Best Stake Conference ever

Last weekend was our Stake Conference and we had the privilege of hearing from an Apostle of the Lord, Elder M Russell Ballard. The whole weekend was wonderful. It was the first time I have seen an Apostle in person. The spirit was so strong that I was sure you could cut it with a knife.

Saturday evening Adult session was my favorite. All the speakers felt like they were talking just to me. 2 of the speakers talked about their conversions to the church among other things. They both did a great job.

Elder Ballard was the last to speak and he talked about the 10 virgins and keeping our lamps full and ways that we could do that. The usual things came up such as prayer, family home evening, scripture study. He said that he often hears people ask why we talk about the same things all the time and he said something like "As soon as you all get those down pat, we'll move on to deeper doctrine" He talked about rededicating ourselves if some things had started to slip. One thing he mentioned was kneeling each night as a couple and thanking Heavenly Father for one more day together. Tim and I had always had family prayer but didn't really think to kneel each night, just the two of us. We hope to rectify that. I found him to be very sincere and funny. I truly felt like my lamp was filled to overflowing from the whole experience. I did get to shake his hand after the Saturday session. I told him that I would rededicate myself to those things that I have let slip.

Sidenote: I have a 4 day weekend and the weather is beautiful. Hubby has 3 of those days off with me. It's rare that we have more than Sundays off together so I'm really looking forward to some good quality family time.

Sidenote 2: I won a radio content yesterday and got 4 tickets and free ride coupons to the Waterfront Village which is part of the Rose Festival. It's a carnival/fair that is on the waterfront in Portland. We've lived here 15 years and have never gone so we're going to do that tomorrow. The prize package also included a $25 gift cert for KFC and a gift cert for 5 laps at Malibu Raceway.

21 more days

That's all that is left of my son's first year of school. I can't believe the time has gone so fast. I'm amazed at how much he has learned. This is a picture from his first day. The little boy in the picture didn't know how to read.

One short school year later and now, check him out. He's a reader. It's been so cool to watch as his mind soaks it all in.

Wednesday night they had a kindergarten conference at the school where all the kinders and their family came. The kids sang a couple of really cute songs and then took us around to 9 stations that were set up to demonstrate all they have learned this year.

Here they are singing a super cute song called "Tootie Toot"

They were cracking me and themselves up.

Showing us his skills with colors and paints.

He's reading his "popcorn" words.
We've been blessed to have a great teacher this year and we're looking forward to his first year of full day school. Watch our first grade. Blake is on his way.

Random Happenings

What's going on these days at the Kelley house you ask? Oh, you didn't. Well, I'll tell you anyway.

Last week was Spirit Week at school. They had pajama day, crazy hair day etc. Here's a picture of Blake on mis-match day. I think his favorite was pajama day. I've sent an email at work trying to institute pajama day Fridays. We'll see how that goes.

Mothers Day was great. The boys cooked breakfast for me and got me a pretty new locket necklace.

Tim and I celebrated our 16th Anniversary yesterday. Blake took a picture of us right before we went out on our hot date Saturday.

And last but not least, here's a picture of the stink eye you get when you keep bugging your hubby. This happens to be a favorite way for me to pass the time.

Rocking the dog park

So apparently we have been missing out on a great dog park about 15 minutes from our house. It's called Hondo Dog Park. Who is Hondo you ask? Hondo was a police dog that protected the county that I live in and died in the line of duty in 1997.

I didn't have my regular camera with me so these are from my cell and not the greatest but hopefully you can tell what a great time Lexie had playing and running full out all over the place.

I heart the dog park!

Before and After

So, I learned a lesson when doing a project that you want to document. Take your own pictures for crying in a biscuit. For some reason, I didn't take pictures with my camera when I had the great declutter-a-thon over spring break. I was thinking it would be fine because my friend was taking pictures for her project and she'd send me plenty. Well....that didn't happen. Apparently she didn't get the kind of pictures I was expecting so she only sent me the pictures below. You'll have to use your imagination a little because the before and after aren't of the same part of the closet. I think you'll get the idea though of the shame that was my closet

BEFORE

AND AFTER

Hello, my name is Tonya and I am a packrat. Admitting is the first step right?

Being a slacker

Right this very minute, I should be heading to drop my son off at grandmas house so I can go to a Stake Women's activity at church but as you can tell, that's not happening. Even though I know that it would be spiritually uplifting for me to go, I just can't seem to get up out of the chair. It's been a long week at our house. Blake and Tim have been sick all week. Blake had a high fever from Sunday evening to Thursday morning. Turns out that he has a sinus infection. Tim has had a bad cold that has had him coughing his head off for over a week. Needless to say, not much sleeping has been going on around here. So basically what I'm trying to say is that I'm pooped out..LOL

I have a house that needs some serious attention, a lesson for primary that I need to prepare and little boy that I want to spend time with. I may even try to throw in a nap just for grins. I know that I'm missing out on a great time with a bunch of wonderful women but sometimes I just don't have it in me to do all that I need or want to do.

Coloring Eggs

We colored eggs tonight. It's just not Easter without that smell of vinegar lingering in the air. I think my favorite thing in the world is just hanging out with my boys and doing anything at all. I'm a lucky mom and wife. Here are some pics of our handiwork.

Blake's Egg
Family Eggs (can't see the names all that great but they are there)

Learning to get them out

Cheesy fake smile

Getting the hang of it

Cheesy smile part 2

Blake and I love to color together so while we waited for the eggs to get beautified, we created these little masterpieces.

**Sidenote, everything is going pretty good around here. We all have a bit of cold right now (thank you Tim). But we're going to just pretend like we don't because it's Easter and we have things to do. Take that virus.