Easter

 I love Easter.  It's such a wonderful time of year.  My spirits are lifted by the season and the reason we celebrate.  I ran across this quote by President Joseph Fielding Smith that I love.

"Some of us find it so hard, so terribly hard, to do the little things that are asked of us, and yet He was willing to carry all that tremendous load and weight of sin....that we might escape."

I am as guilty as the next for being this way sometimes.  I am so grateful for repentance and mercy so that I can continually improve and progress.

Our Easter was filled with fun along with a great lesson about the Savior with our children.  I love that we can have both.
We had 4 egg hunts but I only got pictures of the last one at Grandma and Grandpa Taggart's house.

Since Emma had already had 3 previous hunts, she opted out of this one to help little Eden find her basket full.

The "big kids" even got to hunt for eggs.  Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for having a $pecial one just for u$!  Because I was busy looking for eggs I handed the camera over to Emma and these are her pics.  You may want to squint to see if that helps with the blurriness.  :)

 After our hunt we all went inside to open our treasures when JayDee started being creative with Eden's hair and no one could resist the cuteness.

Now that's what I call festive!
 

Fied Trips

It's that time of year for field trips.  I have been lucky enough to go on quite a few and thought I'd share some pictures of the fun places we've been able visit.

Isaac

Isaac got to visit the local fire station. He had lots of fun exploring a fire engine and ambulance.  My friend Melissa took most of the pictures.  I only got one not so good one.

Emma

For Emma's field trip I was actually substituting for another 3rd grade teacher.  Emma was a little bummed that I couldn't be her parent chaperone but I saw so much of her while we were there I might as well have been.  The 3rd grade field trip was to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy.

Our favorite exhibit was the new river otter display.  They were adorable! There were 3 of them and they are all brothers.  Awwww....

 Of course you can't not love petting the sting rays.

Then we ate lunch after at a nearby park.  Fun day.

Ethan

With Ethan I got to go on two field trips.  Both were really fun but very different.  The 5th graders at our school get to do the funnest stuff.  Really.  First up was to the Utah Symphony and the new Natural History Museum.

Here's my group of handsome boys at the symphony all dressed in their Sunday best.

Letting loose a little at the museum.

Ethan smelling a native plant.

This was pretty cool.  They were making an earthquake to be measured my a seismic reader by jumping all together.  Ready.....Set......

Jump!

Field trip #2 a few weeks later was to J.A. Biztown.  If you've never heard of this it's pretty awesome.  On the top floor of the Discovery Gateway they have built an entire city that is run by 5th graders for a day.  Local businesses sponsor the city and get to have store fronts.  Each 5th graders applies for a job weeks before and are then assigned to a job that they will run the day of the trip.  They have to dress like business professionals, they learn how to balance a checkbook register, pay bills, sell items, get a loan, etc.  The whole town is interconnected and helps them understand how economy really works.  Examples of some of the businesses are Clear Channel broadcasting - a student got to be the DJ for the day and play actual music throughout the city.  Deseret News, Zions and First Securtiy Bank, Larry H. Miller, Alphagraphics, Smith's, Salt Lake City School District, Merit Medical, Select Health, there was also a restaurant and City Hall.

Ethan's job was Sales Manager for ReAl Salt Lake.  There store was really cool. 

Check out the awesome wall!

I haven't been able to go on one of Hannah's field trips yet but the school year isn't over yet! 

We went on a family field trip too!  Baby Animal Days in Wellsville at the American West Heritage Center.  We've never been before because we're too cheap but this year JayDee was given a free family pass so we decided to go even though it was freezing cold and snowing. 

Train ride

Pony rides

 Turtles (How cute are they?)

Sheep

Bunnies

We had lots of fun and were happy we went on such a cold day because we didn't have to wait to do or see anything.  The day before and after our visit the event was packed! Between 7- 8,000  people on each day other than ours.  So their are perks to freezing.  :)

Ski Day

March 9th, a day to remember for sure.  JayDee and I used to be quite the ski bums.  I learned to ski very young and loved it.  I spent a lot of time skiing in my younger years thanks to a good friend who had an in at a local ski resort. I became so proficient at the sport that I was even able to "keep up" with a cute boy that I met in college who thought he was all that on the mountain.  In his own words, he was very impressed with me and couldn't believe that he had found a girl who was as daring as he was. He had to snatch me up so we could ski into the sunset together. 

That's how our story started but it certainly didn't last long.  Thanks to school, then kids, then school again and more kids, our daring days on the ski hill were practically non-existent.  In the 13 years that JayDee and I have been married we have probably only skied 5 times.  Deplorable I know.  And of those 5 times, only 2 (including this one) have been in the last 10 years.  We have actually discussed how sad this fact is.  We let something we both love fall by the wayside.  But with the rising cost of this particular hobby we just didn't have the funds to go and we certainly hadn't been able to teach any of our children.

Fast forward to Friday, March 9th.  With some ski passes that JayDee and I earned being models for Snowbasin's new summer activities marketing (Thanks RLT Photography) and a Ski Utah 5th grade passport for Ethan.  We were able to spend an entire day skiing.  And what a day it was!  It was the perfect ski day.  Blue skies, warm temperatures and a natural born skier.  I had hoped Ethan would take to skiing easily and I wasn't disappointed.   He did amazingly well.  I knew we would be spending the day on easy runs, teaching and guiding Ethan so I wasn't expecting much fun but I had the best day. Even though we spent most of the day on green runs, Ethan wanted to ride the gondola before the day was up.  So our last run of the day, we rode to the top of the mountain and got some blue runs in.  Impressive for a first timer! He was a little intimidated by the steepness of a couple of the runs but took them like a champ!

Ethan's ready to hit the slopes.

Here is Ethan on his second run of the day.

Here we are at lunch out on the patio.

Did I already say how amazing the weather was?

Taking a break to watch some people do the half-pipe.

Speaking of half-pipe.  JayDee finally got up the courage to give it a try by the end of the day.  Although, skiing is like riding a bike and JayDee and I felt like we had never taken a 10 year hiatus from the sport, our bodies had different thoughts on the matter.  We weren't quite as daring as we used to be being a little more worried about how our bodies would take the beating being much older this time. I only took one jump this day and although I didn't fall, I certainly didn't get much air and the landing wasn't pretty.  JayDee took a few more than me and then attempted the half-pipe, half-committed I might add. In his defense, this thing was huge and he does have a family to support. I thought I was recording the whole time but actually only got the bottom half, right after a stunning fall.  So this is JayDee getting up and finishing the pipe a little more deflated than when he started. :)

We had so much fun! It was good to be reminded how much we truly love skiing.  We hope to go again very soon.  We have 2 more complimentary passes from Snowbasin so we'll be trying to sneak in another day on the mountain before the snow melts. :)

Valentine's Day

Alright, alright...I know it's almost April but I would be sad if I didn't do an itty-bitty post about one of my favorite holidays.  Although it is one of my favorites, how can you not love a holiday dedicated to love, we don't go all crazy.  Around here we do try to make sure the love is felt every day of the year but there is just something special about a day set aside to celebrate "us." The "us"of course includes our children.

Aunt BriAnne started off the celebration the Saturday before Valentine's Day with a fabulous little Valentine's Tea Party.  

What a lovely table!

And just look at this spread

 

These were especially delicious...

Red Velvet Cheesecake Swirl Brownies

We had quite the delightful time!

And in case anyone is wondering, Ethan was invited to this party and was planning on attending and then had a friend come over at the last minute and opted to do "boy stuff" instead of coming to the tea party. Silly boy.

The Monday before Valentine's Day, JayDee and I decided to take the kids out to dinner thinking we would beat the crowds by not going on Valentine's Day, yeah that didn't work out too well.  After we were finally seated we had a good time though.

On Valentine's morning the kids woke up to a few festive decorations, a bag of goodies and Valentine smoothies with Valentine straws for breakfast. Mmmmm....

I received, by delivery no less, this lovely bouquet from my sweetheart.  He professed his love for me and his excitement for out upcoming trip on the card.  It read: "Thanks for the memories and T - 65 days until we make more! Love you!"

We're not really rose people around here.

And what would Valentine's Day be without a poem?  Emma was able to check that one off our list year with this literary masterpiece she wrote at school.

 Awww love.