General Conference Traditions

Digging into the goodies. This is one of our favorite traditions!
Eliza embraces that tradition of falling asleep.

Peter is fading, too.

This is from years ago. You can see David in the background keeping his tradition alive.

Parker and Eliza show off their Conference Books while Michael makes faces!

We have a few fun traditions that we have been pretty good about. Every October and April we listen to General Conference. What a great opportunity to listen to the prophet, apostles, and other church leaders. I have little activities to keep the kids focused. Our two main traditions that have held up over time are junk food/goodies and David falling asleep at least once during the weekend event. He claims that it is during one of the seventies talks so that it wasn't that important and I always try to convince him that it was the best talk yet! One year when he fell asleep it was April Fool's Day--while he slept, we sewed him to the couch, painted his fingernails bright pink, and tied his shoelaces together. We thought that would teach him. He was alert for the next session!

This April Ben and Athena (David's youngest sister) came to visit. They were in Washington DC for an internship for four months. They rented a car and drove 6 hours to spend the weekend. It was really fun to see them again. We just hung out, visited, played and watched a wild paint-ball outing and just had fun being together. Family is great. Thanks for coming and being with us.

Eggs

Fresh eggs ready to dye.

Peter gives Tyles a congratulatory hug after he catches a chicken.

Back in the fall we build a chicken coop and got 4 chickens. I think the trauma of moving must have been quite overwhelming so they quit laying. We also did not get their light up--which made for a long, cold winter. They are tough and survived. We eagerly checked for eggs for weeks and then the novelty wore off. In the spring, when things started warming up, David decided to clean the coop and check for eggs--guess what he found--19! (It's a good thing we didn't decide to do cows--with that type of neglect there would be some serious mastitis!) They have been laying for months now and it is great to get eggs--4 a day. We usually use most of them and give the extras to friends and neighbors. Eliza is the one who has really taken over the gathering and cleaning of the coop. We feed them our "scraps" from dinner and built the coop from miscellaneous wood and tin--mostly free stuff. It's been a fun little project and hobby.

Road Trip

Peter enjoying the "Wild Thing Dinner"

Well, I was just gearing up to clean all the bathrooms (to try and induce labor), but I noticed that David had left the external high-speed internet device home, so I decided to go blog crazy and get several posts up of our lives these last few months. We've had some GREAT times.


We made a fun trip to Nashville--went to the temple, a fun bookstore, and JoAnn's--a big fabric/craft store (I think that we may frequent this temple more often)! We then drove up to the Piepers in Kentucky for a visit and to spend a few nights. Uncle Blaine (my Mom's youngest sibling) and Aunt Marianne sure take care of us. It was cold and rainy, so we stayed inside and played lots of Rock Band, watched TV and just ate and relaxed. One of our favorite things is "Wild Thing Dinner". Peter really got into it this year. We also love to go to there tiny branch--I think we about double the attendance! We had a great time with them and love our visits to Kentucky.

Date Night

We try to take the kids out for some one-on-one time. I took Parker out a few weeks ago to buy a new suit--his has been way to small for several months and it finally became a priority. He found one that he loved and I even managed to get the pants hemmed by Sunday--the last pair we duct taped up on the way to church. Anyway, he was in a very talkative and chatty mood and opened up about life in Middle School (thank goodness for the DeBry genes that have given him some social skills!) Among other things, he let me know that he didn't want me driving him to school in my robe and pajamas anymore. We had a great evening it was fun to get out with him.