April Blessings

April began with a bang.

I drove home from Utah and attending the BYU Alumni board meeting listening to Conference as I drove.

Between the afternoon and the Priesthood session we met Devin and Sarah at Sizzler for dinner.

I think these kids were a little bit excited!

Sarah took some darling pictures of Mr. Tommy.

I love how the bill of of baseball cap is just a little off centered, just like his Dad's used to be.

Tom and I flew back to Denver the following Thursday for Zachy's 8th birthday and baptism.

Uncle Taylor also flew in from Provo,.

Taylor is Zach's hero so he was on cloud 9.

Sara picked us all up at the airport and we went directly to Maggiono's an Italian restaurant to celebrate Zach's 8th birthday.

Zach couldn't get enough of Uncle Taylor.

 Maggiono's brought out some ice cream and lemon cookies with candles 

and sang Happy Birthday to him.

Sara always makes the cutest cakes for her kid's birthdays.

Zach wanted a Flash cake.

It not only looked good, it tasted delicious!

 

Then Zach got to open his birthday presents!

Friday was Jonathan's birthday,

so we went to Cafe Rio to celebrate.

Not only Zachy loved Uncle Taylor, but baby Elizabeth loves him too!

After dinner, we drove to Boondocks for some fun and games

 It was Zach's dream come true.

Uncle Taylor was pretty impressive shooting the baskets, at least Lucy was impressed.

 

We gathered at Sara's afterwards for Jon's birthday treat, banana cream pie.

Saturday was the baptism day.

It was pretty special because Zach was the only kid from the ward being baptized, so both Grandpa's spoke and the rest of the family did prayers and the music.

Zach's display table with the baptism quilt I made him as the table cloth

Such a special day for our family

We love Zachy!

Since Zachy's baptism was at 9 am,, Sara and I prepared a crepe brunch and hosted Jonathan's family.

Everything turned out delicious.

We then changed clothes and headed to Colorado Springs.

We stopped at Sonic for a little treat and then drove up to Manitou Springs to check out the 

Cave of the Winds

Tom and Taylor took the lantern ghost tour and the rest of us did the Discovery tour.

The kids loved it and were so brave.

The kids loved sluicing for gold

And Elizabeth wanted to take this big bear home.

She was so cute trying to give it hugs.

After all our adventuring, we were starved, so we headed to Rudy's barbecue.

It was a crazy busy place, but the barbecued turkey was worth the wait

and Taylor and Tom loved the 

pulled pork.

We headed back to Parker and watched Moana on the way.

It was pretty funny watching Tom and Taylor be so entertained.

Man, where were DVD players when my kids were young?

Taylor flew back to Utah early on Sunday morning, but Tom and my flight didn't leave until late Sunday night, so we were able to go to Sara and Jon's ward and have Sunday dinner together.

Jon had requested pot du creme for dessert, so we gave it a try.

Whoa, that recipe was a keeper.

We flew back to Boise and started back in with our regular schedule.

For mutual on Wednesday, we learned how to make pie shells and we made an apple pie.

It was super fun!

We have had the craziest weather this year, lot of precipitation

and spring has been pretty bipolar.

We got a good dusting of snow last Friday.

Thankfully on Saturday, the sun came out and melted all the snow, so we could have some Easter fun,

starting with the annual Easter egg hunt at Hidden Springs.

The kids love the bounce house

I took Sophie and Eva back to my house so they could go to the 

Schiefelbein's annual Easter egg hunt.

Mark and Cathy are former members of our ward that host a HUGE Easter egg hunt every year.

How lucky is that two Easter egg hunts in a day?

Eva and Sophie came over to our house after the egg hunt and we had an

Easter egg dying party.

Since I didn't have any official Easter egg dye, we used Koolaid.

We had a dance party afterwards!

We invited Charlie and Lucille and Devin and family over for Easter Sunday dinner.

Lucille wasn't feeling well, so just Charlie came.

We served our traditional ham loaf, funeral potatoes, lemon pudding salad, asparagus, rolls, green salad and strawberry shortcake for dessert.

We hosted our own Easter egg hunt in our side yard afterwards

We are so thankful for our many April blessings, the blessing of living close to family to celebrate these special holidays and we are so thankful for airplane travel that allows us to visit our family that doesn't live close and support them on their special days.

We are most thankful for our Savior, Jesus Christ, and his exemplary life, death, and resurrection

so that we can all be together forever!