Confectionary Conclusion

***Below you will see a couple photos wherein we appear to be made of wax.  And while I like to think we are incredibly wrinkle free (we sure are not), they are simply stills off the video cam footage and apparently stills of video cam footage take 45 years off your life.  Or add 45 face lifts.  Regardless, we are all Botox free.  For now...

Minus the 45 degree days, Spring Break was wondrous.  Just a nice relaxing week with kids eerily well-behaved and content.  They even spent an afternoon happily scrubbing down their bedroom (drugs???). 

As a capstone, we elected to enter the glorious world of chocolate in Hershey, PA.

Talk about a delight for the senses.  The entire town of Hershey literally smells of chocolate decadence.  Everywhere your eyes danced was a chocolately confection.  The salivating does not stop until you drive far from Hershey and deep into the farmlands.  

Basically, it was precisely how I imagine Heaven.

 We began our journey through chocolate world on an adorable little ride (think "It's a Small World") that took us through the chocolate creation process.  It was perfectly imaginative and informative.  

And featured Heifers.

Go figure.

 Next up, we shrunk the kids.

The highlight of our excursion was creating our own candy bars.  Perhaps one of the most well-done experiences ever.  

Ever.

We began by selecting the type of chocolate we wanted our candy bar to be made of, then opted for our add-ins (I went for toffee bits and salty pretzel pieces in dark chocolate, because I am a sort of chocolate genius).

 Next up, we watched our candy bar be made by the robot machine things.

 Our name was put on the screen for each step so we could ensure we were watching the birth of our very own candy bar .

It was touching.

 The final step was creating our packaging.  

 And watching our names get laser-printed onto the box.

 The finale. 

So awesome.

And Tess is ticked I couldn't fit her bar in the picture.  Or ticked that she wouldn't be allowed to eat her bar until the next day.  Or maybe she was just happily munching on chocolate. 

 We ended our day with a little chocolate tasting.

Because how else would you choose to end your day??

 It was rather successful.

 Three days later and our bellies are still bursting.  

Not a bad way to spend a Friday.  

Or any day that ends in Y.

Rawr Rawr

While the Cougars may have fallen short of the NCAA Tourney this year, they did manage to make it to the semi's in the NIT.  Which just so happened to take place at Madison Square Gardens.  Which means, we had to attend.

 Luckily Allen was in Boston yesterday and able to come home just in time to board the train with us and head over to MSG.

Where we had unbeatable third row seats.  

 We could feel the sweat.  And see Haws repeatedly get the crap beaten out of him.  

It would seem the refs could have benefited from our seats....

 It's so satisfying to see Mormon's from all over congregate to show support for the boys in blue.

 And to have my friends there to boot.

 Not to mention we owned the Jumbotron.  I got texts all night from attenders telling me they saw my little head fill up that big old screen.  That's a lot of nose.  And teeth.
Bless my sweet heart.

 And I hear our faces made it onto television screens across America a few times when this dude made this shot.  Unfortunately, he rarely scored.

A perfect little Spring Break date with the love of my life and my future little Cougar man- minus that whole losing part. 

He is Risen!

 We began our Easter festivities Saturday morning, with a visit from the Easter Bunny-who successfully charmed the children.

Good Easter Bunny.

  Shortly thereafter we hosted an Easter brunch full of fanciful fixings and one eggstravagant egg hunt (featuring not one, but three!!! cash-filled golden eggs).  We had thirteen kids and 6 adults under this minuscule roof.  Creating a happy (and maybe slightly frenetic) chaos. 

The Littles. 

The Bigs.

 The Happy Hunters.

 Sunday was beautiful.  The sun was shining and the Spirit of the season abundant.

Unfortunately I was singing in the choir (not by choice...I'm not that selfless), and had to run out of the house extra early, allowing only seconds to shoot the kids in their new Spring stylings.

 That evening we had the missionaries and another little family over for our Easter Dinner feast, then ended with a sweet lesson describing the beauty and majesty of The Resurrection.

We are a lucky lot.  Us humans here on earth.  Loved unconditionally by a Father in Heaven and a Big Brother willing to sacrifice His own life so that we may all be joined eternally as a family together again.  

Indeed, we are one lucky lot. 

Madness of March

Purging my iPhone:

 Ryder finished up his first season of basketball (#5).  He seemed to really enjoy it.  And scored at least one basket every game.  We'll deem that a success.

 The house has made very, very little progress.

But, still, the builder does just enough that I don't shoot him in the face.

 There were more days with snow on than ground than not.  

 This is inexcusable.

 Ryder's all-wise father introduced the kid to Rob Zombie.  He will now listen to nothing else.  

Which I find slightly creepy.  But apparently not creepy enough to actually do something about it.

 He also fell down the stairs on a Friday morning and emerged with a gnarly looking arm.  I sent him off to school anyway. 

 I had a busy day.

Then the school nurse said he had a gnarly looking arm, but I should wait a day to have it seen to ensure the gnarliness remained.

It still looked gnarly on Saturday so I took him to the pediatrician.  She said it looked pretty gnarly and he should get it x-rayed.  The father spent the next 4 hours at the ER wherein it was determined the gnarly looking arm was just that and simply needed a couple more days to return to normalcy.  We'll count that as a roundabout obnoxiously procured blessing. 

 Also, I nearly managed to blow the house up.  During a no-sleep/no-shower stint.  I don't do well exhausted.  Somehow in the chaos of creating dinner I had wrong appliances resting on wrong-turned-on burners, and the result was a crackling, stinky, gooey, bomb. 

 Pretty awesome.

And speaking of this house.  It is so small.  And I so often feel claustrophobic, certain the walls will swallow up all of the toys and vomit plastic pieces all over my shoes that are shoved in 14 different closets and then they will revolt and trample me to death.

But this house.  That is so small, is also so magical.  When there is happiness it here, it pervades every surface.  Laughter reverberates and cannot be escaped.  Cheerfulness is contagious in this little cottage.  I feel the giggles.  Literally, feel.

 No matter where I am standing or sitting or laying the mood of this home melts into my soul.  

  And so, while I am anxious to actually hear quiet and sequester the sour, I will always treasure our months in this place.
 The kids school turned 100 years old and they celebrated with a Decades Day.  We picked the 80's.  Naturally.  Wherein Linley was convinced no one would ever wear their hair in a high side pony.  Upon me telling her that I in actuality regularly wore my hair in a side pony in that blessed decade, she proclaimed, "You lived in the 1900's??  No wonder you're so old!"

Thanks kid.

 Baby beauty had her six month check-up.  Not remotely close to being on the charts for height (sweet, beastly baby), nearly 18 pounds (86th percentile) and her sweet, teeny tiny little head ranked in the 34th percentile.   That's my girl.

 Many, many movie nights were had as is it still mind-numbingly cold.

And finally, more numming on this delicious little lady.

Not a bad way to spend a March. 

Dye Job

 We all know I don't lay awake at night dreaming of dying eggs. 

More accurately, that would be the stuff of nightmares. 

 But, the good father in this house insists it imperative.  

                                                            And so, dye eggs we did. 

 Without the insistor.

 Because he had to be elsewhere.

 Fancy that.

 That said, it went flawlessly.  No spills, Eden slept through the duration, and the house was full of  happy little bunny babies to boot.

 So maybe next year I won't require as much convincing (doubt it!!).

 Now if only I could round up some time to get me a dye job....