All In One Week

I hope all of the Mothers out there have a wonderful Mothers Day!  I have been blessed with a wonderful husband and five beautiful children.  I must say Mothers day seems to get better as I get older.  I woke to presents and singing and a lot of home made gifts and cards.  Breakfast was waiting at the table with crepes and fresh berries.  The kids tried hard not to fight, and one of Tyson's gifts was to try and help prevent the house from getting messed up.  I think he did a pretty good job.  Jeff and the kids made dinner and cleaned everything up after.  I am so thankful for all of their hard work to try and make my day special. 

The crepes Jeff and the kids made

Yesterday was our Anniversary.  Jeff and I have been married for 17 years.  I am so lucky to have such a wonderful husband.  He is perfect for me.  Here is a picture of the beautiful flowers he gave me.  We knew there wouldn't be much time to celebrate on Saturday so we went out to dinner and a movie on Friday.

The flowers Jeff gave me

Justin and his Battle of the Books team

Justin as Robin van Persie

This week was a busy one with end of the school stuff going on.  Justin had Battle of the Books where they came in 2nd place at the district level, he sold stuff one evening for GT, and he participated in the Living Museum.  He chose to be a soccer player Robin van Persie.  Tyson had the Regional Battle of the Books this week, he also played in a basketball tournament on Saturday, they got first place in it.

Ryan played in his last soccer game of the season.  He scored his first two goals during this game, and loved his trophy.  He says he is definitely playing soccer in the fall again.  We are all glad he enjoyed the season.  Justin and Tyson both have one more game to play.

I have been up at the school a lot lately.  Abigail plays with my phone when I am up there

I also got pictures of her texted to me from her friends mom's phones

I have several pictures of her friends on my phone too!

 Sunday's can be long and hard for me sometimes.  We don't have church until 1:30, but most of the time Jeff is at the church all morning.  The kids love to play together, but they either get very creative and make a huge mess, start out playing and then end up fighting, or both.  Last Sunday Jeff was gone all night after church as well, and the four youngest had been playing and fighting non-stop.  I finally told them they had to divide up into teams and make a dessert.  This kept them busy and happy.  They both came up with pretty good desserts.  Justin and Abigail made a caramel vanilla cake and Ryan and Tyson made a layered brownie dessert.  The kitchen was a mess in the end, but at least they weren't fighting with each other!

Abigail had her first gymnastic showcase last Saturday.  She did a wonderful job performing.  She becomes a different person when she is on the gymnastic floor.  All of her fears seem to go away.  This was the first time she has dared to perform in front of people and she loved every minute of it.  She gave a talk in church for the first time the day after, and she went up and sang with the primary kids at church today.  The real test will be Tuesday when she has her preschool graduation.  She is definitely growing up.  Pictures will have to come later, I can't download them from my camera.

Conference Weekend

Emily and I spent the weekend in Utah to attend the Young Women's General Conference.  We flew into Salt Lake Friday morning.  We went to the new City Creek Mall.  It had just opened up the day before.  It is an outdoor mall with live music playing all around.  We had a lot of fun looking around and finding fun stuff to buy. 

If you look closely you will realize this statue is a person.  They had different ones all over.

We ate lunch/dinner at the Cheesecake Factory that was located in the mall.  Neither of us had ever eaten anything there besides cheesecake.  The food was great, but very filling.  We were so full we not only needed take home bags, but we were too full for dessert.  Friday night we went to the Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast.  It was so fun. 

In front of the Theater

The stage before it started

The rose that was sitting on our seats when we came in

Emily had performed in a shortened version of this same production when she was in Jr. High and so knew and loved a lot of the music.  I thought they did a fantastic job.  It was very enjoyable.

Saturday we spent the morning trying to find some LDS fabric I needed for a quilt which we did eventually find.  We hiked to the top of Ensign Peak.  It is not a hard hike, but the view from the top is beautiful. 

The view from the top of Ensign Peak

When we finished that we drove to my sister Andrea's house and met her new baby Ashlyn.  It was so fun to see her and hold her.  Then we went back down to Salt Lake with Andrea, Lindsey, and Lindsey's friend.  We had tickets in the top balcony (there is more than one balcony).  Just walking into the conference center was amazing to me. 

Andrea, Lindsey, Emily, and Nicole

Add caption

There were so many girls with their parents or leaders coming in, and to think of how many other mothers and daughters were watching the broadcast around the world was truly amazing to ponder.  There is definitely strength in numbers, and you could feel of the strength of all these Young Women.  The meeting was wonderful.  The other thing that surprised me were how many people were in the choir.  I see it on TV all of the time, but to watch all of them start filing in was also amazing.  It took quite some time to get them all in and seated.

Sunday we got to watch Andrea's husband James give Ashlyn a name and a blessing.  We also got to see a lot of family.  My parents came up for the blessing and so did a lot of my mom's side of the family.  It was perfect timing to have her be blessed that weekend, and it made the perfect ending to our trip.  After the blessing we hurried off to the airport to fly home.  This was a wonderful trip and I am so glad I was able to spend it with my daughter.  I am so thankful she kept reminding me that we needed to go since we missed her going when she turned 12.

And Then There Were Three

The week after Easter I brought home eight cute fuzzy little baby chicks.  The kids were so excited!  Emily had been wanting chickens forever, and Ryan and Abigail loved the idea of having a new pet.  I bought a water trough to put them while they were little.  The man at the store assured me they would be happy in the water trough for a few months which made me very happy because I knew it would take a few months to get their coop built.  Each child chose a baby chick to name and have as their own.  Emily got four since she wanted chickens the most.

Ryan with his chick chickadee

Abigail with Cheeka

Justin with Billy Bob Joe Junior James IV

Tyson with Mahonri-Moriancumer

I don't have a picture of Emily with hers, but their names are Daisy, Buttercup, Chirp, and Tubaloth.

Emily's are somewhere in here.

Everyone was really enjoying the little baby chicks.  I loved being able to look out the window and see how they were doing each day.  After about two weeks they really started to grow, and by week three they were no longer cute and fluffy, they were starting to get feathers.  Not only were they getting feathers, but they were learning to fly.  One day when I came home from helping out at the school all of the baby chicks were out on the patio exploring.  I put them back in and they happily went and began eating and drinking.  They started getting out and exploring and coming back in and it didn't bother me because they really didn't dare go to far.  When I got home from picking the kids up one day one of the baby chicks was gone.  Everyone searched all over the yard, but it was nowhere to be found.  We decided we better make a make-shift chicken coop until I had time this summer to build a real one so we moved the play house to the dirt, cut out a little opening and built a little chicken run.  This seemed to be working well.  The chickens made it through a storm with no problem and I was beginning to think maybe we didn't even need to build a stronger coop.  Two days ago we went out and four of our chickens were gone.  After more investigating the children discovered they hadn't escaped, but had been attacked and eaten by something.  We are not sure what got them, but they are no longer with us. There is no sign of a break-in, no footprints, but lots of body parts.  There were some tears shed and a burial and more work on our make shift coop.  We will build a more secure one once school gets out and we have some time, and then we will get more chickens.  For now we have Mahonri-Moriancumer, Tubaloth, and Buttercup.