Random moments

Sometimes when my camera is out I just take shots of random things. It's how I learn about different photo settings and options. Anyway... I got a few I had to post. One of them was really odd... a twin egg yolk! I don't know how common it is to get a twin yolk, but I've never seen one personally and we eat a fair amount of eggs. So I thought I'd take a picture. Otherwise, I also got some cute shots of the kids as well!

One last message for Easter

I found this on the church's website tonight and just had to share it. What an absolutely beautiful message to end this beautiful Sabbath Easter day!

Happy Easter!

I believe this Easter has been my favorite Easter... ever. I don't believe I've ever felt closer to the Savior than I do this year. I feel so amazingly blessed. I've taken the time to really try to better understand the atonement this year and to be absolutely certain that my children understand the real meaning of Easter. Between us and their primary teachers, I think we've all done a decent job because they seem to know the story pretty well.

I am still reading my book "21 Days Closer To Christ" and it's life changing. I see life the world differently. And this weekend was no exception. Everyone at church today gave such wonderful talks and the lessons were so wonderful.

I am humbled beyond measure to think that Christ atoned for me... for my sins. And as someone reflected today, President Faust once asked, "I wonder how many drops of blood he shed for me?" It really puts things into perspective.

I am so proud of the boys. We have never really perpetuated the idea of the Easter Bunny. They know that the Easter Bunny is a fictional character in the secular festivities surrounding Easter, but they don't believe in him. If they get things for Easter, they know the things come from us. I purposefully did not leave their basket out for them last night. They wake up before we do and I didn't want them fighting over things. So I just waited.

They never asked about an Easter basket or treats of any kind this morning. I was so touched by that. We spent the weekend making resurrection rolls and coloring eggs and talking about the real meaning of Easter. I really think that that was good enough for them. They weren't looking for anything more. Right before we were ready to serve breakfast, I brought out a basket and they were genuinely surprised! It was nice to see that.

I gave them each a stainless steel water bottle. Ever since I got mine, they've wanted one. They got a small notebook, some candy, and they each got a Little Kinz stuffed toy. They LOVE these little guys. They are smaller versions of Webkinz animals. They each come with a special code that you can plug into the computer. You get an adoption certificate for your animal and virtual money to purchase things for your pet. Then you can play games to earn more virtual money. So far they are having fun with that.

They also got new shirts and ties and I just had to snap a few pictures of them... they looked so spiffy for church today!

Ethan's Primary talk

Ethan had the honor of giving the talk in junior primary today. What a fun day to be able to give a talk! I wanted to include a copy of his talk here. Mike and I were SO proud of him. I stood by him, mainly to hold up some pictures. I held up a picture of the tomb and a picture of Mary Magdalene at the appropriate times in his talk. But he got up and read the entire thing by himself! He only needed my help while reading the scripture out of the New Testament because the print was small and I just had to hold my fingers so he wouldn't lose his place. He did a great job! Here is his talk:

Brothers and sisters, Happy Easter! Today we celebrate the resurrection of our savior.

Jesus Christ made it possible for me to live with Heavenly Father again.
When Jesus died, his body was placed in a tomb and a big stone was rolled in front of the door of the tomb. After three days, the stone was rolled away. Jesus was not there. He had risen! Jesus had been resurrected.

Being resurrected means that Jesus’ body and spirit were together again and would never be separated again.

The third article of faith says:

“We believe that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.”

Because of the atonement of Christ, all mankind can be resurrected again, including me! This is how Jesus Christ made it possible for me to live with Heavenly Father again.

John 3:16 says: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (Note: Ethan read this directly from the scriptures and not from paper.)

I have a testimony that Jesus Christ is my savior and that through his atoning sacrifice, I can live with Heavenly Father again.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

Resurrection Rolls

When I attended the Relief Society Enrichment meeting last week, someone mentioned resurrection rolls. Intrigued, I went searching for them and found a great recipe! I just knew I had to make these!

Last night when we got home from Port Orchard, we gathered the boys into the kitchen and told them we were going to have a special Easter lesson/project. They were excited. Mike and I read the Easter story to them out of Matthew and explained harder vocabulary words to them. We read all the way up to the point where it says Jesus was in the tomb for three days. Then we stopped to make the rolls. We each got a triangle of crescent roll dough. The dough represents the linen that Jesus' body was wrapped in after he had died. Then we each got a large marshmallow, which represented the body of Jesus. We dipped our marshmallows in melted butter, which represented the embalming oils used. And then we dipped it in cinnamon sugar, which represents the spices used on his body. We folded the sides of the dough up and over the marshmallow and pinched it together to "seal" the marshmallow inside (they wouldn't seal perfectly). We repeated the process to use up the rest of the dough. Then we put the tray of rolls into the oven, which represents the tomb. The rolls were baked for 12-15 minutes at 350F, which represented three days in the tomb.

When they were done, I took them out of the oven and covered them loosely with a towel so that the kids wouldn't see them. I let them cool slightly and then chose the best looking ones (not the ones that had a lot of marshmallow "ooze" around them) and put them on a plate. We all sat at the table and continued on with our Easter story. We talked about Mary coming to the tomb and the angel had told her that Jesus was not there, that he had risen. We asked the boys to open the rolls and tell us what they saw. They mentioned that Jesus was gone! We said, "That is correct, because after three days' time in the tomb, he had risen and was resurrected."

We LOVED this activity and I think we may need to make this an Easter tradition!

Coloring Easter Eggs!

We had SO much fun coloring Easter eggs yesterday! I think we came up with a pretty nice bunch of eggs! Truthfully, I got a different type of kit this year. You put the eggs in baggies and the put drops of color in the bag and roll them around. It was a MESS. We did have fun, but I probably won't do it that way again in the future. The day before, I had cooked some beets on the stove. I made sure I saved the beet water, which was VERY red because I had cut the stems on the beets a little short so they bled a lot. I added some vinegar to that water and dyed three of the eggs in that and I LOVE how the color turned out! In fact, I think next year I'd like to do natural egg dying. I'll boil up some beets again and other vegetables for different colors. The colors aren't as vibrant but I like how natural they look. Besides that, I've done a lot of research on food dyes and they scare me!

Anyway... here are some pictures from the day:

Quiet moments

On one of our rare sunny days last week, I caught Ethan basking in the sunshine and enjoying some quiet time on the trampoline. There is nothing quite like some quiet time in the sunshine!

A Baptism for Savana

We had the special opportunity to attend our niece Savana's baptism today. I was honored to have asked to give the talk about the Holy Ghost. I got up very early to prepare for the day. The boys got up and we colored our Easter eggs and then got ready and headed out to Port Orchard.

The room was full and the presence of the spirit was almost overwhelming. It was nearly a physical presence in the room. I believe that every person who spoke that day made some mention of how strongly the spirit was being felt. Savana's aunt gave the talk about baptism and then she and Jay entered the baptismal font. Mike served as one of the witnesses. Right before Jay began to speak, he paused and it was so silent in the room. The feeling was so amazing. And then he spoke the words of the baptismal ordinance and baptized Savana and it was absolutely beautiful. I couldn't help but cry.

Then it was my turn to speak about the Holy Ghost. I was sooo emotional. It was difficult to get through that talk without bawling because I just felt so strongly about it. There were times when I just lost it. And then Jay confirmed Savana and that was such a beautiful prayer.

What a beautiful baptism. So, so beautiful. There just aren't words in our vocabulary to express my feelings.

My only sadness in the day is that I never got a picture of Savana. I can't believe it. We did get some other pictures and Jay was kind enough to take a few minutes outside to get a picture of our family. What a wonderful way to spend the day before Easter!

My Twilight and Harry Potter shrines

Lest anyone wonder about just how freaky I am about Twilight and Harry Potter, I thought I'd post pictures of my bookshelf shrines. In truth, I got a new telephoto lens for my camera last week and was just playing around with it, seeing how far I could zoom in on things. What better thing to test out than my shrines!? So here they are, from a distance and up close. I know I'm a freak for having four copies of Twilight, but if you look closely, they are each unique and different. I am lucky that both of my copies of Breaking Dawn are signed by the author, Stephenie Meyer! It was a fun experience getting to meet her! As for Harry Potter, I'm not quite as freaky about that series (though Deathly Hallows might just be my favorite book of all time!) so I only own one copy each. Here they are...

Finally some NICE weather!!

I was so bummed out that I had to work all weekend. It was sunny, beautiful, and temps in the 70s! Oh well... such is life right? I did get Monday and today off and it was still sunny and beautiful. It wasn't quite as warm as the weekend, but still lovely nonetheless. I took the boys to the beach yesterday. We tried out a new beach. I am ashamed to say that I had never even heard of this place and it's right in my own backyard! In fact, it's closer than Dash Point! It's the Dumas Bay Park Wildlife Sanctuary. It's about a quarter mile hike from the parking lot down to the water, but it's well worth the walk. Plus, the walk is on a trail that is so beautiful with thickets of trees on either side. I guess that shouldn't surprise me. After all, it is a nature preserve. It wasn't crowded at all. There were just a few other people there and after a time, we wound up being the only people around. We went with Nathan, a boy in Evan's kindergarten class, and his mom Corrine. She goes there a lot in the summer and showed me the way. I'm SO glad we went!!

It was just warm enough to be comfortable outside... warm but not hot. Now I must say that I was SHOCKED when Ethan got into the water. Just because it is warm outside does not mean that Puget Sound is warm enough to swim in! But Ethan is never afraid. He was DYING to go to the water. He would adore living in my Hawaii home. He's a water boy... has been since birth. He walked right into the frigid water and sat down in it. Just like that! Someone asked me if that was a bit of sunburn on his back. Um, NO! That is what happens when you sit in FREEZING water! Hahahaha!

I recently got a new lens for my camera. Costco had a great deal on the lens. I've been wanting a telephoto lens so badly and the technology I want is finally available at a decent price. So I had fun playing with that lens a lot. I am sooo looking forward to more days like this in the coming months!

Sugar Cookies

I had to make sugar cookies for Evan's kindergarten class last week. I have misplaced my tried and true recipe and had to go in search of another. I found this one and I must say that I think I'm going to throw my old recipe out and stick with this one! The flavor of this dough is amazing and it's very easy to work with. The cookies turned out so delicious and I got lots of compliments on them. The boys loved working with the dough as well. I have a feeling these are going to become a staple!

Klean Kanteen

I have a new love in life... my Klean Kanteen!! Truly... this thing is wonderful. Over the past several years, I've really tried to live a greener lifestyle. It isn't always easy and I certainly have a LOT of room to improve my carbon footprint. The nurses I work with know that I'm a bit on the granola side of things. We were having a discussion about such matters when my charge nurse looked at me, pointed at my plastic, disposable, Costco water bottle and said, "I'm surprised that you drink out of that!" What then ensued was a lengthy discussion on the evils of plastic... everything from the chemicals in the plastic right down to the dangers they pose to landfills and bodies of water. She showed me her bottle and I snottily (in a playful way) pointed out that hers was aluminum, which didn't make her too happy. So we started searching online for stainless steel water bottles (because let's face it, it's just REALLY inconvenient to have to carry around glass!) We found several and decided that REI would be a great place to get one. I don't live near an REI so I tucked that piece of information into the back of my head for later.

The conversation really got me thinking. I have to admit that over the past several months, I have found myself cringing a bit whenever I pick up a plastic bottle to take to work or when I put them in the recycle bin. For a long time, I was throwing into the garbage at work because we don't have recycle containers there. But lately, I've been bringing them home and disposing of them properly that way.

Well, I decided that I honestly don't have an excuse anymore. A group of obstetricians we work with donated water filters to the birth center. These have been permanently installed at the kitchen sinks on both the labor and post partum units. They, too were tired of not having good drinking water when they came in to see their patients. So really all I need is a receptacle to put that water into. I took the kids out today to Renton and we wound up at the Southcenter Mall. I knew there was an REI there and stopped in to see what they had in stock. And there it was... the beautiful ocean-blue Klean Kanteen! I did some quick math and figured out that my Klean Kanteen will pay for itself in about 5 cases worth of water. That is nothing considering we usually buy a couple of cases each time we visit Costco, which is about every 1-2 weeks. The water at work is free for me. And we have filtered water in our refrigerator at home to use. So I bought it and I'm in love with it... and I feel a little bit better about what I'm doing to reduce my carbon footprint!

~Photo courtesy of REI