Ward Pioneer Party

Our ward held a Pioneer Day celebration this evening.  This evening.  As in literally the hottest day of 2013 so far.

I'm pretty sure last year's ward party was also held on the hottest day of the year.

We know how to pick 'em.

No matter!  We had a great time hanging out with friends and celebrating our pioneer heritage.

We were asked to bring our best pioneer desserts.  I know, most people think of cobbler and pies and whatnot.  I think "Oh boy!  I get to use my pioneer cookie cutters!"

In case you can't tell (and I wouldn't blame you), those are yellow beehives and brown covered wagons.  The wagons in this picture are upside down because I'm cool like that.

Tess and I made this awesome corn husk doll.  And by that I mean I quickly tried to get the doll together while Tess wandered around and whined because I wasn't fast enough for her and she didn't want to help.  She liked the doll once I was done, though, and named her "Tree".  (Tess really likes trees right now.  Whenever we drive in the car there's a constant "Oh!  A tree!  A tree!" coming from her in the back seat.) ((Man, Lafayette has a lot of trees.))

Then we tried our hand at watermelon seed spitting.  I just love Tess's face in this shot!

McKay and Lance are looking pretty good in this shot, too.

By the way, Deidra, I totally beat you in seed spitting.  Just thought you'd want to know.

Josh really got into the stick pulling with his buddy, Alex.  Apparently Josh is pretty strong, because he beat Alex and several other kids.

Including his older brother.

Just look at Josh, all relaxed and not really trying.

And look at Spencer, giving it everything he's got.  Josh has always been pretty athletic; I can only imagine the drama this will bring to the future between these two.

Then we decided to join the Salazars and the Hartwells on our own little trek.  Everyone was pretty excited about this - at first.

Then Tess and Millie started freaking out and had to be carried.  Tess decided she'd rather poke herself in the eye than get back in that hand cart.

Kids kept moving and rolling around and making it rather difficult for the dads to pull the handcart.

The Madsen-Hartwell-Salazar company was not very efficient.  I think we would all agree that we would not make very good pioneers.  (Although Deidra, Cielle, and I would have lots of good conversations along the way!)

Finally - a majority of the kids were happy!  Until Spencer stepped on something and hurt his pinky toe and thought he was going to die.  I was not willing (nor probably capable) to carry him, so I made him limp along for a while until the Easton family picked him up.  When we made it to "Salt Lake" I told him we should probably just amputate his toe, since he'd probably complain less.  (Because he sure couldn't complain more than he already was!)  ((Nine year old boys are drama kings!!!))  He just scowled at glared, something he is becoming more and more adept at these days.

After our trek we enjoyed some fresh fruit and a little dessert.

My cookies won an award!  Woo-hoo!  (I didn't even know it was a contest until we got there, so way to go me!)

My secret for taking desserts to ward parties is always to cater to the kid crowd.  This means, cookies, brownies, anything with M&Ms, those s'mores pops I made last year - you get the idea.  That way you will for sure not have to take any dessert home and you will be very popular with the younger set.  (And being popular is oh so important to me.)

It was a great activity.  Kudos to our wonderful primary presidency for putting on such a great evening!  (And thank heavens I didn't have to plan it!)