DARIN and HAYLEE GUNNERSON

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Hodgkinson Easter Dinner

Dinner was divine! (It always is).

Oh, how I love being with this wonderful family of mine!

Dinner--yumm-o!

Mom's ham was the best I'd ever had!
Heather H's salad was amazing!
And Heather M's rolls were super cute--you can't see it very well, but they are bunnies!

Dessert--also yumm-o!

Ben and Kristy made that beauty! Woah!!

Cute matching Annie and Grace!

It was extra fun to have Job and Johanna for a little while!

Love my cousins!

Lindsay "reading" the 1st clue (with LOTS of help from Becca).

Going upstairs for a clue!

Back downstairs for a clue in the office.

Upstairs and down again!

A clue in the fridge!

Back upstairs to the balcony!

They FOUND it!!

One of the gifts was silly string!

First, they got Uncle Rick!

Next they got grandpa!

They also got some bubbles!

Super-model Kristy with her cute girls--just wish Ben was in it too.

Andrew and Reese.
Would you believe that Andrew is 5 months OLDER that Reese.
I think they look like they could be twins!

Happy Easter!!

Wednesday, April 8, 2015

I had a bunch of little videos for 2014 that I didn't really know what to do with.
So, I compiled them all in one place.

This video shows our REAL life. Messy hair, messy faces, mismatched outfits, being silly, and I LOVE it!

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Easter Eggs

Monday, April 6, 2015

General Conference

I LOVE General Conference! I especially loved it this time! My friend Becca said that her family always spent the week before conference preparing and getting “Conference Clean.” I tried really hard to get my house in order so that I could sit and enjoy the talks without distractions of what needed to be done. I really felt like it added to the spirit in our home and I enjoyed conference more because of it! Thanks for the suggestion Becca!! (However, after 8 hours in front of the TV, and kids not always staying interested, you’d never know that my house was clean two days ago).

One part during general conference, all three kids were sitting quietly and listening. It was so peaceful! Until, I realized that Andrew had been doing this:

We also made a wall of the 1^st presidency and the 12 apostles. We let the kids draw pictures of what they heard and I wrote the “main idea.” This was a really fun thing that I thought of BY MYSELF!! I especially like it because I think it will be a great way to review for Family Home Evening!

I love the pictures of the temple that the kids drew!

At one point during conference I had a funny conversation with the kids.

Matt: When will we get a new prophet?
Me: President Monson will be the Prophet as long as he is alive.
Matt: So when he dies we'll have a new Prophet.
Lindsay: Oooo! I hope the next Prophet is "Old Packer"
Matt: Or L. Tom Perry, because he's six foot three!

And I made my own little side board of "main ideas" from messages not from the 12.

I LOVE General conference!

Now, I can't wait until the October session!!

Matt can ride a bike!

Last week, the only "no training wheel" bike Matt could ride was this fun bike:

Then, at the end of last week, Darin took of Matt's training wheels of this little bike!

And he got the hang of it right away!

Two days later he graduated to his "Big Bike!"
He LOVES it and doesn't want to do anything else these days!

Andrew got his own ride too.
It's actually the neighbor's but he sneaks and gets it all the time!

Sunday, April 5, 2015

The Easter Bunny Came!

At our house, the Easter Bunny comes on Saturday morning!

He leaves a string for our kids to follow and it leads to their Easter baskets!

After finding the baskets and eggs, Darin made the kids bunny pancakes before General Conference!

This was my favorite egg that I dyed. (I LOVE to dye eggs).

I found a new way to dye eggs using food coloring and rice! So fun!

Saturday, April 4, 2015

April Fools!

This was not my most successful April Fool’s Day.
I decided to target my brother, Rick, as my main victim this year.
I had big plans to sabotage his office.
However, I couldn't get in, so that whole thing went out the window.

I knew my dad was meeting Rick at Chili’s for lunch, so I took the kids to go decorate his car.
We put up “Honk, Just Married” on the car, and we were in the middle of adding cans, ribbons, and streamers when the car turned on and started to back up! I SCREAMED, “NO!!!! STOP!!!!” But, the prank was on me, because Rick saw me in the restaurant and was pretending to back up! Mean guy!

I have been pranking my dad for years, and this year I thought I’d do a nice prank, and secretly pay for his and Rick’s lunch. But that failed too because they knew I was there. Bummer. (The waiter however, thought it was a nice prank!)

Later in the day, I did the usual, coloring on the kids’ faces and switching their beds at nap time.

But my FAVORITE part of the day, was getting to prank the Sister Missionaries!

We signed up to have them over for dinner, and when they showed up, I had Matt say, “Sorry, my mom’s not doing dinner anymore! APRIL FOOLS!”

Then, we did cupcakes for dinner (meatloaf with mashed potatoes), suckers (frozen grapes on sticks), and Kool-Aid (Jell-O with a straw). The Kool-Aid was my favorite—the kids were SOO confused, and Andrew got SO frustrated trying to suck up the drink!

We have had chili for dinner probably 6 times within a month. The kids were SO SICK of chili, and I told them we were having it for dessert. Matt said, “Fine! I’m not going to eat all my dinner so I don’t have to eat the chili for dessert.” He quickly changed his mind when he realized it was cake!

We had a fun rest of the night with the sisters, and overall, it was a great April Fools day!

These little peanut butter sandwiches are supposed to look like ravioli and the jam is supposed to look like marinara sauce. Not super successful, but the kids thought it was delicious!!