Spring Random

I took this picture to remember how much we have used the adorable rice bag owls my mom made all the kids for Christmas!  We keep one or two in the freezer, and every time someone is complaining about something hurting I'm like "get the owl!" They have been so awesome, way to go mom on the cute, practical, and special-because-it-was-made-by-Grammy gifts!

And speaking of gifts of the heart, my sweet Grandpa Hansen has been sending us, about monthly, an envelope full of these stickers/stamps he cuts out of his junkmail, and Owen LOVES them!! Whenever we get the mail he is always looking for one.  They make me smile because I love my Grandpa and my kids will always remember how he sent them these little "packages" in the mail!  They don't get to see their great-grandparents very often, so I'm glad they can get to know his love for them through the mail.  I need to send letters back more often!

Silly St. Patrick's day tradition of a treasure hunt for gold left by "Tommy the Leprechaun"

I took these pictures to document the kids doing awesome at their chores-- it does happen some of the time!  These are ones they are particularly good at:

Whit is a laundry champ.  She has been doing her own laundry for almost a year already, even though the family rule is to start when you are 8!  She decided she would rather do her own than help sort the family laundry, hallelujah for me as well!  And I have rarely had to help her or remind her to do it.  She is awesome!

 Kate LOVES to clean the bathrooms, YAY!  And double wonderful is that she likes having Owen and Maris "help" her, which keeps them busy for a while!  She is so awesome.

These 3 also love to play "trash monster" aka emptying all the little trash cans around the house into one big bag.  So helpful, I can always count on Katelyn jumping up happily to get started when I suggest this chore!

For pretty much our whole marriage, Eric has wanted a king size bed, and I have wanted a headboard.  I was always like "we don't need a king bed!" and he was always like "we don't need a headboard!" Well, this year when we got our tax return and Eric's bonus we decided we could both get what we wanted!  So here's the before:

and after!  I like having a pretty bed, like not having to worry about which side I sleep on because I won't be breathing in Eric's face either way, still getting used to so much room.  I like to cuddle! lol but Eric doesn't so he's thrilled! :)

Meet Bike A and Bike B. 
Bike A (top) and I have been through a lot together. I've had it since I was 14! It survived being stolen and recovered by the Provo Police, being hit by a car (not while I was riding it--long story!), and now the front brakes don't work and it refuses to shift down into first gear. But it helped me train for my first triathlon and was part of many family bike rides. It's been a great bike! But I'm super excited to move on to Bike B (bottom), my new "I feel really cool because I'm on a real road bike" bike! It is fast! A little too fast, it's kind of scary lol. And it's so smooth and silent! I'm excited for fun times ahead with my new bike. Now maybe I can keep up with Eric 😀

My little track kids!!  They have spent many many hours at the ALA track this Spring!  And now a bunch more at Hershey Track meets at the Spanish Fork HS track, and now Whitney is doing Salem track club so we have those practices and meets!  Luckily they love it.  Which I love.  Even on a 30* day the track can be fun.  This day Maris and Owen ran 400 meters-- to the hundred start line and back twice-- while we were waiting for classes to come out!  I kept saying are you ready for a rest?  and they were like "no!"

Maris eating her favorite cereal, hilarious.

We went on a farm field trip with Whitney's class.  Nice photo bomb by Owen.  the two girls on the right are Whit's good friends, Marjorie and Rachel.

Cuties.

And this goat tried to eat my bag.  and my hair.

One day the kids and their friends dug a big hole, it was fun.  Here's the last friend left, Aiden Rose.  We like him.

Facebook post:

Maris was rockin' the 80's frizzy hair today! Cannot get enough of this cute face.

and another facebook post from General Conference weekend:

This girl. Drives me so crazy but has such a good heart. Most of her weekend was spent bugging people until they exploded, but she watched a lot of conference and when the prophet spoke she got right up next to the TV to really listen! I took this picture to remind me that she really does want to be good. smile emoticon

Easter

By the way, if anyone wants to buy me this necklace for $22 at the Red Barn, please do.  I love it so much, it has my two homes down here in Southern Utah county, Salem and Santaquin on it!

But this post is about Easter!  We had a great week reading about the last week of  Jesus' life leading up to Easter.  And then it was Easter Bunny Day:

and once again it was a snowy Easter egg hunt!  Spanish Fork's was better than Salem's.

Then I convinced these 3 to come with me to the Krishna Temple's Color Festival; it's practically in our backyard so we had to check it out at least once!  Kate didn't really want to go get dirty, so she stayed home with napping Maris.  Owen couldn't stop laughing with delight as he threw the colors at us constantly, it was hilarious!  Good times with our little crazy middle kids. :)

And then it was real Easter and I tried to take pictures of my cute kids, but Kate had a meltdown, and here's my facebook post:

As you can see we had a rough time trying to take Easter pictures this morning. This is seriously the best one we got. Then Maris proceeded to be the WORST behaved she's ever been in church and Owen got a cut on his head in Primary, was bleeding all over and had to be taken home lol. But dinner with my siblings was great and I can rejoice because He is Risen!! Happy Easter.

Happy Easter indeed.

family history and temples

Back in January (or February?) I discovered on a Sunday night that I had ancestors buried in Payson!  My own great-grandparents who I had never met, my grandma Hansen's parents!  5 miles away in Payson, and I have lived so close for 9 years!  Also one set of 2nd-great grandparents and 2 sets of 3rd great grandparents are buried there, pioneers!  SO exciting.  So the next morning, even though it had snowed in the night, I packed up owen and Maris to go to the cemetery after we dropped the girls off at school.  Turns out it's a little hard to find graves when you have to brush/scrape snow off every grave, at a cemetery you have never been to before!  But I felt such an urgency to find them, I couldn't wait for better weather.

Eventually we found them all!

The Hinzes.

The kids thought it was a great adventure and loved leaving the silk flowers we brought.

The Brimhalls

and other brimhall relatives, and the unmarked graves of my 3rd great Brimhall grandparents.

And the Courts.

Also in March we got to go to the Provo City Center Temple Open House.

It was wonderful and beautiful.  Haha Eric. he LOVES taking selfies don't you think??

Family History has become REALLY important to me the last few months.  Like I finally GET it, why it's so important and what an impact it can have on me and my family.  I've learned how to do the research and prepare names for the temple.  And I've taken my own names to the temple for the first time, like MY names; people I searched out and read their names on the census and put them into family tree and searched for duplicates and found their birth records, marriage records, death records.  And it is AMAZING!  First of all I love history, so it's fascinating in that way.  But also I feel like when I'm doing family history I have this little army of spirits of the people I'm helping, and they are gathering around me watching over me and protecting me from the devil and his temptations.  I know that sounds weird, but.... I've heard church leaders say that if the youth of the church will get involved in family history, they will be protected from the powers of Satan, or more able to resist temptation, of something like that!  So maybe that's partly why, and it's true for adults too, not just the youth!  Anyway I've felt this huge pull towards family history these last few months and it has been exciting and inspiring.

Little Sahara Sand Dunes

A few weeks ago we went to the sand dunes about an hour west of us for the first time, and it was AWESOME!  We will definitely be making this an annual thing.

 Of course Eric the daredevil taught the kids how to jump off the hills as far as they could.

 He is so much fun!

 This was the most adorable thing.

From facebook:  Owen the protector! The first time they walked up this ridge Maris was in front and suddenly I heard Owen yell "Maris!" and I looked over and saw him dive on the ground in front of her yelling "poky thing!" Then he picked it up and threw it away so she wouldn't step on it... so precious.

Kate with a sandy face and leftover face paint from a fun glow-in-the -dark party the night before. And such cute freckles and excitement because we were about to race-crawl up the hill. smile emoticon

 Making bum-trails down a giant hill.

 Silly buried owen and Whitney.

 And the instagram post: Okay so that was pretty fun! First time at ‪#‎littlesahara‬ ‪#‎sanddunes‬ And maybe spending half the day barefoot was my favorite part! I guess we all needed that sunshine/foot massage; that was the most successful, least fighting/whining/grumpy family outing we have had in probably years! Yay!

Seriously everyone was so happy and kind and cheerful, it was a really great day, the kind you dream of!  It really does happen about once a year haha!