Easter Morning

With 9AM church, it made for a rushed morning to squeeze everything in. I woke up at 6:30 to get the ham and potato dish prepared and ready to go into the oven while we were gone. Corby had his usual meetings so he was up and outta here. I figured if the little ones didn't wake up early enough the hunt could wait until after church. Then this is what I saw......

Two blurry eyed girls anxious to see what their baskets were full of. Can you say morning hair?

The cotton  candy is supposed to take the place of that messy fake grass but we learned the hard way with a humidifier on our furnace what that does to our precious cotton candy so we use our imagination that the cotton candy is covering the bottom of our baskets instead of being in it's container.

Ada showing off her beautiful new dress.

Bria beginning the search for the coveted eggs. Early bird gets the worm  this morning. You snooze you lose.

As you can plainly see. Sierra is not happy she missed out on the majority of the  hunt.

 

Gold mine Teesh!

Cute Ada found a few eggs hiding

  And sweet Bria too

Malia is filling that basket rather quickly

That sneaky bunny found some awesome places to hide her eggs

Off to church with our matching Easter dresses.

After church we hustled home to enjoy the traditional Easter meal(at least traditional at our house)

 

These rolls are my families favorite! I don't make them that often because they aren't healthy but holidays aren't about healthy so bring on the yummy rolls.
After dinner, Teesh shared the egg story about the resurrection with the family for FHE. The little girls loved it. Teesh did such a great job preparing. Kathleen stayed down to spend the day with us. 
At 3:15 I had to take Corby to the airport. The girls stayed home and played outside, the weather did not disappoint on this beautiful Sabbath day.
Even though it was a crazy weekend, it all turned out and we enjoyed celebrating Easter as a family. Hope your day was just as swell as ours. Cheers!

Stand Ye in Holy Places

Our ward was lucky enough to get tickets to the conference center for the broadcast this year. I even was hooked up with free parking passes, (only 700 blocks from our destination), but it was all good!

Growing up, it was a tradition to attend the broadcast then go out for pizza. I have tried to re-create this tradition but it just doesn't seem to happen. Each year there is something we have to get back for or someone wants to join us. So much for mother daughter bonding!

Kathleen came down to join in the fun. We all piled into the Yukon and headed  downtown. Sierra met us there since she was already downtown with her friend.

We were supposed to be in our seats at 5:30 sharp but to find a parking stall took way longer than I had scheduled and then the walk. Wow, the walk was amazingly long.

The long and the short of it we made it and actually got super great seats thanks to our young women leaders saving them for us.

We were all seated waiting for it to begin when in walks the prophet. Complete silence in seconds and we all stood to show our respect.

The talks were phenomenal. Teesh busily took notes while I basked in the spirit and silence. Silence these days is priceless. I seem to always have noise and chaos around me so silence felt great. Malia brought her good friend Avery and Sierra sat with her friend Morgan. The talks were awesome! The theme  "stand ye in holy places and be not moved". The leaders are truly inspired. I really hope my girls felt what I did. These days there is so much evil but in actualality there is so much good too. Stay close to the prophet little ones. Stand in Holy Places and be not moved.

We made the 700 block trek back to our yukon and went to the store to score the makings for ice cream sundaes.

What a great evening! Now on to Easter celebrations.

 

Leticia, Kathleen, Malia, and Avery

Easter Weekend

Why is it that every Easter weekend is so jam packed, oh maybe because every minute of my life is jam packed!
The weekend began on Thursday for this household. We squared away Malia and Sierra with friends, Sierra doesn't have Friday off from school so she stayed back to keep that 100% attendance in play and Malia didn't have ballet practice, first time in weeks, and wanted to spend time with friends. So Corby, myself, Teesh, and the little nuggets piled into Lila and headed North. We had a few stops along the way, but arrived at our destination by 7:30PM. We stayed with Brad and Teresa's family this go around since we had to be on USU campus bright and early 8AM. Corby stayed up chatting, but I put little ones to bed and hit the hay. I have been so tired lately.
Corby dropped Teesh and myself off on campus around 8 and we registered and settled in our seats. The announcer said," oh students you will be divided into groups according to your declared degree and parents you will stay here with me". I wasn't ready for that but the announcer reassured us that we have to cut the apron strings soon anyway, so why not give it a trial run. I don't know about this college thing, the closer it comes the more I think Teesh should stay home.
It was a l-o-n-g day, but oh so great. Teesh met friends and I sat and sat and it felt nice. I learned all about the resources at the university and listened to how much this experience is going to cost. Lucky us, did you know that Friday the State Committee was reviewing and passing a bill that will raise all state college tuition by 5%. Isn't that the best news ever. I agree, I was smiling from ear to ear. The other special moment of the day was of all the people I could sit by, I chose to sit by two ladies that both have children that scored 33's on their ACT's. Hello! that is pretty close to a perfect score. So, while I am complaining about the outrageous fees and tuition costs, they are sitting back saying, "Go ahead, raise tuition, we have a full ride" Some people's children get all the luck.;) The principle of "what is best will happen and we are strong enough to handle anything that crosses our path" applies here! It was a fantastic day and we even took a tour of where Teesh will call home on August 17th.  She will be staying in the dorms, San Juan. We are trying to switch her to Davis Hall though, they are just nicer and have a few more features that will help with the tight, small, cramped, quarters of good ole' dorm living. I only lived in a dorm in the MTC for 3 weeks which was more than enough time for me! Good luck Teesh it will be great, I promise.
Corby spent the day visiting with Teresa and then headed to his sister, Janalberries, to dye eggs. This is the second year in a row I have missed this tradition, but Corby filled me in on the juicy details so it was as if I was there.

 Bria and Ada thoroughly enjoying themselves.

 

Such a sweet little face.

Bria enjoying the cousins and photo shots!

 Bria, Brynlee, and Ada

 Bria, Brynlee, Ada, and Kale

These photos crack me up! Every picture Kale is doing something funky with his face and hands. Gotta love two year old's and this one in particular is extra lovable.

Corby picked Teesh and I up from campus around 3:30. Bria and Ada rode with Daddy to come get us strangers. As soon as I entered Lila, Bria blurts out that Ada's pull up flew out the window. What? Corby smiles and confirms that yes, that is a true statement. As we were almost to Janalee's pad, Corby sees the pull up in the gutter by the side of the road. He makes a u-turn and grabbed that baby up so slick and fast. The little girls thought it was hilarious and I thought it was so unnecessary but none the-less, our pull up was found and I might add had to be used on the drive home. When we arrived at  Janalee's we enjoyed some summer lounging on the grass, playing games, and eating some awesome grub. We had to cut the evening short for our long drive home and busy morning that lay ahead.


Before we left, we met the newest family members in the Hubbard household.

I know Janalee, this isn't the best of you, but look at little Ada Rae peering out from behind you. Oh and by the way, Janalee is like 6 months preggers in this photo. Would you have known that if I didn't point it out? Yea, I didn't think so. Some people and their tiny little bellies, Jealous!

Kale doesn't like the feel of the chicks feet so this is how he holds his friends.

Teesh you are such a beautiful girl. Way to be brave even though you really didn't want to hold that animal.

Saturday morning, Teesh had to be at the park at 7AM sharp to prepare for the Community Easter Hunt. We showed up at 9 and by 9:03 the hunt was completed. Teesh was in charge of the 0-4 year old's group, Bria went with the 5-8(My poor baby almost got trampled) I prepped my youngins for a successful hunt by giving this advice, "It is a dog-eat-dog world girls, take out your neighbor" Bria thought that phrase was so funny, she thought I was telling her to be a dog. I was proud of my advise. Corby just shook his head as he often does with my counsel.

It was so fun to run into friends from our neighborhood.

Here is Teesh all official in her Taylorsville shirt.

The Loot!

I then took off to begin my 11 mile run, while Teesh raced home to change her clothes and head to the stake baptism, where she plays the piano. She caught up running with me around mile 4. We ran and ran and got to 9 miles when I simply just ran out of time to finish the last two. I felt disappointed to quit but I had an obligation at 1o'clock. I accepted defeat and was only a few minutes late to my appointment.
I attended a class titled "Intro to Alternative Healing" I learned from experts about different ways to heal ourselves emotionally, physically, and spiritually. It is interesting because most attendees aren't my same faith, but we all believe in a higher power. I feel more comfortable with others who don't believe the same as me, kind of strange but I do. I feel like I get the opportunity to bear my testimony and share my beliefs often which I absolutely love.
The meeting ended at 4:15 and I was back on the road downtown to the conference center with Kathleen, Teesh, Malia, Avery and myself. Sierra met up with us there because she had been to a Baseball game with our neighbors. It was an incredible evening. The speakers were wonderful. They had a tiny little 12 year old give the opening prayer, now that takes guts. She did amazing. I love the message which was "Stand Ye in Holy Places, and be ye not moved" I hope my beautiful daughters were listening because wow, so many truths were shared. What a great opportunity to share with my girls. We bought some ice cream and different toppings to finish the evening off right.

Questions 101

Hey, all my fellow peeps, I want advise. This may mean you must comment or send me a private message some other way but I want opinions on this topic.
So do you pay your house off early or not? Do you put the extra payments that would go to your mortgage into another option that pays higher interest than what you pay for your mortgage? This is a conversation I have often with friends and my husband and everyone has differing opinions so please feel free to share. I have my opinions and they are pretty strong but so are Corby's and unfortunately our opinions don't match up. So please please help me out!
Vote for Summer!

5th week of Training

I am not sure what is in the universe to make this training go around so hard, but something has it out for us! Every week between the weather and previously scheduled commitments our runs are so hard to fit in. 

Can you tell how many miles we just completed? I am loving my mismatched gloves. We finished earlier than last Saturday. We were home by 8:30PM. It was so cold running, I never did get to the point I wanted to take my jacket off, and that rarely happens since my body temperature runs hotter than most.

Good run Teesh. Now looking forward to week 6 with 11. We do hard things!

Going Private and other silly items!

Go private, stay public, go private, stay public. Stay public wins! I am so incredibly awesome with the settings of this blog that I can't figure out how to do it. I know I have a college degree and all but this process is kicking my behind! Not really that bad, but it has been frustrating on trying to add people to my reader list. Am I that person that is getting too old  for modern technology? My mother-in-law, bless her heart(isn't that what old people say;0) refuses to use ATM machines. She really believes that it will steal her money so she insists on going inside for all banking needs. I think it is so silly and yet I am becoming her while I hear others say I think that is so silly! None the less I am public again.

The past few weeks have been pretty day to day. Nothing super fancy just normal Hansen life. I went to retrieve the mail the other day and what did I find.........jack pot!

 Yes, Corby will retire in two weeks because of this awesome check. Sierra's braces will be paid for and we will no longer have a mortgage.

In case you couldn't read the amount here is a close up!

I had to giggle when I opened the envelope. Seriously? I think it cost 5x's that amount to generate, print, and mail this check. I would have donated to charity if I knew it was coming. Thanks for the laugh MetLife!

One day during dinner I looked up and saw this.......

 

 

Can you tell who the face belongs to behind the shirt? When I saw her I just had to laugh, why? What would possess my daughter to do this? If only we could get into the minds of three year olds, it would probably be very enlightening. For whatever reason for this behavior, thanks for the laugh little Ada Rae!

If you want the recipe just ask, they are delish!

 

My girls love sweet potatoes! I love sweet potatoes and we both love it when I make sweet potato fries. These beauties are divine! Pretty easy to cook and so so tasty. 

I love the poses I seem to get from Ada these days. 

She is a natural!

Gentle Reminder

Came across this quote and love it! I needed this reminder. I love belonging to an organization that is so wonderful. I also feel like young and small or teenager age, this applies.

So grateful for prophets that lovingly remind us what is ultimately important.

March, St. Patties Day

This month is almost over and I haven't had a chance to do my photo of house decor and shelf. Because this holiday ended up on a Sunday this week we had our traditional green pancakes for lunch instead of breakfast. My house looks like a tornado landed so please excuse the mess and enjoy the thought.

 I need to brag for a bit here, see my letters? I saw these in an ad and asked Corby if he could create them for me. He pulled out the card stock and created the letters. He is amazing huh? I traced them on wood and then cut them out. I love crafts that cost little to nothing. Frugality makes me so deliriously happy!

 I made this many years ago and still absolutely love it! It hangs on my front door.

 This sits to the side of my front door. It is rather big but looks so festive. Even though we don't do much for St. Patties day, the decor is always fun.

 Here are our green pancakes!

We splurged and even had sausage for the holiday. Ada loves sausage!

 Here is my Sierra Magera doing her dishes. I am embarrassed that my house is so messy but it is the sabbath and we are having a day of rest. Plus this blog is real and real is messy homes some days.

When everyone was dressing for church, Bria asked why we were all wearing green. I explained how if you don't' wear green you get pinched. Bria began to be all nervous saying she did not have green pj's. This girl cracks me up. I told her I would protect her when she got into her pajamas.