I love the Mother's Day Cards that my kids make at school when they are young!  Logan made me the cutest card and I got a little teary eyed at the end.  He's such a sweet boy and I love him so much!

All About My Mommy

My Mom has blonde/ brown hair and has green/ blue eyes.

She is 22 feet tall and weighs 2 pounds.

My Mom's favorite TV show is American Idol/ X Factor.

My Mom is very smart.  She knows all about books.

My Mom is happy when I do nice things.

It really bothers my Mom when I do not nice things.

My Mom likes to make posters. (I just made a bunch of posters for a Stake Music Workshop at church... he must think I actually like making those things... lol.)

My Mom likes to eat Macaroni & Cheese.

If my Mom could have one wish come true, it would be to see God.

My Mom is special because God created her.

Happy Mother's Day!  Made with love by: Logan

Isn't that sweet?  I get these type of cards every year and they never grow old.  Cameron had his Board of Review last night and is now a First Class Scout.  He's very excited!  Now he can work on his Star requirements.  Cameron also finished his tennis lessons this week and learned a lot and had fun.  I am VERY sore today from my Body Pump class at the gym yesterday.  I do the class every week, but I'm still getting sore... I guess that's a good thing.  :)

What a good weekend!  On Thursday, my symphony played our last concert of the season and it was awesome.  We played the Planets which is one of my all time favorite pieces of music!  We also played Sprach Zarathustra (theme from Space Odyssey... although Cameron knows it from Toy Story when Buzz appears for the first time), the Star Wars Suite (5 themes straight from the movie), and the the Blue Danube Waltz.  It was a great concert!  I've been doing a lot of self reflection lately about what really matters in life and I've decided music matters.  When we played Jupiter from the Planets, there was a section that is so moving and inspiring that it brought tears to my eyes as I was playing.  Music is so inspiring and beautiful and I love being a part it!

This weekend we went camping in Garner State Park and loved it!  It was SO beautiful and fun!  The trees are gigantic and the river was great.  There were several rope swings and the kids had fun swinging and swimming.  Because there is a drought, there were NO mosquitoes... I couldn't believe it.  There were also no bugs around our lantern at night; it was almost weird.  It was a nice temperature outside and there were lot of trees for shade.  We went camping with my cousin Shannon, one of her friends, and then a family we invited.  After the kids went to bed, the adults all stayed up talking and playing games until 2am... it was a blast!  I finally played Pressure Point which Mike got me for my birthday and it was so much.  We played another game that Mom would probably love for her school; I think it was called "You've Been Sentenced."  In the morning we went on a short hike up the mountain... I mean large hill, then we went swimming again, and then rented some paddle boats.  The kids had a blast and we would definitely go there again.

We had a huge storm last night.  The thunder was SO loud!  The power went out three times and our house alarm kept going off.

There were some really good talks today on service and being kind.  I liked Elder Ballard's talk about the GPS and how to organize and prioritize our lives & how to teach our children to be self reliant.  I'd like to hear Larry Y. Wilson's talk again.  Now that my children are getting older I need to let them use their agency more rather than always compelling them to obey.  I liked his quote on helping our children establish their own connection to Heaven.  The story that Neil L. Anderson told about the children that were trapped in Haiti after the earthquake broke my heart.  What a miracle that they survived and what a sweet story about their father not giving up and listening for the song his child was singing, "I Am a Child of God" so he could find them.  Oh, and I liked Elder Nelson's statement about the "big bang."  Could an explosion in a print shop produce a dictionary?  There were many other great quotes and stories and we all felt the Spirit a lot.  I love general conference!

So, today is April Fool's Day.  Cameron put duct tape on the bottom of Mike's computer mouse so when he went to use his mouse it didn't work.  When Mike looked on the bottom of his mouse the tape said April Fools (joke curtesy of Carol).  Mike also had to put up the projector at the church after conference so Logan and Errolyn hid in Mike's car until he left the street and then they jumped out and said April Fools.  (I was in on that one.)  The rest of the jokes have been silly.  Logan has been getting his feelings hurt with some of the jokes so we had to lay out some ground rules on what kind of jokes were and weren't acceptable.  Lol... kids.  I remember loving April Fool's Day when I was little.  I also remember which jokes were funny... and which one's were not.   (i.e. bunk bed falling on Janet and my Dad leaping up the stairs to save her and then being very upset when it was a joke.  That year I learned that you don't make jokes about someone being in a dangerous situation.  I even remember having spaghetti for dinner that night, but I don't know why I remember that... lol.  I guess the severity of the situation has really stuck with me after all of these years.  I now use that story as a lesson to my children each year of what NOT to do.)

So, last weekend we went to the Sherwood Forest Faire with Carol, George, Jim, Brian, David's family, and then at the end Linda's family.  It was so much fun!  The atmosphere was cool and the kids enjoyed the jousting and sword fighting.  Errolyn got a princess hat and the boys got wooden swords.  Sherwood cost a ton of money because every little thing once you got inside cost more money.  So, we probably won't go every year but it'll be fun to do once in a while.  There were mazes, a jousting ride for the kids, sword fighting classes, puppet shows, magic shows, mini castles to sword fight in.  We were there for 5 hours and were ready to go, but I was sad I missed seeing the Hobbit village.

Linda's family stayed with us for a couple of nights after Sherwood.  We played one game, but that's all we were able to do amidst the kids and church.  Grandma and Carol came over on Sunday to visit with Linda.

I had to go to the doctor a couple of times this week, but everything is fine now.  I'm enjoying playing the Planets with my Symphony.  And, our upstairs AC went out last night.  It was 87 degrees upstairs... we were dying.  So, we told all of the kids they could sleep downstairs since we have a working AC downstairs.  They were so excited to all sleep in the same room that they didn't fall asleep until almost 11pm.  And then Emma woke everyone up at the crack of dawn.  It was an interesting morning with all of the tiredness.

General Conference has been really good.  A lot of the talks seemed to be focusing on truly being converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and not just the church.  The second session had a lot of talks on service, learning to be more kind, and being open to receiving revelation. 

So, when the kids were really little we had them mark down everytime they heard the word "Jesus" during conference and they would get an M&M for each time at the end of the session.  As they got older we had to do one M&M for every 10 "Jesus Christ"s because it was said so often.  Then as they got older we also made them write about the main theme of each talk.  This time, we had Logan tally the "Jesus Christ"s since he's still younger, but we had Cameron and Errolyn write down each speaker and three or more things that each speaker said.  We told them that if they did it during the first session they would earn a bowl of ice cream for that evening.  And then if they did it during the second session they would earn toppings for the ice cream.  Errolyn received the most toppings because she wrote down practically everything anyone said.  The kids loved it and were excited to take notes during conference.  Emma wanted to join in too, so everytime Logan would shout out that he heard "Jesus" and go to mark it on his paper, Emma would go draw something on her paper.  Emma's vocabulary has grown so much in the last week.  It's amazing how just a week or a month can mean such a huge difference in development. 

Cameron is going to the Priesthood Session with Mike since he'll turn 12 in May... he's exited to go with his Dad.  Errolyn and Logan have already made the decorations for us to decorate Mike's car with while they're in the Priesthood session... it's become our family tradition.  Cameron has been working on a solar system project for the last couple of weeks.  He painted styrofoam balls like everyone else did, but he wanted to take it a step further.  He got out his roller coaster kinex kit and built a base for the solar system and then attached the motor so the planets would rotate around the sun.  It was cool.  He received a 100 and all of the students thought it was so cool.  Errolyn received straight A's on her report card, as usual.  Cameron does well, but forgets to turn in his work sometimes.  We've given him some new incentives to earn all A's, so I think he'll try a little harder to remember and be organized.