Easter 2011

Easter is one of my favorite holidays and I try to keep it as non commercial as possible! This year we did an Easter Egg Hunt that happened to be honoring our good friend Liam Juassi. He is such an inspiration to us. The good news is he has been cancer free! Woo Hoo! Here is a link to his story.

We also did a primary activity that was a scripture scavenger hunt. There was no candy involved and I think the kids got the spiritual message we were going for!

Our Sunday tradition has been with the Christensens and the Ramos families for the last 9 Easters! We usually have a brunch, but now that we are in 3 different wards, we couldn't meet until 5pm. Catherine is an amazing host and we each bring food. The kids look forward to it all year. We started with 3 kids and now have 10 between us!

PS

They put the baskets on their head. pretending to be bucket zombies from my favorite game Plants v. Zombies!

Kids Happenings

Bryce and Emily finished soccer and I think they both loved it! Bryce kept a running tally of all the goals he made and gave us the update each game. I believe he finished with 13 goals! Emily was pretty excited to make her first goal at the end of the season. It was great watching her get more and more confident.

Dallin and Emily both took big steps in April. Dallin auditioned for a local talent show with a rendition of Beethoven's 5th. He practiced every day and I was very proud of his dedication. When he watched some of the audition tapes, he turned to me and said, "Mom, I am okay if I don't get picked." I thought it was very humble of him to recognize that he wasn't the best! I was still happy for his effort and the learning experience.

Emily auditioned for the local production of "Sound of Music." She sang "Defying Gravity" from Wicked. I was proud of her for getting on that big stage and not getting nervous! She did not make it either, but she had fun.

Now Dallin has started baseball and we are enjoying the new season. The kids and I watch in the rain and Jeff is helping to coach.

Here is Dallin's You Tube video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7To9CMv-FKc

Here is the link to Emily's You Tube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGO5Z2zWGZQ

Country Life Update

I feel like life is one big experiment right now! We have no idea what we are doing with all this property, but we sure love it! We had 9 chickens between us and the Giles, and unfortunately, we had an attack that left us with 7 piles of feathers. Dallin was the one who found them and was really upset about it. The next day we lost number 8, and the last chicken held on for a couple more weeks. We need to figure out soon what was killing off our chickens because we have 7 chicks in the garage! The kids have loved watching them grow! They are so big now! If we don't figure out a solution soon, we are just raising coyote bait! Any suggestions?

The kids will play outside for hours, which I love! The main reason I have always wanted a big backyard was so that we could play catch with our kids. That is a sweet memory I have with my own dad and it is great watching it come true with my kids! We are getting the garden ready and I have been adding color to our yard. Jeff did some new bark dust which looks really nice. Come join us anytime!

Grandma and Grandp come for a visit!

Just trying to keep some updates on here!

Feb26-28- We were lucky enough to have Grandma Di and Grandpa Mel visit. They hadn't been to the new country house so they wanted to see our digs. :-) The kids mauled them and loved having them here. They were able to watch Dallin's basketball game and Bryce and Emily's soccer games. We went bowling, to a movie, and just hung out playing games. We had a fantastic time. We were sad to see them leave.

Kids and Sports

I grew up playing softball since I was 7 and trying almost every other sport for fun. I loved the team aspect and especially appreciated my parents attendance at the games. I have looked forward to watching my own children play. Dallin has been playing sports since he was 4. He seems to like whatever he tries. He is currently playing basketball and has discovered that he loves to steal the ball and then make a layup. The season ends this weekend. We are excited that Grandpa Mel and Grandma Di will be there to watch.

Dallin and his best buddy Tyler had fun playing against each other and guarding each other!

Bryce and Emily both started soccer on Saturday. It is always fun to see how different the kids are. Jeff is helping to coach Bryce's team. He actually scored the first goal in the first 5 seconds of the game. I will try to upload the video!
Emily has not shown too much interest in sports, so I have tried not push her. I am glad she wants to try it now. She is a little tentative to go after the ball, but is a great runner, which makes me happy! She also offered to play goalie, which I was pleasantly surprised with.

It will be fun to cheer them both on in soccer. Dallin will get about a month break after basketball and then start baseball. I think my dad is having fun watching him from his bleacher in the sky. I am so glad he passed on his love of sports to us.

Here is Dallin scoring!

Here is Bryce scoring!

Fun times!

Happy 9th Birthday Dallin

Dear Dallin,

From the day you were born, you were my little buddy. We have had some great times together. Some of my favorite memories were swimming at the Y and watching you take to water just like your mommy! I have loved watching you learn and grow. When I was worried that I wouldn't be able to have another child, I remember thinking about how happy you made me and how lucky I was to have you! You have been a joy to love and to teach. I love hearing about how kind and gentle you are. That means more to me than any of your other great qualities. I know as you have gotten older you have noticed more and more of my weaknesses. I can't trick you forever! I hope you will always be my special buddy and know that even though I am not perfect, I will always love you with all of my heart.

And I will always be your biggest fan!!

I love you Dallin and I am lucky to be your mom!

(Thanks to Suzie petunia for the action shots!)

Finding Love Again

One of my favorite love stories is about a boy and a girl who meet in high school. They both come from broken families, but at 16 and 19 decide to defy the odds and get married. They move to Turkey with the Air Force and then proceed to have a beautiful marriage and 5 perfect kids. (ha ha!) It seems like it is happily ever after. Unfortunately the boy became really sick and after 36 years of marriage, he had to leave her and go to heaven.

There is another boy and girl who met at the same high school. Their lives started out as a fairy tale also. They had 2 boys and life was good. Their lives together were cut short also as the girl became very sick and passed away.

Through modern day technology (aka Facebook!), the lonely boy and girl found each other! They became each other's friend, confidante, and shoulder to cry on during the toughest times of both of their lives.

If you haven't figured this out, it is the story of my wonderful mother, Denise, and her love for the second half of her life, Harold. I will admit I was nervous to meet Harold for the first time. It wasn't because I didn't want my mom to be happy. On the contrary, I feel that she deserves all the happiness in the world. It was because I was afraid of what my reaction would be. I was nervous that I would not control myself and I would burst into tears.

Well, the first time I met him, he bravely agreed to join Jeff and I and the 3 kids (and my mom, of course!) at Legoland. It was a fantastic "test" and he passed with flying colors! He was great with the kids, I could see how well he treated my mom, and he has the goofy personality that I adored in my father. I could see they were a good fit and I was truly happy for both of them.

They were married on January 15, 2010. They just celebrated their first anniversary and I am so excited that they both found love again! What an amazing story! I am so grateful that my mom has someone to take care of her again, someone to laugh with, and someone to cry with. I also love that they share in their grief over their spouses. They were both in committed, loving marriages and bring that commitment to this marriage.

They came out last May to join in a family race and I enjoyed getting to know Harold even more. He said to me, "I don't know if we have laughed more or cried more this year." I think that is beautiful. We love you both! Happy Anniversary to a great couple.

Sharing our House

We love our new house in the country and we want others to see what we love about it. One of the reasons I moved here is that I hoped I would be more willing to invite people over. It is not a huge house, but I think the view is beautiful and peaceful. My kids have taken really well to the transition because the already knew the house so well, thanks to our good friends being the owners, and our other friends living right next door! I took a few weeks to move in and then it was time to say goodbye to friends from our old ward. (Well, hopefully it's not goodbye because we only live 2 miles away!) I had a luncheon for the girls I visit teach, a class party for my church class and Dallin had almost all the boys from his class over. It also happened to be the week I was teaching preschool! Whew, it makes me tired reading that, but it was a great week. Here are some pictures!

I participate in a co-op preschool where the parents take turns teaching the group of preschoolers. I have done this since Dallin was 3 years old, and I really do enjoy it. Plus it fits my pocketbook better than the other preschools! We order a curriculum online and then take our turn. The theme for this month was "Farm". There couldn't have been a more perfect theme for my house! I took the kids to feed the horses down the street. (Although Bryce is the only one who would feed the horse the carrot from his hand!) We also went to see our chickens. We had "pigs in a blanket" for lunch. It was a fun day!

My next day of preschool I was in charge of the field trip to the fire station. The captain was fantastic with the kids! I was very impressed!

I was sad to say goodbye to my church class. They are all the kids who are turning 8 and who were baptized this year. Dallin was in my class and I enjoyed teaching him and realizing how much he has learned from other teachers over the year. He was the first one to be baptized and then was able to go to most of the other baptisms. There is a special spirit that is there and it was a great reminder for him of how he felt at his own baptism. I decided that instead of just a class party, we would make it service oriented. They had great attitudes as they made cards for soldiers and did crafts with our Special Needs group at the YMCA. Emily was also able to do service as their class performed a Thanksgiving play at an assisted living center.

I have not really had playdates for Dallin since he got into first grade. As the kids got bigger, I just felt more and more claustrophobic in my old house and backyard. I was excited to have 9 boys over to play to see how it went! The only bad news was it was rainy and cold so they only played outside for a little bit. They had a blast playing video games and then after playing outside they all came in for hot chocolate! I hope to do more of this type of entertaining this summer!

There was a rumor going around that we were going to get snow (only happens every couple of years here) and I was really hoping the weathermen were right because I had good friends coming into town!! Luckily there was enough snow for a "snow day" and the kids had fun in the light dusting of snow that cancelled school for the day! It was the day before Thanksgiving break, so we were able to play all day with our friends, the Merrills! We hung out, made snowflakes, and then went swimming in the heated pool. We also went to Spaghetti Factory. We had a fun time and I am glad they came to visit!

Thanksgiving was spent with the Porters and the Williamsons! They didn't assign me much, so I was able to get away with just bringing pies from Costco. (Although at the last minute, I felt compelled to make a homemade banana cream pie, just like I remember from my Thanksgivings as a kid!) The kids were all playing happily in the basement, so we actually started dinner with just the adults. It was very enjoyable. Then the kids started joining us one by one. We ended the night with games and surprisingly, the kids and adults all played in the same room, and it was great! I miss being with family during the holidays, but I feel lucky to have such good friends to share the day with. I wish I had more pictures. Maybe Ranell or Karen will post more. I do have a picture of the 5 pies we ate between 3 families!

That night, we inherited 2 extra kids. Ranell and Brian went to Hawaii for a week, so we watched their 2 youngest children. (Don't worry- we will be getting away in the spring!) It didn't always go perfectly, but the kids got along pretty well, everyone slept at night, and we all survived! I think it was successful!! We even had a lot of fun in there!

Okay, that is all for now. :-)

The pictures are all of of order, but I need to go hang out with my family. There are more updates to come!