what's Easter without bubbles?

Our Easter Sunday

We not only had a wonderful Easter Sunday, but have had such a fun weekend with my family. My cute sister Liz is leaving this Wednesday to serve a mission for our church in the Washington Seattle Mission. Since she has moved home from Provo last week we have been spending lots of time with her and with the rest of the family.

Today was Liz's farewell and she gave such an amazing talk about the Savior and the Atonement. I really look up to her! She is going to be an amazing missionary. Josh also spoke in church and did a great job - I've got amazing siblings! My parents fed dinner to over 80 people afterwards, and it was just a really great day. Benjamin came up from Provo and spent the day with us and my family, too (he just fits right in with my fam!).

Here are some pictures of the day and the weekend (looks like the Easter bunny came to our house!)

Oh how I miss playing a Steinway...

I am accompanying someone at the NATS competition (a singing competition) this weekend, so last night I went up to the U of U for her lesson with her voice teacher. As I sat down at the piano, I realized I had not played a Steinway in ages - probably for about three years - and, oh my goodness, it was amazing. If you have never played a Steinway, there is just something about the feel and sound of a Steinway that is just so amazing and gorgeous. There are so many different sounds and colors you can achieve with a REALLY good piano, and it makes it so much more fun to play! I SO miss being able to play a Steinway every day. Now, if only we had, oh, like $50,000 or so..... :) Better start saving...

Family Fun & General Conference

I love my family - we definitely know how to have a good time and have always been very easily entertained. Growing up, my siblings and I loved to do all sorts of random things together. For instance, when we were little we used to always make a newspaper during General Conference - we even had a typewriter that we used (and we thought it was the coolest thing ever!). We used to put on these big productions for my parents - we'd put on plays, we'd make a "restaurant" in our room and dress up as waiters, we'd make "dummies" with our stuffed animals and put them all over the house for when my parents got home. Well, I guess some things never change - we are still nerdy as ever and love to do random things, like make life-size board games!

On Friday night we hung out with my siblings while my parents were at their traditional Gibbons family "adult" get-together. A couple of years ago we were bored and randomly decided to make a life-size Monopoly game:


Last year it was Settlers of Catan (made out of foam - we cleaned out the dollar store's foam supply):


This year? Connect 4! It was pretty awesome.





We love General Conference! We had such a wonderful weekend listening to the Prophet and Apostles speak and spending time with family. There were lots of wonderful talks, some of our favorites were President Uchtdorf, Elder Bednar and Elder Oaks. And, as always, the music was beautiful!


Here are some pictures from General Conference weekend with my family:

Liz and James wore matching outfits!

Another one of our silly antics - making a family out of balloons. The "baby" in the green outfit was pretty creepy...

Trying on Uncle Josh's hoodie

Watching conference

What cool dudes!

While Daddy's at work...

...James and I have lots of fun together! Since he is feeling better and the weather is BEAUTIFUL (hope it stays like this!), James and I have gone outside a LOT. This kid loves going on a walk and seeing things like cars and trucks (which he likes to touch) and rocks (we've gotta stop and pick them up). Here is a picture of us all ready to go on a walk!


We are excited for Daddy to be all trained at work and start his regular hours (3pm to 11pm) so we can do lots of fun things with him during the day!

We are also enjoying spending some time with James' great-grandma. They love to read books together!

Phew, that was close!

James just LOVES to play with little gadgets. He loves to play games on his Daddy's iPod and to push buttons on phones. The other day, Jonathan looked down and realized that James had his phone. He was able to whisk it away right before James sent out a text message to every single person in Jonathan's phone, saying "Call me when you get this" (it was one of those text message templates). Phew, that was close!

Where's James?

The other day I was in the family room and noticed it was a little quiet...so I started looking for the boy. Here is where I found him, sitting in his Daddy's closet playing a game on his Daddy's iPod! What a funny boy!

James shows off his vocabulary

Life is great

Life is so wonderful! We are so happy that Jonathan was blessed with a great job after SO many months of looking. It's funny how things work out completely NOT the way (and in the timing) you expect, but they DO work out :) He is LOVING his job at Cephalon, we are currently looking for an apartment or duplex or something to rent, and we are just so happy!

James hasn't been feeling well the past few days. He had a fever of 102 the other night, it was so sad! I think he may be teething again, and that might be part of it. Poor boy! You can tell from this picture how he was feeling. I at least was happy that he was INCREDIBLY cuddly that night - which is rare! :) Don't I look lovely and exhausted myself? So it is as a mommy :)


James' FAVORITE activity is to go outside. He grabs his shoes and stands by the door and says "Go! Go! Go!" Well the past few days have been VERY hard, because all he wants to do is go outside, but it is much too cold and snowy for our little sicky to go outside. Here are some pictures from last week, when he just INSISTED on going for a walk.



And I thought 9:00 church was hard on the nap schedule - 11:00 is much worse! This kid refuses to take a nap before church, and then just crashes when we get home.


Also, I just wanted to say that I am looking for a few piano students. I used to have quite a large studio in Utah County, but then we moved and I had to drop all of my students :( I am so excited to get back into it. I wanted to share my piano teaching website (ok, so it's just a blog, but website sounds cooler :)), in case any of you know someone looking for a good teacher!

Create

I just found this video on the Mormon Messages Youtube channel and just had to share it! I LOVED this talk of President Uchtdorf's, and this video clip of it is just so neat!

I love what he said about us as women and our amazing potential as daughters of God:

"You might say, “I’m not the creative type... If that is how you feel, think again, and remember that you are spirit daughters of the most creative Being in the universe."

Hope you enjoy it as much as I did :)