for another day.

We have been enjoying Easter and the single digit count down until Dad comes home (5 more days!!)

Humpty Dumpty Egg-  "Have a nice ride in the BLOOD MACHINE!"  (red dye, of course)

 "Bood Massseeeene, blood massseeeeen!" Sung in chorus for the next few minutes

Thank You to my dear friend L for the bunny masks and accompanying care package! The Lord blesses us with dear people in our lives, and I am lucky enough to still count this delight of a girl as my friend, more than 10 years later. The masks and mustaches were a HIT. 

So were the chocolate covered peanut butter pretzels, but my kids don't know that part.

This morning we had our egg hunt and basket joy. (We have the Easter Bunny come on Saturday so that Sunday can be about Jesus and his life, death, and resurrection)

"This Eater was AWESOME! But not really awesome because I wanted a toy." --Sock

This is the egg hiding in the time-out corner. Pencil thought it was hilarious to have a 'time-out egg'.

Of course we watched the grow-capsules while we ate a breakfast of chocolate and jelly beans and eggs.

Sock noticed that his blood machine egg was red on the inside! Like Chicken Pox. 

(don't ask how he knows about those. We haven't had any at our house!)

We are thankful for Easter, and candy and eggs (so many eggs...) and we hope your weekend was just as great as ours.

Eeesss-toh

Easter tidings to you!
 At the Whiting house, Saturday Easter festivities were full of the regular old egg dying, chocolate scarfing, and Chinese food eating. (We're not really fans of Ham or cheesy 'tatoes at this house, and by  'we' I mean my three monkeys) Sunday Easter was celebrating Christ at church and resting peacefully at home for the rest of the Sabbath. (while slightly sugared-up)

Commence photographic evidence: