Conference

Grandma and Jen left Friday morning so that they could be back home in time for conference.  Conference was wonderful this year.  Not only did we play our usual "guess who's coming to dinner" - we also gave 2 families (the Waddoups and the Stolks) an apostle each day (like 12 days of Christmas).  I love "paying it forward".  I hope it blessed their conference experience.  Now that my kids really know everything about the apostles this year I also focuses more on the apostles message.  I typed up a quote form their last talk and read it.  I was so amazed at how much my children remembered from last conference, especially Madison.  They all guessed almost every single one correctly.  We made our usual scones, chip dip, and had some candy.  We also invited the Preece family over for Sunday afternoon session.

On Saturday we had soccer games during conference so this year we all went to the soccer games as a family and then came home and watched conference.  So we didn't watch it live - we were about an hour off each time.  But we watched it all.  It was also Brock's first time to priesthood with Jason - bummed I didn't get a picture!  He was so excited to go. He really liked it and really connected with Elder Stevenson's talk about LDS athletes and making a "priesthood playbook".  After they went to Wendy's and got frostys and sat in the parking lot and talked for quite awhile about the gospel, life, talents, and all sorts of other things.  Brock shared with Jason that he loved Elder Stevenson's talk and it helped him see a vision of who he wanted to be.  Jason said it was awesome.  Brock has since made his own "playbook" from a blank journal and even made one for his whole quorum when he was asked to teach a lesson.  On Sunday in between sessions we went in the front yard.  The girls blew bubbles and Jason and Brock threw the baseball.  Then we went to the Neyenhuis' for dinner.  It was a great weekend.  

Moana

For Noah's Christmas present from my mom he got to do another play.  This year the play was Moana and he was Chief Kakamoura.  He loves drama and is very good at it.  He memorizes his lines easily and is great at staying in character.  Maybe even too good... :)  I am so glad he has found something he likes and is good at.  At first Jason and I thought this would just be a one or two time thing - but I think he may do this all the way through high school.

Here are some shots from the play

His best friend David came to watch

And he felt so special that his grandma and great aunt came all the way to Colorado just to watch his play!

We all went out for ice cream after the play.

Grandma and Aunt Jen come

My mom and my aunt Jen came to visit us a few weeks ago for a few days.  It was so wonderful.  It is always great to get visitors.  They drove here on their birthdays - they have the same birthday - just 3 years apart.  When they got into town we met them at Texas Roadhouse for a birthday dinner!

The three (4 including Dane) didn't do much during the days - which was delightful.  We mostly just sat around the house and talked and ate.  On the last day we did go out for a walk.

And the kids got to play my mo in Donkey Kong one morning before school.

The reason for their visit was to watch Noah in his play (that will come on the next post).  But it was great to get to spend time with them.  I am grateful they made the time and sacrifice to come out!  Having a baby has made it harder to be away from family.

March Maddness

My family (under the direction of Michel) did a bracket competition.  Jason and I filled out a bracket but we didn't ask Brock if he wanted too.  Big mistake.  He loved following all of our brackets and the games and he and I watched a few games in the evenings.  It was really fun.  

Basketball is my favorite sport to watch and I love watching sports with Brock.  I feel close to my family when I watch basketball - I grew up watching it and while I never played and don't LOVE it and don't even know much about it.  I really love sitting down and watching a game.  

Spring Break: Aquarium

As I mentioned in an earlier post Dane doesn't leave the hose much.  If he does he goes in his carseat with his car seat cover on.  The week before spring break he was getting their weird kind of fussy and Jason and I determined that he was bored.  When my other children were 3 or 4 months old they had seen the world!  They would had already been to the zoo, park, discovery gateway, wheeler farm etc.  They were summer babies and I had toddlers that needed to do that stuff.  So for we did something we hadn't done in years - we went on an old school outing - the aquarium.  It is sad we got out of the  habit of doing outings - we all genuinely had fun and talked about doing it again.   They are all just older now and when it comes time to go they don't want to go - they just want to hang out with their friends.  But once we are there everyone likes it. 

Dane slept for the first little while.

Madison still loves outings and I often just take her to do "fun things".  She wanted pictures of her in all the displays.

The aquarium is pretty cool.  Very small but they make up for it with "experiences".  These birds were awesome.

They let us go into the iguana habitat and pet them.  It was pretty freaky.  There were dozens all over.  Noah did NOT like it.

This is a statue. 

I had to nurse.  Noah thought it was embarrassing.  He kept saying "aren't you embarrassed?".  ha.  But he took this picture of me.

Everyone loved showing Dane all the fish and wanted to take a video and picture of EVERYTHING Dane looked at.  Dane did genuinely love the fish though.  He would get all excited when one would swim by and he would follow them.

I splurged ($2.00) and let them do the hurricane machine.

I LOVE seeing them be good brothers and sisters to Dane.  They all truly fine joy in his joy and in moments like this I am SO GLAD we decided to have more kids.  These older kids are learning and loving so much more than I could have ever thought them through words.

If you look closely at this picture you will see that this is a very friendly sting ray that jumps up out of the water at you.  It was pretty cool.

It was a great day at the aquarium.