Easter

Well, the Easter bunny came again! We were pretty excited when we woke up and to our great awe and surprise there were baskets filled with treats...our Easter bunny even had leopard print eggs...how did he know that's what kind of people we are?

Marilyn was delighted that her basket had eggs that she could open and shut...and I think the candy inside was a surprise...last year she had yogurt melts (sorta boring)

The Easter bunny must have communicated with my subconscious because he brought me plastic lids to use for my jars in the fridge which I have wanted FOREVER...might sound boring but it's really amazing!

Linny loved her basket so much she carried it around as her purse for the rest of the morning...until we HAD to leave it at home for church (I know, I'm evil right?!)

Marilyn's "cute chick" jammies...so cute!

I made THIS Easter dress this year...with my new serger! It turned out pretty cute! Marilyn seemed to like it, and she was adorable in it at church...which is really all that matters, right?

We are grateful to be able to celebrate Easter and are grateful that we know the real reason behind this seemingly silly holiday.  I loved going to primary on Easter Sunday and hearing the sharing time about the resurrection and how we can remember it in our lives every day.  Even though Easter has lots of candy and treats, the real reason for the season is our Savior and his great sacrifice and resurrection for us. 

Uncle Jeff

For those of you that don't know, my brother Jeff is on his mission in Boise, Idaho! Well, he is almost done...we have missed him like crazy and cannot wait for him to come home! This is a shout out to him!

Dear Uncle Jeff-

I know you are online today, we made this greeting for you.  Hope you love it! We absolutely cannot wait to see you in 5 weeks.  Marilyn can't wait to meet her Uncle Beff!!

Love,
Tom, Sara and Marilyn

Logan

We love Logan (more specifically North Logan), UT.  We always feel lucky that Tom's family lives there and we get to visit often.  We cherish the memories we make on our visits and love to remember the time that we spent there.  Last weekend, we had the opportunity to visit because our beloved Grandma J passed away.  We were lucky that the funeral fell on a Friday and that we were able to spend the weekend with Tom's entire family and have a lot of cousin time.  I literally took 200 pictures just this weekend alone.  We crammed a million things into the weekend (like always) and had such a great time reconnecting with family during this time. Here are some of our favorite things we did. 

We cleaned the sink at Angies.  Which is when they give you a ridiculously enormous amount of ice cream in a "kitchen sink" and you aren't supposed to be able to finish it. There were 22 of us and we polished off 2 of these bad boys! Everyone loved it so much, especially Marilyn.  

 

it was so so so delicious!

this is when Marilyn was bringing out Uncle Troys inner little girl...haha he is surrounded his boys so we think it's good for him!

we even earned this sticker!

cutest thing ever?

this is Marilyn's little cousin Amelia...she is to die for cute!

This is Marilyn and Grandpa having some seriously much needed bonding time watching Elmo's World...Grandpa had surgery on his knee so his movement is limited.  Marilyn took full advantage of this and loved cuddling with him!

This is the amazingly adorable rain coat Grandma J got for the 4 little little girls...seriously? is it literally the cutest rain coat on earth?

Marilyn and her cousin just older than her played like crazy the whole time.  They read books and played purses and barn.  Marilyn even showed her how to use the big girl potty!

This is so adorable because Marilyn fell in LOVE with this purse, it went everywhere with us, even to Jakes rainy soccer game.  I got this purse with my wedding dress, it is made from the same fabric and it makes my heart melt that Linny-Loo loves it so so much!

we ate way too many wegies and all the kids loved it!

Marilyn got a new tea set (for filling her second potty chart) and she loved having little tea parties with everyone

Basically, we love love love our Logan visits and we always feel a little lonesome when we get home...but it helps us look forward to our next visit!

I Will Be A Master!

Kristin (my bff) and I are taking a Master Preserver class.  We are pretty stoked about it! At the end of 6 short weeks, we will take a test and be nationally certified master preserver.  We learn water bath canning, pressure canning, jams and jellies, dehydrating, pickling and freezing.  It is pretty much the greatest thing ever.  Please excuse Kristin and I in these pictures, we are wearing the same shirt...on accident I swear. 

Last week we water bath canned fruit.  This is pineapple.  It was so delicious! We also canned applesauce, peaches, pears, oranges, grapefruit and a bunch of pie fillings. 

This is me, holding the blueberry filling I made...isn't it pretty?

Here we are...holding things that have to do with canning...I don't know what we are doing, but cute right?

This is the peach apple salsa we made.  It was so delicious...I really would have never tried it unless I made it at master preserver class...if  you know me I am not the most adventurous eater in the world.  But I tried it and love love loved it! I even got to use a muslin spice bag! See it? Wow... blah blah blah...I love this class!

Marilyn is getting big...

Freak me right out...Marilyn is down right big now.  She is basically a kid...when did this happen without my knowledge or approval! Here are some really cute things she has done lately...

We were making dinner and turned around to see this...seriously...and since she doesn't eat ANYTHING EVER, I let her continue until I snapped a picture!

This is how Marilyn stands these days...hand on hip ready to take on the world!

She set up this scene in the kitchen while I was cleaning up.  She brought the whole thing in piece by piece...so so so cute!

Aunt Cari Came to Visit

We are lucky that the Johnsons have a place down here that they visit frequently, and therefore visit us frequently.  We love having them here! Me and Marilyn get spoiled with cousin play during the day and I feel more connected to what is happening in Tom's family.  I also love it when the Johnsons come because I can see that working really hard while Marilyn is young actually can turn out with normal, well adjusted, polite kids when they get older.  I am sure they have other things they are dealing with now, but it just gives me hope that life moves on from potty training and hysterical crying fits.  I love talking with Cari while she is here because she always seems to have some creative idea on how to teach something to Marilyn, or some other solution to a problem I have been thinking about.  One night while they were here I had a pack meeting (the pre-pinewood derby pack meeting) so Tom and Marilyn had a pizza party with the Cari and Troy and their boys (who are almost men now, so weird).  In this house full of 6 boys and only 2 girls I came home to find Tangled on and this scene...

Marilyn has a lot of really GREAT aunts we feel super lucky when

we get lucky enough to have them to play with (especially dress up!)!

Happy Kreg Kolb Day!

On Saturday our ward had a crazy huge fundraiser for a man in our ward named Kreg Kolb.  He was diagnosed with ALS and our ward really rallied together to do a we love you Kreg Kolb celebration of life day.  So many people came out and it was a really cool event.  The young women were in charge of a bake sale and since me and Kristin have a small obsession with cupcakes these days we told them we would make TONS.  Literally, thats what we signed up for, to make tons of cupcakes.  We made 7 batches, oreo, sour cream blueberry, strawberry shortcake, doughnut cupcakes, pink lemonade, double chocolate fudge mania and churro.  It was super fun to make and decorate that many cupcakes, I sorta loved it so much I had thoughts of trying every cupcake recipe I have ever seen, but I stopped before it completely took over my house.  Here are the cupcakes! (and we love you Kreg!)

This is a double chocolate fudge cake with chocolate buttercream and sprinkles 

This was my favorite cupcake I made all day...I ate it...

Here they all are, well all the ones I made, churro in front, then doughnut then pink lemonade then the chocolate

These are the pink lemonade, a lemon cake with pink lemonade in the batter with whipped cream on top!