field trips

I was lucky enough to get to go on two field trips last week.

My preschool class visited the zoo. Layla had a fun day looking at animals with her friends.

Every time I take my class on a field trip I make a Bingo card for them to wear around their neck. I give the parent chaperones stickers to put on the cards when the kids find something on their bingo square. Once we find everything, we stop and pass out a special snack--in this case, it was animal crackers.

I spent Friday with Kyler and his 5th grade class at UW for the Engineering Discovery days. It was a fun day of science for me and my group of 3.

Kyler made sure he had on his ASU shirt as he walked around the UW campus.

These yeast balloons were fun and simple to make. It's just yeast, sugar, and warm water in a water bottle. We put a water balloon on the top and throughout the day we watched the balloon blow up.

I loved spending a whole day with this wonderful boy and seeing him with his school friends.

these days

I am such a fan of date nights. Last week, E took me to dinner, to get a new phone and we went on a walk. We live in such a gorgeous place--the cool, fresh air, the green, towering trees, and the water around here! I love it.

I'm, also, now a fan of phones with slow-mo cameras,  iMovie apps, and without facebook set up. We made some funny jumping and dancing videos on my phone. We showed them to the kids and we all laughed sooo hard. I don't think I'll sign into facebook on this phone either. Life is nice without it.

Perry and Layla love helping around here. They washed their bikes and then started in on the truck.

Perry saw mud from Kacin's baseball cleats on the front porch so he grabbed the broom and got to work tidying up. OK!

We are taking a break from ABA therapy for awhile. This is a good decision. Now, I have a couple more hours in the afternoon to keep this guy busy. I promised myself we can't fill all of that time up with TV.

I can't believe Kyler is big enough to be sitting in the front seat of the car! But he is. It's nice to talk to him more since he is right there next to me, but I am adjusting to the fact that I can't spread my stuff out across the shotgun seat anymore and I'm losing control over the radio,

While Kacin was practicing with his baseball team, Layla insisted we took Ballerina bear on a walk with us.

We are a few games into Kacin's baseball season. He loves it! He hasn't played since T-ball, but he jumped right in with enthusiasm and a love of the game. He especially enjoys playing catcher, but he has also been pitching a little, too.

awake nap

 Layla asked us one afternoon, 

"Can I watch a show for my awake nap?"

ha ha

An awake nap sounds appealing to me, too.

But I would even take a sleep nap.

easter

On Easter, we celebrate the resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We remember His life, death, and the fact that He lives again. Because He lives, I can live forever with this little family of mine, in which I have so much fun with, and I can have hope and peace throughout my life.

We spent our Easter weekend soaking in as many talks from our church leaders as we could during general conference. (I fear we may be in a difficult stage to all really listen for quite some time, especially with our little autistic man, but we tried our best and were inspired by all that we heard.)

Sprinkled around the spiritual nourishment of general conference, we had some fun with easter eggs, egg hunts, friends, and easter baskets.

All we needed was a simple eye dying kit and some crayons.

We have the tradition of coloring an egg especially for each member of our family. This year, we drew names because we were low on eggs. We posed with our finished eggs before we passed them out to each other.

Nice modeling. :) 

I love this man.

This girl could've colored eggs all day. Tears were shed when it was time to stop.

We found books and a few goodies in our easter baskets.

Time to find the eggs the easter bunny hid in our backyard.

Here is some of that Allred competition.

My family tradition growing up was to get water guns in our easter baskets and to have a water fight in our house. With those happy memories in mind, there was silly string in our baskets this year.

Not everyone had fun getting sprayed with string.

But everyone loved doing the spraying.

 While Easter eggs were being hid, the kids were kept entertained.

All of our kids loved egg hunting this year.

It was fun searching with friends.

Is that Eric reaching for Kacin's easter candy?

We held the annual easter egg toss.
E and I were out pretty quickly.

Those Nielsen's practice during the year or something. Even with a baby wrapped to her, Julie beat us.

Our Easter weekend was a good one.