Easter Pics and Vids...

Here is the Gray Family Easter Egg Hunt. It has been a tradition for some 30 years, ever since I can remember. So here's the deal. My mom would prepare hundreds of plastic eggs filling them with pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and candy and hide them all over the yard. When we were growing up, the eggs we colored and dyed were hidden along with the plastic eggs, and were part of our breakfast once the hunt was over. The grand finale was one egg that was gold, and was the special egg, that usually had one or two dollar bills in it. Whoever found the egg was hot stuff, and it was usually the hardest one to find. As we grew older, the Golden Egg had more money in it. Now that we all have kids, we still would haul them over to Grandma Gray's for the Hunt. Well, this year Grandma and Grandpa Gray went on vacation over Easter weekend, so Diedre and Dacia got together and planned and prepared the whole thing over at Rob and Diedre's place, filling all the eggs, decorating, and preparing for the breakfast. Then Diedre hid all the eggs, and decided we didn't have enough and bought and hid more. So we had Rob and Diedre with their two boys, Caleb and Peter (Willie was asleep) and Stephen, and Dacia and our boys, Jonah, Jonathan, and Spencer.

Ok, so I uploaded the pictures on the small size, in the hopes that you could see more without taking up more real estate. Oh well...Click on the photos for larger size.



The kids staring out into the backyard with barely contained anticipation. If it were me, I would say we were scoping out routes for optimum egg gathering strategies...Since it wasn't me, I think they were just looking outside thinking about all the pretty colors.



In case you missed it, Spencer is the first one out, and is stepping over the bright, pretty eggs on his way to somewhere else. Eggs are kinda hard to see because of the size of the video player.




This is the way Spencer rolls...At first I thought he was defending his egg loot...Nope. He just found himself a bigger stick to swing.







The reckoning...






Spencer, the Destroyer...

March Middlings

Greetings from Graygoland!

First things first, our new phone number is: 435-214-0743. This is the number to contact any and all of us!

So, I know there has been silence from our shade on the slope, so I figured now was as good a time as any to break out in song...or whatever.

Jonathan turned 6! Yay. Had fun spending time with family and friends (Thanks everyone for the presents and fun!). His big present was a bicycle, which took him by complete surprise. I guess it would if you didn't ask for one. Oh well. Last year I bought him a bigwheel, but our Jon-Jon is somewhat vertically challenged, and if he sat in the seat of the bigwheel, his midget legs couldn't reach the pedals. If he scooted forward and put his feet on the pedals, then he was sitting on the bar of the bigwheel. Very uncomfortable. So he never rode the thing. He sure does love the bike though!




He also received a huge lego project. It is a big coast guard boat and tower. When he unwrapped the box and gave his first gasp of delight, he turned around and held up the box (almost as big as he is) and said "Oh cool! A shark!!" I have included a picture of the box, so you can see the shark.


Did you find it?





Jonah had a big school project this week. He had to research and write a 5 minute oral presentation with multi-media displays (pictures on posterboard) about an American figure in history. Jonah did his report on Paul Revere, and did a smashing job! "One if by land, Two if by sea..." Afterward, he and the other students presented their subjects in a "wax" museum, example below. It's hard to be "wax" with annoyingly pesky little brothers...


The boys have been inspired by their cousins to take karate. Originally, we signed them up in a kung fu class (Kung Fu Panda), but the instructor had a family emergency and the boys were stuck with karate instead. It scared Dacia's pants right off when she watched our little shrimps spar with much older, larger, heavier, experienced, and more physical students.


Dacia has had a very busy month. In addition to the runnings around and school projects mentioned above, she performed a solo in a stake production called "Woman at the Well," in which she sang some sappy, poppy LDS song as a nephite/lamanite woman who met the Savior during His visit to America. When the bishop asked her to sing the song as a musical number in sacrament meeting, she turned him down flat. "Not appropriate" or something like that. I just chalk that down to pregnancy hormones. Oh yeah, if you hadn't heard, she is pregnant. Again.


Dacia is the choir director for our ward, and we sang two songs on two different Sundays this month. She is also madly preparing our choir for Easter Sunday. She was asked to have the boys sing a prelude for Sacrament Meeting a couple weeks ago. And she greatly enjoyed singing with BYU Singers for a reunion concert last week.


Ordinary, boring routine really. Except for Spencer. He is a bit like Jonah, in that he will have entire conversations, without speaking a lick of English. The doctor thinks his progress is slow, and he should be speaking a lot more. Ha. Here are some examples. We are trying to get him to say "One, Two, Three!"








He really likes to hit things/people, with whatever he has in hand. A wand, a sword, a 5-pound pooh talking/singing Pooh Bear. None of us has escaped his fisticuffs. He likes to wait until you are least expecting it. He'll be sitting and watching some movie, and when Jonah sits down, Spencer turns around, stands up, and proceeds to whack Jonah on the head with a huge grin on his face. Jonathan will be completely absorbed in a Wii game and get clobbered on the head from behind. Dacia and I both get it when taking naps on the couch. Such violence!

Jason in Springfield...

Happy Anniversary!

Jason and I recently celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. Can you believe that it has been that long? Neither can I. Jason planned out a wonderful date for us to celebrate-complete with steak and jewelery. It was so nice of him to surprise me! In thanks I would like to do something I don't do enough. I would like to pay tribute to my Wonderful husband and say a few things that I love about Jason. There are probably a few things that you did not know here. Hopefully he won't be too embarrassed.

~ Jason gives random acts of kindness. Every once in awhile I come home to flowers on the table or my favorite treat. I love that he thinks of me when I am not with him. He is there to hug me when work or just life is too hard.

~ He's a great Dad. Jason is so good at making sad kids happy. He can always get them to laugh. Ever since I have been working weekends he has been the main caregiver for the kids while I am gone and he does a wonderful job. In fact, I think he is more "fun" to be with than me. The kids get more pizza and McDonald's with Dad. Maybe he is just as much a "sucker" as I am when it comes to the kids and how they wrap themselves around our little fingers.

~ Jason is a great reader. He always denies this, but he is so fast at reading. He says it is because he spends the time, but we can spend the same amount of time on a book and he will invariably finish ten times faster than me. Not only is he fast, but he loves to read. As a result, Jason always has interesting things to say.

~ Jason is not afraid of hard work. Jason is the one who will shovel the driveway or mow the lawn. I think he actually enjoys it sometimes-when he is not slipping on the ice and breaking his head. Also, when times are rough and Jason is between Jobs, I don't worry too much, because I know that even if it means doing something that he hates-he will take care of us.

~Jason is not that great a cook. This may seem funny to love, but what I love is that he tries. Even though he is not that experienced at cooking he makes a mean scrambled egg, which is all you need if you are nursing a sick wife, as we have found over the years. Also, Jason has always been good at making cakes. He says that he had a lot of experience with cakes from scratch in his scout days. Thank you America.

~Jason is musical. Most of you know this fact, but It is something that draws me to him. I love hearing him play the piano, however rare it may be these days.

~Jason is my personal IMDB. He knows all the actors names and what other shows they have been in. I ask him all the time when I recognize someone in a movie and just can't place them.

~Jason is an accomplished gift wrapper. He says it is all about angles. I think this stems from his days at Deseret Book.

~Jason is logical. This attribute balances me out nicely. If it were up to me we would spend all our free time at Disneyland and we would be homeless in a month. He keeps me in line.

~Jason loves us! Thank you for always being there and working hard for us! We love you too.

~Dacia

Merry Christmas Day

For Christmas day we were woken early by excited kids. We all got our robes etc. and went down to the Christmas tree to see that Santa had come. Also Mom and Dad had moved all the presents down under the tree. With Spencer around we couldn't leave anything in his reach. Even the tree is only decorated from the 3 foot mark and up. We had a great time opening stockings and gifts-especially the surprises.























Then we drove down to Grandma and Grandpa Spanns house.. It was a lovely snowy drive-complete with crazy people who go way too fast in the snow. We made it in one peice-Halleluia! Once we were there we had our second breakfast and opened a few more gifts. Thank you to everyone who sent presents-We all love them!
















AND...here are the cookies that we decorated on the 23rd with Breanne and the kids. I wish you could see them all up close-they came out so cute-and I don't think there are any left to see...
After presents we played a few scrabble and sudoku games and then had a yummy Ham dinner. The night was finished by yet another crazy drive in a white-out snow storm and we were grateful to get home safely!

Merry Christmas Eve

I can't believe it has been so long that I have neglected our poor blog. I'm sure you are all wondering what happened to us, but we are still here. Of course, as are all of you, we are busy with school, work, and babies. That is no excuse. I hope to do better-maybe that is a New Year's resolution...Anyway, we had a fabulous Christmas! We missed those who were not here, of course, and were glad some could come from far away. The kids got exactly what they wanted from Santa and Mom and Dad, but that is not what is important. We had a wonderful time with family and a delicious Ham dinner, complete with Diedre's empanadas.



Baby Willie is getting so big. Can sit alone and stand with assistance.




Spencer was happy for most of the night-except the hour or two when his arm may have been out of the socket...Hmm...shades of Jonah at that age.



Carole, Ed, and Emily put on a lovely reading about the baker's dozen.


So glad to have David and Mindy, the first time we have seen them since the wedding,


Boys sitting quietly-well- you know.


We wore Grandma Hansen out early!


Stephen performed some beautiful numbers.



Spencer enjoyed Uncle Rob's guitar playing by dancing along.



When not performing, making cakes, or helping kids Deidre and I got to watch.




Once the Show was completed we had a loverly French chocolate cake that Jason has wanted to make for some time. He recruited me to help and I recruited Stephen-so between the 3 of us we got them done quickly. With the custard creme, orange slices, and cinnamon-it was delicious. After that we had the annual white elephant gift exchange. The kids all got things that they liked. The adult exchange was actually pretty uneventful. There was minimal stealing going on. Hope everyone is happy with what they ended up with-except we know that Carole really wanted the DVD...maybe next time!
Thanks for a wonderful evening!