Sundays are wonderful days because they are days of worship and renewal. Our church is incredible. It has changed me for good in so many ways. Today I was extended a calling to serve in the nursery. I was so excited! There have been times in my life that I would have really had a hard time. “Mom-ing” all day every day can be pretty hard at times. However, I am in a place in my life now where I am just trying to soak up every last little bit of sweetness and simpleness I can get before mine are all grown and gone.  These kids are just fabulous! They are the new generation. It is such a pleasure to be able to teach them and share what I care about and love so much in our gospel. It is going to be so much fun! After our services were over, our neighborhood had its annual Easter egg hunt. Lucy really gets into these parties now. Instead of the Frosty that she fell in love with at our Christmas party, today they had the Easter Bunny. Lucy was just as impressed!She kept smiling at him, saying “Hi!”, and waving to him. Eveytime he’d walk by she would want to get her picture taken with him. Lucy was SO ready to hunt for the eggs! It was almost near impossible to keep her behind the sign until the hunt began. (3minutes is a horribly long time in the mind of a 1 year old!)Ready, and……GO! At first it was hilarious because almost all of the eggs were in the shape of ducks. She kept asking me, “Where are the eggs?” After finally convincing her that the ducks were the “eggs” and had treats in them, there was no stopping her. This time she knew to pick up as many as she could get in her basket. She had it down.😊When all the eggs were claimed, she wanted to open every one! The challenge was that it was SO windy everything kept blowing away. We let her open one, and then asked her to wait until we got home.William and Alex had a good time too, except they said that some kids kept taking everyone else’s eggs. William said one boy dropped his bucket, and several kids ran over, and instead of helping him put them back in his bucket, they took all his eggs. It really bothered William. He is such a sweet young man. It gave us some great lesson time to talk about kindness and not being greedy or selfish.We finished our event with yummy cupcakes, then headed home to FaceTime Brie. It won’t be too much longer until she is home! 😁

After a crazy start to the morning with gymnastics and soccer, Lucy had a birthday party to go to for her little friend Brinlee. It was SO cute! Kristi had their church in Blue Ridge decorated like a farm, complete with cow and pig balloons, and pig snout cups. Brinlee was also dressed for her special occasion in an adorable cowgirl outfit. We had so much fun! Lucy ran and played with the kids, ate hot dogs and cupcakes, and bounced on Hoppity Horse. I always get frustrated after these types of things though, because I never get very many pictures. Chasing a toddler around just doesn’t allow me to. 🤣 Lucy enjoyed being able to play with Maedreigh as well. Usually they are in class, and can’t really play. “Free Time” is the best playtime!

Life around our house has been very “Soccery” lately. First, Alex started soccer and now Natalie has made the school soccer team. Tonight was her first game. She majorly goofed and told us, more like assured us, that her game started at one time, but when we all arrived, it had actually started a half hour earlier. (I should have trusted my instincts!) To too it off, they only took cash for tickets, which we did not have at all. We had to pull out our camp chairs and watch the game from afar, while we waited for Sam to come and bring cash. At least we didn’t miss anything spectacular. Their team lost 1-0. It has been a long time since she has played, so she was very rusty and hesitant. Hopefully she finds her knack again. She was a fabulous soccer player before. That was such a hard time to have to make her choose between the two sports she absolutely loved, but there were just not enough hours in a day to do both. I know there is a reason for everything. Natalie learned so many life lessons from competitive gymnastics. I hoping she can find a sport that she loves and excells at again. After the game, my mom and I went out to celebrate my birthday. Finally. 🤣 Things have been so crazy around our house, there just has not been free time, until now. And luckily the weather only made beautiful works of art in the sky, but didn’t rain us out. It was a wonderful evening! So nice to just get out for a bit and be an adult, and actually eats hot meal that is all my own. 

Today was the last day of my 5 Day Photography Session. I have learned a ton, but still have a long way to go. I had to create a “story” collage for my final submission. I called it “Getting Messy.”

Most of it was working on finding the shot in different angles and getting good focus. (If you zoomed in really far, was it still clear.) I loved that I captured her little finger prints, the fuzzies on her neck and ears, the tiny stitches on her dress, and the little creases in her lips. Not bad for a rookie. 😏 I left this one out of my composition because my focus was off. I wanted to get her hand in focus, yet I got the ant on her dress instead. At least I can say my camera does not have an issue with focus! 😂 #usererror 

Today was a fabulous day! The boys have done incredible on their schoolwork. No fighting or arguing to get things done, and today was no exception. I am so proud of them. It is amazing how smooth and pleasant things are when they do what they have been asked. Lucy did not have a single potty accident ALL DAY! We even went to soccer practice in the afternoon and out to dinner (for several hours) and she did wonderful. She was so proud of herself she kept giving everyone her own high fives. 🤣  (We played outside on the trampoline this afternoon, and Lucy thought it was so funny how the static made her hair stand up. What little bit she has. 😂) My photography challenge for today was running on Manual Mode, Soft Light, and Obtaining Blur. Natalie was a great subject. She was so patient with me while I messed with the camera. I think our shots came out great! Afterwards, we finally took her out for her birthday dinner. She wanted to go to the Magic Time Machine. We have not been there in years! Needless to say, we haven’t missed out on much because it has majorly gone downhill. At 8:50, we waited for a half an hour to be seated in a restaurant that wasn’t even 1/4 of the way full. (That was made worse by one of the workers complaining about his job and cussing at the hostess stand in front of my children while we waited. 😞) Lucy’s silverware was filthy dirty. Smashed food was all on the floor around our table. When our dinner came, we didn’t even have our meal for 2 minutes before our waitress came asking if we wanted take home boxes. We were going to get dessert, but when she came to ask us if we would like to order dessert, she said, “Have you saved room for dessert?” As Natalie said yes, the waitress tells her, “Well you get cookies for your birthday. They have nuts. That’s good enough, right?!” And then she walks off. So much for ordering dessert. 😕 I can understand it was late, but we were NOT the only people in the restaurant. There were actually people still just being seated. It was pretty rude in my opinion, and we will not being going back. It is so sad that what used to be such a fun place to go, with so many many memories, has just fallen apart. At least Natalie was a good sport and still enjoyed herself. We’ll be going for a happier dessert tomorrow! 😁🎂Lucy couldn’t help herself from trying everyone’s food. Nattie was so sweet to share.😊❤️

Today, I was trying to shoot in manual mode. Horrible fail! I just cannot figure out how to get things focused. I tried at dance, and everything blurred. I just need to keep working at it.

When we got home, I just enjoyed trying to get Lucy to smile while she enjoyed her yogurt. She is such a ham!

“Don’t take my picture, Mama!”

 I LOVE these piggies! She made me paint them pink, and she insisted on painting over them with glitter. Silly Lu!

Today started my first of five days of a kids photography seminar. Since I got my new camera, I’ve realized how very little I know about actually taking pictures. Our subject for today was “The Right Light”. Finding the right level of natural light is not the easiest thing, especially when your subject moves. I decided to use Alex for today, since he obeys pretty well. Khaliyah was more cooperative than shooting Lucy too. 🤣I think it came out pretty good for a rookie. 😁After my needed pose, the kids wanted me to take action shots. Natalie was insistent on me getting her in the process of flipping.Not too bad. Then all the rest of the kids joined in.Including Lu.They had a blast watching how high they could all bounce and twist. I had a complete  heart attack with Lucy on there, so I finally had to make her mad and take her off. She needs to get a bit bigger to handle their craziness!

Today was the big day! We finally started potty training! It has been a fabulous day! Lucy has done so well. She had about 5 accidents during the day, which I completely expected since she had never actually peed on the toilet. She successfully peed on the little potty 4 times and then decided she preferred the big potty. She went potty 5 times on the big potty and loved being able to flush. I thought she was going to be scared of the big potty since she is so little. I should have known! ;DWilliam and Alex were such good helpers with her today. William would patiently sit with her and read to her when she would say she needed to go. He is going to be such a GREAT Daddy one day!Hoping tomorrow goes just as good!

We had dinner tonight at Annette and Wade’s. It was so great to see them and the kids. They have such a wonderful family. They just got a new pool put in and the kids had to restrain themselves from just jumping right in. 😂I was for sure one of them was going to fall in! But surpringly, no one did.Lucy kept herself entertained by passing out “gems.” She thought the fire pit rocks were diamonds.She also enjoyed watching the big kids be crazy on the trampoline. (I’ve realized that I need to get better at the things I take pictures of while we are out if I am going to document them. 😄) Oh well. I’ll get better at this. Next time I’ll get Annette’s kids in the pictures, and also all the adults.Abby made everyone a wonderful homemade strawberry ice cream. It was delicious! After treats, we had to hurry home though. We had an hour drive back and bad weather was headed our way. We managed to make it back okay, but Emily was not so lucky. 😳 They were hit with golf ball sized hail. I still haven’t heard the extent of their damage yet. I just hope this season is not what it was for us last year!