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!

Orchestra Festival

Yes, I realize it has been about 5 months since I last posted something.  Initially, I ran into some computer problems.  I was really worried that all my photos would be lost forever.  It took a while to sort out the problem, but they finally got it fixed,  then life just got crazy, and before I knew it all this time had passed without a single blog post.  I'm hoping to slowly work on getting caught up, but I'll start from here for now.

Today was orchestra festival for the junior high and high school.  For me, that involved moving Samantha's harp multiple times this morning.  (Shawn actually did most of the moving, but it was a joint effort.) First to her school for a rehearsal.  Then for fun, we were sent to the wrong school.  We had the harp unloaded and in the school before the orchestra teacher found us and told us we had to go to another school.  So, we loaded it back up, headed to the third junior high of the day and unloaded it for her performance.  (A flute would have been so much easier!) And I won't even go into the part about how one of the harpists backed out 2 days before, leaving Samantha and Maren to learn her part in 2 days, because that was so awesome.  Anyway, at festival, the school orchestra "competes" against other school orchestras from the area.  It's kind of fun to listen to them play.

Once she was done, I loaded up her harp again and took it home.  

Then in the afternoon, it was Jonas's turn.  Despite the fact that he also plays a large instrument (the bass), my part was minimal.  It involved me tying his bow tie and telling him to play well.  Then he was out the door, where he drove himself to the school, got his school bass and got on the bus with the rest of the orchestra students.  Let me tell you that was way easier.

But it was fun to catch them both dressed up.  (Although Samantha had ditched her shoes by this time.)  Even with only 2 kids in a picture, I can't get them both looking at the camera at the same time.  It's a serious issue.

Some Random January Events

This picture pretty much sums things up.  There's Shawn all happy and having fun sitting on his bike, and there's me obviously, thinking "why did I think doing this race was a good idea?"  Ugh.  Winter training.

January 12, 2015 will forever be known as the day Jonas finally got his driver's license.  It has been long time coming, and he had to be forced into it a bit, but it's official!  This kid can drive! 

Hallelujah!

One of Samantha's beautiful selfies.

I really can't even believe I am posting this.  It's a serious embarrassment, but now you'll know how things are at our house.  My kids are absolute slobs.  Sometimes when you move the couches, and it's been a while, you find all sorts of fun stuff.  Apparently, shoving things under the couch or under the cushions is equivalent to throwing it away around here.  I have failed as a mother.

Peter's kindergarten dance informance.  Still breaks my heart a little every time I realize how big he is.

More selfie fun with Samantha.

Starting The New Year off Right! - With a Water Main Break

Woohoo! Because we really know how to party and have fun, this is what we came home to on New Year's Day.  We left to drop the girls off at Rob and Michelle's for cupcake wars and a sleep over, and when we pulled back into the driveway, we discovered all this water and a lovely little gushing fountain coming up from under our driveway.  Oh joy.

Despite the amount of leaking water, the city let it run all. night. long.  (The good news is, the break is on their side of the line, not ours, so at least it is only an inconvenience and not costing us an arm and a leg.)

Eventually, they sent someone to take a look at things.  They had to cut out the bottom of our driveway to access the break.

Nothing more fun for a little boy than watching tractors at work in your own front yard.

They made a mess.

And because it's winter, we get to have our lovely little mud hole until spring when it is warm enough to pour concrete.  Can't wait.  I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've been hoping for snow and freezing temperatures just to keep the mud from being tracked all through my house for the rest of the winter...

New Year's Eve With the Kinkarts

Our friends, the Kinkarts, invited our family to celebrate New Year's Eve with them. We had individual, home made pizzas which were delicious.  We played games.

We take our Jenga very seriously.

An action photo of Shawn trying to sable the tower from collapse.  

(Pretty sure that's against the rules.)

I didn't do a very good job of documenting the evening with photos - a sure sign that we were having fun, I guess.

It quickly became apparent that our boys just aren't cut out for this late night stuff.  Staying awake until midnight just wasn't in the cards for them.

The girls and the adults had a great time.

We did make Jonas wake up when it was time to drop the ball.  He is 16 after all, he should be able to hang with he little kids on that one.