Easter Day

It was the best Easter I have had in a long time. The kid's baskets were low key, candy, umbrellas, coloring book for the girls, a Lou Gehrig figure for Ty and a Lego set for Wyatt.


Church was better than I could hope for, even if we were 5 minutes later than our normal time and had to sit in the hard seats. The speaker ended with a story about when his wife went to Jerusalem during the Easter season and they were standing in front of the the tomb where most scholars say Jesus was laid after his death. They wanted a picture but decided that because it is such a spiritual place they probably shouldn't' be smiling yucking it up like in other pictures. So as they stood there not smiling the tour guide they had asked to take their picture dropped the camera and said "you can smile, the tomb was empty." So true we can smile, Jesus was resurrected and broke the chains of death for us all, what a glorious morning that must have been.
On to my parents house to celebrate with the Goodman cousins. It was more pleasant that I remember. Low key good good good conversation with my parents and sisters. Playing with the cousins, of course wiffle ball and an egg hunt.Taylor and Kyley with cousins Hadley and Ella, we hardly get to see her since she lives in Snowflake, it was so good seeing Kristin and her kids, I just wish my brother Mark could have made it down.
Taylor with Johnny another Snowflake Goodman cousin we hardly ever see, he is getting so big.

My parents, don't they look great. It will be two years in May since my Mom's stroke and you can't even tell, she has come so far. A couple months ago, Kyley was talking in church about prayer and we were trying to think of a story when our prayers had been answered. We couldn't think of one off the top of our heads; the Saturday before the talk we were at Raulin's baptism and my mom gave one of the talks. As she was talking my eyes filled with tears as I realize two huge prayers had been answered here. First, Raulin was born while my brother Dale was over in Iraq, daily prayers were offered for his safe return, and here he was baptizing his second. Second, my mom's stroke hit us all hard and look at her she is standing giving a beautiful talk. Prayers are answered, she is doing wonderful - Love you mom ;)
Classic cousin picture, some not looking I'm sure there are some rabbit ears, closed eyes, I love it. Left to right: Jack, Jake, Ty, Wyatt, Jay, Kimball, Abby, Hannah, Kate, Ella, Annie, Keelie and Johnny in front.

The Chesley Easter Party

Good times good times. We always have the party the Saturday before and it is often at Red Mountain Park. They have a good spot to fish (although we all forgot our poles), a playground, lots of tables for the food and a place to fly kites. This is the first year in a long time that it was windy on Easter and we had kites. Taylor and Kyley are now part of the older group as they just sat around visiting. (Taylor is not a grumpy teenager, she thought we were doing our angry face) Aurelia, Kyley, Loren and Ty all got the message, SMILE! Wyatt was the first to go out and try to fly, he did great until his kite got tangled with his cousin Joy, then they had to go track them down. They brought them back in a tangled mess laughing all the way. We had an egg hunt but the highlight was the kites. It was a perfect evening.

Coloring Eggs

The kids still get excited to color Easter eggs. I boiled some from our chickens, we have green, pink, brown and white eggs, I was hoping that would be good enough, heck they were colored. Nope the kids still wanted the dye, although by the time I got back half of the eggs I had boiled were gone. Loren likes them with salt and pepper, Kyley likes them deviled, Wyatt likes to peel them but he then puts the peeled egg back in the carton, (it is a little creepy when you open the carton and there is a peeled hard boiled egg) We got ripped off as I bought the dye kit with 9 colors and they only gave us 3, the kids all wanted me to take it back but it was not worth my time for crying out loud they only cost $1.49. We had to make due with what we had, it was time to tap into our color wheel and make all the colors. I guess my kids are growing up since they lost interest with about 5 eggs still left to color or maybe it was because we only had 3 colors. I was cleaning up and they had even left eggs in the cup of dye. They were all listening to music, the good news was we had very little mess.

Do you know what's weird?

Whenever Wyatt starts a sentence this way I perk up and listen, I never know what will come out of his mouth. Today Wyatt's say's...

"Do you know what's weird? Even though me and Kyley are the babies I have more in common with Taylor."
"Really," I say as my eyebrows go up as high as they can.


He proceeds to list them counting them off on his fingers

1. "We both do mazes the same way, we start at the finish and trace back with our fingers." (who doesn't do mazes this way?)
   
2. "We both have warts on our knees" (Wyatt has just discovered his)
   
3. "We both know Hugga Bugga" (A hugging game, Wyatt hugs Taylor and wraps his legs around her legs too, I think)
   
4. "Our favorite animal is a gorilla"
5. "Our favorite colors are green and purple"

There you have it, Wyatt and Taylor nearly identical twins. This picture was taken in 2008, how else do you get to use your umbrellas in AZ but using them to protect you from the sprinklers.

Update - today (Friday) I had Taylor read this post and she said the last two are false. She says Wyatt ask her nearly everyday what her favorite animal is and it is NOT a gorilla it is a peacock or a lion. Her favorite color is orange not green and purple, but in Waytt's defense at one time Taylor's favorite color was green. Taylor then tells him "we have one other thing in common."
Wyatt says, "yeah we both have two arms, two legs, two eyes, etc."
" No" Taylor says "we both like the song Werewolf" and Wyatt says, "You like that song?"

Grapevines

I love the look of grape vines. We planted a few then the cows or horses got a hold of them. We planted some more and they were doing great and then this winter hit with the cold hard freeze, I thought for sure they were dead. No luck for Julie in the grape department, then this spring break I noticed greenery on the vines they are alive! They have since taken off. Then just this week I was watering checking on my vines and there were grapes, yes teeny tiny grapes on the vine. I was so excited. I am a bit of a nerd when it comes to growing things. I am always amazed that anything I plant actually grows. I really need to have more faith.


Today Loren and I hit the garage sales, I was looking for some pots to plant flowers and brighten our front yard and we found some great cement planters for cheap. We set them out and they looked even better than I imagined. I love it. We still have tons of work to do, like actually plant the flowers and such and weeding, it is non stop and Bermuda grass is the most resilient strongest grass around, but one of these days the front of our house will look as I imagined, we are one step closer.

Happy Birthday to Loren

Happy Birthday to Loren the coolest guy ever and he is mine:) He makes me laugh and laugh hard every day. He has the best sense of humor a little dry but that makes it all that much funnier. Oh the stories I could tell. He started delivering pizzas at 14 and was caught by him mom while on a delivery, has been kicked out of Disneyland at 16 and did 40 hours of pre-hab for putting a dummy that looked like it had been hit by a car in the road. He has worked for the Sheriff's office, as a Realtor and most recently Cox. He does great at any job he tackles (heck he has won 3 trips through Cox in the last 3 years) He is a great dad to the kids he teaching them how to work how to fish how to laugh at themselves. He has great perspective and teaches me that some things aren't important. After 19 years of marriage we think a lot alike we know exactly what the other is thinking. I am so glad he was born I cannot imagine my life without him, so here's to another year Loren, I love you.

Kyley Turns 14

Happy birthday to Kyley, has it really been 14 years since I delivered a little (well not to begin with) purple/blue baby with the chord wrapped around her neck. Her little cry did not come immediately and it was a glorious sound a few minutes (but it felt like an eternity) later. She was my only child that did not pack on the baby fat, she was little, the doctor even yelled at me for not feeding her enough. She was a happy happy happy baby and so dang cute. We didn't have digital cameras back then so all the baby pictures need to be scanned and our scanner is broken - you will just have to take my word for it.



She is quiet until you get to know her then her crazy creative side come out, whether it is making up plays or singing along to ANY song ( it is a daily competition between Taylor and Kyley who knows the most words to any given song.) I have to call Kyley the today winner because it is her birthday. She is loyal, she still list her best freind as Taylor Marie who she met right before she started kindergarten and moved to Utah 5 years ago. Her current crew of friends are awesome. They are not the "cool" kids in school, those kids don't want to have fun, Kyley and her friends still play 4 square and have piggy back relay races at lunch, (Kyley has the scar to prove it) I love it.


************ Kyley, Rylie, Sarah, Moriah, Arielle, Maddie**********

She is a good big sister since her school is K-8, so she,Ty and Wyatt have all these inside jokes about school and many mornings she has to get them all to the bus, she is so responsible I never worry about if they made it or not. She is an awesome big cousin playing with all the little kids, she is a great babysitter, she gets good grades well great grades all A's, and she hardly procrastinates anymore. She loves sports and plays to win, we even caught her cheating at wiffle ball when she was 4. I am so glad she came to our family, we are lucky lucky lucky to have her.

Conference

Twice a year we get to hear from our prophet and leaders. There is always something that I need to hear. This year Brother Uchtdorff quoted St. Fransis of Assissi which I had heard now twice in two months, maybe I need to be a better example :)
"Preach the Gospel at all times and when necessary use words."
I always like listening to President Monson. His talk on temples and the very idea that through temples we can be a forever family made me thankful for my little family and my extended family, which leads me to the added perk to conference weekend, we all go to my parents house on Sunday between sessions for beans and bread and wiffle ball.

Now growing up we went to my grandma Taylor's house most Sundays and had beans and bread. We all grew up on that meal, the in-laws don't like the meal as much as all the brother and sisters do. My dad now makes the beans and adds a "secret ingredient" each time, anything from lifesavers to bacon. My mom makes the bread, homemade dough (which is as good as the cooked stuff) fried in grease... SO GOOD. Almost as good as the meal is watching the cousins play a mean game of wiffle ball ( Jack, Jay, Ty, Wyatt, Raulin and Durham, usually Jake but he isn't pictured) and wondering how long until Dale Jr, Mark (if he is here) Matt, Joe, Ryan and Jeremy (the big boys) take over. The sisters sit on the porch holding babies visiting.

Usually, my grandma and grandpa Goodman are there. This time it was only my grandma Goodman. I was thinking on my way over that I need to go see them so I was happy to see her sitting at the table. I got to visit with her a bit. She is very soft spoken but she is all there which is amazing at 93ish years old. She asked how I was and if I was still teaching, when I asked how she was, she said "getting old is tough" it broke my heart. I walked with my dad as he wheeled her home and saw my grandpa. He acting like he recognized me although I think he thought I was Karrie. Again I am thankful for the knowledge I have that comes through the gospel and listening to our leaders, like "we live to die and we die to live again" one of the General Authorities said today in Sunday conference. I am sad that my grandparents are getting older but I know that when the time comes they will be reunited with their parents, brothers, sisters, cousins and friends and I will remain confident that I will see them again.