Easter

I know, I know ... it was a little while back, but here are the fun pictures from Easter. We had a rainy day on the Saturday before Easter here in Utah (so lame). We had to make the best of it with an indoor Easter egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa Morton's for the little kids. Thankfully she still had plenty of little nooks and crannies where we could hide about a million eggs.

The big boys got no sympathy and hunted for their loot outside in the rain. We watched them from the kitchen window and laughed a little. Well, almost as hard as we laughed at Dave and Dad out there hiding the eggs in the rain. Jason and Brady got out of egg-hiding duties thanks to Jason's knee surgery and Brady's clumsy basketball playing (badly sprained ankle).

Here they are waiting patiently for the egg hunt to begin. London and T.J. had apparently already had a little too much sugar that day.

This was after the ward Easter egg hunt in the morning. Austin and Jackson were pretty bummed when they realized almost all of the candy was off-limits thanks to their newly installed jaw expanding appliances (getting ready for braces). Dave and I helped them out with all of their sticky gooey stuff. Wasn't that nice of us?

After I my initial reaction of "What in the . . . . ?!!" I realized this was a pretty cute craft project for a Kindergarten Easter party for 28 6-year-olds on a sugar high. I'm not sure what brave soul took on that project, but it was pretty nice of them. She loves the mask and wore it all over the neighborhood for a few days. Good thing she didn't cause any cars to veer off the road ...

The obligatory Easter morning picture wasn't going well until I threatened to eat all of everyone's Easter candy. That's when we got this gem.

Easter morning with their stash.

The Easter egg hunt at Grandma and Grandpa Leatherwood's house. Again, inside due to the unseasonally freezing rotten weather. The kids didn't seem to mind.

Grandma Leatherwood likes to mix things up a bit with Easter egg hunts and the kids loved it. They got play-dough, bouncy balls, bubbles, chips, and cookies along with their candy-filled eggs.

I think between the ward Easter egg hunt, Grandma Morton's Easter egg hunt, Grandma Leatherwood's Easter egg hunt, and of course the Easter Bunny, we very likely had more candy around here after Easter than we did after HALLOWEEN!!! Surprise, surprise ... it was all gone a week later.

We had a nice Easter weekend spending time with family and friends. I taught sharing time in Primary on Easter Sunday and got to spend some extra time studying the life of the Savior to prepare for my lesson. It was a good opportunity to really reflect on his life and be grateful for his sacrifice for us.

I'm SO behind!

I'm so behind! We've had a fun month, and I haven't blogged about anything!. So here were go. First of all, my roommate from college and one of my favorite people, Faye, is having her first baby. My friends Heidi and Krista (also two of my favorite people) met me at her baby shower and we had a blast catching up and reminiscing and mostly laughing a lot. I have so many fun memories with these girls, and catching up with them was a lot of fun. I hate that we don't see each other too much anymore. I miss seeing them and laughing with them. Love ya girls!

Morton Bowl-A-Thon

A few weeks ago, we had our Almost-Annual Morton March Birthday Family Bowl-a-Thon to celebrate the abundance of March birthdays in my family, including my dad, Jared, Melanie, Jason, and Brady. We try to go every year, but sometimes it just doesn't happen. We missed the Wisconsin cheese-heads, but we had a good time. The kids (and Melanie) had a lot of fun bowling with the little ramps and bumper pads - good job Mel! The rest of us bowled like adults, and frankly I rocked. Actually, I did fine (125 points), but Dave, Brady, and my dad all beat me, though not by much (around the 150's). Dave got the action shot above by lying on the floor with his face (and my new camera) six inches away from where I was going to release the heavy slippery bowling ball at a high rate of speed onto the lane. Not a good idea Dave, but he is pretty proud of his camera work. Apparently he forgot how clumsy and accident prone I am. He's a brave man I tell ya.

Moab

A few weeks ago, Dave and Austin went on a trip to Moab with the scouts. They had a great time and didn't even complain much about the long drive (well not that much). Their trip happened to land on two of the rare good weather days we have had since Halloween, and they both came back a little sunburned, and the weather was apparently perfect in Moab (they rubbed it in since it was stinking cold up here - as usual). It is important to note that Dave packed himself for this campout for the first time in the history of our marriage. He is usually too insanely busy to pack, and I'm here wondering which cooler he wants, which clothes he want, and which fire-building implements he wants. And contrary to what I might have thought, he ended up with everything he needed, or at least he hasn't told me that he forgot anything (ha ha). Although I did notice that the bag with the toothbrushes and toothpaste looked mysteriously unopened. I did my part and picked up an abundant supply of beef jerky, granola bars, crackers, and trail mix from Costco - all of which disappeared in 24 hours. That's apparently what happens when you have 5 scouts and 2 leaders trapped in a car for 8 hours.

They left Friday night at 4:00 and got back home around 8:00 Saturday night. For those of you who know Dave, hiking around in Moab could not be more "right up his alley." They've both been talking about it ever since they got back, and as it turns out ... the whole family is going back down to Moab in a few weeks on a camping trip with some good friends. I've never been to Moab and from everything I've heard from Dave and Austin, I'm excited! Dave put Austin in charge of the camera on their trip, and he went to town taking pictures. I promised him a slide show on the blog, and here it is. Moab looks like a beautiful place.

We Highly Recommend It

On Jason and Melanie's recommendation, we rented this movie, Fireproof, last weekend. It is a Christian-based story about the marriage of a firefighter and his wife. Both Dave and I were impressed by the message of this story. Actually, I can't remember the last time I was this "moved" by a movie. The story is so touching and the message so applicable to really every marriage. We highly recommend it. Everyone should see it. It is made by the same people who did Facing the Giants which is another Christian-based movie. That one is about a football coach and his wife. That movie is also really good and definitely worth watching. Neither movie has any garbage in it which is so refreshing.

Thank You

It is only 10:00 a.m. and I've already been moved to tears twice this morning (which is a good thing) and the responsible people are ... Kelly and Cassie. Kelly reminded me who I am and what that means and also to have perspective and be able to let go and move on. Thanks Kelly. Cassie posted this amazing slide show accompanied by a beautiful song that we heard at our Relief Society Enrichment last night, and I just flat out copied her and posted it below (thanks Cassie!). We had a guest speaker who was fabulous (Justin Harper, a seminary teacher from Rockwell), and he talked about living a life centered on the Savior. He played this song with a different slide show, but the effect is the same ... tears, gratitude, humility, and a renewed determination to look to Him.

Look at me go

Let's just make a note here that this is my second post in five days. Okay, moving on. The kids had the day off of school today (I have no idea why, I'm just glad I remembered!), and we were hoping for a fun day outside (on bikes, at the park, at the zoo, etc.), but alas, it was snowing .... again. We remembered Austin had a free pass to the Living Planet Aquarium in Sandy, and off we went. It was pretty cool. We had a lot of fun looking at all the sea creatures, driving the boat, and eating lunch at the Rain Forest Cafe. What it really did was get us all totally excited for Sea World in the fall! I actually do like planning vacations pretty far in advance, but I think I might be torturing myself with this one - we're not going until OCTOBER!!! I know, I know ... I'm as bad as the kids! At least I have something to look forward to I suppose.