Easter 2016

Living in Minnesota you have to hope for the best but expect the worst as far as weather.  I mean when Easter happens to fall in March in let's say, Arizona or Texas, you expect warm weather.  In Utah and Indy, it was hit or miss...it can be really pleasant but you'll never be in shorts and T-shirts.  Here in Minnesota you are fully prepared for snow and cold temps.  This year, being our first here, were pleasantly surprised when the snow was melted and although it was still chilly and cloudy, it wasn't freezing.  

We did the traditional egg coloring. The kids always have fun coloring eggs, and even though we like hard-boiled eggs and have some use for them, there are only so many we can go through before they go bad.  

 See, no snow.  She is wearing her coat and boots, but that was so she didn't get completely gross.

 We tried to take some pics after church, but Masie was not in the mood.

 So this is what we got.

just keepin it real

Lots of Randomness

It's about time for another post of random pics from my phone.  Every time I try to figure out what to post next, I find a slew of pictures I don't know what to do with.  So they are going in here.  I may or may not explain each picture so bear with my crazy thought process.  

We went to Morgan's parent teacher conference and they had a book fair going on at the same time (smart school, get parents to buy stuff while they are there).  Anyway, we found this poster and thought of Uncle James and his fetish for cats.  We almost bought it for him and mailed it to him.  We had a good laugh.

 Malia is at it again.  She woke up one night right after Randy left for business trip crying.  She came up to my bed and I being too tired to figure out what was wrong made her snuggle with me till she fell asleep.  In the morning she was complaining her arm hurt like it did when she broke it in Orem and after a lot of prying of information we figured out she must have fallen out of her bed in the middle of her night and probably landed on her arm like she did on the teeter totter.  So after I got the kids off to school, I took her in and they couldn't find a break but said she may have re injured her previous break from falling out of bed.  So she was splinted and slinged again.  Since it wasn't "broken" they ended up giving her a brace to wear for a couple of weeks.  I give up with this girl!

Another awesome elder.  Elder Knaphus or "Napkin"  He was pretty cool!

 Out here in MN they have a program run by a church called "Feed my Starving Children."  This group makes meal packs for 3rd world countries and through their missionary work provide meals for starving people.  These packs have lots of nutrition and lots of calories to help these underdeveloped areas.  We were able to go help pack some of these meals.  It's a pretty neat experience.  They tell/show stories of some of the children they have helped.

Saw him doing this on the way to drop off kids at school while the song "Hello" was on the radio. It was perfect timing.

New Beginnings for the Young Women.

Remember those ginormous sweats?  We finally found a home for them.  The elders took them off our hands and gave them to someone in our area who could use them.  But we had to take one more picture of them.

After dinner/breakfast one night, Micah's syrup looked like and egg had hatched.

We went with some friends to their gun club and with 5 couples, we had 500 rounds to shoot.  So we had some fun with these shotguns. I had to document this cuz I traded Randy's earphones for mine cuz I thought he needed to wear pink.

We were told we had a pretty mild winter.  We had plenty of bitterly cold temperatures but not an excess of snow this year.  We had enough snow, but it wasn't out of control.

We visited an art museum during spring break.

and also the zoo.

What boy doesn't need a newsies hat?

We had our fair share of the sickies this year, mostly in ear infections, but there was one time Masie thought she was going to barf or "bark" she thinks so she slept with her head in a bucket.  I'm pretty sure had she puked, it would have come right back in her face.

More concerts

We've been to a lot of them lately, you can tell by how excited Kaders is.

Visits and crazy kids

Towards the end of January my parents decided to head out  again to visit their grand kids.  They first stopped at our house for a few days before going to visit with other kids.  It was having them for a few days.

Uncle Billy had 2 business trips to take to Minneapolis and visited with us the first time and crashed at our house the second.  It's always great when family has to come see us, lol.

Oh and we took him to Costco for a Usinger Brat.  They sell them in the food court and are the best Brat around.

Masie found a purple marker and apparently has watched her older sister putting on makeup a little too much.  She was upset when I first discovered her. so I tried to lighten up her mood with some selfies.

 

 Kaders is notorious for falling asleep on the way home from church.  It doesn't matter what we do to try and keep him awake. We yell at him, startle him, sing really loud.  His internal nap clock goes off right at 12:15 on Sunday's.  I mean, not even a lollipop will keep this lil dude awake. 

Micah's 11!

This kid is 1 year away from 12 and I'm not ok with that.  Our lil man is not so lil anymore.  He is such a kind soul that wants to help everyone and he loves to give hugs.

 We let him open one of his gifts in the morning since it was something that would help with these cold Minnesota winters.

 This boy is always cold! Hope this helps.

 Last year kind of got away from us with his birthday and it never right to throw him a friend party. So we pushed it to his 11th birthday.  I'm glad we did! Back in Indy he didn't have a lot of friends and there really wasn't any boys his age at church so it was hard to decide who to invite.  Moving to here has helped.  

 We had a fun movie/game party.  They boys had a blast.

 Turning 11 also meant that Micah would be graduating cub scouts and be moving up to boy scouts.  We had a ceremony for his crossover.

 My handsome little boy!

Love you Micah!  Happy Birthday, thanks for being you!