Easter 2012

Easter this year was a little different than in years past. Every other year we have been in Oregon for Easter and have dinner at my Toftdahl grandparents' house followed by an egg hunt in their beautiful backyard. This year, though, because we had just barely returned from our Spring Break SoCal trip, we stayed home and had family come to us!

This proved to be a little harder than we thought it'd be, though. See, my middle sister, Christine, decided to surprise my family and flew in from Utah. We rolled into town from our long drive home from Cali just about 6 hours before Christine landed at PDX. Unfortunately, we had a heck of a time convincing my Mom and Lizzy to have Easter up here - even after my Dad was on board and knew the surprise!! He finally helped me convince them which meant running around making Easter preparations Saturday afternoon - including planning for, shopping for and preparing Easter dinner. A first for me and Sean... Yikes! But Christine went shopping with me and Sean and Ethan stayed home to pick-up around the house.

Of course, a surprise as awesome as an unexpected family member being around for a holiday requires an equally awesome reveal. Sean, Christine and I threw around a couple of ideas and finally decided on a glow-in-the dark egg hunt for Lizzy. {Side note: Night-time/glow-in-the-dark egg hunt will most likely become a new tradition. Very cool. We bought a 15-pack of glow bracelets for a $1 and put them in the eggs. With no porch light our backyard is very dark and made for great egg-hiding conditions. I highly recommend it - especially for older kids.}

Anyway.

Christine sat out in our yard in a black jacket and you couldn't even see her. I recorded the whole thing (after realizing the SD card wasn't in the camera!) and it was definitely a surprise!

Immediately after the reveal.

Toftdahl sisters and parents reunited!

As you might guess, adding four extra people to our two-bedroom place made for interesting sleeping arrangements. Ethan slept on his old crib mattress in our room. My mom got Ethan's twin bed. My dad got the couch (which is very comfy) and my sisters shared a queen-size air mattress we borrowed from some friends.


Church was at 9am and Ethan wore a purple tie that my friend Jenn had made that matched the Easter skirts of Sarah and Maddy - two of Ethan's friends. We tried for a good Easter Sunday shot, but this was the best I got - a little goofy and shadows on his face.


The Easter bunny came by sometime in the early afternoon - he knew we had church so he could be a little late. Here's Ethan searching for his basket outside {in our jungle of a backyard - it was finally mowed this week thanks to our landlord} and toward the end he thinks he hears some hopping. So cute!

We try to keep Easter baskets pretty simple and go with the guidelines: something he wants (Cars movie cars), something he needs (special batteries for an early birthday toy from Nana and Papa), something to wear (new shirt and he especially needed new shorts), something to read (Max & Ruby book) and a treat (his favorite candy is licorice plus one Easter-themed candy). I think I spent about $25 for everything in the basket and $15 was for clothes that I would have given him anyway because he outgrow most of his shorts from last year.

Dinner was a group effort between my dad, Sean, Christine and I. Sean did the ham (complete with cola/grape juice/pineapple juice glaze), Christine made broccoli casserole, I made twice-baked potatoes and this yummy "festive" salad with fresh-made poppyseed dressing. We also had rolls, though we took the easy route with those and got the Rhodes frozen dinner rolls. My dad did the dishes, cleaned the counters and took out the trash.


After dinner Ethan got to open some early birthday presents from my parents, Toftdahl grandparents and Christine. And also a bag of goodies for Easter from Nana and Papa. Pictures to come.

We said goodbye to my family and then Ethan got to have an evening egg hunt by himself.

Not the usual Southworth/Toftdahl Easter Sunday, but still fun and good to be with family.

I "mustache" you a question...

I like to try and have fun in my Primary class. I teach the 10-11 year olds. It's a good group. On Sunday we studied Abinadi in the Book of Mormon. I had different objects to represent different parts of the story between Abinadi and King Noah. Mosiah 12:1 talks about Abinadi being in disguise... We had the most fun with this part. First, I had a couple students come out in the hall with me and we all put on sunglasses and scarves or bandannas and then went back into the room. After reading the first part of chapter 12 we discussed Abinadi being in disguise and then I told the rest of the class I was kind of bummed none of the kids that went out in the hall wanted a finger mustache and I drew one on my index finger. Well, 2 of the girls that had stayed in the classroom immediately jumped on that idea and both said that they would have done it. That was all it took. EVERYONE decided they wanted finger mustaches! It was hilarious and even though it took longer than I would have like, they had fun with it and I'm sure will remember this lesson for a while! {Even if it takes a little bit of thinking to remember what the finger mustaches had to do with the lesson - hopefully they'll eventually get to it Abinadi and his story!!}

December Recap

Last recap post for 2011! Almost caught up.....

I'm thinking this should be pretty short because most of December was already covered. I spent the bulk of the month doing this:
- Learning to Sew
- Finishing Jam
- Making Other Homemade Gifts
- Baking for our Goodie Plates

And Sean was busy with this:
- Portland Ensign Choir & Orchestra

While Ethan was busy with this:
- Preschool

And as a family we had fun with:
- Christmas Ships
- Christmas in Oregon
- Ice Skating

But still, here's some stuff I may have missed, mostly in order...

* Family Pictures!! We have not had professional family pictures since Ethan was just a baby, so we jumped at the chance to have semi-professional pics taken for free early in December. A friend in the ward posted on Facebook that she would have the backdrop/lighting up for her girls' Christmas pictures so if anyone wanted to come by, she would leave it up for a few hours in the afternoon. We just got a handful of pictures, but these were our favorites.
* Ward Christmas Dinner and Festival of Nativities: Sean's choir sang a selection from their upcoming concert at the Festival of Nativities so Ethan and I were on our own for the ward dinner. We had fun and sat with friends, but still missed Daddy. In fact, we only stayed for the program part and skipped out early when "Santa" came. Then we rushed over to a different stake center to meet up with Sean and look through the Festival of Nativities. My friend, Cassidy, was in charge of the center section of the gym and came up with the tiers you see in the top left picture. She put a lot of work into that display and did such a good job. And, just like last year, Ethan's favorite was the "Please Touch" room for kids - so nice for him to be able to play after all the "Please Do NOT Touch" signs on the displays in the gym. And the wooden blocks are fun in the room for Joseph's Workshop.
* Getting/Decorating the Christmas Tree: Last year we did the whole local-tree-farm, cut-down-your-own-fresh-from-the-Pacific-Northwest-tree thing. We had fun, enjoyed the experience and paid a little more than I would have liked. This year, we were hurting a little more in our finances and went with a more budget-friendly option - the Fred Meyer garden center! AND we had a coupon. I think we paid half of what we paid last year!And guess what? It looked just as beautiful as the tree we cut down last year. Not trying to diss on everyone who does that, it just doesn't always work out for us!

My attempt at a lower-lighting picture to get the soft glow of the lights....

* New ornaments: Every year we add new ornaments to our collection and last year and this year were no exception. Last year I finally posted a little selection of our ornaments and the story behind them, so I thought I'd follow up on that with some of our more recent additions.

#1 From my mom, for my love of holiday baking. #2 For Ethan, because he got a letter from Santa this year. #3 Rose Bowl, baby!! #4 Because it's a little blonde angel playing a violin and it just so happens that in our house there is a blonde angel that plays the violin!! #5 Ethan's ornament last year, because what little boy doesn't love Lightning McQueen and Mater?! #6 From my in-laws, because Ethan is the Southworth family frog. :) #7 From my mom last year, because I like to bake.

* 2011 Primary Class: Our last Sunday together, I took a class picture. Kinda bummed because I was missing three of my regular students! I can't believe how fast this last year went in terms of my Primary class. They were a great group. And now I am onto my THIRD class of 10-11 year olds. This is the only calling I've had since we moved into this ward {well, other than my in-addition-to calling as an activity days leader} and, I admit, I wouldn't mind a change... But, at the same time, I also have SIX younger siblings of kids that were in my class in 2010, so that's kinda fun. Plus, several of them are our friends' children and have supposedly been looking forward to being in my class. So I'll just keep on truckin'! Oh, these were their little goodie bags for Christmas - nothing too exciting, just a couple cutie oranges, hot chocolate and apple cider packets in addition to the candy cane antlers!
* First Annual Southworth Sing-Along!!: So, one of our favorite parts of visiting Sean's family at Christmas-time is when we're there for Christmas Eve, we're able to participate with their annual sing-along. Sean plays the piano, Loren plays guitar or banjo, I break out my violin {see previously mentioned angelic blonde violinist ornament comment} and everyone else sings along. We love it! Our own little Christmas carol jam session! Since we weren't in SoCal for Christmas this year, we decided to try our own little carols-at-the-spinet {name that Christmas song!} party.
Totally last minute, we invited (I think) 10 families from the ward to a sort-of open house for Christmas carols. We had hot chocolate, homemade eggnog (courtesy of Sean and his dad's recipe) and some goodies. And then we warned everyone of our small house and limited space and suggested people dropping by at different times so it wasn't overcrowded. Ha!! They all took that to mean "don't come right at 7pm" and by 7:45pm our house was jumpin'! At least one person from 8 of the 10 (or so) families we invited came and we had 32 guests (not including our little family of 3) show-up. Of course, no one wanted to leave once they got here because we were having so much fun! So, next year I will just do a reminder of our small house and leave it at that!! Sean played piano and then everyone just about died of shock when I pulled out my violin and started tuning it up. Apparently no one up here knew I played!! I guess I had kept that secret well {though some would probably call that burying my talent and compare it to the parable of the talents - hmm.....} and by the end of the night there were promises from all the wives of the Bishopric that there would be a sacrament performance in my future. Well, so far so good... knock on wood! The oldest Coleman daughter even had her Dad make a special trip back to their house so she could get her violin and music. Her Christmas music had parts, so she played 2nd violin, I played 1st violin and Sean was on piano - all harmonizing! We will definitely be doing it again this year.

* Ethan's Overdue Hair-cut: We had decided to leave it a little long last time, but I can only stand it like that for so long! I like his hair short and more wash-and-wear/sleep-and-go. There's way too much bed-head when his hair's long!

Before

After

* Ethan lost his Bumblebee car down the side of the couch, beyond just the cushions: And it's retrieval yielded many lost treasures!
#1: Broken CD Coleman kids brought over and were playing with while we watched a Ducks game in November or December 2011.
#2: Toy helicopter. Not sure how long it had been missing.
#3: Chick Hicks car, the original. Pretty sure this had been missing since before we moved in January 2010. It was replaced a while ago, so now he has two!
#4: Magnet for magnetic construction book.
#5: Marker lid that had been missing for several months.
#6: Sideways Transformer car that had been missing since August 2011.
#7: Cargo rack from Ghostbusters toy car. I think this had been missing for about a year.
#8: Sword for "Dragon Castle" knight.
#9: Megatron's weapon.
#10: The Bumblebee Transformer car we had original gone digging for!

We had no idea that our couch was such a black hole for small toys! And did we find any lost change?? Of course not!

* Movies-of-the-month: We didn't have any actual date nights, but we were able to see TWO brand-new movies!! We had been waiting on these and I was anxious to see both! First, we saw Mission: Impossible, Ghost Protocol with my mom and Christine.

[http://www.onlinemovieshut.com/online-movies/mission-impossible-4-ghost-protocol-poster]

The next day we saw an afternoon showing of Sherlock Holmes, Game of Shadows with just Christine.

[http://www.filmofilia.com/sherlock-holmes-2-character-posters-holmes-watson-50220/]

Oh my heavens, they were both SO GOOD!!! I couldn't even pick a favorite between the two. I would go see either one again in the theater AND will buy them when they come out on DVD/Blu-Ray. Thank you, Mom, for giving me a love of action movies!! :)

* New Year's Eve: I had pink eye! Ugh! But I was already using drops and it was mostly gone. So I went to the party anyway and was just really, really careful. We partied it up at the Tellez house with most of our friends and had a great time eating, laughing, playing games, counting down to midnight and watching the neighbors' fireworks!
* Random Ethan Picture: And finally, the real reason you read these monthly recaps, a picture of Ethan sleeping in a funny position!! Ha ha!! :)
Well, this post was a lot longer than I thought it was going to be! Apparently I had missed blogging about a lot of little events. Looking back at our month, it's no wonder I was so tired in January!!

October Recap

Oh, my! October is NOT going to be easy to remember... But I still want to do the recap, for journaling purposes. Luckily, thanks to my very recent (and LONG overdue) Halloween post, I think most of the important stuff has been covered. Or, at least, the stuff that I have pictures for!!

* Date-night-movie-of-the-month: Well, I don't think there was one... But I could be wrong! I really don't remember. I even tried searching through movie releases, but I'm pretty sure we didn't see anything.

* New calling: Have I mentioned I got a new calling?? Well, actually, an in-addition-to calling. I'm still the Primary teacher for the 10-11 year olds, but now I am also an Activity Day leader. They kind of go hand-in-hand, since I already work with a lot of the girls on Sundays. We have Activity Days twice a month, which makes Thursdays a bit hectic at our house on those nights. Sean has a vocal lesson at 6pm and we have to leave right after that. Dinner is usually a quick bite to eat before Sean's student comes or we pick something up on our way home from the church. It also means no chance at getting Ethan to bed before 9pm. We're making it work, though! My very first activity was spent making decorations for a Daddy/Daughter Halloween party and then two weeks later we had the party.
* More jam! If you'll recall from September's Recap post (clear back at the end of November!), I made jam for the first time - strawberry. Well, in October, I made peach jam - or, as I like to call it, golden goodness!! I love peach jam - especially on buttered toast.
* Green smoothies: I have turned a new page in my smoothie making. I have added SPINACH!! A nice, healthy handful (probably about a cup) of spinach in every smoothie. You can't even taste it and I love that I'm adding a green, leafy vegetable serving without even trying. Even Ethan gulps down these smoothies! This particular one was with banana and pineapple, but my usual smoothies are banana, frozen strawberries, 1/2 cup orange juice, any other berries we have on hand and spinach. YUM! Try it!
* Caramel Stuffed Apple Cider cookies: I didn't mean for this post to be so food-based, but I guess that's what it's turning out to be. Thanks to Pinterest, I found this little beauty of a recipe and had to try it! Spiced apple cider packets in the dough and each cookie formed around a caramel square. I tried them out for the first time for treats for our ward's Super Saturday craft day thing and they were a huge hit!!! Like, empty-plate, people-begging-for-the-recipe hit!Word of caution, these cookies get stale quick and start to crumble and fall apart within just a couple days. Make them the day you plan to eat them!

* Mummy Bars: Another idea via Pinterest (and one of my favorite crafting blogs: The Idea Room) that I made for my Primary class since Sunday was the day before Halloween. Cute, easy and cheap AND the kids liked them! [Photo and idea found here: http://www.theidearoom.net/2010/10/halloween-mummy-birthday-party.html]
* Stuff I Already Blogged About:
Pumpkin Patch
Surprise Oregon Visit for my Parents' Birthday
Ethan's First Primary Program
Halloween

Alright! Done with that! Now I just have November, December and January recaps.... :/

Portland Ensign Choir & Orchestra Christmas Concert 2011

Just a little over a week before Christmas, Sean performed in the Portland Ensign Choir & Orchestra Christmas concert. Tory, Melanie (his mom) and Alysha (his cousin) came up for the concert, so I sat with them. There were also quite a few people from Sean's work at the performance (#2 of 3) and, in general, I couldn't believe how many tickets Sean had sold ahead of time for the concerts. The show was beautiful and here are some of the highlights from the night.


Part of Handel's Messiah Hallelujah Chorus.


Carol of the Bells.



Hark the Herald Angels Sing.

Primary Program Success and a Nosebleed

NOT at the same time. Thank goodness!

So, the ward Primary program was yesterday at church. Which means my Primary class and I sat in chairs in front of the podium. One teacher for 12 kids that were totally on display to the congregation. Yeah, that was fun! It also meant that Ethan had a small part to say in his very first Primary program. Ay-yi-yi! I have yet to figure out if me being in Primary is beneficial or a hindrance to Ethan. The first practice was less than ideal. Ethan freaked out and would not sit in his chair on the stand, let alone say his part. Sean had to come get him and then the Primary president stepped in and made him her littler helper for the day. That helped. The next week practice went a little better. Ethan said his part one of the two times they ran through the program, but still had a hard time sitting still.

Yesterday was the program and Ethan did great!! He sat with his class. He said his little part AND you could understand him!! Woot woot! No fits, no crying, no trying to come sit with mom or dad. Yay! Is it possible there was a little bribe involved? Absolutely! And I am not above saying it!! It started last Sunday before church. Sean told him if he was good for the practice for the program and then good for the actual program, he would get a new Transformer car. You don't mess around when a Transformer car is on the line.

Oh, and the nosebleed?? Totally random. Just before church got over, they got me from the Primary room because Ethan had a nosebleed! What?? No reason (he wasn't hit or anything). Blood all over his white shirt, hands and face. It took a couple minutes for the bleeding to stop completely and there were lots of concerned kids and adults (we were sitting just outside the Primary room), but once it stopped, Ethan was loving the attention. We even got him to say, "you should see the other guy!" a few times. Ha ha! That was good for a laugh!!

Stake Conference

Stake Conference was this last weekend. I LOVED the adult session. And not just because it was only an hour and a half! The whole theme was on overcoming trials and the talks were all excellent. Our stake president spoke last and had a different take on it and focused on our relationship with our spouse and becoming selfless. It was a really great session and I loved that there were no kids to distract us. Just me and my sweetie sitting next to each other, listening to the speakers and feeling the spirit. After conference, a few of the couples went to Shari's - of course, I had to have the lemon meringue pie. One of my favorites. Sean had a chocolate peanut butter shake and then we shared an appetizer sampler. Seriously, this brought back memories of my youth and time in the singles ward. Shari's was always a favorite post-dance hang-out spot.

The next day, Sunday, our stake conference was split into two different sessions. We had the afternoon session, but Sean had to be there early to help direct traffic {the parking situation there is horrible!}. Ethan and I had a good 45 minutes inside the chapel to wait for things to start, so we got a good seat and waited. I hadn't realized our conference was going to be a broadcast, so they had a countdown going to when the broadcast would start. Initially, there was a picture of Christ up on the screen with the countdown, but sometime before it started the picture of Christ disappeared and it was just the minutes ticking down. Ethan looked up at it and said, "When will Jesus come back?" I smiled and said, "I don't know." Ethan was getting kind of tired and snuggled up next to me and said, "Oh. Will you tell me when he comes back?" I told him, "Yes, I will."

It was such a beautiful and simple little conversation and he had no idea the depth of what he was saying, but it sure touched my heart.

Ward Camp-out 2011

The last weekend of the fair also happened to be our ward camp-out. Sean and I have never been to a ward camp-out since we've been married. I went back and forth on the idea of going. On the one hand, we hadn't had an opportunity to go camping all summer and on the other hand, Ethan and I would be going at it alone since Sean wouldn't be home until late Friday night and then have to leave early-ish Saturday morning. Well, peer pressure won out - all of our friends were going on the camp-out which would leave Ethan and I to hang out by ourselves {yet, again!} so we packed up our gear {correction: I packed up our gear} and headed to the campground...

Our home away from home for the night. It was kind of nice to have the tent up, off the ground. It made it much easier to put up, take down and get in/out of. Our neighbors were the Dahls, Walkers, Blake and the Kestners were just outside our campsite.

Ethan was in little boy dirt heaven! It's not very often that he gets to play with so many boys and they were loving their time in the dirt playing with and "sharing" the trucks that each had brought. Ethan's monster truck mysteriously disappeared within a couple hours - supposedly thrown into the bushes - and then reappeared the next morning just as we were leaving. Hmm. Glad he got it back, though!

Funny side story: Notice the little boy in white shirt in the bottom, right picture. Yeah, his mom said she specifically dressed him in white so he'd be easier to spot against the green and brown of the trees, grass and dirt. I had to laugh. I had just dressed Ethan in what I wasn't worried about getting dirty/ruined - a BROWN shirt and CAMO shorts!!! Oops! Didn't even realize I had him dressed for a black ops mission. Oh well, live and learn.

Scenes from around the camp. The girl in yellow (upper left) is in my Primary class and the girls in the bottom right totally posed that way without prompting!

Dinner. Since I decided to go on the camp-out so last minute, I had just picked up Subway for my "foil dinner". Well, my friend Jenn was nice enough to make me one of her famous hobo dinners. Yum! She puts ground beef, carrots, peppers, onions, tator tots and pepperoni in hers. The pepperoni keeps everything moist and adds a nice bit of flavor. She also put bacon in them, but I like my bacon super crisp, so I opt for just the addition of pepperoni. With a little squeeze of Ranch or ketchup these hobo dinners are so good! I gladly saved my Subway for lunch the next day. Ethan's foil dinner was mac-n-cheese w/ hot dogs.

After dinner we had a ward fireside w/ a brief devotional and s'mores. The kids LOVED it!

I was very lucky, Ethan went down for the night very easily just after 9pm. Actually, the only real problem I had with him the whole time was a couple of potty accidents. We've been working on remembering to go potty - he's gotten into the habit of being too distracted playing and waits and waits and waits to go until it is too late. Well, with so many kids to play with, he had 2 accidents. Actually, the first one was just outside the bathroom and it was because the door was stuck, so not really his fault. Anyway. After kids were in bed, the adults stayed up and played cards. Funny how it ended up boys on one side, girls on the other!

Our BEAR story: So, while we were all playing games, there were a couple of older kids playing around the campsite - throwing rocks and pine cones into the bushes. And then they heard a growl. And a rustle of the branches. And what do they do? Continue to throw pine cones. Well, the growling continued and they got scared and came to the adults. By then, the growling and rustling were loud enough that we heard it too. Whatever animal they were throwing things out was angry! Eric thought it was maybe a raccoon, but then they heard it again and it sounded much bigger than a raccoon - maybe even a bear! I was totally freaked out, but it was kinda funny to see everyone's different reactions. Jenn jumped up and stood behind me, Eric and Todd jumped up and went towards the woods. Eric said, "where's the bat?!" while Todd said, "the one time I'm not packin' (a gun)!" Ryan went the opposite direction of the angry animal and the whole time I was thinking, "what do I do? What do I do? Ethan's asleep in the tent. Do I go get him and try to get to the car which is too far away? Or should I just quietly get into the tent with him and pray for the best?!" Well. Turns out our "bear" got scared when he heard Eric asking for the bat and finally revealed himself. Yeah, it was none other than...

Brian Coleman!!
Yeah, he got us pretty good!

Ethan and I were up bright-n-early. About 7am, give or take 15 minutes. Breakfast was pancakes, eggs, sausage, Tang and hot chocolate. Thank you to the Brethren for cooking it!

After breakfast, the kids had sack races and practiced lassoing while the adults packed up tents, sleeping bags and all the other gear.

This was just as we were getting ready to leave - I'd say we were still in pretty good spirits for having survived without Daddy. Though, he was greatly missed!

Ethan totally crashed on the 15-minute ride home!

I woke him up when we got home, though, because he was in desperate need of a bath. Specifically, a bubble bath! We hung out around the house the rest of the day and then made homemade pizza and rented movies in the evening.

Oregon Visit - August 2011

Let's see... August 30th and I'm finally writing about things we did in August!! And what's sad, is that is actually pretty caught up for me! I will do my best to try and bust out posts about our August doings.

The first week of August, Ethan and I went down to Oregon to visit my family for a few days. I had not been down to Oregon since the end of May - a good 2 1/2 months and a far cry from my weekly visits for work last year.

Tuesday: Drove down and drove straight to my old hairdresser. I had not had an appointment with her since before we moved! I was desperate for a cut {read: my hair had not been cut since mid-February!} and due for a coloring. On a whim I called her the week before to see if she had any cancellations or a spare hour to do one or the other. What luck!! She had TWO cancellations. So I took the 2pm appointment on Tuesday and then Ethan and I barely made it out of WA by noon that day. Luckily, there was not major traffic hiccups so I made it to my appointment on time! My mom met us there and picked up Ethan and for the next two hours I sat back and let Terri work her magic. She colored it {adding back in some darker, golden blonde, as well as the usual platinum highlights} and chopped off a good 2-3 inches of dry, damaged ends. That night we went to Papa's Pizza for dinner and Ethan loved playing on the toys. Also, stayed up WAY too late playing the Indiana Jones game on the Wii.
Wednesday: Had lunch with Grandma Mary! I went and picked up stuff to make lunch and then we had chicken salad sandwiches, chips, grape tomatoes, lemonade and donuts. We ate our lunch leisurely (my mom, grandma and I) and then played Rummy. Yeah, Grandma beat us all!! It was really fun to get to spend the afternoon with her.

Thursday: Late in the afternoon I made the drive up to Girls Camp to visit my sister, Lizzy. This was her first year (excluding last year's Trek) that she was the solo Toftdahl sister there. It was also her 4th year. Anyway, I had had a request to help with some ideas for some of the stake adults and then got the ok to visit Thursday. I think my visit came with mixed reviews, but Lizzy loved having me there and that's what mattered the most to me! I was able to stay for flag ceremony and watched Lizzy help with 4th year news and it was also skit night, so that was fun.

Lizzy had something in lost and found and it was rumored she or a friend put it in there on purpose, just so she'd have to go up on stage. Her punishment? Butt-spelling her full name!

4th year news.

Skits. Lizzy's unit on the left and stake adults on the right.

Lizzy and I. You can see my new 'do here. Sorry for the bluriness - I had my camera set for a night portrait and then we took it under stage lights.

Friday: Packed up and went home - had to be sure to get home in time to pick Christine up from the airport! While I loaded everything up, my mom painted her toes so she could add some of my cute, new nail stickers. Then Ethan wanted in on the action, so he got one blue toenail with a yellow sun!
And this is Ethan getting ready to leave. He inherited some of Lizzy's old Build-a-Bears and ALL their accessories!
That night we picked Christine up from the airport and then headed to Klineline for a BBQ dinner with the Colemans. Told you we love that place!