Easter Party

Whenever there's a holiday, we get to celebrate with a family party at Melanie and Ben's house. The Easter celebration includes dinner...

...and an egg hunt (where the kids get enought candy for ten children)

...and dyeing eggs (Note: it was much more fun than Court's face makes it seem.)

...and creative treats courtesy of my talented sister. These "eggs" are actually cupcakes!

Same with these! (Now this is how I like my veggies...)

Birthday Backup

I was going through pictures on the camera card and realized I never posted pics of the Mattingley men on their birthdays this year (both are in February). Neither of them will actually care about this oversight, but for the sake of trying to keep the blog (a.k.a. our digital scrapbook) up to date, here's proof we did celebrate their birthdays...

The cake would probably be on fire had we used the correct number of candles. Let's just say the single candle represents "one" year left until the big 40!!!

Can he really be 14??

We interrupt this birthday celebration to answer a text. Typical teenager!

The Fun Never Ends

See that bump on the side of my finger? Any guesses? It's the pin the doc put in my finger during surgery last summer after my unfortunate pool umbrella incident. The bump means the pin is trying to come out. (And yes, it's as gross, freaky, and painful as it sounds.)

Luckily, it was an "easy fix" and could be done as an in-office surgery. A little anesthetic to numb my finger, a tiny incision, a quick grab with some surgical pliers, and it was done. 15 minutes tops. Two stitches later, I was on my way.

I've had to start my exercises again to get the stiffness back out, but it's just nice to have my right hand functioning again.

The doc says the remaining plate and screws can stay in forever and shouldn't cause me any problems. Hmmm... Given my luck, I'm not sure I share his confidence. Let's go with cautiously optimistic... =)

A Break From the Routine

Random teacher workday = no school

Gorgeous North Carolina Spring weather

Reese's cup milkshakes at Cookout

Life is good.

Not Our Typical Date Night

A couple of weeks ago, Jason and I got to chaperone the multi-stake Priest/Laurel prom. I was excited to get a nice picture and a few slow dances. Jason was excited BYU beat Gongaza.

On the Way to School Today

We were listening to the radio on the way to school today. The guy started talking about an article he just read about some study that apparently shows that 1 in 6 moms has a favorite child. I told the kids, "Don't worry, I don't have a favorite child." Courtney replied, "But if you did, I bet it would be me." =)

Creative Courtney

Courtney had an animal project for school and really wanted to do a giraffe. Not the easiest thing to make from scratch, but a little cardboard, masking tape, and papier-mache actually worked out a lot better than I thought it would.

Here she is with her finished project, ready to head off to school.

An afternoon project - matching crowns for her and her bunny

An art project at school

Courtney's picture was chosen by her art teacher to be part of a display at a local credit union. We thought she'd be more excited about it, but she was the first one ready to leave, and she barely tolerated this picture!