Crazy Cooking Gals - what lies in the hearts of 10-year old girls

I love these girls, both of them.

I love that they love each other.

I love that Halle has a best friend who is so kind and funny and creative and GOOD.

I love that they are so silly together.

On this day, making cookies turned into filming a cooking show with crazy accents and LOUD voices.

Enjoy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd9XX_K-SVY

you just can't top this:

Every three hours,

this is what I get to see

for twenty minutes:

This beautiful baby girl's

giant eyes looking up at me

and the occasional milky smile

peeking out from behind the bottle.

* * *

Big brother reading her

story after story.

* * *

From where I sit,

the view couldn't be

any better.

do you know the Muffin Men?

My boys love to help in the kitchen. Too bad they have a mom that 90% time says to their offers of assistance, "I just need to get this done really quickly. Maybe next time." (That's something I don't like about myself - trying to change.)

A few weeks ago we made some blueberry muffins.

These two bakers did a GREAT job.

The muffins were delicious!

the look of hope...

I can't get over the feeling I had when I first saw this painting by Liz Lemon Swindle. Immediately your eyes are drawn beyond the movement of the apostles to the look in their eyes. It is the expression on their faces that Liz Lemon Swindle chose to use as the title of her masterpiece: "HOPE". It stirs within me my own feelings for my Savior. My own hope that I can live my life in a way that is pleasing to my Heavenly Father. That as I utilize the atonement in my life, to right my wrongs and heal my hurts, I will earn a seat at His table and live with Him forever. I love what Ms. Swindle wrote about what inspired her to paint this image:

When Mary came to the tomb, she found the stone rolled away and the tomb empty. She ran to the disciples crying, "They have taken away the Lord…and we know not where they have laid him" (John 20:2). Peter and John immediately ran to the tomb.

What did they think as they ran? Were they simply curious to see for themselves? Did they fear, like Mary, that their enemies had stolen the body? Or did they remember His promise, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up"?

The decision that faced Peter and John that Sunday morning is the same decision that faces each one of us today. Will we doubt? Will we hope? Or will we know that He lives? I know that He lives.

And so do I. This Easter weekend I desire to shout from the mountain tops that I know my Savior loves me, understands me, died for me, and lives for me!

"How great, how glorious, how complete,

Redemption's grand design,

Where justice, love, and mercy meet

In harmony divine"