A trip to Canada

Last week we had the priviledge of attending Grandma Ruth's funeral in Canada. She lived a wonderful long life of 91 years. When it became obvious that Grandma was going to die soon I asked my parents if they would tend our kids so we could attend her funeral. She died last Thursday and on Friday we packed up and headed north leaving our 5 kids in the care of my parents who live near us. This was the first leg of our trip through the Cascade Mountains of Washington.
Don't the clouds create a majestic look?

We drove east through Washington, across the narrow neck of Idaho and north through Montana to reach our destination. Driving 11 hours was long but without children in the car it was a relaxing trip. Finally we reached Alberta. The roads were clear the whole day.

We headed to Scott's Uncle's house driving right past the temple. There we found a note on the door with directions to the mortuary where a family viewing was underway.

Scott's mom was so very glad we had come.

After the viewing and lots of visiting we headed to our hotel for the night. We stopped by the temple for a proper picture of it. It is such a mighty looking temple and I like seeing it lit up at night.

The next morning was the funeral. A wonderful display of family photos lined the foyer by the chapel. I really liked this photo of Grandma and Grandpa. I imagine they are having a wonderful reunion up in heaven.

The talks and music at the funeral were very sweet. Scott's cousin was able to broadcast the sound of the funeral online so that family members who couldn't be there could still listen in. After the funeral Grandma's coffin was wheeled out and we all filed out of the church to head to the cemetary. It was such a bright sunny day outside which was a real blessing. Earlier in the week there had been several days of snow. I love these two pictures of family casually visiting.

Scott has such great relatives, I'm glad that we could be here with them. I bet Grandma Ruth was smiling down on us as we visited on this special day.

Here are the three Walkers at the cemetary.

When we were done at the cemetary lots of us gathered at Scott's Aunt and Uncle's house for an evening of catching up on each others lives. I was glad to not have any of my kids with me so we could visit as long as we wanted to. We woke up at 6am the next morning and headed home leaving the snowy praires of Canada behind us.

We arrived at my parents house at 6pm, just in time for an Easter dinner. Our kids were happy to see us and show us all the treasures Grandma and Grandpa Moulton had bought them at garage sales. This week I got copies of all the talks from the funeral and next family home evening we plan to teach our kids all about their sweet and spunky Great Grandma Ruth.

Today I am thankful for:

*good movies, I just watched Confessions of a Shopaholic and really liked it.

*a washing machine and dryer that do all the work to clean our clothes, unlike the old days when you had to wash it manually and hang it out to dry. (today is my laundry day)

*Sunshine, blossoms and tulips. I just love looking out the window on days like today.

Easter Traditions

Every year before Easter we make springtime sugar cookies. This year I even let the girls pipe frosting onto their cookies. They all did a fantastic job applying the frosting without my help. Then they applied sprinkles--our favorite.

You can tell Melissa was concentrating very hard.
Here are our finished cookies! I have to admit the girls were arguing and being bossy during the cookie making, but that is part of the fun right? Even though the piped cookies look cute they just had too much frosting on them. I had to take off about half the frosting of the cookies I ate.
We did our family Easter egg hunt on the Thursday before Easter. Scott and I were heading to Canada for a funeral the next day and wouldn't be back until Sunday night. So we sent the kids upstairs and then Scott and I got busy hiding eggs. The kids were all upstairs singing and so excited! We hide the same number of eggs for each child and write their name on their eggs (or put stickers if they can't read). Here is Emily busy looking for her eggs.
These three found all of their eggs and now they get the fun of opening them up to find the yummy candy.
Holly is so creative she sorted and put her candy in color order.
Today I am thankful that
*we got to attend church Easter Sunday and remember the true meaning of Easter
*my parents kindly tended our 5 children when we went to Canada for a funeral (pictures to come)
*I live in such a beautiful place (even when it is raining! like today)

A night out

Scott and his coworkers were given free tickets to a Mariners game. Each person got a ticket for them and their spouse, plus free parking. Because our baby isn't such a baby anymore and our big girls can babysit we jumped at the chance and headed to the ball field. This picture was taken on the bridge heading into Seattle.
And here we are at Safeco Field. We sat by three of Scott's coworkers and it was lots of fun.

Here are some shots I got as I looked around from my seat. This was my first game at Safeco field.

Here is home base.

I loved watching all the vendors trying to sell their food. Cotton candy, yum.

These two guys filmed the audience after each inning. The guy on the right held this huge antenna thing and the cords.

This man with the hot dog hat was selling pretzels. I think he needed a pretzel hat.

This is the Mariner's mascot. I'm not sure why it is a Moose but he sure was a good dancer.

I really didn't watch much of the game and the Mariners ended up losing but it was fun to be in the baseball field environment. Our house was clean when we arrived home, the dishwasher was running, and the three little kids were alseep. We paid Holly and Emily well. They've learned from past experience that if things aren't clean they get paid less.

Today I am thankful that:

*my tulips are starting to bloom

*yesterday was very sunny and we played outside all afternoon

*My friend Heather had a big healthy baby after a long painful pregnancy
*Holly helped Emily with her homework (I love it when they get along). Since a scene like this is rare I snapped a picture.

Spring crafts and spring blossoms

I just love Springtime. I visited my mom's house recently and she had this adorable bunny and basket. She picked them up on her last trip to Utah. The bunny looks like a giant chocolate bunny wrapped in foil.

And my mom made this adorable bunny quilt. It is definately one of my favorite quilts that she has made.

I also made an Easter craft this year. Since my Valentine felt cookies turned out so cute I decided to make some Easter felt cookies. My kids think the butterfly is the cutest.

Melissa and I worked together to make these cute paper Easter puppets.

Cute Easter chicks at my mom's house.

This is a Magnolia from our backyard tree.

A line up of blossom trees near our house.

Closeup of blossoms on a sunny day.

Silly spring decorated tree stumps in our city.

Today I am thankful

*for a friend who tended my two little kids. I raced home and got caught up on another child's scrapbook.

*for used bookfairs. I went to one last week and spent $11 and got all these books plus the popup dollhouse (for 50 cents)

*that my older brother and his wife were in town on Sunday and attended the Moulton family dinner. My mom's friend came over and we got a picture of the whole Moulton gang. There are 28 of us now.

Spring Break

This past week was Spring Break. We had fun celebrating Melissa's fifth birthday. She really wanted both this dress and the Minnie Mouse balloon.

She had four friends come over for a birthday party. We had an Easter theme to her party with crafts and puppets. Brownies and ice cream were the birthday treat.

Then after the party ended we packed up our van and headed to my parent's cabin. It is about 1 hour away and we thought it would be fun to go and stay there for a night. Here is Melissa excited to be at the cabin and showing off another new outfit and birthday toy.

The most exciting thing that happened at the cabin was Megan losing her first tooth. She had been waiting a long time for this day. Of course the snow was fun too. Holly made a snow fort but only half of her body fit in it.

Melissa loved sliding down the snow mounds.

The kids all thought it was fun to sleep in the same room.

Melissa made this snow creation, I'm not sure what it is.

And Scott found some cool animal prints in the snow.

Today I am thankful that:

*I got to attend the baptism of a sweet girl that has been attending my Beehive class for the past year.

*We got to listen to general conference. Doing so always makes me want to be a better friend, mother, and wife. Now I need to make some goals and work to carry them out.

*Holly can play on the piano, by memory, a beautiful YW song that we sang earlier this month in church called "Be Believing". A very talented lady in our ward wrote the song for us to sing for YW New Beginnings.