Easter

We enjoyed our un-traditional Easter dinner in Scottsdale last year so much ... we requested to repeat it!
Alaskan King Crab, yams, rice, salad ... divine.
And who knew Easter candy was so yum?

I know it's basically the same 'stuff' but when they shape it like eggs and such it just tastes better.

Thank you Easter bunny for another great Easter!

3 months

Sara turned three months old! Where does the time go?

She smiles, giggles, found her fingers, and started the early phases of teething (drooling, playing with tongue and such).
On her actual three month day we flew to AZ for spring-break and Easter, so her 3 month sticker pictures were taken a week late.

We love this little bundle of joy. And lucky for us she has three big sisters who love to help!:)

March Dates

Everyone wants to go on dates with Daddy - because he's so fun to be with!
This month Ella had a tasty outing.

Anne went ice-skating.

And Mom got to take the older girls to a local dance production of Alice in Wonderland.

We love our date-outings!

Saint Patrick's Day

St. Patrick's Day is one of Benj's favorite days of the year ... for strictly commercial reasons. He loves green, loves that the leprechauns leave candy, coins, and up-turn the furniture (our darling daughters are not the greatest sleuths, so 'hiding' candy isn't super necessary ... having it in plain view often gets over looked) and green pancakes for breakfast.

For the first time since Mary's blessing 2+ years ago, Benj's family is all together, so we gathered before church to take a picture of all the grand-kids with Grandma and Grandpa Becker.

Mary's nursery lesson was on following the Prophet ... and since none of the other kids would volunteer to dress up, Mary was President Monson, Noah, and Nephi.

And here's our littlest Leprechaun ... we are indeed Lucky to have her!

Cousins

We love cousins, and parties ... so celebrating Chase's 9th birthday together was a real treat ... even if our household wasn't familiar with Star Wars before.

Now if only we lived closer and could play together more ... that would be awesome.

Of course, Grandma Susie made sure everyone had a gift to open ...

Cousins are great friends. 

In fact, Mary still wanders the house saying, "I love Chase. I love Ryan."

Hopefully they can remain great friends and enjoy their BYU futures together as we've planned:)!

Little Thoughts

On our way to Anaheim, we stopped at a casino in Primm to use a restroom.
We passed many slot machines and such walking through the lobby.
Anne: "What are those things?"
Me: "They're called slot machines."
Anne: "They look like monsters."
Me, anxious to teach the evils of gambling: "Well, they sort of are monsters ... monsters that eat your money."
Anne, worried since we just opened a bank account and have been talking more about money recently: "How do they eat your money?"
Me: "Well, they only eat your money if you give them your money ... they can't take it from you, they only eat it if you give it to them."
Ella: "That's silly, then just don't give them your money... besides, you're supposed to save your money anyway."
Anne: "Yeah, and those monsters aren't so scary ... they don't even have legs ... but I do think they maybe will give me bad dreams."
***
On our way to Bountiful we stopped at a McDonald's for dinner. A Nevada high school track and field team was also having dinner.
Girl 1: "Check out that family."
Girl 2: "The white one with four girls?"
Girls 1: "Yeah, they look like a TV family."
Not sure what show we'd be on, if it was a compliment or insult, but we thought it worth recording.


Finally, a huge THANKS to my ever so kind and thoughtful mother-in-law who surprised us with the most amazing car-ride gift bag! It was filled with three wrapped packages (one for each girl) for each hour of the ride ... they had so much fun opening coloring books, stickers, story books, journal books, necklaces, and every other fun car-toy and treat you could imagine. What could have been four miserable days in the car was really great fun thanks to Packa Susie.

Disneyland - Character Breakfast

You can spend a lot of time in the Magic Kingdom waiting for and getting signatures from characters... or you can have a meal with them. This was our first time at Minnie's breakfast party - in the past we've done Ariel's Grotto (princesses) and Goofy's Kitchen.
The food? Over-priced and not so great (Ariel's Grotto, and Goofy's Kitchen on the other hand have decent food) but the kids loved it ... so I guess it's the thing to do.

We loved seeing the characters - and were thrilled to have our own Minnie encounter. Like Walt himself, "The Mouse" is one of our favorite aspects of Disneyland.

And since Mary did the Winnie the Pooh ride 7 times in a row (while we took turns taking the bigger girls on Splash Mountain) we were honored to have some real Pooh love.

And the other characters ...