Mamma Mia!!

 Jenna and Clarissa made these cute canvas paintings of Mamma Mia!! 

BFF Romantic Corner: Candlelight Dinner

Tonight Jenna (age 11), asked if she and her friend, Clarissa, could fix Rick and I a special candlelight dinner for our date tonight! We wholeheartedly agreed! They did such a fabulous job! They dressed up as cute little fancy waitresses, decorated the stairs and basement with candles, played soft music, and served us a delicious meal of tacos, followed by dessert. First they called their "restaurant" JC's Romantic Corner (J for Jenna and C for Clarissa). But before the end of the night they switched the name to BFF Romantic Corner. After the meal they cleaned up the kitchen so that we could watch a movie. It was the perfect date! Love these cute girls!!

We tipped them $10.00 ($5.00 for each of them). They were really happy with that!! Here is the Facebook Post with comments! 

Cute Little Entrepreneurs!!

Jenna got a cute miniature snow cone machine with a hand crank a month or so ago. (You can see it in the picture with a white handle and green lid). She is constantly making snow cones and trying to sell them to family and friends. So when Cortnie invited her to help with her lemonade stand she jumped at the chance! These girls sold lemonade (and snow cones -- until they ran out of ice) for about an hour (in the heat) and made about $22.00. They split up the money and each walked away with $5.50. Guess what Jenna is saving her money for? A bigger and better snow cone machine!

Josh Boating

Josh went boating with his soccer team at Gunlock Reservoir. It was actually his first time boating! He had a blast!!

Clay Creations: Disney Princesses

I have posted before about Jenna's unique clay creations. Today she and Clarissa made clay figures of all of these Disney princesses! We think they are pretty cute and creative!!

Family History Presentations, Church Lessons, and Seminary Council

Janelle got called to meet with a member of the Stake Presidency this morning along with her parents. So we went and she was called to the Seminary Council for next year! She is very excited! She knows a few of the others who have been called and they all happen to be in her friend group. She has a great group of friends!

Today Rick had the Come Follow Me lesson. He assigned each of the kids a chapter from today's lesson and said that some time today they had to come up with an art project depicting that chapter. He assigned it as follows: Jaiden -- Mosiah 25, Janelle -- Mosiah 26, Jenna -- Mosiah 27, and Josh -- Mosiah 28. They came up with some great work! Here is a picture of each of their art work:

Jaiden (Mosiah 25): 

Janelle (Mosiah 26):

Jenna (Mosiah 27): (The angel appearing to Alma and the four sons of Mosiah)

Alma with his parents...

Josh (Mosiah 28): (The sons of Mosiah refusing the throne and then preaching to the Lamanites)

The other homework they had for today (the kids had a busy day today) was a "Family History Presentation" for Memorial Day. Each of the kids were asked to research an ancestor and present it to the family Sunday night. They looked up pictures and histories on Family Search and put together a Power Point presentation on Google Slides. In between all of this we skyped Janika and Brandon and had a delicious dinner of barbequed salmon, squash, broccoli, beans, rice and salad with ice cream for dessert!

We then had the presentations! Jenna did her presentation on my Grandma, Lucille Erskine Westra Burgener. Josh did his on my grandpa, Joseph Ate Westra. Jaiden did hers on Grandpa Jensen's Grandma and Janelle did hers on Louelle Mcgee, my mom's grandma. We decided to invite Grandma and Grandpa Westra to join us through a zoom call for the presentations. They turned out great and even Grandma and Grandpa learned a few new things about their parents/grandparents! It was also nice that my mom and dad could clarify and correct any missing or ambiguous information. It was a fun activity and nice to be able to see and visit with Grandma and Grandpa!

Then we watched all of the Mother's Day Tea and Father's Day Flee videos through the years since Rick has been working on them all and adding them to our YouTube Channel. So it was really a "family filled" day!

Happy Mother's Day!!

We had a great weekend! We have something we are working on for Father's Day and so we were all working on that Friday night. Then Friday night around 11:00 p.m. Janika and Brandon showed up! They had decided to surprise me by coming for Mother's Day! So that was a nice surprise! Janika brought us a mask she had made for me and Rick. I stayed up and visited with them for a while.

Saturday Janika and Brandon went swimming with the kids in the morning. Scott came over for a visit -- so that was nice! The rest of his family was off hiking but he couldn't because of his back. The family worked on our Father's Day project and then Jenna and I went swimming with Jase and Ellen. Saturday night everyone watched "Psych The Movie" in the basement.

Mother's Day was great! It was so nice having everyone there - except for Jared and we got to do a video call with him later in the evening. Josh taught a nice lesson for church and then Brandon and Jase and Josh took care of the sacrament. We then had a lovely meal of ham, cheesy potatoes, beans, corn, and salad for lunch and cleaned up and prepared for Mother's Day Tea!

Mother's Day Tea consisted of Dad being a "nose coach" with a covid-19 mask around his nose. He talked in this weird unintelligible way (I am not even sure how to describe it) while also signing. I interpreted for him part of the time but he said, "You don't need to interpret for me -- they can understand me just fine!" Which of course nobody could -- except me since I know sign language. His job was to teach people how to breathe.

Janika and Brandon were "vacationers." Jase and Ellen played the parts of Sully and Mike Wazowski from Monster's Inc. Janelle was a person who fell asleep in the sun. When she told me she was going to be a sunburned person I thought, "okay..." But she really did look like someone with an awful sunburn! (Thanks to some red paint mixed with water). She played her part really well!

Jaiden was Baljeet from Phineas and Ferb. She has been practicing her Indian accent recently. Josh was a zebra and Jenna was the devil. I wore Jared's track uniform and all of his medals and called myself "Jaredina" (Jared for short). I tried to be loud, excited, walk with a strut, show off my muscles, and take secret snapchat videos.

We took pictures and then had treats -- chocolate covered strawberries, cheesecake, apples, blueberries, yogurt, and ice-cream -- LOTS of sugar, ha ha! It was a fun time! After Mother's Day Tea Janika and Brandon headed back to Logan. It was fun having them here this weekend! Tonight we did a video call with Jared. He is SO funny! He had the whole family cracking up the entire time! It really made me excited for him to return home in a couple of weeks! I remember when he left for his mission -- I knew that one of the things I would miss most was his sense of humor!

Other fun parts of Mother's Day were reading all of the memories about mom that Chris put together and going through the new family blog that Jen put together! Mom and I texted and e-mailed a bit and I also talked with Mom Jensen for a bit as well. I called one of the ladies I minister to wish her a Happy Mother's Day and she kept me on the phone for an hour and so I didn't get a chance to call the other lady I minister for. I will have to call her tomorrow!

 

Masquerade Ball!!!

Since Senior Ball was cancelled for our high school kids we decided to have our own dinner/dance at home! We decided on a Masquerade/MASK-erade theme. It was so fun! Rick cooked a delicious Peruvian dinner of stuffed avocados, Solterito Salad, Rotisserie Chicken with sauce, and Martinellis'. Then we took pictures outside.  

We had a model runway for guests to introduce their masks. Janelle, Jaiden, Josh, and Jenna all made their own masks and Jenna made the masks for me, Rick, Ellen, and, Jase. Ellen made all of the cute corsages and boutonnieres. Josh actually won "Prom King" with his Thneed Mask made from a paper towel for his hilarious presentation of it's many uses. I am so glad that my family can have fun in pretty much any situation!

After pictures we had a fun "runway" to model our masks!! You can watch those HERE!!!  After the runway we had a fun dance!! Josh won Prom King and Jaiden and Ellen tied for Prom Queen!