Happy Easter

I know I am a little late posting Easter, but better late than never I suppose. We had a great Easter weekend together for the most part.  The Easter Bunny comes to our house on Saturday so that we can spend Easter Sunday remembering the real reason for the Holiday and can focus on Christ and the life changing events that happened on Easter Sunday.

Friday after school the boys helped boil the eggs for decorating.  Nathan put them all back into their cartons. 

There were only a few casualties, so we made the best of them.

The kids got a kick out of it, so they decided that's what they wanted to do from now on.  Easter will never be the same at the Sill house again.....

Here is what Saturday morning at our house looked like.

 The Easter egg Hunt is on......  Greg and I hide the eggs and put one out in front of their doors so they know what color they are looking for.....

 They got a little side tracked looking into Greg's basket.

 Greg put them EVERYWHERE..... yes, that would be in the window above the front door. (Nathan's egg)

 Still haven't found them all.... (we had to hide them all inside since the weather was NOT cooperating)

 Since when did the Easter Bunny start bringing presents??? Oh yeah, when he decided it was better than more sugar... (sigh)

 Let's dig in!!  Sugar for breakfast!

 No "business" going on here.  Everyone hordes their stash - for about 5 minutes....

 My absolute favorite thing the Easter Bunny brings is eggs filled with confetti that I can (and do) break over their heads.... every year!!!  And yet they are STILL surprised when I do it.....good times, good times...

This year the Easter Bunny even left some in their baskets... unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of the "aftermath".  But it was good!

After the major clean up, we "decorated" the eggs.  And here you go....

 This really is less messy, if not more disturbing than regular egg decorating..

Noah's sad little eggs, no really.... they were sad and crying because they didn't want to get eaten..

 Nicholas's public service announcement -"Always wear your helmet kids.."

 Nathan's crime scene..... His idea of egg 'dying"

 Noah's final "scene"...

Nicholas's collection of "eggstra" exciting eggs....

Kaylee and John were in town for Ashley and Cameron's BYU graduation and stopped by for a visit. They were very entertained by the "Sill style" Easter festivities....
Here is our Jelly Bean inspired Easter Cake...

Thankfully it tasted better than it looked.


Sunday came with a raging migraine that made me sick to my stomach, or I was sick to my stomach and got no sleep and ended up with a migraine.... either way, it was nasty.
I teach Relief Society one Sunday a month for 40 minutes.  That's it, that's all I have to do.  So I felt horrible calling before church to tell them I wasn't going to be there.  One of my huge pet peeves is people who agree to a calling and then don't do it.  I realize I have never done this before and I at least called and told them wasn't going to make it instead of just not showing up.  But still.... REALLY???  40 minutes a month??  So I spent the day feeling horrible - literally from my headache and from not being able to teach.  I took my medicine and was out to the world for most of the day.  Greg was awesome as usual and got the kids ready for church and took them all to church.
After church, he came home and fixed our Easter dinner - ham and all the fixins.  The boys helped him cut and mash and get everything ready.
Then as we were at the dinner table, he gave a great lesson on Jesus and the choice he made to become our Savior because he loved us so much.  And the significance and importance of the Atonement.  And of course it made me cry when he specifically pointed out that the last thing Jesus did before he died was make sure his mother was taken care of.  He always does such a great job teaching the boys.

After about 30 minutes at dinner, I was back in bed for the rest of the day.  The boys and Greg had a fun evening together.
My migraine lasted till Monday afternoon.  Then I was lucky enough to have the "day after" hangover.  It was lovely, but thankfully the boys had a great weekend and we were able to celebrate Easter together as a family.

Easter Treats

Easter is this weekend and Noah and I have been busy.  Time to frost the cookies!

 My great helper! I think he ate more frosting than we put on the cookies.

Then we attempted to make sugar cookie peeps.

Not bad - but we'll keep trying!

Then we decided to make some S'meeps.  S'mores with Peeps.  We made some up for the kids' teachers and a few neighbors.  Noah was thrilled when I told him we got to keep one too!

It was a busy and productive day - made treats, washed and changed sheets, cleaned the kitchen about a dozen times, had lacrosse practice and scouts.  Whew!

Yesterday Nathan lost a tooth at school and was so excited.  He wrote a note to the tooth fairy and left his tooth on his headboard........ where it was when he woke up today.  UGH!!!  The tooth fairy at our house needs to be fired! Or she needs an alarm. Or an assistant.  It wouldn't be as bad if it didn't happen so often.  So tonight before bed he posted this note on above the fireplace.

(directions for the fairy)  We'll see how she does tonight.

Cooking with the Sill boys

With lacrosse in full swing at our house, meals around here have not been what I had hoped.  I was hoping to be much more organized and have healthy things prepared before practices. Well, that hasn't happened. I am still hopeful that things will improve before the season ends and the next one starts.
So Greg has been wonderful yet again and has taken up helping with the cooking after work and practices. He went grocery shopping with me last Saturday and decided to make home made sausage egg rolls. They are soooooooooooooo good!! He hasn't made them for a long time. Nicholas is our little chef and is always ready to help in the kitchen. Greg took the opportunity to impart his knowledge on to the next generation.

I also decided to get ahead start and make some Easter sugar cookies, freeze them and then decorate them later.  Noah LOVES cookies and loves to help roll them and cut them out.  He especially likes frosting them and sharing them. He even helps me clean up after.

He really is my little helper.  He came with me to Sam's Club to get treats for the lacrosse tournament yesterday and asked if we could get some strawberries.  They really did look good.  So we got a box for our treat.  Noah doesn't really enjoy going shopping at Sam's Club because I never let him sit at the front of the store and watch the big screen TV's while I shop.  So for being such a good shopper that day I told him I would have a lunch date with him.

His lunch special is cheese pizza, cherry slushy and a churro.  He was good with that, but informed me I couldn't call it a date because he wasn't going to kiss me. What am I going to do without him when he goes to school all day?

We decided after we got the strawberries home and sampled several of them, we decided they needed a little something.

CHOCOLATE!!!  Needless to say, they didn't last long that day.  (We DID share some of them)
It was a great after school snack!


Friday night Nathan had the first of several lacrosse tournament games at Juan Diego High.  It was the Icebreaker Tournament that gave several teams a chance to play and have fun and get ready for the season.

We were up on the bleachers and I couldn't get a really good picture of Nathan.  He is #29 this year.  He is playing defense and is doing a great job!  They lost their game Friday night, but had fun playing.

Saturday he had 3 games and even though they lost all of them, the team improved with each game and Nathan made some fantastic blocks.  The lacrosse store had a booth set up and Nathan found a pair of neon green lacrosse socks that he really liked.  I will never have to worry about trying to find him on the field again.

Once again I only had my phone camera and couldn't get too close.  He is in the middle with the green helmet.  I figured his socks would be glowing, but the picture doesn't do them justice.

After a long day of lacrosse, (that started at 7:30 am for Nate and Greg) we spent the evening working in the yard.  Greg taught Nathan how to mow the lawn and we had "Competitive Weeding" going on.  We had a contest to see who could dig up the longest weed root.  A moms gotta do what a moms gotta do to get the weeding done.  It was actually fun and the yard is looking pretty good.

Today for Family Home Evening, Nathan was in charge of treats and decided to make lemon cakes for everyone.  He was so thrilled that he cracked all the eggs and didn't smash the shells or get any into the batter.  He did a great job!

They all did such a great job in the kitchen this week that I might just hang up my apron!
Good job boys!