J Spring Orchestra concert

J had her spring Orchestra concert!  It was fun to go to.  She is getting pretty good at the viola and really enjoys it! :)

Meg Kindergarten Concert

Meg had her kindergarten concert and she absolutely had a BLAST!  She loves music and singing.  :)

General Conference/Easter

I LOVE General Conference.  I think I love it even more when it falls on Easter.  :)

The kids woke up and searched for their baskets.  The younger kids found theirs pretty quickly, but wanted us to keep re-hiding them because the older kids hadn't found theirs yet.  HA.  It took J and Lo about 35 minutes to find their baskets.  :)  Darn sneaky Easter Bunny.  

For brunch we made biscuits and gravy.  Darin loves B &G and so do the kids.  I couldn't eat any, but they smelled lovely.  It is tradition to eat B&G on Conference Sunday.  YUMMY.  

We had a great time eating treats, playing Conference Bingo, playing with play do, and relaxing while we listened to our Prophet--Thomas S. Monson and the apostles/authorities of the church.  I love feeling the spirit and feeling the love these men and women have for our Savior.  It makes heaven seem so close and real--which it is, it's just easy to be distracted I think.  It's a nice reminder of who I am and what I stand for. 

If you want to listen to the Prophet of the world and the rest of General Conference, here you go:
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/sessions/2015/04?cid=HP_SU_4-5-2015_dPTH_fGC_xLIDyL1-B_&lang=eng

In between conference sessions, we went for a walk in the woods and made awesomely huge bubbles.  :)

Spring Break--St. Louis

Spring break.... AWESOME!  I loved having the kids home and not having a schedule or HOMEWORK!  We had some good weather and the kids played outside a lot.  We left for a quick little vacation on Thursday afternoon.  We headed to St. Louis.  We had heard that there was an AMAZING museum there and it was definitely AMAZING!  Since I haven't been feeling well for quite some time now, usually we don't do anything or go anywhere.  I wanted to badly to give this to my kids.  To watch them experience something new and explore to their hearts content!  I made it.  I did o.k.  I felt well enough to at least walk from area to area.  Darin chased after the kids mostly and I gave them a home base to come back to if they got lost.  There were tunnels everywhere and most of the time you do not come out anywhere near where you went in.  So much exploring.  We spent the day at the museum and went for dinner at Fitz's.  It was so much fun.  I even split a salad with Darin. I didn't put any dressing on it and I didn't eat the chicken, but I ORDERED from a RESTAURANT!  WOOT WOOT!  The kids loved eating out.  Fitz's makes and bottles their own rootbeer and other soda.  Usually you can watch that happen, but they were making some repairs when we were there... oh well.  It was still fun.  They are known for their rootbeer floats.  They are HUGE and gormet!  There was a whole back side of the menu dedicated to all the types of floats you could get.  It was pretty awesome.  We only ordered 2 since they were HUGE.  VERY cool!  On Saturday, we headed to the zoo and the arch.  We were hoping to go up to the top of the arch, but apparently you have to get tickets the day before or they are sold out!  oops.  Next time.  We still got a picture by the arch.  The kids enjoyed watching movies and playing video games during the drive.  We also let them pick out what snack they wanted in the car.  We had nutterbutters, sour patch gummies (ewww, nobody really liked those), starburst gummies, chips, oreos, ... hmm, yup that's about it.  very healthy, huh?  oh we also got subway sandwhiches, so that makes it o.k.!  HA HA!

We listened to General Conference on the way home, which I LOVED!  I'm grateful I felt well enough to do this and I wasn't miserable the whole time.  I love my little family!  So happy we are sealed and stuck together forever and ever!!!!

 A rare picture of all of us---at the zoo!

 Everyone jumping in together.  The water was TOO cold for me, but the kids had fun!

 Everyone wants to stand on Dad's Shoulders!  D is the BEST... seriously.  He is an AWESOME dad!

 In the cave section of the museum.

 In the TREE section of the museum

 LUNCH BREAK!  St. Louis thin crust pizza!  The guy at the pizza shop gave us a nice big warm chocolate chip cookie because there was a tiny bit of pizza that tore off and was missing.  :)  We totally didn't care, but the cookie was fun! :)

 More climbing through tunnels!

 climbing the big boy!

 Another pic of everyone pointing to the City Museum sign.

 You can see the outside climbing area behind us in the pic.  This was only a fraction of what was outside.  SO fun!!!!

 At Fitz's with the HUGE rootbeer floats!  Good thing they serve them on a plate, because they were messy!!

 Digging in!  Today was Zander's actual Birthday, so we thought we'd go somewhere fun!

 We were packed in pretty tight for sleeping.  Meg was on cushions between bed and wall, J on a roll away bed, Logan on the pull out sofa, and Zander on the floor on an air mattress (not shown), D and I in the bed!  ;) 

 Z being silly in the car.

 Logan took a pic of himself in the car.

 Handsome D at the zoo!

 Touching the arch.  We made sure to run to the other end of the arch, so we could touch both sides.  LOL

 The kids and the St. Louis Arch.  So fun!!

Z-man is 7

I can't believe Z-man is 7!!  He is such a fun guy.  Z is always laughing or making others laugh.  He is a happy little guy.  He is ALL boy and Loves to run, jump, play soccer, get muddy, play with friends, shoot nerf guns, play video games, etc.  He is also very kind and soft hearted.  We went on a small vacation over his real birthday, so we celebrated a bit early.  :)