A Week in Review...

Chay received coupons for free bowling and HAD to invite a friend to go bowling last Saturday! I told him that Blade would have to join them and he was okay with that.

We took advantage of everything we could, the bumpers and this "aid" for Blade.

...pretty good form...
The interesting thing is that after a few balls, I told Chay that he needed to keep his eye on where he wanted the ball to go. Well, he tried that and he was getting strikes and spares...and then said to me, "why are you always right?" (I'm not always right but it's nice to hear once in a while from my own child).

On Sunday we received "The Easter Story" in Primary. I love this activity which teaches about Easter with 12 surprises in each egg.

We went through the Easter Story as soon as we got home...

and Chay and Blade enjoyed the bag of chocolates that also came with it. The chocolates came from "V Chocolates" and so the chocolate was VERY good (we're lucky to have "V" in our Ward!).

Blade has wanted to go to Chuck E Cheese's every time he sees the commercial and Dave and I told him that when he can go to school two times in a row being happy (and not crying and saying I don't want to go to school), we will take him. This week he did that and made sure he told me that multiple times! So, on Thursday, we headed south (the closest on to us is 100 blocks away) and went to Chuck E Cheese's. Dave mistakenly called it it "Chuck E Cheese" and Blade became very animated and corrected him telling him "NOT Chuck E Cheese, Chuck E Cheese's!.

Chay attacked the pizza!

...okay, so it's alittle greasy...

Of course I was able to find a great coupon and so for a decent price we had pizza, drinks and 160 tokens to play games and ride things. Chay found a game similar to the one my cousin Wayne runs at the fair (very addictive game) and Chay discovered that the game gave out a lot of tickets. Chay overheard one mom tell her son "follow that boy and play the games he's playing". After Chay played, that machine was busy the rest of the evening.

The tickets were just flying in the counter.

...that's alot of tickets....
...and it took just as long to pick the prizes as it did to use them up, if not longer...
Blade loved this "monster truck" and had to ride it more than once. It would rise up and tip and bounce around.

Conference Weekend

We met Candi and Alana (and friends) after they attended the morning session for General Conference and enjoyed a meal at Cafe Rio. As soon as Nicole got home from Lacrosse practise we let her change and then took off to Cafe Rio. Nicole and Blade saved us a table and then what did I do? I forgot to order her salad...oops! I did remember Chay's and Blade's food though. So Nicole placed a take out order and in 10 minutes I walked around the corner and picked it up. It was like she wasn't meant to have the steak salad because this time a steak burrito was made instead of the salad but, I waited while they corrected the order.

From the way people were dressed, I would safely say that alot of people came to eat at Cafe Rio after attending Conference.
Then we went home to enjy the afternoon session at home.

They sure so look like sisters don't they?

We watched a couple of movies while Blade patiently waited, and then he played the Wii with Candi.

It was fun for everyone...

The next morning we had pineapple with our breakfast and Blade made sure that he got his share. Poor guy, afterwards his tongue was sore.

Not only did my brother Doug find a new tradition for Conference, so did we!
We played bingo listening and waiting for certain words to be spoken by the prophets, and the girls colored the ties worn by the prophets and took notes.

Chay won the bingo during the morning session and then the girls took it more seriously during the afternoon session. Chay did win the bingo again.

This worked out great. As Chay said himself, this is the first time he has listened so long during Conference...and that was after the first hour.

During the 2 hour break between sessions, Alana and Nicole had a cooking show demonstrating making Nanaimo Bars. Hopefully we will see that on Alana's blog...
But after the afternoon session we did Ukranian eggs, something that Chay has wanted to do for weeks now. Every since he did it for the first time a few years ago, he looks forward to this but we missed last year. My sister Sheila has provided all the supplies for me and for that I am thankful! If it weren't for my sisters, I would be missing out on alot of things in life.
Unfortunately for Chay, he did get a bad burn on his finger, it'll leave a nice scar.

We discovered that Candi may be part Ukranian because dang, her egg was impressive. AND when we started she told us she had never done these before...I know my instructions weren't THAT great.

Nicole got the hang of it also.
It was surprising how many eggs we cracked. We started out with two cartons of 18 and ended up with 20 eggs. I still need to varnish the eggs but, check out these sisters...

Well, we delivered Candi and Alana safely back to Provo. We sure did have a fun week end with them and are glad that their plans changed and enabled them to spend the night with us. Family is wonderful and the time spent with them is priceless and so memorable. My kids have so much fun with their cousins and are excited the entire time! Blade has more energy than ever when extended family is around...there's no energy being sucked from his body...

Congratulations Candi on graduating from nursing!

Would you believe it's officially Spring?
This morning we woke up to snow covered everything, and although the picture doesn't show it, it was still snowing lightly. After such nice weather the past week, it was weird to wake up to snow and cold temperatures. Of course it's all relative because those relatives reading this while sitting somewhere in Canada are not empathizing with me. However, those of you reading this while sitting somewhere in Hawaii...well, you're just happier than usual that you're in Hawaii.

I'm had a moment of feeling like Angie today!

I had made dinosaur grilled cheese sandwiches for Blade and while he was eating them, ironically there was a dinosaur program on TV!

Next is another catch up of what has been going on since my last posting.

Friday was Chay's last snowboarding had with the school program. Dave and I didn't give him a choice about doing the program this year and I'm glad we didn't (last year he decided he didn't want to go snowboarding) because he had a lot of fun and is excited about going snowboarding next season with Nicole. I told him that we would have to get them season passes before the season starts so that we can get a great price.

Since the weather was so nice last week and I was home during the day because it was my "call week", Blade and I went to the park a couple of times.

He really enjoyed playing in the sand and after the first trip (when he was able to borrow a shovel for a short time in the sand box), he "had" to have his own sand toys and we searched for the "right" sand toy. The first trip he had seen some kids sitting in the sand/water table and so the second time he had to do the same.

Apparently, Blade likes to pose from small openings...and stick out his tongue.

He also likes to go down slides head first...it kind of scares me but I made sure I was within reach at the bottom if I needed to "save" him. He's the daredevil, if he tries something and falls, runs into something or the execution isn't just right, he'll just get up, dust himself off and say, "I'll get it this time" and try again.

I tried to explain to Blade how a sundial worked and that it was what people used before watches and clocks but, he didn't believe me.

Chay found an inexpensive Nickelodeon Scene It game and it was so refreshing to see the kids playing well together.

(a rare Nicole siting...she is so busy with school, lacrosse, peer court, and friends that I don't get much time with her or pictures.)
However, last week end I did do something with/for her that I never thought I would ever be doing for Nicole. I was making "tutu"s (yes, tutus) for her and 3 of her friends! It was for Spirit Week at school. I still need to get a picture of Nicole in her tutu....

I found a double pack of "Silly Putty" for 79 cents and thought it would be a fun treat for the boys to experience something I played with as a child. And surprisingly, they had alot of fun with it.

I can't explain this next photo, I was not the photographer. It looks like a Chay-Blade operation.

A couple of weeks ago, we knew Blade was sick when he spent the week end just lying on his dog chair and not eating. Dave took him to our pediatrician (who is from Calgary and I've known since my BYU days working at the Student Health Center), and both Blade and Dave were treated for Strept.

It was a rough 10 days for Blade, Dave and me as Blade had to take an antibiotic twice a day. And according to Blade, this one was "yucky". It was a fight everytime except the last day. I started the final count down the day before the last day and so he was happy to be taking the final two doses.

I love my kids when they are sleeping! Ahhhhhhh....

Even in his sleep, Blade wants to be just like Nicole and Chay...

...last curtain call...

This year I have plans of doing what I can (on a limited budget) to make our home more presentable. I have finished the faux painting in the front part of the house AND the scaffolding has been removed, so that's one thing I can given myself credit for.

The next item on my agenda was to removed Nana's curtains that were stapled to Chay's windows and put something functionable up. I had this great idea to do something simple and spray adhesived fabric to some roller blinds.

In theory it sounded like a great idea...

The unfortunate part is that once I put the blinds up, the roller part of the blinds no longer worked. I'm concluding that it is because of the weight of the fabric but I don't know. I'm glad I checked them out before I did the third window. Now I'm wondering how I can use what I have to still make functioning curtains. Anyone with any suggestions? I'm wondering if roman shades will work or if the plastic backing will be too heavy. Thank goodness I got the fabric on sale at IKEA, only $1.99 a yard!

I'm enjoying everyone's blogging and am amazing at the talents and accomplishments of the family. Everyday life is so full of memories and growth that just seem to slip by and when I read the family blogs, it reiterates just how special every day is and how recording our lives for not just ourselves but others, can really bring people together.
So, another goal of mine is to capture "life" on film ( I guess that's old school, I would need to capture it on CDs,DVDs), along with journaling again on a regular basis.

Blade won't go to bed without me so I guess I better get him to bed since it's way past his bedtime and he has school tomorrow.