Easter and Conference Weekend

This past Easter/Conference weekend was so nice! Even though it was cold and snowy, it was so nice to listen to conference and spend time with family. On Saturday we scrubbed the house and then we colored eggs. It's always so much fun to color Easter eggs. The kids love it, Tracy and I love it and we all have fun! Sunday Jarik and Tracy went to the morning session of Conference. This conference was my Dad's last one singing with the choir. Since Jarik just turned 8, he had the opportunity to go to a Conference where both his grandparents sang. Tiaree and Jarik will be the only grandkids that were old enough to see them both live. The other grandkids will get to see Grammy, but not Papa. Except Keighlee, I don't think she'll get to see either one live. I can't remember for sure though :D Anyway, they got up early and left so that left the girls and I to find Easter eggs and baskets. It was a lot of fun for them! At our house, the Easter bunny hides the eggs we colored the night before, so if the kids want breakfast, they'll find all the eggs! The girls did a good job of finding them and then we had a yummy breakfast of eggs and cinnamon sugar toast. The girls re-hid about 5 eggs when Jarik was on the way home so he could find eggs and his basket too. It worked out really well and everyone had fun! I just did a slide show because it's easier than putting a lot of pictures in one at a time!

After Conference, we got to feed my parents. I love being able to serve them after they've sung all day. They are usually exhausted and the last thing they need to do is worry about dinner! It's become a tradition and I absolutely love being able to do it. It's always fun hearing their little stories about what happened during conference, even though we always tease them about "choir humor". It's one of those "you had to be there" things but they laugh and laugh! It was a really nice weekend and I always feel a little sad when it's over.

Jarik gets baptized this weekend and Tiaree turns 10 in 2 weeks. She also gets to participate in the District Science Fair and is so excited about that. I'll keep you posted! I'm also going to post about Jarik's birthday and the girls' parent days so keep reading! Oh, and Tiaree's science fair and why she is going to district!

Jarik's Birthday and an early Easter

Blowing out the candles

On March 27th, my Jarik turned 8! I still can't believe he is that old! Jarik decided that he wanted a late night/sleepover party. We had a bunch of friends from the neighborhood come over on Friday night. We had pizza and ice cream and cake. They watched Planet 51 and played the Wii. Most kids went home around 10:30 but one boy got to spend the night and another friend came back early Saturday for breakfast. I think Jarik had a blast and enjoyed having so many friends over!

Zack gave him Legos

Trevor gave him Nerf swords

Daniel gave him a Nerf football

Ethan also gave him Legos

Nick gave him a launcher

On Saturday we got to go to a primary activity and then we took Jarik out to lunch at Red Robin. I usually dread going to restaurants with my family. The kids usually end up being embarrassingly loud and obnoxious! But I left feeling happy and we had a really fun time!

Sunday we had our Easter celebration with my family. With Conference being on Easter this year, my mom couldn't sing all day and then put on a big Easter dinner, so we did it early! We had wonderful food and the kids had a blast on an Easter egg hunt. We also celebrated Jarik and Mom's birthdays that day. It's fun having them have their birthday's so close!

Jarik, Bree, Tiaree, Alyssa, Keighlee and Colette getting ready to hunt eggs!

Jarik and Grammy blowing the candles on the Easter Bunny cake

Monday night we had Tracy's family over for cake and ice cream for Jarik. It was nice to visit with them and for the kids to play with their cousins. They love having time with cousins and we don't get the together enough any more!

More candle blowing with Kyli and Justin looking on

Next up is Parent Day at dance for Tiaree and Bree!

Parent Day

Every year the girls' dance classes have a parent day where we get to go watch them and see what they have learned. It's always fun to watch the girls dance and show off! Bree and Keighlee had back to back parent days a few weeks ago. Keighlee hasn't had hers yet, but I'll post pics of her cuteness when she does! Here are my beautiful dancers:

Bree and her teacher Jenn

Cute curtsey

Tiaree and Jenn

Beautiful girl

The last post for the day is about Tiaree's science fair project! I'm pretty proud of her!

Tiaree's Science Fair

So this year Tiaree had to do a science fair project. She decided what she wanted to do and it sounded really interesting. We were going to try to make sedimentary rock. We took different samples of dirt/sand/rocks from the yard and mixed them together. Then we put the mixture into 3 different bottles and added water. We shook the bottles and mixed everything up and then left them alone for the dirt to settle and the water to evaporate. We were supposed to be able to see layers when we cut the bottles in half, but all that happened with her is they crumbled. I thought, that's ok, we tried and it didn't work. So she took all her stuff to school and her teacher judged them. Her teacher chose 5 kids from her class to compete with the whole 4th grade and Tiaree was chosen. At that point I thought, ok, her teacher must really like her! :D So the day of the whole 4th grade fair I went up and saw her finished project and looked at all the others. I realized then that hers was good. Even though it didn't "work" like we wanted it to, she still did the experiment. She knew what she was talking about and how she could have made it better and I think that really helped. She was able to show her knowledge of her project when asked direct questions about how and why she did it! I was so proud of her, but I still thought that would be the end! She came home from school with a 1st place ribbon and the news that she'd been chosen to move onto district! The district fair is on the 16th of April. All she can take is her tri-fold and her science fair journal. Tracy and I get to go with her but we can't be with her when they interview her. I'm so excited for her and also a little nervous :D Here are some pics of her and her project!In front of her tri-fold
Her samples and the one bottle that you could sort of see a layer in
Her participation ribbon for winning from her class