The first of April...

I forgot to plan anything fun to trick the kids on April fool's day this year. So I quickly cut out some paper sunglasses to put on their sandwiches, and slipped them in before they left. Then I went to the store for a few things for a fun dinner. I made this "chicken pot pie". It's really just vanilla pudding with chunks of white chocolate, starbursts, and chewy spree. Then I prebaked 2 pie crusts and placed them on top. It turned out pretty tasty, though the chewy spree candy did get a little hard from being in the refrigerator.  

I also made jello in cups, and put straws to trick them into thinking it was their drink. I forgot to get them out for dinner, so I remembered right before bed time. And I didn't have the camera handy.

I knew they would expect meatloaf cupcakes, so I switched it up, and did turkey meatballs. I put a wadded piece of foil in the center of each one, to make it look like a donut. The pink "icing" is, of course, mashed potatoes. They actually were yummy, even though Ben complained that I put too much onion.

Kara and Kiersten were absolutely not fooled this year. I've already decided that next year I really am going to make cupcakes for dinner, and see what they think of that.

Poor Evie kind of was fooled. Look at that happy donut face. After she bit into it, she was upset. She made Ben scrape off the potatoes. She was happy to eat the leftovers for lunch the next day, so I guess it wasn't that bad.

Kiersten tried to act like she was surprised. She clearly was not.

We were devastated to learn that Ben's Grandma passed away on March 18th. She was such a fun person, and we miss her like crazy. We decided to drive out for the funeral, and flew my Mom out to stay with the kids so they wouldn't miss school. We drove 18 1/2 hours straight to get there. Ben was a real trooper. We had taken the kids to the circus Saturday night, and left right after, around 11:30. Ben did all the driving, so I was able to get a little sleep. We got to Smithfield, UT around 5pm. We had just enough time to shower and change before heading over to his aunt's house to spend time with family. The funeral was the next morning, and after lunch, we spent a little more time with family, and then drove about 8 hours to our hotel for the night. We drove the whole next day, and got home at around 9PM. It sure was a whirlwind few days. I wont say it was pleasant being cramped in the car all that time, but it was nice to have time just to hang out, talk, and be silly with Ben. It sure is different when you don't have kids around. Still, I don't want to plan any long car drives any time soon.

The funeral was really difficult, but good to have closure, and mourn. We have so many fun and happy memories with her, so we tried to focus on thinking about those fun times. When we were living in Salt Lake the first few years of our marriage, we used to go over once or twice a week on our days off to hang out with Harold and Shirley. We always had such a fun time, playing games, laughing, and talking with them. She always used to say, "you don't have to come over to spend time with an old lady..." and we would try to convince her that we loved visiting. I don't know how many times we would tell them about an issue, or something that was going on, and Shirley would make us laugh at ourselves, and Harold would give us amazing advice. When Kara was crawling and walking, we had a great time laughing at all of the silly things she did.  I always tell Ben that he won the Grandparent lottery. But I am also so lucky to have had them in my life for these past 12 years. I wish the kids could have more memories of her.

We were really looking forward to visiting her this summer. I feel just awful that we didn't get out there last year. When we moved to Seattle, the hardest part, was knowing we wouldn't be able to see them as much. I feel that I've become a better person for having known her, and in that way, she's still with all of us.