Saturday Outing: Ring-tailed Lemurs

The kids were so excited to see ring-tailed lemurs and other animals from Madagascar. It was opening day. K got chosen from the audience to be dressed as a lemur, so the lecturer had a visual aid while teaching about the uniqueness of lemurs.

You may think this looks a bit goofy . . .

but one of the lemurs was quite taken
with the disguise!

Spring Break

We had a wonderful, adventurous spring break. 
Among other things, we:

investigated a very old filled-in well, 

Temple Trip

We live two hours from the nearest temple. That's a long time to pay a babysitter for. Sometimes the only way we can go is to take the children with us, and take turns. While Cory was serving inside, I got a photo shoot of the kids outside before taking them to the park.

I told the kids that sometimes, when a boy wants to marry a girl inside the temple, he'll take her to the temple and propose there. K was happy to act this out, but it looks like M needs to think this over.

10 Year Anniversary

Some people say that the most important thing you can do for your children is love your spouse. I think that makes us super parents for going to Disney World . . . without the kids.
It was wonderful.

Stephanie in Epcot's Morocco pavilion at sunset.

It was cheaper to visit Epcot than to visit to Morocco, France, Japan and Mexico. We ate dinner at the expensive Bistro de Paris near the Eiffel Tower--turns out escargot tastes great with ravioli. As a souvenir, we found a matted painting of the France pavilion.

Coloring Page Cake Tutorial

For M's birthday, she really wanted a Hello Kitty cake. I used a simple coloring page as a template. This is the finished product:

Here's how it works:

Kids' Quotes

Little Nephi has been thinking things through. The other day he informed us, "We have two suns. One in our sky and one in outer space."


This morning, over breakfast, he commented, "They forgot to put sugar in lemons."

Flying with Children

This past summer we flew cross-country. Round-trip. The first time I flew alone with our four children and discovered how many strangers will take pity on an overloaded Mom flying alone--offers to watch our things while I took kids to the bathroom, or help me get to my terminal. The help I most appreciated? When Little Nephi, wearing his overstuffed backpack, fell backwards on the escalator. He was laying there, like a helpless turtle on a soft shell, and I was just out of reach, balancing the stroller on two wheels so we could make it up the escalator. The man in front of him came down to help him up.
By the time we flew home, Dad had joined us, and learned how long the day is when you're strapped in a seat next to four antsy little ones.
Useful things we learned:

Window seats are good.