Easter Happy Times

We had a fabulous Easter! Among the festivities were the usual egg dyeing, Robert getting me beautiful tulips, and Lydia looking cute as could be in her new Easter dress (Thanks Mom/Grandma Richardson!)

First, the egg dyeing supplies

Lydia thoroughly enjoyed being able to scribble on her name egg until she tried to eat the crayon and I wouldn't let her. She didn't think it was fun after that.

And the finished eggs - The Name Eggs

And the others. We had several eggs crack while boiling so we ended up with hardly any to dye, but it was sufficient for our needs. The bottom right egg is Robert's annual equation egg. I forget what the complicated equation was, but the answer was "(Eggs'Eggs)^-1" Which in real math terms I guess means X transpose X inverse... whatever that means. My husband is a nerd and I love him for it :)
And my Easter tulips :) Robert snagged a BEAUTIFUL bunch this year, but I guess they're always beautiful every year.

And Lydia's Easter outfit. She was a hit at church.

Our little ham.

And our family on Easter. Lydia's new favorite thing is to point at people. At first we attempted to take this picture by me putting the camera on timer and running to get in the picture, but a merciful angel of a woman was driving by and saw our troubles, pulled over, and offered to take our picture. Thank goodness for charitable people!
I feel like I should or am supposed to take a moment to talk about Christ's atonement and the real meaning behind Easter, but I feel inadequate to do it justice. So I will just say I have a testimony that Jesus Christ is our Savior. He suffered for our sins, died for us, and rose again. Because of this we all can return to live forever with him after this life. I know He lives! (For more on Christ, the atonement, and more go here)

Happy Easter everyone!!!

Everything Is Always Changing...

But some things stay the same...
Lydia, 2 and a half months old, watching Robert play the Wii.
Lydia, a week ago, watching Robert play the Wii
It's nice to know there are some things that remain constant in my life ;)

Celebrating April 15th

You might be thinking, "What holiday is on April 15th?" Well, I'll tell you, but first a little back story (skip to the next paragraph if you don't care for a back story). A few years ago I worked at a little teaching supply store. At this store we had a little calendar that had random but real holidays for everyday on it, and there was a chalkboard that we would update with what that day was. They were super random holidays like Limerick Day and Popcorn Day. I always thought how fun it was and would think of random things I could do to celebrate that obscure holiday. Anyway, life went on until this past April 3rd I saw that Google changed their logo for that day as they sometimes do to commemorate something that had happened that day. This time they were recognizing the 119th anniversary of the first documented ice cream sundae. So that night we were sure to eat some ice cream to celebrate that monumental occasion. This reminded me of all the fun random holidays I had been made aware of at my old job. Then I had a thought. I thought I would love to make myself some sort of calendar that had several of the random holidays and anniversaries on it, and think of creative ways to celebrate them either with Robert on date nights, with our little family, or with my kids when they get old enough to do random things like that. Long story short (too late, I know) a blog is in the works, and I'm very excited about it. Hopefully in the near future I will think it's ready enough that I can share it with you lovely people and get your input on it. I'll save more boring details about my thought process behind it til then.

So back to the original question, What holiday is on April 15th? Well among other things, (Rubber Eraser Day, First McDonald's Opens in 1955, Tax Day, Titanic Remembrance Day) I'll have you know that it is Art History Day and Leonardo Da Vinci's Birthday. To celebrate Art History we went to BYU's Museum of Art. They have an amazing Carl Bloch exhibit there right now that we've been meaning to go see, so this gave us an excuse to do just that.
Lydia was all excitement and smiles on our way in but...
After only 10-15 minutes of waiting in the standby line she had already had enough! So we looked at another one of the exhibits for a couple minutes, but then just had to cut our losses and leave. (Sidenote: We were able to successfully go to the Carl Bloch exhibit this past Thursday and it was wonderful. I would highly recommend people attend. It's only here til the 7th.)
We went back home to start the next part of our celebration. In honor of Leonardo Da Vinci's birthday we watched Ever After since he is one of the characters in it.
While watching the movie we explored our own painting talents - finger painting to be exact. For an added fun twist, we each made random scribbles on a piece of paper and then exchanged them and the other person had to paint a picture using the scribbles. I drew these scribbles for Robert.
And he turned them into a funnel thing that you drop marbles down that hit a switch to turn on a light bulb (the way his mind works truly baffles me sometimes)
Robert gave me these scribbles...
And I turned them into a mountain/desert landscape and a snake.
I'm sure you are all truly jealous of our mad finger painting skills ;)
And that was our April 15th. If nothing else, we think this holiday blog idea of mine will lead to many fun dates and family activities in the future and we look forward to them all.

Ms. Independent

So here's a small update on Lydia since I haven't done one in a while.
Ever since the first attempt at meat incident, Lydia has not had any interest in us feeding her. After many a failed meal and several different plans of attack, we finally decided to just let her eat on her own.
As you can see, she thoroughly enjoys it :) This does mean that we have a huge mess to clean up 2 or 3 times a day, but at least she's eating.
Just having fun with Daddy.
A few weeks ago she was constantly doing this cheesy grin. I'm glad we got a picture of it before she stopped.
This picture was a few weeks ago and shows her teeth really well. Her top 2 teeth have come in even further since then, and with one that just started cutting through tonight, she now has 6 teeth (4 on top, 2 on bottom).
I can't believe she is just 3 weeks away from turning a whole year old! It's been a great first year!!

Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point

I had to go to a museum of paleontology or something of that nature for an outside assignment for my Geology class. So for family night back on April 4th, we loaded up the baby and went to the Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point. We started out the tour of the museum with Robert helping out the excavators. They were most appreciative.

I got nerdily excited when I saw this. It's a fossil marking called ripple marks that I learned about in my geology class. I did a mini presentation for Robert on how it's formed. I just felt so cool that I actually knew what it was and its significance.

We built this fabulous looking dinosaur and named it a Totemsaur. The question is, is it eating Robert or is Robert eating it?

Lydia was quiet most of the time and just amazed and intrigued at all the huge dinosaur bone structures that were standing over her.

However, she did eventually get a little restless in her stroller so we let her out to play with a smaller dinosaur.

We ended the trip with Lydia taking the world in her hand. So much responsibility for such a little girl.

Bettering Talents

We lowered the keyboard so Lydia could start working on her piano skills. It's one of her favorite toys.

 

Robert finally beat all of Super Mario World. It was a proud moment in our home ;)