Let it snow!

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

The first weekend in May we packed up the kids and headed down to Maryland for the Sheep and Wool Festival. We saw lots of sheep. And a couple of alpacas. I am in love with the alpacas. The ones we saw were babies and I'll have to see the grown up version before I'm positively committed (because of course baby anything is cute) but they were sweet and super soft. Not to mention that I think I love alpaca yarn. I haven't actually knit any yet but I found, as my friend Jessie and I were browsing the various offerings of the many vendors there, that the alpaca yarn was always my favorite.
Anyways, it was hot. But apparently the kids had a good time in spite of the heat because Ashley thanked me so, so, so much for taking her and Matthew said it was super awesome. I guess they like sheep. Rachel and Tyler seemed to like it too. I'm not so sure about Audrey but she was a good sport. The best sport though was Mike. He is not a fan of crowds (and it was plenty crowded) and it was a bit of a drive to get there and we left at 6:30 am. He must love his wife or something.

Easter 2010

We headed to my parents' for Easter and general conference weekend. It was nice. Here you see grandma going over the gameplan with Tyler and Audrey one last time before the town Easter egg hunt begins.

Lucky Ash found the shiny blue egg that scored this giant precious moments easter egg basket.

We had our own hunt in grandma and grandpa's backyard.

Some of the easter eggs we did. Did you know that blowing out the contents of a raw egg is a GIANT pain? I do.

This is what the girls do at night when they should be going to sleep!

Christmas countdown

On the first day of December, we started our Christmas countdown. So fun. It's a big quilted thing with pockets for every day till Christmas. Each pocket has a rolled of piece of paper with a scripture reference of a story from the Savior's life and an activity written on it. We read the scriptures and then we get to do our activity. So far we have dipped pretzels in white chocolate, had a (cotton) snowball fight, had a muppet Christmas Carol movie night, built sugar cube snow castles, made gingerbread men, decorated them, played hide-and-go-seek for 15 min, painted snowman pictures, and another movie night. Good stuff. It has been so fun. We have taken turns pulling out activities. Tomorrow is Rachel's turn. -Ashley:)

Halloween

We had some friends over for a little monster bash on Halloween. About 5 minutes into trick-or-treating it started to rain so the mothers with babies (all of the women present) headed back to the house. A little rain wasn't going to stop the older kids from scoring as much candy as possible and the dad's braved the weather with them. I suspect ulterior motives influenced the noble behavior of at least my husband. He exacts a Halloween candy tax.


Matthew and Ashley were Jedis, Rachel was a witch, Tyler was a knight, and Audrey was a princess. I was supposed to be a witch with Rachel but I was too busy pinning Jedi cloaks, finding baby tights that had mysteriously disappeared, and reminding one of my children that they had wanted to be a witch to even think about putting a costume on myself. Sigh. Mike didn't have costume aspirations this year. Next year he wants us to all be Lord of the Rings characters. I just have to explain to the kids about hobbits and convince them that they really want to be one.

Sweet baby

This, my friends, is the sweetest baby. Ever.