easter in cali

what are you looking at in the pic below? that would be 5,000 easter eggs scattered around the lawn. (yes, that is the correct amount of zeros.) my aunt and uncle took fritzy and i to the most amazing easter egg hunt while we were in california.

everyone was split into teams and given a huge garbage bag. the eggs had colored coins in them, not candy; some eggs were special prize eggs. here's everone gathered getting the low down. the woman in pink is one of the planners who does these hunts annually. they're goal for next year: 6,000 eggs!

everyone lined up ready to go. it was a very fun sight.

on your mark, get set, GO!!!

a special area was designated for fritzy so he didn't get trampled. i think the next oldest kid was 7 years old.

cleaning up the yard.

he sure enjoyed himself!

all the eggs your team collected were thrown in one big bag and weighed as teams. the team with the biggest weight, won. (previous years, they had everyone open and sort coins worth various points according to color.) everyone who came to the party was asked to bring a gift basket. the winning team got first choice, and so on until everyone had a basket. i believe fritzy's team came in third. he was very happy with the basket my aunt and uncle got him.

good witch again

after smoldering temperatures and feeling like i was the wicked witch of the west (read "i'm melting!") for the past few days, the temperatures have finally cooled down here and there is even a freeze advisory in effect for tonight!! hallelujah!

in other news, this past sunday was one of those "horrible, terrible, no good, very bad days." my hubby was out of town so i brought all the kids to church on my own.

to recap, it was the first day of the heat wave and i hate heat waves especially when they are disrupting my spring, i had to change jake's pants and diaper and clean up a huge puddle right as i told everyone head to the car, my soon to be three year old colored with a black crayon on the pew and wall while i was listening to a talk during sacrament meeting, 20 bazillion wipes couldn't take the crayon off and realized i would have to go home after church and get goo-gone, i had to separate an actual group wrestle among my younger three kids during sacrament meeting, my five year old didn't show london and france but definitely showed a bunch of people in manchester her underpants during said wrestle, i let my 2 year old go to nursery with his special blanket because i was just relieved he was actually going to go without a fight and i had to teach mother's day songs in primary, i was crabby while teaching those songs, ran home after church to get goo gone and other cleaning supplies, cleaned off the walls and pew in the chapel while trying to discourage my two year old from using microphone on the stand, gathered all the kids in the car and realized we do not know where aforementioned special blanket is, search the church twice looking for said blanket, finally leave church somewhat surprised how calm two year old is, actually start to leave church parking lot without blanket and two year old starts screaming, i think how wise i am that i have gotten him attached to two blankets and that he will be fine when i get him home to his other blanket, two year old wants nothing to do with other blanket and screams for the next hour while i call every mom of a baby at church and ask if they accidentally took home his blankie, was very crabby with husband on the phone when he calls that evening, forgot to watch my favorite show and i never forget to watch my show, finally give in and turn on the air conditioners on april 26th!!!

the good news is that i was in bed reading by 9 pm that night, felt quite justified in turning on air conditioners considering what a bad day it had been, watched my show on monday (thank you cbs for finally putting amazing race episodes online), fritzy has been using his other blankie without complaint ever since his hour long "grieving" period, the kids and i were all seated while the prelude music for sacrament meeting was still playing and i was actually complemented by a dad at church at how quietly my children wrestled (that's a good thing, right?)!

the bad news is that fritzy's blanket is still MIA (sorry tice, it wasn't outside). hopefully, it will be in the lost and found when we return to church.

for tice and natalie..

or any other mom of a 8-10 year old daughter or son who has had the pleasure of seeing high school musical, i got a good laugh out of this clip.

twilight necklaces

for my twilight loving friends (hello, nat - i'm talking to you), go check out my friend stacey's blog. she's selling some mighty cute (and inexpensive) necklaces right now.

here comes the sun

i'm in sunny california with fritzy to visit family. although it's not sunny, it's raining! not quite sure how i managed to hit california when it was raining, but i certainly haven't packed right for it. hopefully, it warms up soon. (when i asked my aunt last week, she said it was sunny and in the 70s.) anyhoo, i return next tuesday. have a happy easter everyone!

MI-5

pat and i watched the season finale for season 3 of MI-5 last night. MI-5 (or spooks at the brits call it) loves explosive season finales, but this was the biggest ride so far. boy, it took me a while to settle down after watching it.

might i say one of the best things about MI-5 is that it first starred mr. darcy from the keira knightley pride and prejudice, then when he left the show, they replaced him with frederick from materpiece theatre's persuasion. really, does life get better than that?

post edit: ok, and when i went to look up the website for MI-5, it appears that now mr. thornton from north and south is also a regular. i sooo want to meet the casting director for this series!

p.s. you can watch "north and south" and "MI-5" instantly on netflix.

february break

in all my catching up on five months worth of blogging, i forget to mention my girls trip in february. my parents took the girls with them on their annual skiing trip to utah. they stayed with pat's mom and were able to build great memories with the hinckley side of the family (and mine too).

my parents took the girls skiing for a few days. this was gracie's third year, and lily's first. lily was fearless (as usual) and ate it all up (as shown by pic on the collage below - i just love that smile.)

from what i hear, grace is doing quite well on skies; although, she is a more cautious child than lily - or should i say more reasonable child?

waiting to get on the lift with papa.

skiing down the mountain with nanna.

all geared up; ready to go.

my brother and his wife came down from idaho and the girls had a wonderful time goofing off with them. this might be a good time to mention that gracie's nickname "gigi" comes from abbreviating the phrase "gracie goofball."

one of the biggest highlights of the whole trip was to go babysit cousin mallory twice a week. seriously, the girls loved doing this and was always one of the top two things out of their mouths when asked what their favorite part of the trip was. looking at the picture below explains it. mallory has the sweetest disposition to match that face.

other highlights include decorating pottery with aunt carolyn, then being joined by cousin kait for a movie. of course, playing with nanna jean's (hinckley) amazing collection of dress-ups.

the girls took an overnight flight home. so we just went and got them at my parents' house the next morning. i was so giddy to see them that i felt like a kid on christmas morning. we even ended up waking them up because we couldn't wait any longer.

i always send the girls with money that i never see again. i don't think they ever need to use it with so many grandparents around to spoil them, but they do always come home with a sweet little token for us.

fritzy enjoyed the attention of being home with just mom and jake more than i thought he would. he was glad to see his sisters though when they returned.

april fool's

we had a fun april fool's day. i made this mock sushi to celebrate, but opted for no pranks. (much to my dad's dismay, i'm sure. my father attended a college known for its grand scale pranks, and was seriously proud when i almost inadvertently incurred a $200 fine for one of my college pranks at byu. his parents actually paid $200 worth of damages for one of his pranks while he was in college, but that's a story for another day.)

the sushi was actually rice krispies treats with gummy worms in side and a fruit roll-up wrapped around it.

something only the kids would enjoy. (i ate just the rice krispy part.)

when grace came home from school, she declared how happy she was that i hadn't said what i always say on april fool's day yet. i went totally blank on what she could be talking about and after pestering her for a while she finally told me. yes, she was so right. i almost always walk around on april fool's day saying "it is my day to fool everyone else. no one can try to fool me." it's a good thing that i didn't say that this year as amanda totally fooled me. i'm actually embarassingly gullible as was evident when i tried to make this thai soup recipe last night. i couldn't find the thai seasoning that the recipe called for. after doing some research, i found that fish sauce was a common ingredient in thai food; so i bought it and tried to make my own variety of the soup. i was extremely gullible to think that i would tolerate fish sauce in a meal when i dislike fish. i used half the amount the recipe called for and still felt like i needed to drink a whole bottle of pepto bismal 2 hours later. luckily, i hadn't put the chicken and veggies in yet, so i just dumped the soup down the drain and started over with a tried and true mexican recipe i like. so anyone (who lives near me) want some fish sauce?

oh, and to conclude, i thought i would put a pic of my april's fool. (zucchini courtesy of my sister's garden).