Family Color Run

Keri did a color run in the fall but when our city started promoting one for a very reasonable family price, we went for it.  It was only a mile so it was perfect for our little ones.  Actually, Sophie took off like a torpedo! Keri kept up but wants to open up Sophie's mind to the idea of pacing. Rhys completed 2 of the 3 laps running with Neal.  On the last lap they only walked a few times but came to the finish line with speed.  It was a great event! We color sprayed our hair, got face painting done, and saw lots of neighbors and friends. 

Sweetness

So I sent Rhys out to do his chore of bringing in the mail and noticed he'd been gone a bit longer than usual so I went to check on him.  As I was opening the front door, Rhys was walking up the path with three purple blossoms picked from our "lawn."  Approaching he explained the longest stemmed one was big so it was for daddy, I was to receive the medium one, and he even picked a short one for his sister!  I love that boy. 

Change

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we volunteer to serve in "callings." To be called of God is to receive an appointment or invitation from him or his duly authorized Church leaders to serve him in a particular way. That is a calling.

So, Keri had been serving in a leadership position as 1st Counselor in the Young Women's program (girls ages12-17) for the past 1 1/2 years.  But a few weeks ago she was "released" from that calling and called to work in a leadership position as 2nd Counselor in the Relief Society, or women's group of the church.

I will miss my girls but I have learned a lot from them and the experiences I had serving them.  I am looking forward to learning what God wants me to become in this next calling.  I always learn something!

St. Patty's Day

Since the past 3 years have yielded not results in our pursuit to catch a leprechaun, Daddy took the lead on constructing a trap with the kids this year.  They were going to dig a small hole in the front yard, cover it with light debris and hope for the best.  But upon hearing of rain in the evening's forecast the team went to work with a new plan. 

Sophie watercolor painted a beautiful rainbow, both Sophie and Rhys glued gold foil to it to lure the leprechaun in.  This was hung from the edge of a desk.  Below a ladder was propped up against an empty tissue box. The hope was he'd climb the ladder and jump to try and reach the gold, but falling short he'd land in the tissue box. They even taped the box to the floor so he couldn't knock the box over and get out.

We never thought for a minute he would have had his lucky pocket knife on him!  But in the morning we found he had cut a little flap out of the box and escaped.

Rhys rounds the corner, rubbing the sleep from his eyes only to be greeted by the flash of mom's camera.

Chaos is what the leprechaun left behind--wastepaper baskets up on shelves, rainbow decorations turned up-side-down into smiles, our toaster even ended up in the living room! There were numerous things we found throughout the morning. At lunch he turned our milk green.

Breakfast was a green smoothie or "lucky leprechaun juice" with buttered toast with green sugar sprinkles. Lunch was "construct your own leprechaun face" using PB, bread, raisins, grapes, and grated carrots for hair and beard.  For dinner we splurged on green mac and cheese colored by spinach, peas, and broccoli and a spicy celery salad on the side.

The kids also got gold wrapped chocolates and rainbow skittles in a little, overturned disposable food container cutely painted and disguised to look like a leprechaun hat.  I spent a couple nights putting those together.  On St. Patty's Day afternoon we delivered extras to Primary teachers and our favorite librarian in the children's section, among others. They looked like these from Canadian Living because that's where I got the idea.

Hope you had a good time celebrating as well.

Father-Daughter Camping

The men in our congregation celebrate the restoration of the Aaronic priesthood every year by having a father-sons campout.  The first time Rhys was able to do this with Neal was last May.  Since then, Neal has been looking for the right opportunity to take Sophie on a father-daughter campout, weather permitting.  Well, weather didn't permit in the fall so this late winter was the first opportunity.  Neal buddied up with Chris Huff and his two daughters for a fun Friday night at nearby Lake Ray Roberts.

Neal enjoyed walking along the edge of the lake with Sophie and watching her explore.  He also just enjoyed the outdoors and hanging out with his friend.  Sophie said she like sleeping in the tent.  She said it was chilly on Saturday morning but she had fun building sand castles and collecting rocks with her friends Elsa and Aila. There was a light fog on the lake that morning when Neal and Chris took the girls fishing. No catches but still a great time!