Easter

We've had a busy weekend- most of it Easter related. That and a ward activity took up our entire weekend.

The girls decorated Easter eggs at my Sister Shanda's house on Thursday. They loved doing it. And since they did it at Shanda's house, I didn't have to clean up the mess- she did! Ashtyn concentrating

Tayla displaying her eggs

On Friday night we had a ward activity- a Gardening seminar. We actually coordinated with the activity committee and held a Primary activity at the same time. We ate pizza and rootbeer, built scarecrows and bird feeders, played a flower Bingo game, planted seeds and played a barnyard game. We had a good time. Only about 12- 15 kids came and I loved that! One thing that I can't get over was that the activity committee ordered enough pizza to feed 40 kids and yet those 12-15 kids ate it all (and drank the 5 bottles of pop!)

Saturday afternoon, a lady in our ward organized an Easter egg hunt over at the school (thanks Valerie!) My girls had a great time.

Ready, set, go!

Ashtyn searching
Tayla going for the hard to reach ones
Ashtyn posing with her stash
Showing off their eggsTayla checking out what's inside

Easter of course, we really nice. The girls loved their Easter baskets and were able to take their new set of scriptures to church with them. They liked the bunny rabbit and the candy too of course!Right after the Easter Bunny came....

Loving their new stuffed animals

I found the girls dresses at Costco and thought they looked dang cute in them.

Our Primary President today gave a fantastic lesson in Sharing Time. The other counselor raises baby bum lambs and brought one in for the kids to see after the Primary President gave a lesson about Christ being the Lamb of God as well as the Good Shepherd. You can only imagine how much the kids loved that! But the part that really choked me up was this story that she told them: (told in the May 1988 Ensign by Elder John Lasater of the Seventy)

"Some years ago, it was my privilege to visit the country of Morocco as part of an official United States government delegation. As part of that visit, we were invited to travel some distance into the desert to visit some ruins. Five large black limousines moved across the beautiful Moroccan countryside at considerable speed. I was riding in the third limousine, which had lagged some distance behind the second. As we topped the brow of a hill, we noticed that the limousine in front of us had pulled off to the side of the road. As we drew nearer, I sensed that an accident had occurred and suggested to my driver that we stop. The scene before us has remained with me for these many years.

An old shepherd, in the long, flowing robes of the Savior’s day, was standing near the limousine in conversation with the driver. Nearby, I noted a small flock of sheep numbering not more than fifteen or twenty. An accident had occurred. The king’s vehicle had struck and injured one of the sheep belonging to the old shepherd. The driver of the vehicle was explaining to him the law of the land. Because the king’s vehicle had injured one of the sheep belonging to the old shepherd, he was now entitled to one hundred times its value at maturity. However, under the same law, the injured sheep must be slain and the meat divided among the people. My interpreter hastily added, “But the old shepherd will not accept the money. They never do.”

Startled, I asked him why. And he added, “Because of the love he has for each of his sheep.” It was then that I noticed the old shepherd reach down, lift the injured lamb in his arms, and place it in a large pouch on the front of his robe. He kept stroking its head, repeating the same word over and over again. When I asked the meaning of the word, I was informed, “Oh, he is calling it by name. All of his sheep have a name, for he is their shepherd, and the good shepherds know each one of their sheep by name.”

It was as my driver predicted. The money was refused, and the old shepherd with his small flock of sheep, with the injured one tucked safely in the pouch on his robe, disappeared into the beautiful deserts of Morocco."

The reason it choked me up was because I can picture the Savior doing the same thing when we are injured or making bad decisions. I can see him calling us by name, over and over, and anguishing over the decisions we are making or the pain we are going through. I can see him refusing to give up on us and being upset that something had happened to us. I can see him- and have felt him- put us in his pouch and take care of us...

Happy Easter

Respect and Sticky Buns

The title got your attention didn't it? Keep reading.... I've had kind of a boring week. Funny how I can say that because at the time, I felt like I was extremely busy. But, making a list of things to blog about turned out to be very small.

I spent money at Dress Barn, ate dinner with friends at Sol Rio, went to a gardening class with my Mom, had a horrible experience in Primary and watched General Conference. There that's it... Now for the details.

It was a mistake for me to go shopping with my Mom at Dress Barn. I was convinced to spend too much money. But I will say that the clothes were well worth it- 2 shirts, a sweater and a brown skirt. I think Dress Barn is my new favorite store. I might also add that I did some convincing of my own and Mom spent plenty of money there also...

We had a great time at Sol Rio with a group of friends from our ward. I'm not a fan of Mexican food though and what I ate just didn't taste very good. And to top it all off, everyone else was able to eat with a fork, where mine was more fajita style and I made a mess. So embarrassing! Anyway, even though the food wasn't that great, the company was fantastic. I am so grateful for good friends in a fantastic ward.

My favorite gardening store is Town and Country Gardens. Every Saturday they put on a gardening class and my Mom and I went to the container gardening class. I love to plant my flowers. I'm no professional by any means but I am working on it. I can't wait for Memorial Day weekend. My sisters and my Mom and I all get together and have a flower planting party. I look forward to it all winter....

Primary 2 weeks ago, pretty much sucked. The primary president was out of town, the other counselor was sick and the secretary was late. We had scheduled to have all of the teachers leave for a teacher training meeting during sharing time, we had a substitute pianist and a substitute chorister. So, that left ME, a sub piano player and a sub chorister (who had to leave to feed her baby anyway) with ALL of those kids for 40 minutes while the teachers left for their meeting. And to say that the kids were awful that day is an understatement. I told the other counselor that it was a good thing I had Conference weekend to recover because I don't think that I could've gone back that soon. I was so fed up! I made poor Rex stay in the Primary room with me in case I needed an extra hand. And boy did he have to work- he told me later he doesn't see how we do that week after week.....

That kind of leads to my next point. I enjoyed General Conference very much. Probably the talk that stands out most to me was the one given by Sister Liffereth (I think it was her, not sure now......?) from the Primary General Presidency. She spoke about teaching our kids to respect others. I feel very strongly that this is an area that our world SEVERELY lacks in. I don't believe that kids are being taught to recognize and respect their elders- parents, teachers, grandparents, bosses, etc...... I hope that all of you who read this blog are teaching your kids to be respectful. I know that what I witnessed on Sunday in Primary was NOT respectful from probably 50% of the kids there. Some of those kids were just outright defiant. There I go, on my soapbox again.... But, I guarantee you, I have made a resolve to make sure my girls are respectful....

We spend the Saturday session of General Conference here at home but on Sunday, we go out to my parents house and eat a great breakfast- sticky buns (recipe below- and ignore my sisters and Rex's comments, if any, that they make- I have fixed the recipe!), egg souffle, cinnamon rolls, fruit, etc. So delicious! After Conference, we have dinner. I love Sunday Conference....

Sticky Buns

Line a greased bundt pan with finely chopped nuts. Put about 22 frozen Rhodes rolls evenly around pan. Sprinkle 1/2 Pkg (3 oz) butterscotch pudding (NOT instant) over the rolls. Melt 1/2 C brown sugar and 1 cube butter. Boil until like caramel. Pour over the rolls. Cover with a damp towel and let rise overnight. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

Well, here are a few pictures of the girls- again in Idaho weather. First a snowman that they made together in a fresh batch of fantastic snowman snow and then Ashtyn with her snowdog- complete with a tail and ears. (And then a picture of my snow dog, Nora.) :) And finally a few days later, when Ashtyn and I went to the river and got sunburned. Thank you Idaho.....

The twins and their snowman

Tayla eating the snowman's nose

Ashtyn and her snow dog

My snow dog, Nora

Ashtyn at the river, feeding the ducks

Well, would you look at that! For not thinking that I had a lot to say, I said quite a bit....

I told you!

I knew it! It snowed today. I left for church early this morning with no coats or jackets for any of us because it was a great morning! When I left 3 hours later, it was snowing! I told you it would snow soon!

You know you live in Idaho when...

So I decided to post some pictures of the girls that I have taken since I blogged last. It hasn't been quite a month and yet in the time that I took the pictures of the girls sledding, all of our snow has melted and today we were out doing yard work. It will probably snow next week..... Here goes anyways. My parents had this huge drift in their backyard that was the perfect sledding hill for the girls. It was the perfect length and the perfect speed for the girls. They had a blast...
Let's see, what else has happened.... I went all the way to Pocatello just to eat at Red Lobster. I also ate at Happy's Chinese (hands down my favorite Chinese food) and saw the movie Taken (which I loved). I had to speak in Sacrament Meeting a couple of weeks ago too.

Our basement bedrooms are awaiting carpet and then they will be done. They are all painted. We will have to save up some money to finish the bathroom downstairs(vanities and marble shower walls are quite expensive!)

I guess my other big news was the latest Teton Chamber Orchestra concert that I participated in. It was such a great concert. We performed with Acoustic Eidolon and they were wonderful. They played such a variety of music- Celtic (my favorite), Spanish, Australian, the blues, the Beatles, etc. They were outstanding. Their My Space page give a sample of their music. It is so beautiful...

Anyway, in short, that is how the Burch family has spent the last month.

How To Host A Murder

We had the greatest time at my parents house last night playing "How To Host A Murder." Look at the pictures and see for yourself:

P'Elvis Swagarin (AKA Rex) His costume was great- chaps, vest, holster, gun, bandanna, huge belt buckle, spurs, cowboy boots and a hat (and he hadn't even shaved!)

I love this picture.

De Adela Muerte (AKA me!) I'm supposed to be a Mexican beauty in mourning.


Ashtyn: she loved dressing up.

Tayla: what a show off.

Helena Handcart (AKA my Mom)

Chief Breaking Wind (AKA my Dad) I thought his name was hilarious!

Butch Chastity (AKA my sister Shanda)

Elias Truist-Heath (AKA my Bro-In-Law Jade) I'm not sure I would've recognized Jade dressed like this if I had passed him on the street.

Elvira-Lynn Fekshin (AKA my sister Kylie) What a costume!

Wyatt Hertz (AKA my Bro-In-Law William)

At the dinner table

Kylie after being accused of murder....

Jade twirling his pistols.

We had so much fun. For those of you who have never been to a "How To Host A Murder" party, everyone is assigned a part and you are supposed to dress up. Then there is a dinner and as you eat, you get a booklet that tells you what you can say and not say. Then you try and figure out who the murderer is. It was way fun. Try saying some of the names fast- that's what makes them so funny. Also, the story behind each individual is pretty hilarious too. I'm not going to go into all those details now but I do highly recommend playing this game. We had a blast!

I went to Red Robin on Saturday. Rex's mom takes us out to eat for our birthday each year and this year we tried Red Robin. I am totally and completely in love with their Campfire sauce for the french fries. In fact, I am craving it right now....

Rex is Old(er)!

What a busy week the middle of February turns out to be for us.....

Of course, our biggest event was Rex's birthday on the 12th. After going to storytime with the girls and running some errands, we made a trip to Blackfoot to see Rex at work and to take him some presents and some cookies. The girls had picked out something at the dollar store to give him (ceramic horse and puppy to "help" him paint) and we had made sugar cookies the day before. Later that night, we made him Linguini and Clam Sauce (his favorite thing to eat in the whole entire world.... see the recipe below. He would lick the pan if I would let him) and we had cake and ice cream. We hope he had a great day!

Linguini and Clam Sauce

• 4 green onions
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 C chopped parsley
• 1 can minced clams
• 1/2 C clam juice (I actually just use the juice from the clams themselves)
• 1/2 C cooking wine (if you are opposed to cooking with wine, use 1/4 C lemon juice instead)
• sprinkle of crushed red pepper
• small container of shredded Parmesan cheese
• linguini noodle

Cover the bottom of a frying pan with olive oil and on medium heat add the onions and garlic to cook until the onions are a light color. Add the clam juice, parsley and red peppers. Start the noodles. After 5 minutes, add the wine and boil for 3 minutes. Add the clams and let cook for 5 minutes before slowly stirring in the shredded Parmesan cheese. Serve over top of noodles. Great with Texas toast and salad. (I always double the sauce ingredients so we have more of the topping on our noodles.)

There is a warehouse in Idaho Falls that sells great soup for really cheap and my Mom and I wanted some for our food storage. So, we went there and let me tell you, that was enough of an adventure to last me for the rest of the year. I was sure we were going to get arrested for trespassing. You go to their warehouse and there is no readily available office (much less a front door), so you go in through their shipping docks, through all this equipment and supplies, up some rickety old stairs and finally come to some kind of office. All of the office staff looks at you funny when you walk in as if to say "how did you know we were up here?" Seriously good soup though, even if I ever do get arrested for trespassing to get it.

I watched a couple of movies this week- Iron Man and Dark Knight. (Yes, I know they have been out for awhile. I am way behind on movie watching.) I really liked them both, especially Christian Bale, er, I mean Dark Knight..... :)

Our Valentines Day was nice and relaxing. Rex made me breakfast and gave me a box of chocolate candy. Yummy! On Sunday was my sister's birthday and so we went to Rexburg for her cake and ice cream. (A delicious ice cream cake by the way!)

In honor of Rex's birthday and Valentines Day, my favorite's list this week is :

Things I admire about Rex:

• His integrity- Rex his very honest in all of his doings. His work, his personal life, his church callings all benefit from his honesty. He strives to do right with other people. He does the best in all that he can do and puts in an honest days work.
  
• His work ethic- Rex is a very hard worker. He not only works full time at Bingham Memorial Hospital in the marketing department doing a heck of a lot of stuff there, but he then comes home and works for at least a couple of hours for his own clients for his own company, ADvantageous Design. Not only that, but he is the ward clerk and the building scheduler, is a husband and father, and helps many, many people in our family and in our ward with computer problems.
  
• Charitable- Rex is always concerned about other people. He is always thinking of ways to help other people.
• Funny- Rex is funny. Many of you may not know this but he really has a sense of humor. He makes up funny songs and keeps us laughing frequently.

We love you!

The last few weeks

I read other people's blogs and feel bad that I don't have anything terribly exciting to talk about. I also used to think that I took quite a few pictures of my girls but yet, I don't really have a lot to post on here. Oh well, here goes nothing.

I went up to Mackay with my Mom a few weeks ago to spend time with my Grandpa. We did a little bit of house cleaning and then I tried to take the girls sledding. I have fond memories of going sledding by the cow trough. The trough would spill over and then freeze up and it made a great sledding hill. But, I took the girls up on the mine hill this time but the snow wasn't good. And, we didn't have sleds and were trying to use trash bags. That didn't work at all and so they rolled down the hill while I took pictures. The pictures aren't of the girls but of scenes from around Grandma and Grandpa's farm. It is the first time I had been back to Mackay since my Grandma died in October. It was obvious something was missing there and I can see why Grandpa gets lonely there. It is funny how much someone fills your life with light and you don't notice it until they are gone.

Grandma and Grandpa's house

Scenery from Grandma and Grandpa's
Chimney where we used to "bake" our mud pies.

I would post a lot more but these pictures are taking a long time to load so I'll just keep the rest to myself. But I did get some nice pictures and it was a fun walk through memory lane.

I have been busy with Primary stuff for the last few weeks. We had a Primary Activity on Saturday which went really well. We filmed the kids doing a talent and then they decorated boxes to look like cars. They decorated heart shaped sugar cookies and they watched their talents on the TV in their "drive-in" cars. It was cute and we had a good turnout.

I had to teach the Senior Primary boys how to sing "How Firm A Foundation" today. That was a heck of an experience. I have a greater respect for Primary Chorister and there is one 10 year old boy in our ward who is lucky I didn't smack him on the head a few dozen times.

I also got to attend Achievement Days for their Mother/ Daughter party. We have some great A.D leaders and I am grateful for all they do.


We had Elder Ballard come to our Stake Conference last week. That was a really neat experience. He told a neat story in the Adult Session about the power of the Priesthood and the power of family. It was really neat.



My girls have been really sick the last 2 weeks with really awful colds. Tayla usually suffers through a cold pretty well but this time it kept her up at night coughing. And when she doesn't get enough sleep, everyone suffers. And of course, Ashtyn is miserable when she gets sick. I bet you she has asthma and she really coughs a lot when she gets sick. Poor kids. (And of course I have a cold now too. It was inevitable I guess.)

My list of favorites this week are Favorite Websites:

• Check out www.topsecretrecipes.com. This guy duplicates restaurant recipes and they taste so good. Some have weird ingredients but for the most part they use common items. I love the recipes from the Macaroni Grill and the Reses Peanut Butter Cups. This is such a fun site. You can also sign up for an email to be sent to you once a week that has a free recipe. It is a great resource for great food.
• Need help in almost every church calling? Check out www. sugardoodle.net. This has fantastic sharing ideas, singing time ideas, visiting teaching ideas, YW ideas, etc, etc. There are also links from here to other sites that also have great ideas. This is a wealth of information.
  
• Hate cleaning your house? Try www.flylady.net. She presents house cleaning in a whole new way. I have adapted this method and I love it. I will admit that I don't do EVERYTHING that she says like getting dressed to the shoes and I have yet to become a dishwasher Nazi; but I do take 15 minutes a day to do some deep cleaning. I really feel like I stay on top of things that way. I love this method.
  

Anyhow, I hope you find some of those useful. Until next time.....