Mother's Day and May Birthdays!

We love getting together as a family to celebrate birthdays. This year we were able to celebrate birthdays and Mom's Day! We went to my sister, Stacy's, home. We sat in her backyard chatting, playing outdoor games, jumping on the tramp and spending time together. What would a birthday be without dessert? We had awesome ice cream sundaes with the works! YUMMY!

Happy Birthday!

(Jae, Marinda, Erin, Michael, Dad, and Eriq who celebrated their days in May)

After 3 years and two more babies, we got a picture of my parents with their 18 grandkids! Can you believe all the kids, but Jacob, are looking at the camera? Grandma forgot!

My Family!

Michelle, Stacy, Mom, Dad, Me, Denise, and Erin

Growing up with all girls was quite the ordeal. We had wonderful experiences and the daily fights, but my sisters are my best friends! I don't know what I would do without them. I Love You! Thanks for everything you do for me.

EASTER!

Ok I did get pictures of us coloring easter eggs, but none of them were my favorite to post.

Easter morning is always fun with the kids "hunting" for their baskets. The easter bunny sure has fun finding places to put their baskets each year. Colby's was in the entertainment center, behind scriptures (kind of a dark area), Chandler's was in the ottoman, Shyann's was behind my DI stuff, and Shelby's was in a cabinet in the bathroom. I failed as the "family photographer" to get a photo of all my kids together with their baskets. One to remember for next year.

After church, we went out to my parent's home for our annual "Hansen Easter Party". We have a yummy potluck dinner to start. Then the kids have to stay in the house while the adults hide the eggs around the yard. Finally after 7 years, we were all able to be together. This was Erin's family's first time celebrating easter with us. All 18 grandkids were there! Each grandchild has a number (Jacob was 1 because he was the last, Marinda was 18 because she was the first). We wrote the number on their hand and they had to look for the eggs with that number. Kambree thought it was fun just to find eggs and grabbed any one that she saw. We have such a great time and the kids look forward to it every year!

Kenzy was great at entertaining the kids while we put the eggs out.

Jon carrying out the container of eggs - this was one very full container. I spent about 4 hours helping my mom fill the eggs. Each child got 20 small eggs and 4 large eggs. Can you add up how many eggs there were? A LOT!

Casey and Keith putting eggs into their sacks to go hide. It's a good thing my parents have an acre of land to hide the eggs.

All the kids checking out their goodies!

They had to empty all the eggs so that we can reuse them for next year. Thanks mom and Dad for a great party, again!

The Rest of Spring Break

There weren't many more days for photos, except Friday. That is why I put the rest of the week into one post.

* Tuesday, I put the kids to work. It was a beautiful day and boy did my flower beds need some weeding done. Of course, we only partially finished one large one. We kind of all gave up. Colby and Shyann found something better to do while Shelby and Chandler helped me. They didn't even complain once!

* Wednesday, two of my sisters and I went easter shopping. It was quick and fun! I enjoy spending time with my sisters.. That afternoon, I could tell I was coming down with something. I invited Michelle over to make a couple of bracelets.

* Thursday, sure enough, I caught something. I really don't know if it was allergies or a cold, but I wanted to do not much of anything. Don't you hate that feeling? Michelle wanted Denise and I to go to the zoo. She thought it would be fun to go do something together before Denise's last chemo treatment. I told her we would save that zoo trip for another time.

* Friday I wanted to go do something with the kids for their last day of Spring Break. My niece, Marinda works on a farm and so we decided to go with Michelle to the farm. After the farm, we went over to the Bird Conservatory Wetlands in Layton. Yeah, there wasn't much to see, but it got the kids out and walking. We ate lunch in one of the towers.

Chandler and Shelby petting a baby goat that Marinda had chased down for the kids to pet.

Chandler, Shyann & Shelby playing in the tower after lunch.

Colby, Kambree and me eating lunch.

The "gang"

Colby found this snake at the end of our walk. GROSS!

We had a really fun week. It was great being able to just spend time with the kids.

Spring Break - Day 1

We decided to go visit my sister, Erin, for the day. We haven't been to her home in Pleasant Grove yet and decided it would be a great time to go. Her kids weren't out of school, but it was Michael's early out day.

Playing in Erin's backyard.

We just hung out in the morning and then when Michael got out of school we went to BYU to the Bean Life Science Museum. It was a lot larger than we thought. Each of the girls had a paper with a picture of the animals that they had to find and the boys had papers with questions. It was like a scavenger hunt. The kids had a great time!

The kids in front of this huge elephant in the middle of the museum!

I had to get this picture of Chandler in front of a Gaur's head. He had a huge research project on The Gaur. This was really exciting for him to see what one actually looked like.

When we got back from the museum, we went to the park across the street to let the kids play.

Colby & Jacob

The view from the park.

Shyann's New Do

The day after Shelby's haircut, my sister, Stacy, called to see if Shyann wanted her hair cut now. Shy didn't. But then the next day, I was brushing Shy's hair and she told me she wanted her hair cut short. I told her I would cut a few inches off first and then if she wanted it shorter, we would go to Stacy's. She agreed and was very excited. So here is her new 'do.

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

The girls with their new styles.

Trying to catch up

So my sister kind of got after me for not updating my blog. So here goes. Yes there will be a few posts, but I can say I will be caught up (for the most part).

A new Hobby

I have found a new "hobby"! Food Storage and grocery shopping deals. I know, it sounds pretty odd. However, my love and joy of digital scrapbooking has taken a back seat to this new found "hobby". I know, I can't believe it either. It is true.

It all started a few months ago. Around the end of Dec. I had this feeling that I needed to work on getting my basement cleaned out and organized. A friend of mine called and asked if I had any baby boy clothes for a neighbor of hers. So while I was at it, I gave away the rest of my baby clothes and baby gear. I was able to clear out three shelves in my storage room and it was such a feeling of a weight being lifted off. That got me in the mode of doing more. So I went through a lot of my scrapbooking stuff. Never thought I'd be able to do that. Paper scrapping is how my love of scrapbooking started. However, since I digital scrapbook, I figured I wouldn't miss it too much. I filled (plus some) a xerox box of old scrapbooking supplies and gave them away. Another feeling of relief! AAAHHH... I'm loving that feeling. About a week later, Casey said he was listening to a conference talk and asked me if I would be willing to work on food storage. FOOD STORAGE? Are you kidding? I have no idea where to even start. Way overwhelming to think about a year's supply of food! That week, our enrichment was on saving money and a 19x19 meal plan. This should be interesting. LOVED IT!

Then in February I attended a Pantry Secrets Enrichment. I learned to make bread. This is the most amazing bread. This bread takes me 1 hour from start to finish! Believe it! Unless I make rolls or a braid it will take a few minutes to shape. What really hit home for me on this was when Chandler came home from school the day after I made it and asked if he could have a piece of bread. Bread? Really? Not something he normally asks for, but ok, there's a loaf on the counter. No, he didn't want the store bought, he wanted the homemade. Needless to say, I haven't bought a loaf of bread since then. This bread dough is more than just bread. I can make braids, breadsticks, cinammon sticks, stuffed crust pizza, and more. Another one that hit me was when Chandler ate two slices of the stuffed crust pizza. He hates when I order stuffed crust from other pizza places, he would not eat the crust, EVER! Now it's his favorite! The only trick is, I haven't been able to make it gluten-free. I even had my sister who has celiac try and she couldn't do it either.

I have found a lot of great websites. I have almost got all of my year supply of food. Yes, it is an overwhelming thought, but trust me, if I can do it, so can anyone else! I didn't enjoy grocery shopping ever! Now it's one of my favorite things to do. I look at my favorite recipes. Then I thought about how I could make some of them non-perishable because that's what I needed for my main year supply food storage. Then, I went and bought the ingredients I would need that were in the caselot sale. Now that my main meals are mostly bought, I need to stock up on items that I go through faster (or the kids). Chandler is going to eat us out of house and home and he's only 9. So I need to stock up on cereals, snacks, toilet paper (it's getting there), quick meals, etc. We go through cereal so quickly, but I'm finally feeling like I'm ahead of the game. I look forward to finding the "great deals" for groceries. I can't believe the amounts of money I am saving now. For example, last night I went and bought 6 boxes of cereal (raisin bran, shredded mini wheat, and honey bunches of oats - no sugar cereals here), 3 boxes of 12-count Pop Tarts, and 18 count eggs for...... are you ready to hear how much I spent..... are you sure? $12. Serious! What a great deal - I saved nearly $30. My favorite was about 3 weeks ago. I bought 10 boxes of 12-count poptarts (they make a great after school snack for Chandler who is always hungry), 6 boxes of cereal, 4 boxes of choc chip cookies for Casey(ok me, too), 2 packages of lettuce, and 2 bags of doritos for..... $38! I saved $66. Yep, amazing isn't it? My sisters now want me to just buy groceries for them. I have had such a great time doing this. I love coming home and showing Casey the amount of food I purchased and then showing him the receipts.

My sister asked me to come down and show her how I do things. That made me feel really good. It made me feel like I actually may have figured out some of this overwhelming idea. By no means have I got it entirerly figured out, but I am so glad that I have been able to figure out a way for us to save money and get out food storage building. Like I said there are a lot of great websites out there that gave me a boost. I've been busy organizing my cold storage room and my pantry. It feels so good! I really feel like I will be blessed for being obedient to what the prophets have asked of us for so long.