Easter!

 The Saturday before Easter was a busy one for us.  Luke and I had rehearsal in the morning for Sunday's performance, then we had a Hsu lunch with all the Hsus - Ron and Misty included.  Next, it was time for some non-religious Easter fun.  The kids and I dyed eggs and decorated them.  The girls had a blast though it's messy business.  We ended up with blue-green fingers but we soaked them in soapy water to get it nice and clean.  After decorating the eggs Luke and I made an Easter Egg Hunt in our backyard for the kids.  We were going to hit the community Easter hunt in the morning, but it was totally ridiculous!  They advertised 3000 eggs but I'm pretty sure there were 300+ people there.  The parking was insane and Luke and I decided that the eggs had about a 2 second life expectancy.  We didn't want the girls and Michael to get trampled in the mob so we did one of our own.  It was much better this way.

 Michael absolutely LOVED the egg hunt and the jelly beans inside them.  He was absolutely adorable.

After the egg hunt we had an early dinner because we had plans to go see Maggie and my mom in the Bellevue South Stake Easter Program that night.  The music was beautiful and we saw lots of people from the old stake that we love and adore.
 Sunday was no less busy.  We had church at 9am in the morning, but since Luke and I were in the specialty number and in choir, I went to church at 8:15am while he stayed behind to get the kids ready.  Church was fantastic and a wonderful reminder about the true meaning of Easter.  After church we came home and had lunch.  After lunch I started cooking like there's no tomorrow.  I was cooking strait from 1pm-5pm since my mom and Zeke and Maggie's family were joining us for dinner.  I had invited Ron and Misty too but unfortunately their family wasn't feeling well and they decided to drive home early.  But, we had so much food that we could've fed the Bailey family!  I enjoy throwing dinner parties and I tend to over do it.. It was fantastic though!  We had ham, green bean casserole, fruit salad, caesar salad, rolls, herb roasted potatoes, bruchetta, spinach artichoke dip, mango pudding and lemon cream cheese bars.  Needless to say we were incredibly stuffed.

A Little Bit of Crafting

 After I came home from my Taiwan trip I had an intense desire to go see Ron and Misty because I wanted to compare pictures and I just wanted to talk to someone about it who has recently been there.  But, how was I suppose to leave my husband again right after I just came home?!  Well, Luke ended up having a YM's snow activity the weekend of Lily's Mid-Winter Break, so I packed up the kids and I and we drove down to Ron and Misty's.
We had a fabulous time looking at all our photos and talking about the food and the kids had a grand time playing.  Now, one of the things that usually happens when I'm around Misty is that I get inspired to do art.  One of the things I have always loved about Misty is our mutual interest in arts and crafts.  She is always doing something - hair clips, painting, sketching, jewelry, household decorations, etc.  Last Summer after seeing her sketch I started sketching again and it's been really fun.  I'll have to post pictures of that later.
Anyway, this time after I came home from her house I decided to make some spring decorations.  I headed off to Michaels and the Dollar store.  I got 2 stems of silk flowers for $1/each, a grapevine wreath for $4.50 at Michaels; and I got some foam eggs (10/Pack) and birds (2/pack) at the Dollar store.  With a little bit of hot clue and some ribbon and raffia these are what I came up with.  It only took me a total of an hour and half and it was pretty fun. :o)