Samantha is Published!

There is a brother in our ward who is an amazing artist.  He recently had a coloring book published of Temples Around the world that is just darling.  Several weeks ago he asked if Samantha would be interested in drawing a picture to add to his coloring book which she was thrilled to do.  He stressed that it was up to the publisher if it would be included in the book but we gave it a shot.  This is the cover of his book, which you can find at church book stores.

This is one of his drawings that he did of the Nauvoo Temple.

Last week he brought a coloring book to church and showed us that Sam's picture was included in his coloring book.  She is soooo excited.  Here is her drawing of the Birmingham Alabama Temple.

This was a pretty neat experience for an eight year old!  She is so proud!

New Chicks

With the arrival of spring Mark decided it was time to get some more chicks to add to our current brood.  The three hens we have now have done a good job of providing us with eggs but fairly soon will be done with their egg-laying and then it will be time to butcher them.  In the meantime we will raise these little gals and by the time we butcher they will be ready to begin laying.

We got six of them and they are doing great in their home in the coop under the heat lamp.  One of them seems a little sickly and she spends a lot of time by herself so we are keeping an eye on her.

And here are our current hens - Della, CC, and ??  -- I always forget the third one's name.  I suppose that's not a good sign.  I promise that I really do care about them.

And sometime in the next little while.....perhaps we will be adding rabbits to our collection???

Emma's Recent Achievements

Recently Emma has been able to participate in a couple of fun activities at school.  One of them was a "Design an Ad" contest sponsored by our local newspaper.  All the schools in the district participated and Emma's drawing was one of 12 first place winners.  She made an ad for our electric company -- Oregon Trail Electric.  She was able to get her name and picture in the newspaper as well as the ad that she created.

She also stepped way outside her comfort zone and auditioned for the school musical and won a lead role.  The school did a play called "At the Bandstand" and learned several songs and dances from the 50's era.  Emma played the role of "Darlene" whose father is the corporate sponsor of the Bandstand television show.  A part comes open in the show for a new dancer and "Darlene" auditions for it thinking that she is a shoe-in since her father runs the show.  Unfortunately "Darlene" loses the dancer position to good girl "Cindy."  Although "Darlene" didn't win, Emma certainly did  a wonderful job portraying her and even sang a solo and danced in front of the whole school as well as family members who came to watch.  (I snapped a picture of her before the play in her dress costume - she said hi to Clara who is gazing very curiously at her big sister....too cute!)

This is the program that the school handed out (except I didn't scan it in the right direction...dang it!)  You can see her name and the song that she sang - "Sh-Boom."

This was a hard challenge for Emma but we are so proud of her for accomplishing her goals!

Yard Transformation

Now that spring is arriving Mark has been extremely anxious to get out and get going on more yard projects as we slowly transform things to the way we have envisioned.  We've had a couple of warm days mixed in between snow days so he was able to work on our berries and getting them transplanted.  He made a nice strawberry patch on the west side of our house and added in some white rock to accent it.  It looks so nice!

Here is another view....raspberries on the right, strawberries on the left, and a walking path in between leading to our garden.

He is also fixing up a nice flower bed for me in the front yard.

The outside of the fence was where half of our blackberry bushes were as well as a very large honeysuckle bush.  He cleared them all out and transplanted the berries to the other side of the fence.

The blackberries are all fenced in with a nice walking path in front.

With all of the cleaning up he did.....now it is time for a trip to the dump!

We figure we have about two and a half more months to get things looking the way we really want them to by the time summer is here and school is out.  Then we can spend the rest of the summer concentrating on the garden and having FUN!

Happy Birthday Mark!!!

Today we celebrated Mark's birthday.  Mark is such a quiet and reserved one so we try to make sure he has a really happy day when it is his turn.  He certainly deserves it for being such a great husband and dad!  He ended up taking today off from work so he could relax and enjoy some quiet time at home.  The girls and I made him some breakfast in bed and they gave him some homemade cards.  Then it was time to get them off to school for the day.  It was a quiet morning which is exactly what Mark was hoping for!  We grabbed some sushi takeout for lunch and watched a John Wayne movie together while Clara took her nap.  When Emma and Sam were home from school we decorated the house with balloons and a Happy Birthday banner to make things feel festive.  Last week I approached Mark about what he wanted for his birthday dinner and I suggested that I would make a Brazilian BBQ feast since his favorite restaurant is Tocanos.  He jumped at the idea.  Fortunately I have a friend in my ward who is from Brazil and she gave me some good tips for cooking and also gave us that 2-Liter bottle of Guarana (Brazilian soft drink).  We had grilled marinated sirloin, potatoes, grilled pineapple, and Pao de Queijo (Brazilian cheese bread).  Everything was so delicious.  For dessert I made him a chocolate coconut cream cake.....heavenly!

Then it was time for presents.  He got some things for the yard and some clothes but what he really wanted was the new autobiography of L. Tom Perry.  It has a lot of Perry family genealogy and pictures in it so he dug right in and read some family stories to the girls before bedtime.

I found this little candy jar on pinterest last week which I thought was so great.  I decided to make it for Mark but to change the wording and adapt it to his job as a parole officer.  He laughed and laughed - he can take it to work and have a little "treat" when things are stressful.

Hopefully his day was fun and he felt very spoiled.  We love him very much and we are blessed to have him in our family!