When The Cows Come Home and A Science Fair Project

The view outside Shawn's office generally includes the Chick-Fil-A cows.  I think the kids think it's one of the best parts about going to his office. Every once in a while, the cows get taken down and disappear for a bit.  We were all so relieved to get this text from Shawn.

"Great News! My cows are coming home!"

Phew!  All will be right with the world again.

Did you know cows could fly?

Do you ever have plans to get lots of things done or maybe go do something fun for a change?  But then you realize that instead you have to do a science fair project?  Yeah, me too.  This took up pretty much the whole weekend. But now we know that the much more inexpensive FitBit Zip that you wear on your hip is more accurate at counting steps than the more expensive FitBit Surge worn on your wrist.  In case you were wondering...

Everyone in the family got to be a subject.

You can tell we were all super excited and enthusiastic to be spending our night doing this.

Yep, even the little guy participated.

Then we pulled in the big guns -all the teenage boys that were hanging out.  That was awesome. It definitely bumped our numbers up.

So glad it's over.  Can hardly wait for the next big project that comes along.

We Like Big Instruments, We Cannot Lie!

Once upon a time, I believed that the cello was a fairly large instrument.

I have now come to realize that I was wrong. 

 I mean, I guess compared to a piccolo, it's pretty darn big, but compared to the other instruments in our home, it's pretty darn portable.  

We didn't set out with any thoughts of having our kids only play large instruments, but somehow it happened. I've hauled the bass and cello back and forth so many times, I can't keep track.  Fortunately moving the harp is a less frequent event, but it's always an event.  Who knew that our car choices would be limited by which ones can carry harps and basses?  Not me.

My kids don't practice nearly enough, but I love listening to the music they make. (Most of the time.)

Samantha's (first) instrument of choice is the harp.  But she also plays the trombone and dabbles in piano, guitar, ukelele and any other instrument she can get her hands on.

Amelia chose (with help and encouragement), the cello.  I've always loved the cello and hoped someone would play it.

Jonas was supposed to play the cello but instead came home with a bass.  I thought I would be disappointed, but I love the bass and it has been a perfect fit for him.  This is a 3/4 size bass which is about 7 feet tall.  Thank goodness he doesn't need a full size because I'm pretty sure it wouldn't fit.

He does usually wear shoes when he plays...

Oh, hi.  There I am.

Sometimes Jonas has to be remind that his bow is not to be used as a weapon.

Megan, thus far, is also playing the bass.  I was leaning toward the flute just because she would be able to carry it in her back pack, but instead, she's playing the bass because we already owned it. Maybe we can still convince her.

And Peter was mostly feeling left out so picked up the ukelele for fun.  He has his heart set on playing the drums.  (Where in the world would we put a drum kit?) But I'm making him start out with piano just like everyone else.

He's a bit of a ham.

We have some serious work to do before they're ready to perform in public...

Giving It Another Try in 2016

One of my resolutions this year is to bring back the blog.  I know I have missed cataloging our daily lives and the kids have missed it, too.  I don't want to set my self up to fail, so no hard set expectations here, but definitely trying to post on a more regular basis.

Since we spent 9 days of Christmas break with the stomach flu, there wasn't a whole lot that happened around here that anyone would want to read about.  We're just glad to put that behind us and move on, although none of us is ready to go back to school since we feel a little cheated on our vacation.

Samantha has anxiously been counting down the days to the start of the high school water polo season. (There is a strong possibility that she is even more excited for the END of the high school swim season, but we don't need to get into that here.)

The chain is still pretty long, but I know the days will fly by. I'm excited for water polo season too, but I don't need it to get here any more quickly than is necessary.  The rest of life kind of shuts down at that point, so I'm OK for it to be a ways off still.

Shawn and I managed to squeeze in one ski day in between sick kids.  (No Photos) And we did hike up Millcreek and sled down with 4 of the kids, but since my phone stopped letting me take pictures, this is the only proof we have of it.  It was really cold, but we had a great time, everyone laughing and smiling.

Shawn took the "littles" skiing at Brighton yesterday while I stayed home with the "bigs".  They had a great time.  All of them lapping Snake before the end of the day.  Shawn's ski dream may still come true.  In fact, I'd bet on it.

I was a little jealous to be missing out on the bluebird day, but relaxing at home and staying warm wasn't all bad either.  And the little kids needed some adult time all on their own.

Sleeping skiers is always a sign of a great ski day!

Mother's Day

My Mother's Day was fairly nice and relaxed. I am working hard to not have such negative feelings about Mother's day and it seems to be helping.  All of Shawn's bishopric meetings were cancelled, so it was really nice to have him home in the morning. He and the kids made brought me breakfast in bed and gave me presents.  I loved the handmade cards from my kids and got new shoes and a skirt out of the deal too.  We will also refer to this Mother's Day as the year of the kitchen stool.  I had mentioned that new kitchen stools were on my wish list, and well, Samantha delivered in her own special way.

I had intended to go to Shawn's ward to help him teach a class, but ended up helping out in primary instead.

They played a game of Guess the Mom.  We had to answer questions about ourselves to give them clues.  In Junior Primary, I did such a good job of disguising my voice that they guessed I was Peter's Dad instead.  (That's me in the cool glasses, second from the left.)

I'm pretty sure my birthday gave it away to my kids in senior primary. It was fun to participate.

Shawn's Mom was in Ivins, so we headed downtown to visit my Mom only to find that my parents were in St. George.  So we took the scenic way home, taking the kids past some of our old haunts, enjoying a Sunday drive.

We managed to squeeze in a quick picture before sending the little kids off to bed.

Still can't get a shot of everyone just looking at the camera and smiling.  Not sure why I keep trying.

I believe Shawn said the words, "Now everyone lick someone!" Just before taking this last picture.  You can see my reaction.  Don't know why my kids were all so obedient on this one...

Happy Mother's Day!