Going Bare

So, the other day when I was at the beauty shop getting my summer highlights, I saw this...
You've probably seen bareMinerals on annoying infomercials, and as a general rule of thumb, I never buy things that have been on infomercials, but in a moment of weakness I caved and bought the set....not because I believe it will give me flawless skin by shrinking all my pores and eradicating my wrinkles like the literature claims...simply because I was nearly out of foundation.
Anyhoo, the reason for sharing all of this is that the set comes with a DVD depicting the proper way to apply the make-up...they make it seem like rocket science. Naturally, although my hair lady kindly encouraged me to watch it, I had no intentions of watching it, I mean, how hard can it be?
But my girls were ecstatic about the "make-up movie" and watched it 4 times while I took advantage of them being sedentary for a few moments and caught up on housework. So, the other morning I was getting ready for the day and Emma was in the bathtub behind me watching my every move when we had this exchange:
Emma, "Mom, you're not doing it right."
Me, "Really?"
Emma, "Yeah, you're supposed to swirl it, then tap off the excess....then buff."


On a completely unrelated note, we were walking home from visiting with the neighbors the other day and Lily said to me, "Mom, I'm a rock star."
Me, "You are?"
Lily, "Ya, because I just threw the biggest rock in the ditch and it made the biggest splash."
Emma, very exasperated and rolling her eyes, "That doesn't mean you're a rock star. If you were a rock star, you'd be on stage."
Thanks for keeping us informed Emma.

Afterschool Buddies

Since we have had a relatively uneventful week, although we have spent a lot of time outside and we are LOVING the warm weather, I thought I'd post some random pics of our after school buddies. We started having Antonio and Dakota over after school at the beginning of the year and I have to tell ya, I was a little nervous about how two boys would fit into our herd of girls, but it couldn't have worked out better. All of my littles love them and miss them when they don't come, but Owen absolutely adores them, he anxiously waits at the door for them to come everyday and cries when they go home.

We love Dakota's quiet personality and the way he watches out for Owen and is always at his beckoned call....whether he is repeatedly retrieving the balls he throws over the gate and down the stairs, or he is giving him piggy back rides around the living room, or he's just chasing Owen around the couch while he laughs hysterically.

And we love the way Tonio is always looking for a new adventure and making us laugh with his off the wall humor. I'll never forget one of the first times we took him somewhere in the car, he was sitting next to Owen and Owen was staring at him trying to figure out where we were going and why Antonio was sitting by him...Antonio looked at Owen and said, "He's looking at me like I just deep fried his cousin." Since then, we've found that he is full of the unpredictable and he likes to keep things interesting.

They were playing Doctor this day (Tonio was the Dr.) and although you can't tell from the pics, they were laughing uncontrollably.

Trick-or-Treating

Making Cookies



mmmm.....licking the frosting beaters

The Easter Trilogy...part III

On the 3rd day of Easter, we had yet another Easter egg hunt in the morning. This time, we were slackers and had it inside.

And, as if 3 Easter egg hunts isn't sufficient...we had one final Easter egg hunt Monday night for FHE. This time instead of the eggs being filled with candy, each egg had an item and scripture reference relating to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was my hope that having this final egg hunt, after all the craziness of the weekend, would return our thoughts to the true meaning of Easter. When we finished the hunt and reading the relating scriptures, we watched the video "To this end was I born."

When the movie was over and I had my girls attention, I attempted to explain the importance and necessity of the atonement to them and was met with blank stares. So, I changed gears and told them it was o.k. if they didn't understand the atonement and I admitted to them that there are things I still don't understand about the atonement. While I know it is of great importance, I think it is nearly impossible to grasp the absolute gravity of it's impact on mankind. It is my hope that as we talk and learn of Christ, they will feel the whispering in their soul witnessing the truth to them that He lives and loves us and that it is only through Him that we can return home to our Father in Heaven. And with this quiet assurance within their hearts, I hope they will find peace and realize they can believe without a complete understanding.
I was so touched by the talk about the Savior given by Jeffrey R. Holland during conference and especially love the video below. What a timely reminder.




The Morning Egg Hunt...

These were their Easter dresses this year...they are actually the flower girl dresses for my sister's wedding, May 2nd, but we passed them off as Easter dresses.

Still in jammies with some seriously unruly hair

Grace is getting very good at eluding the camera these days, I always end up with shots like these of her.

Owen is noticeably absent from all these pics...that would be because he was busy hiding out in the bedroom smearing his chocolate stash into the carpet.

The Easter Trilogy...part II

Sunday morning we took off bright and early to spend the day in Worland. It was a super fast turn around since we didn't get home Saturday night until after 11 and we had to be on the road in our Easter Sunday bests by 7:45 in order to make it to church on time in Worland.
And after we drove over an hour, and sat through 3 hours of church, everyone was peeling off their clothes in the car as we drove to my mom's after church...and no one wanted to pose for an Easter Sunday pic...so, we have none :(
After church, we ate homemade chicken and noodles, had a second round of egg dyeing and another egg hunt.

Egg dyeing....
Dontcha just LOVE Emma's duds?...she wore one of her favorite skirts that she didn't want to get dirty, so she helped herself to my mom's drawer and asked if she could wear the above pictured beautiful, lavender flowered nightgown.
The egg Grace is showing off was colored with dye that had a few tablespoons of oil added to it. If you've never tried it, you should. The dye doesn't stick to the egg anywhere there is oil on it. The girls would do one color, then dry the egg off and do another color until they had achieved the result they wanted. Some of them turned out quite pretty...
Unfortunately, this is the only egg that survived the egg hunt in one piece, so it's the only one I have a picture of...

My girls giving me their "seriously mother, we don't have time for this foolishness" smiles while I give them the " I promise this is the last one" line. My dad kept Owen out of the egg dye by taking him on tractor rides. Owen was in heaven...he LOVED it!

He did laps of the back yard and then took him up and down the alley until...he was fast asleep...at least until he turned the motor off, then Owen's eyes popped right open.The Easter bunny came while we were inside watching the Velveteen Rabbit movie...
The Egg Hunt...

holding hands again

Emma striking a pose in the valuable ensemble that "could not get dirty" and thus had to be protected with the lavender nightie. Owen still wasn't sure why everyone was scrambling over finding eggs...until...he climbed up onto his beloved tractor and someone had covered it in these annoying oblong shaped balls, he quickly began clearing his tractor off by hucking the annoying oblong balls off, and then one of them hit the ground and split open, and...it was full of chocolate!...then he "got it", he understood why the little oblong balls were so valuable and he proceeded to open every one he could get his little fingers on and devour its contents.

Later, Owen convinced my brother to do laps of the backyard on the tractor.

The Easter Trilogy...part I

I'm breaking our Easter weekend recap into 3 separate posts, since we celebrated it 3 different days, in 3 different places....and I took about 3 million pics. (I really need to figure out how to do collages)

Saturday morning, we headed up to Billings to celebrate Easter with Chris' side of the family. We had a traditional Easter ham that was delish!...and we got to meet sweet Megan! And, of course, we dyed Easter eggs and had an Easter egg hunt, or two, or 36, as the case may be....Mikala spent the afternoon rehiding the eggs over and over so the girls could keep finding them....she is such a great sport. We just love her!

Before we left in the morning, the girls put these little nests together->




Meeting Megan...

Grace and Tanner discussing babies.

Waiting for lunch...

Unruly Owen, hiding under the tablecloth...naughty boy.










Egg Dyeing...

While we dyed eggs, the boys played an ongoing game of fetch with their dads over the rails of the deck. Here they are wrestling for the football.

Kellan

The egg dyeing ended with Owen dumping the entire container of purple down the front of himself, thoroughly soaking his shirt, jeans and shoes.

Egg Hunting...

For some reason, I always end up with the most pics of Lily. I promise I love them all equally...she is just the most cooperative for the camera.

Holding Hands

Owen didn't get into the first round of egg hunts in Billings, he just wanted to play ball.

The boys playing catch...notice the big boys playing their own game of catch in the background.

Here, Owen is attempting to throw the ball into the trees down in the draw. He tried this repeatedly, but the ball never went as far as he wished it would. I should note that he did irritate a wasp in the process that stung him twice on the neck...poor baby. No worries though, it only slowed him down breifly. Oh yeah, I almost forgot and left the wild turkeys that we spotted while egg hunting out...what's that you say?...boring? Apparently they are not (boring) as we also have video footage of them as well. thanks hunny. well done.