Springtime!!

This is what is growing in my neighborhood!! So pretty, the trees and foilage out here are so beautiful and breath-taking! Here are a sampling of pictures that were captured when Lesa was here:)

This is what is growing in my front yard!!  We added more flowers to this, so hopefully I will have an array of different colors in the front of my house:)

Kansas City Temple & Liberty Jail

I have so many pictures, that I wanted these two to have their own post. We are getting a new temple that is about 30-35 minutes from us. The one our ward and all members were going to was in Omaha, Nebraska; called Winters Quarters. Of course every temple is beyond words when you see it up close, and I was brought to tears as we walked/drove around it. Truly breath-taking.

The Liberty Jail was something spur of the moment, but I am glad we went. I did not realize how small it was! The Sister Missionary who gave us the tour, (It was really neat that it was just our family in this tour.) really put a new perspective on how to really see and feel what they were going through and thinking. She would ask certain questions after each dialogue was read, and played out. I can not explain how humbling and sorrowful I felt seeing those five men going through such dire pain and anguish all over just their faith. It is really remarkable to have the gospel and a deep understanding of how and why members and their families struggle to be as close to our Heavenly father as they can. I am so blessed to have the gospel in my life so I can learn and grow from it, & teach my family how to become better and closer to thee.

Visitors

So we had 5 days to get somewhat caught up before Lesa and Jim came to visit after our family trip. It was hard, but we managed to throw some things together. **As a side note, there was a sudden death in the family on David's side, so we were not sure when Jim and Lesa would be coming**. It worked out well, and the kids were beyond excited to see their grandparents. We did something everyday, and Lesa was a HUGE help around the house amidst all the hustle and bustle. Besides all the usual commotion, we were all getting over being sick, and getting sick AGAIN!!! Crazy..Jim wasn't feeling that great but still managed to have a good time (I hope). David's favorite part was golfing with his Dad a couple of times. Some of the highlights were bowling ( it was the girls' first time), Liberty Jail, the Kansas City temple, seeing the Hunger Games, and Hailey baby-sitting so we could take his parents out to dinner. It was a whirlwind of fun, and it went by too fast. It was nice to spend my B-day with some extra family around, to which they made it extra special. Even though I thought about my Dad a lot that day, it was very peaceful and humbling to have people around that could share in those special moments.

Here are just a few pictures that captured all the fun we were having:)

This is Hailey and Jim preparing for the Hunger Games movie, by reading as much as they can first:)

Look at how tall Hailey is getting:)

The kids have taught themselves how to do flips on the trampoline, so Grandma caught them on camera doing them:)

On one of the days, Jim and Lesa took everyone (minus Hailey and I) to The Hallmark Gallery. Since Kansas City is where Hallmark originated, they have made this mall type area (called the Crown Center) where they display and show you all their trademark items. One room is dedicated to all of their Christmas ornaments, another is to this woman below. They also own a lot of the stores around them. One is called Kaleidoscope, where they have all there left over products and samples that kids can go into different rooms and craft or build things. They had a blast:)

Epcot

This park is David's favorite, and although there is a lot to see here, there are not a lot of rides here. This is the biggest park, so it didn't feel so crowded. The best things to do are the Finding Nemo ride, Test Track, and of course Soarin'. This apparently is the biggest attraction at Disney, so the wait was ridiculous! By 1pm, fast passes were already gone for Soarin'. We were able to kill some time by going to this thing called the "Character Spot". Where they actually had a lot of characters to take pictures with, definitely worth the wait! There was a home and garden show expo going on in this park, put on by HGTV; so the view in some areas was breath-taking! My most memorable moment for sure was when we had a character lunch with the princesses. This was by far Avery and Audrey's favorite most anticipated thing we did. They o darn cute, and Audrey was very excited to meet Snow White, she even wore her dress to match her:)

All in all, I think we spent our time as well as can be expected with 4 kiddos, and if we had to do it again, we decided we would only come back in January or September when we would have the parks to ourselves:)