Easter

I was totally unprepared for Easter this year.  I was out the Saturday before getting last minute things for the kids. I'm not usually so behind for holidays! But we pulled it off & I think my kids had a fun Easter full of the regular traditions.

Saturday was the usual egg hunt with the Hibbert side.  Tiff & Corey's backyard is perfect for an egg hunt, and Beka & Neil are expert egg-hiders.

Sophie was much more interested in playing than finding her eggs.  I found most of them.

Saturday after the Hibbert egg hunt, we had the Smarts over.  We had dinner, and instead of the usual egg hunt, we made each kid their own bag of candy, put their name on it & hid it.  

 The kids always look forward to coloring eggs.

 Sophie was much more interested in the dog, and didn't care that we were trying to get a picture of her with her big brothers & sisters in their Easter Sunday clothes.  She was a stinker that morning!

Catch up on Random Stuff

Here are a few random pictures from the last couple months!

I have many pictures of Mal & Soph sitting down to breakfast.  I usually take a picture with my phone & send it to Jared with a note saying: "Good morning Dad!"  He is almost always gone before they get up.

Ashton's team had a 3v3 tournament at Sparta's indoor facility.
This is the team with their "awards".

Mallory & Sophie hard at work at the office

We've been down to City Creek several times.  I LOVE it.  

Seth & Monica were VERY nice to not just help put our basketball hoop together, but basically do it all from beginning to end.  They are great friends & neighbors! Ashton & Conner love it, and "go shoot hoops" (as they put it) everyday.

That time of year again where I forget to put sunscreen on my very fair kids!! 

Now this is what takes place every Sunday after dinner - a game of Speed. It is fun!

Conference Sunday - Emma & Mal crashed on the couch & Kels, listening to conference on the radio in her room, crashed there.  I took a picture of Kelsey too, but she deleted it.  Rude.

We took the kids down to City Creek for FHE one day.  

Will likes Kelsey more than he likes me.  I both love that & hate that. He's the best!

St. George Trip

Ashton's Sparta team signed up to play in Utah's Presidents Cup.  It was held in St. George over President's Day weekend.  All the kids were excited to go.  In the past we've only stopped for gas in St. George on our way to Disneyland, never stayed.  

We left Thursday right after school.  Ashton had two games on Friday, one on Saturday.  If they won then we would play on Monday also. We knew about the tournament for months, so I had plenty of time to book a hotel room.  But in typical Jerusha fashion I left it until a month before.  I searched for hours online for hotels, condos or homes for rent - nothing was available.  I was starting to look in Cedar City, Mesquite, etc., although the idea of having to drive so far for the games was not appealing.  Jamie had told me that her parents would probably let us stay in their St. George home (they don't usually "share it", as LuAnn put it), but Jared said at the time that he wouldn't feel comfortable imposing on them like that, and Jason described the house as "a museum", which also made Jared nervous.  But I was getting pretty desperate.  So I asked Jamie and she asked LuAnn and she said, "For Jerush, anything!"  Sweeeeet! It was such a relief! I convinced Jamie to come down, and our good friends Seth & Monica.  Monica's grandma lives there, so they had somewhere to stay also.  We all drove down together, stopped in Cedar City for dinner, and got to St. George around 8:00. 

The courtyard of Spier's home, and the door there in the middle of the screen is to the "casita", where Jared, Ashton, Conner, Sophie and I slept.  It had a bedroom and bathroom, which was so nice!

The kids were all glad to be out of the car & running around

In the morning we were able to enjoy the beautiful view they have from their home.  

I couldn't use my flash for this picture, but it is Whitney & Mallory asleep.  They were little mirror images of each other and it was SO cute.  They slept together every night. 

There was an indoor & outdoor pool that was part of the shared community clubhouse.  We took advantage of that on the ONE day that Ashton was allowed to swim (coach's orders).

Then we had lots and lots of soccer.  The kids played pretty well, and our friends were so supportive to come to all the games.  Ashton had quite the cheering section.

Whit & Mal

Emma & Rylee

Sophie loves Seth, and wanted to play with him all by herself.  Conner tried to join in & she told him 'No!', and pushed him away.  

Monica on the left, Jared on the right - both on their phones. But not with each other.....I think.

On Sunday we drove to Zion's. We've never taken the kids there, and Jared was really looking forward to getting some great pictures.  It snowed a little the night before, so it was cold, but there was plenty of sun!  The kids favorite part was the mile long tunnel.  

Saturday morning we took the kids to Brigham Young's winter home in St. George.  Sophie was not a fan of the tour of the home, so I took her back to the car.  She kept trying to get into the areas where visitors weren't allowed.....little stinker.

Saturday night we went out as adults, Jared, me, Jamie, Seth & Monica (Jason had to stay home for this trip).  Ken and LuAnn arrived on Friday afternoon, so between them & Kelsey the little ones had plenty of eyes watching them.  Sunday, after Zion's, Jared cooked dinner for everyone (except Bergman's - they had to head back to SLC). Then we all watched a movie LuAnn had recorded on her DVR called, "Head of the Class", a true story about a teacher with Tourette's.  It was a perfect Sunday movie.  

Ashton's team won their two games Friday, then tied on Saturday.  This put them in 1st place in their bracket, which means we were going to play on Monday! They had an early game Monday morning, and won that one, so we had another game that afternoon.  Between games we packed up our stuff (we had to head straight home after this last game),  grabbed some lunch at The Pizza Factory, and headed back to the fields for the last game.  

 I have more pictures of the games than I know what to do with!

Ashton just kicked that ball into that net.  Where the heck is the goalie?  Ashton probably scared him off. =]

Head Coach Jay on the left, Assistant Coach Brent on the right, then from L-R: Daxton, Max, Kessler, Kaelan, Will, Brandon, Niklas, Mason, Ashton & Christian.  

ALL DONE!  The last game went into overtime, we should have won! In the last couple minutes of "regulation" time, Ashton kicked the ball in making the score 4-3.  Everyone on our team was jumping up and down screaming.  We were so excited, we didn't hear the ref's whistle, calling a foul on one of our other players, saying he pushed someone on the other team.  None of us saw it, and of course I think it was a crap call.  In my mind, my son scored the winning goal.  ;]