Brielle's Baptism Weekend

We had a very fun, very BUSY weekend with family this past weekend.  Brielle's baptism was the event that brought us all together, but we took advantage of it and did a LOT.

I asked my brother, Scott if he would do a concert here in little old Fruitland for my friends to be able to attend.  I originally planned to do it at my house.  But Scott said his favorite way to do a concert was as a benefit/fundraiser with an opening act.  After advertising it as a benefit for the Heart 'n Home Hospice Foundation with Michael Gray, a local musician/personal trainer, we had a lot of positive feedback.  So we switched venues from an informal house concert, to Michael Grey's church building in Ontario which could hold up to 240 people.  We had upwards of 200 people commit to coming, but only 50-60 came.  The concert was Friday, May 4th.  I was glad the friends who did come were able to hear it.  But bummed more didn't.  It was such an incredible night with both Scott and Mike's performances.  I was seriously floored.  I'm not sure how much the Foundation raised from it, but I hope they felt it was worth their time. 

I was so wrapped up in the music I actually completely spaced using my camera which sat under my chair the entire concert.  :(  So here's a shot with Scott after we all came home that night.

The next night was Brielle and Makya's (Brielle's cousin) baptism!

 No joke, Amber and I never said anything about what we were wearing that day and we both showed up in black and white with red shoes and red jewelry. And our dress and skirt were from the same store!  So we had to get that pic with the moms and daughters together looking matchy :)

It was a very special day.  Brielle glowed.  She was SO excited.  We are so proud of her and the many good decisions she makes on a daily basis.  She's such an angel.  All of her little friends came to watch the baptism.  She was thrilled to share the experience with her cousin- technically she could have been baptised a month ago, but she wanted to do it at the same time as Makya.  

Amber, Scott, Devan, and I sang during the meeting.  Dave Burt gave a talk on baptism and Amber spoke on the Gift of the Holy Ghost.  We did had to do Brielle's hair in a tight braided up-do because we'd have no time to do her hair afterwards for her Tavaci concert which started two hours after the baptism started.

 We had a dinner prepared following the baptism.  My mom and Maura saved my bacon because I volunteered the chicken salad part of the chicken salad sandwiches and severely underestimated how long it would take to make that for 50+ people.  Thank you Mom and Maura!!!  We ate quick and then Brielle and Ashton and I quickly left to save seats for the Tavaci concert.

Brielle and Ashton did a good job!  There were a couple points in the concert where they asked the children a question to answer.  One was, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  Brielle said a Doctor and a Mom.  Ashton said a Dad.  :) 

Around 9:00, a car of teen aged girls from church pulled up and kidnapped Marty to go to a party with them that one of our neighbors was having.  He had a lot of fun there.

We celebrated my dad's birthday on Sunday, after church.  He got a spotting scope and a tripod for gifts and he seemed pretty excited about it.  He asked for Spice Cake and it was do die for.

The girls kept busy pretty much all day with this craft.

Now Dad can't wait to go hunting.

That night we made a fire and roasted s'mores and a few friends stopped by.  Scott headed home that night.

I didn't get pics, but we ventured up to the mountains at Mann's Creek on Monday.  We found a camp site in the forest and roasted hot dogs for lunch.  My dad and Marty hiked around a while and the kids played around the camp site (with heavy supervision because it was right along the creek.)  It's always a beautiful drive, especially in the Spring with how green everything is.  It was a beautiful 75 degrees out.  Devan and Maura left for home from there.

That evening we were invited to a bonfire at the Smith's house (they live almost close enough to throw a rock at).  We went and roasted s'mores (lots of those in two days' time!  Yum!)  It was great to visit with the Smiths, the Hardy's, Nattresses, and Barlows.  We consider all of them neighbors out in the country as they all live just down the road from us.

The family watched lots of movies in the new home theater.  We wanted to get it done in time for when they came and were excited to have it as an entertainment option for them all and to have a seat for everyone!

My parents and Marty and April flew out on Tuesday.  It was such a fun weekend with everyone.  I just wish we could have had Levi and Rachele there but it was finals week for Rachele and John and Levi and Nicholas had long since had plans for a trip they were already taking that weekend.  It really was awesome to feel like everyone had plenty of space and to have more than two BATHROOMS!  Our old 3 bdrm/2 bath house with an undersized living room (for the square footage) was bursting out the seams whenever we had company! 

Springtime

It's kite season!

Spring is here- wind, rain, sun, leaves, and flowers, and we've enjoyed being out in the yard.  

Some of the Spring projects being worked on are the big dirt mound out back bordering one corner of our property for a little topography and privacy.  We'll eventually plant some trees and bushes on it.  Thankfully our good friend who was excavating a foundation for his spec home let us have all the dirt.  There's at least 16 dump truck loads of dirt there!

We also planted a bunch of baby sized fast-growing trees on one one side of the property.  You can't see them yet unless you stand about 10 feet away!  But they'll be big and beautiful someday!  I'll take pictures when they're big enough to see :)  For about a dollar a piece, we couldn't pass them up.  I think we got 85 or so. We had irrigation pipes dug and set up to both the mound and the other trees.

Todd has really been working hard on cleaning up the hot tub.  It sat for so long at the old property before we brought it over.  It was drained but not dried, and that made it get pretty nasty.  The pipes were all clogged up and there was a lot of mold.  It's finally up and running and clean.  We did a concrete sidewalk from the patio to just around the corner of the house where the hot tub sits.  It's good to have it back and usable.

Brielle played Spring Soccer.
She had such a blast with almost all of her friends on the same team.  

Ashton started the "Honey Bears" program at the Elementary School for prospective Kindergarten students.  They come and spend time one Friday each month meeting the teachers, touring the Library/Computer Lab, classrooms, etc., and having a story time.

Lainey finally got a haircut in an attempt to repair her own art work last month.

Another visit from Sara!

Sara Henderson, my very good friend from High School that I see at least annually at our girls getaways, came to visit again!  She was just here two weeks prior, but had to drive thru on her way home from visiting her sister in Twin Falls and stayed a couple of nights here with her husband, Don.  It was the first time we were able to spend more than a few minutes with Don and Todd and I really enjoyed getting to know him.  Just a GREAT guy.  Sara and he were married in February last year.  I had a blast spending time with my friend as well. 

Lainey warmed up to Don pretty fast!

The kids were all so hyper!  So we had them do a workout at bed times.  This one was 10 rounds of 10 push ups, sprint across the lawn to the trampoline, 20 jumps on the tramp, and sprint back.

Playing ball.

Watched a few movies in the home theater- with home made coconut oil pop corn of course!

Ashton and Sara's son, Easton were in Heaven having a cool buddy to play with for 3 days straight!  They really hit it off the last time they were here.  Here they are playing light savers.  (They watched a lot of Star Wars in the theater here.)

Saying goodbye to Sara!