Baseball for FHE

We had our FHE on Tuesday night this week. Hey, better late than never! We played a version of softball. In this version mom and dad throw a ball at each other and swing at every pitch, sometimes knocking the ball into the neighbors yard. Also in this version when you tell Konnor to hit the ball, you had better hope that Mckenzie isn't holding it. If she is, she WILL NOT pitch the ball; however, she will run through the yard with it. Konnor, following orders, will chase Mckenzie through two yards with a bat, swinging at her.... This is the Applegate way of playing FHE softball.... By the way, we did not paint Mckenzie's face for our softball night. She rubbed her hands on the car tire and then painted her own face. Since it was kind of fitting, we left it. I know, I know, we are horrible parents.

The Childrens Museum

Today we took the kids to The Childrens Museum downtown. Honestly, this may have been the most fun thing we have done as a family. I was really impressed with the whole set up and how much my kids loved it. I guess it is geared toward all children but it was honestly like Heaven on Earth for my kids. They had giant ABC's everywhere and Konnor had me take his picture with all of the ones we saw. It was like they were celebrities or something. Mckenzie LOVED doing crafts (She painted flowers) and she was excellent at shopping. She filled her cart up in like 2 minutes, although I will say she bought A LOT of cake mix... We spent quite a bit of time in their library area reading books and playing with HUGE Melissa & Doug puzzles of the solar system and the United States. Like I said, right down our alley. Of course when it was time to leave a meltdown, like we have never seen the likes of before, ensued. We learned to go earlier, and pack a lunch, this could definitely be an all day event. The kids learned that we won't stay any longer just b/c they freak out about leaving. I really think we may have to do a year membership. The last 15 minutes aside, this was an AWESOME trip. Konnor would like to blog so he says...

konnor says boys are back

Easter

Easter weekendwas very fun and VERY busy for our family! We had a temple trip to Raleigh, a birthday party in Winston Salem, an Easter egg hunt in Statesville, Easter morning in Rural Hall, church in Winston and Easter dinner at Nana's in Pfafftown! Whew... Of course this made it hard to pick our favorite few pictures, but these are some of them. Each event had such significance and added something special. As our hearts and minds turned to the Savior and what he has done for us, all of us, but our family in particular, it was wonderful to have each of these experiences. Not enough can be said of the blessings of the temple and yet I feel like that is suffucient. The birthday party was wonderful because it was one of those things that reminded us how lucky we are to be members of the church and to have such amazing friends and acquantances. It was uplifting and enjoyable (even in pouring rain!) We are so lucky to be surrounded by people who put family and God first. People like that make life a bit easier. The rest of the weekend was spent with family. Different parts of our family and in different surroundings. In all places there was a feeling of love, and peace knowing we were with people we care about, who care about us. What more do you need to be reminded of what Jesus did for you? With words from conference still fresh in our minds we thought a lot about the sacrifices Jesus made for us so that we can be able to rise above our mistakes, downfalls and heartaches. I can't think of a day in my life that I haven't made a mistake! How wonderful that he "should care for us enough to die for us!" I can not fathom eternity without the feeling of being with the people you love the most in THIS world, who care about you too! To have that amazing feeling every second of every day.... For that our opportunity family is grateful. We hope everyone had a wonderful and meaningful Easter weekend. I know there are some people who will be disappointed that this blog isn't full of my normal thick sarcasm... give it a week... Also for anyone who is interested we have TONS more pictures that you can check out on our facebook, or myspace and I'll put a few more under our postings.

First Trip to the ZOO!!!

We took our kids to the zoo for the first time! After a week of anticipation and excitement we went to Asheboro around lunch time on Saturday. We watched Madagascar 2 all the way there and talked about how we would see Marty, Alex and Melman. Konnor thought we were actually going to Africa which made the trip SOOO much better. Oddly enough, there were TONS and TONS of people and not so many animals. This was slightly disappointing, but the trip was still fun. Konnor kept wanting to go in the cages with the animals and Aarik and I had lots of fun trying to explain why this was not a good idea without scaring him enough to ruin the trip. Mckenzie didn't react too much beyond a "yeah" when we would ask her if she saw a certain animal. That is until we made the mistake of going into one of the gift shops. Then the shopper in her came out and we were lucky to escape at all. We hope that next time we go we can see more than a handful of animals, but we enjoyed the weather, the family time and our first trip to "Africa".