Krista's gala birthday week begins!

Josh's fiance, Krista Huckvale, will be 22 on April 7, and so far the only negative part about Josh marrying Krista is that it gives our family another April birthday!!!  She joins Uncle Kirk, Melissa, Luke, Sarah, Cameron, Reese, Mark, Ben and my Mom! Since her birthday was just a few days away, we decided to start celebrating so that she could have a gala birthday that lasted all week long.

It is always wonderful to spend time with Josh & Krista and see how happy they are.  Their June 5th wedding is just 2 months away!  I was excited to find gift wrap that matched their wedding colors. We celebrated with funfetti cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for dessert.  I'm bummed these pictures are blurry, so hopefully my Mom's will be better.

Easter in Parowan

My Dad had knee replacement surgery on March 22 and the good news is that he is having a great recovery and physical therapy is going well.  The bad news is that he developed a staff infection while in the hospital that has proved to be a bit more challenging.  He is currently stable, but will have 6 weeks of anibiotic infusion treatments.  That entails a daily trip to Cedar City (1/2 hour away) and the treatment which lasts about 90 minutes.  Needless to say, we have all been very concerned, and since Suzy had Friday off for Good Friday, we decided to make a quick road trip.  We are so glad that were able to visit with Mom & Dad, check out the situation first hand and give Mom a little bit of a break. 

Suzy's daughter, Sarah had already planned to be in St. George for the holiday weekend with her boyfriend for a family reunion, so on Saturday after we got Dad settled for his treatment we went to St. George to pick her up so she could visit with Mom and Dad in Parowan ( about an hour away).  Sarah is holding the parts that were removed and replaced in his knee (this is his second surgery on that knee ).  

On Sunday morning Josh & Krista drove down from Provo bright and early to watch conference and spend the day with us.  Poor Josh inherited his blinking talent from me as well as his Aunt Suzy and sister, Melissa.  Sorry Josh, but it's a cute smile and how adorable is our Krista?

On our way to Parowan we made a short detour to rendezvous at Zion with our Schweppe cousins so that Suzy's son Trevor could camp with them for the weekend.  It is always so much fun to see Mark and Julene and thier families.  They stopped to drop off Trevor with us on thier way home to Kaysville and Liberty.  Aunt Remerice was there so we got to take a few quick cousin pictures.  Aunt Remerice is my Grama Buff's youngest sibling and she lives in Parowan.  She reminds us so much of our Grama Buff it always tugs at our heart when we get to see her and hear that voice and see that face that is so similar and so dear to us. 

Since Suzy was blinking in the first picture, here's the good one of her with me blinking this time.  I wish I had taken more pictures of Mark's cute family and my nephew Trevor.  Hopefully when Mom gets her film devleloped there will be some more.  It was such a treat to be together, even if it was for a short visit.
Can someone say "BUFFINGTON REUNION"??? 

A little cake with our frosting!

I love icing, frosting, whip cream. Love them all.  So I try to share that love with my children, nieces, nephews and my grandchildren.  When I ordered the cake at Costco none of the designs seemed to fit and they all had bright colors that make the icing taste bitter and we can't have that!  Why waste good buttercream icing?  So I got the brilliant idea to order the cake in all white since I knew 57 candles would be plenty of decorations, and give us lots of frosting to taste!

Dylan needed no instruction and snitched a fingerful

as soon as he could reach the cake.

 

Luke wasn't far behind him and even Austin got a taste!

Did I say I love frosting?

Happy Birthday Craig!

We have had a gala birthday weekend celebrating even though Craig's birthday isn't until Monday, March 29th.  He does not enjoy being in his 50's so it is one of the few things we can tease him about, so we put 57 candles on his cake and it brought new meaning to " a burning ring of fire".  It's a good thing he had Luke and Dylan to help him blow them all out. 

We are so glad Greg and Melissa's family is close by in Lake Elsinore, but when it's holiday or party time, we all really miss the rest of the family in Utah, Idaho
and Louisiana. 
 

Dylan loves to do puzzles and he will sit for a good hour and do the hardest puzzles that most of the preschoolers can't do.  As you can see he is barely balancing on the chair to get as close as possible.

I found some cute little 24 and 35 piece puzzles and we took them over that night and that's how we spent a good hour.  Dylan says "hmmm" as he tries to figure out where to put a difficult piece, it is so sweet.

Luke is a great puzzler as well.  This boy has always had the greatest smile!

All of a sudden our youngest grandchild has changed from a baby to a busy, crawling, jabbery little boy.  He is always so happy.

Austin loves the water and the bath is one of his favorite places. 

Melissa is such a cute Mom.  She's been busy painting 2 bathrooms and they look so cute.  This one is tiffany blue with brown accents.  Wehad such a fun evening with the Gargalis family --- thanks Greg and Meliss!

My Darling Primary Class!

Yesterday when I was working on my primary lesson Craig asked why I wasn't doing an Easter lesson. . . and I am so glad he remembered!  I LOVE Easter and all the music, stories and symbolism.  I am so grateful to know how precious it is in my life and what it means for my family.  However one of my pet peeves is when Easter falls on General Conference Sunday, because one gets short changed one way or the other.  Or maybe that is too strong of a statement and I should just say I am happier when they are on different days.  Sadly, Easter just seems to get shuffled to one side, and to add to that we had our Fast Sunday today.  What made it even worse was we only sang one Easter song and in Sharing Time it wasn't even mentioned.  Now, I'm certain it will be mentioned numerous times in General Conference next week, and our ward will have more Easter music the week after conference, but I still feel short-changed.I think another part of it is that we "celebrate" Easter each week as we partake of the Sacrament.  As members we strive to live the gospel daily, not just twice a year on Christmas and Easter or once a week on Sunday.  But. . . you can kind of see how people could misinterpret our "lack" of fuss over those 2 holidays and think we don't love the Saviour. 

 However, due to Craig's kind reminder I had the best primary class today and we had so much fun learning about the first Easter.  The kids were beyond adorable.  They were all angels and looked so darling, almost color coordinated.   I am so grateful to get to teach this sweet CTR 5 & 6 class, most of whom were in the nursery with me.  I happened to have my camera in my purse so I took these cute pictures:

Kennadi Lauderman, Ashlyn Danielson, Elise Abrego,

Jocelyn Raffidi, Jorge Abrego

Emily Deaton, Brody Worthington, Nathan Williamson and Nicole Albee

We missed Marcus Jackson and Ari Long today.

St. Obama's Day?

Jay Leno told a great joke last night.  I'll try not to butcher it:

"I hope you all had a great St. Patrick's Day yesterday.  St. Patrick drove all the snakes out of Ireland.  Now they want March 18 to be St. Obama's Day --- that's the day he drove all the democrats out of Washington, D.C."

This health care bill is making me crazy!!!  I just hope there will be someone who will stand up to that arrogant leadership!  It will be an interesting weekend. I'm so glad there's Fox News to give us the other side of the story!  Bless their hearts.