Mesa Easter Pageant

Last night our little family took a trip over to the Mesa temple to watch the annual Easter pageant. I can't remember the last time I saw the Pageant and missed it sooooo badly while living in California. I insisted that, even though Matt would be attending with the youth for mutual on Wednesday, we would take the kids so they could have that experience too. 60 minutes is a long time to keep a 15 month old quiet and in one place, but we survived!!

We grabbed us some Arby's roast-beast sandwiches and ate on our little plot of grass on the temple lawn

We played a friendly game of Uno to keep everyone occupied....Or dogpile on Daddy works too! ;)

Pictures of the performance ~~
(It's always a personal challenge of mine to get a couple of decent photos at venues like this. Thank goodness for zoom lenses!)

I think every AZ girl, at some point, wishes to be an Easter pageant angel!! :)
Bringing tidings of good joy to shepherds afar, proclaiming that Christ the Lord is born.Jesus among the multitudes~Parable of the 10 virgins~
I told Brooklyn if she gets to be a really good dancer, she could do this someday!Jesus before PilateHe is not here........He is risen!
the best I could do with that pesky pole in the way!!!

Brooklyn, Blake and Gavin had all kinds of questions, mostly surrounding why those "guys" were being mean to Jesus. Matt told Gavin it was because they didn't know who he was and Gav piped up, "I know who he is, it's Jesus!" Sweet, sweet boy with such a pure testimony.

I love the Spirit that is felt as the life of Jesus Christ is depicted and narrated through song and dance. It's such a great privilege to have a performance of this magnitude so close to us; a great family tradition to help focus our thoughts toward the Savior during the Easter season.

Opening Day :+: Play Ball!!

Here we go again, it's that time of the year! Brooklyn and Blake have moved on up to bigger and better things -- COACH pitch. :) No more of that silly tee.

The league kicked the season off with a parade of all the teams, tball through majors. Here are our Kentucky Wildcats!! I love how you can't even see half the kids' faces because the coach is holding the banner up so high. Pfffft!

A few pictures from the game....

Brooklyn is the *ONLY* girl on her team this year. She's bummed about it but I told her she just needs to show those boys who's boss!!! LOL! I love her pink cleats, helmet and glove! At least she doesn't have to worry about anyone accidentally using her things! ;)

This guy is anxiously awaiting the day when HE can play ball!!

Next year should be interesting with 3 kids playing on two different teams!

This guy was a trooper, lasted aaaaaaalllllll morning long, missed a nap and was happy as could be!! Fell asleep the second I put the car into drive. ;) Poor 4th child, being dragged around to older brothers' and sister's extra-curriculars!!!
I do have to say how proud I am of Blake especially. I was kinda thinking baseball just might not be his thing. But I was absolutely amazed at how much more aggressive and into it he already is this year! I'm hoping that he blossoms even more during the season.

I ♥ being a baseball mom.

We're expanding...

...our garden! :) This go-around, we wanted to add a little more space for some new veggies so we did a couple tiers around our original garden. This all took place a couple weeks back, but I'm just getting around to blogging about it because we've been so busy!

We made the little trip down the road to the nursery to purchase our plants. We've gotten to know a couple of the employees there since this is our third season of gardening. They are always very helpful and willing to educate us and answer any questions we might have. :) It was such a pretty sight as we walked out to the back, all these beautiful flowers!

Found this little friend on our celery plant!Gavin claimed "her" and named "her" Christina.
Sadly, Christina didn't survive past the next day.Hard work hauling in the plantsThe spoils ~ just makes me giddy looking at all that!

We had to get the plants in the ground but it had been raining and freezing cold outside. It didn't stop Matt!! The kids had their chance to help, then Matt finished the rest in the dark! I supervised from inside, where it was warm, except for a quick check every once in awhile. ;)

Do you see Matt over here?? ---v---

The finished product!!

On this side, we have 49(!!!!) corn plants, strawberries from seed, cucumbers from seed then cucumbers plants.In the middle, we have zucchini, green bell peppers, celery, yellow crookneck squash and 12 tomato plants in three different varieties (Early girl, Roma and Cherry). I may be learning how to can tomatoes this summer! ;)Then on the end, we put our watermelon and cantaloupe plants so they have plenty of room to vine without intruding on the other plants. Strawberries in the pot just to the side.

So our newbies this year are cornstrawberries and celery

Matt and Gavin also planted some sunflower seeds in between the strawberry and cucumber seeds, which should be interesting to watch grow.

Our blackberry bushes are flourishing after just 3 months! Boy will it be exciting to actually see fruit on these babies next year! And oh, the jam!! Mmmmmm!!!

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The garden pictures were all taken 7 days ago and everything has already grown so much!! The cucumber seeds have poked through, the strawberries are all turning red, the corn is getting taller and we're starting to see some flowers on the tomatoes and bell pepper plants. We still need to throw our green onion seeds in a separate planter (to keep them from being overtaken) sometime soon. Matt and I are far from being pros at this, but we do really enjoy it so, so much! It's very rewarding being able to grow food in and eat things right from your own backyard! I can't wait to pick our first veggie!!

SpRiNg BrEaK, Part 2 -- Up to the cabin!

Wednesday was a whirlwind of a day, packing up myself and the four kids to head to Gma & Gpa Lebaron's cabin for the remainder of the week. Matt didn't want to take vacation days off now (we're saving for very important trip next month!) so he stayed home.

The first thing we noticed when we arrived at the cabin was SNOW!! None of my kids have ever touched snow before. Crazy, I know. They've been deprived.

Brooklyn decided she'd give sledding a whirl. :)Preston had the very reaction I thought he would....

1. What is this stuff?2. Maybe I should taste it!

We had a movie night ~ The Princess & the FrogAnd of course made a trip down to the store in Pine to get CaNdY!!!!All the cousins in attendance minus a sad Spencer. Obviously Gavin was a little upset too.

The one thing I regret not taking a picture of is all the Bakugan brawling that went on!!! Cute Andrew called Josh, Blake and Gavin to make sure they brought their collection of Bakugan to the cabin so they could play together. It's some serious stuff, which I don't understand AT all.... Boys!

I love going to the cabin because the kids can run wild outside and I get a chance to relax a bit. It was a little challenging at times with a newly independent toddler on my hands, but overall the kids were great. And it was chilly so we did plenty of snuggling in blankets. I love being able to stay up late, talking girl-talk with my sister-in-laws. ♥ I missed Matt a lot (truly, not just because I was without his help) and was happy to get back home to him on Saturday. Of course not before Kristin and I picked up our copies of New Moon at the Payson WalMart, though. ;)

SpRiNg BrEaK, Part 1 -- Barneys come to town!!!

I'm flat out SAD Spring Break is over. The week was so busy {the good kind of busy} and flew by so fast.

We kicked things off by welcoming our bestest friends from optometry school, Weston & Jennie Barney and their 3 little girlies, to the great state of Arizona!! :) They stayed from Saturday until Wednesday and we loved every minute of having them here!! The coolest thing is that every time we get together, which isn't that often anymore, we can pick right up where we left off the last time. I'm glad we've remained such good friends even though the distance (600+ miles) keeps us apart.

Sunday, we attended church, enjoyed yummy chimichangas for dinner, then got down to serious business -- playing Cities & Knights of Catan. Back in the California days, we used to stay up waaaaaay late at night, playing this game at each others' apartments after the kids were asleep, using walkie-talkies as baby monitors. It was so nice when we lived just around the corner!Monday was our busy day. Weston went with Matt to work in the morning for a half day. Jennie and I hauled the kids and all our gear to meet the guys at Tempe Diablo stadium to watch the Angels take on the Dodgers, Spring training style. It was HOT and CROWDED!!! We lasted just a couple hours before packing up and heading home. Obviously my kids were wiped! Presty is sleeping even though you can't see him. ;)Matt and Weston made an ice cream run and brought back a variety to enjoy. And enjoy they did!!!That evening, we had our regular sitter over to watch all seven kiddos while us and the Barneys headed out on the town! We hit up Lucille's BBQ for some grub. There is a Lucille's nearby where we used to live in CA and as soon as we mentioned we had one too, Weston demanded we pay a visit! ;)

Some of us were a little ravenous.......while some were a little more sweet!I'm pretty sure we all rolled out of there several pounds heavier!!!

Tuesday, Jennie and I carved out some girl time for ourselves. I took her to the infamous "ribbon store" aka Ribbons & Lace. I think Jennie was in heaven!! Her overflowing basket proved it. ;) We grabbed some lunch at Costa Vida, then attempted to go get pedicures, but apparently everyone had the same idea that afternoon and we nixed that after learning it was a 40 minute wait, darn it. :/ We made a quick trip to Target instead then wound up the evening with turkey burgers on the grill, a little Guitar Hero and one final round of Cities & Knights, which I won! Woot, woot!! Weston is one tough cookie to beat!

These pictures are a straight up riot!!! LOL!

Preston got to bathe with this cute girl!! ;)

When we met 5 1/2 years ago (can't believe it's been that long ago!!!), we only had three kids between the two families. Now we have SEVEN!! We're so glad the Barneys made the trek -- 12 hours -- all the way down to see us. We had a fabulous time and can't wait for the next get together!!!!