Noah's Thespian-ism

Noah had quite a year with "lights" this year.  The lead lights guy, Gavin, and Noah's mentor quit and left Noah and Sonjia to figure out the light booth on their own.  Noah felt inadequate and untrained.  He truly stepped to the plate and owned it like the whole world depended on him figuring it out.  Most of the time I was trying to convince him that everyone recognized he was a 15 year old kid and that they didn't expect a him to know everything or to be a lighting professional, he could never believe me.  I also spent a good chunk of time trying to convince him that he too could quit.  High school is about trying new things out and no one expected or demanded that something he joined his freshman year had to be seen through all the way to the end of senior year, he, also, could never believe me.  But regardless, I am actually really proud of him.  It is hard to take full ownership of something and he truly did.  He was loyal, invested, hard working, self sacrificing, creative, and basically "all in", even when he didn't want to be.  

It is pretty fun to go and watch a performance and enter "his world" where he is in charge.

Him teaching Noah.

Noah has become "friends" with the other theater and tech kids.  I say "friends" because he doesn't hang out with them outside of theater but while he is there he enjoys their company and gets along with them.  I have been proud of how well he has balanced this part of his life.  These kids aren't a great influence and Noah quickly saw that but also quickly learned how to be in their world but not of their world.  He has held onto his testimony while learning to love and appreciate those with different beliefs and life styles.  That is a hard thing to do, but something we have been asked to do.  We all have a little to learn from Noah.

At the year end party/award show, "The Hurley's", Noah was inaugurated into the Thespian Society and also Lettered in Drama.

 Yay for Noah!!!  

Brock's Birthday

Megan's birthday got pushed back a few days and Brock's birthday got pushed up a day, so we had to have 2 birthday picture walls, so Brock's went up in the front/dinning room.  Brock got his wisdom teeth out a few days before his birthday, so it was kind of a bust.  For his dinner he WANTED steak but he couldn't chew it so I made sesame chicken.  And he was going to go to Golden Corral with his friends, but he worried he wouldn't be able to eat everything, so we postponed it.  But with the business of  the end of school we still haven't done it.  So he invited Cam and Dillon to our house for dinner and cake.  

He didn't ask for much.  Ashley got him metal chop sticks, grandma got him hair rubber bands and a volleyball, and we got him a Chinese book of Mormon.

We also went around and told Brock about a trait we admire about him/want to emulate.  Here they are:

Mads - Generosity

Cam - never give up
Dillon - competitiveness
Mom - humility
Megan- good big brother
Eve- hide and seek
Dane - play volley ball with me with the real volley ball
Dad - reliance.
Brock - athleticism

 

Megan birthday

Megan turned 14 in April.  In true Megan fashion she wanted to make her own birthday cake.  She had big plans for the cake, and since her birthday fell on a school day, she moved her date around a bit so she would have plenty of time to make her cake.  She wanted a try a 4 layer, 2 tier cake.  The 4 layers inside were alternating chocolate and vanilla cake.  She made the cake over a few days.  She was ON IT!  Her decorations were inspired by tangled.  The pictures don't show the purple very well, it was more purple than it looks.  

 

She got some new necklaces from aunt Ashley.

And money and food from us.  She wanted cotton candy and sea weed.  Weirdo.  

I convinced her to have a party this year.  She did not want one.  I knew she wouldn't.  But I really wanted her to so I came up with, what I thought, were really good ideas.  All of which included libraries or reading (her friends are friends BECAUSE they all like libraries and reading).  Eventually she decided to have a party, but wanted to just watch a movie at the house with a lot of candy.  

She decided to collide her worlds together.  She invited her school friends, her church friends, her neighborhood friends, and her sister.  Zoe and Anna ended up not coming, we were all a little sad about that.  But they had a fun afternoon together.  They watched Princess Bride and Tangled.  

At her birthday dinner (Egg Rolls and cocktail shrimp) we went around and everyone shared a trait of Megan's that they admire or try to emulate.  These are what people said:

Mom- all her hobbies (reading, painting, bike riding, baking, soccer, softball, singing, school)

Brock - You can read for hours without getting board

Dad -  see a need and does it 

Mads -  not caring about what another’s think

Noah - You are left brain/creative

Eve - works hard at homework

Dane - your bike riding

Meals

I have been talking with my Sister in law, Janina, A LOT lately.  Like, a little too much.  It is a problem for both of us, but also a blessing.  She asked my about how I do my meal plan and I took some screen shots to send her.  When I downloaded my pictures they were there, so I thought  I would document.  I meal plan a month at a time.  That helps me to not be emotional about what I am making and I just do what the calendar says, regardless if I want to make it or if I want to eat it.  We have an extensive food storage system, so I always have almost everything on hand.  So it is pretty easy.  Dinner isn't hard for me anymore. It is kind of just automatic.  

When I make my plan I have this list with me of all my meals.  It takes away the mental load of coming up with meals.

Here is an example of my monthly meal plan.  We always have left overs on Monday and Saturday.  I deep clean the house on Mondays and it seems unreasonable and unfair to make dinner that night.  Jason has very strong deep feelings about no food being thrown away, ever, so left overs are a serious deal at our house.

I also had some random picture of dinners i have made for the family or lunches I made for me.  

It looked way better in real life.  But this sausage and pasta dish with Gnocci was amazing.

Made my self a salad for lunch.

My breakfast one morning.

This was a really yummy Asian dinner I made one night.  

 

Dane's Art Show

Dane had an art show at his preschool and miraculously the whole family was home for 45 minutes at the same time it was happening.  That is rare for a weekday evening these days.  So we all got to go and support him.  It was really nice.

Dane and Eve have a rule lately that only one of them can be happy at a time.  It is really awesome.
 

General Conference

We did Guess Who is Coming to Dinner again.  We skipped it last conference due to crazy life.  Life is still crazy.  So we counciled together about whether or not this is worth continuing and practical for our family.  We decided we wanted to keep doing it, but only do one family.  So we did the Neilsen's, a new family that moved in quite a while ago (cousins with the Waudoupps) but we just recently became really good friends with them.  It has been awesome!

I wanted to do something different for conference this year.  Our conference prep consists of learning about the general authorities.  We have also been doing it for so many years my kids know every thing.  I wanted to come up with something for teenagers and focusing more on the messages than the speakers.  After many drafts and discussions with different people I came up with a March Madness type bracket system.  It didn't go exactly how I envisioned.  For one we didn't even finish.  And nobody ever followed the schedule of reading 1 talk everyday.  Most of the time they binge read an hour or so before the "competition".  However, the actual "competition" meeting went way better than I expected.  We had real discussions about the talks.  People really knew them and were able to compare and contrast with other talks.  I think they all liked it also.  We are going to do it again this conference but a bit different, mostly have more time.

One of the great things was learning how to defend your position and explain why you liked a certain talk and also to listen to other people give opposing opinions and see how spirituality is experienced different for different people  For example, Brock's favorite talk was Bednar's Last Wagon Train talk.  Jason and I, while recognizing it's merits, did not think it was a particularly moving talk.  Brock fought passionately for it and it often moved onto the next round because he went all out in defending it and finding new reasons why it was important.  It was so fun to hear him and also get a glimpse into how he feels and thinks about the gospel and what is important to him.
 

Dane made his own conference binder (like the girls) and drew spiderman on it.

Dane and Eve set up their table again

And Madison set up her desk, and very kindly let Eve come join her.  Maddie fights with Eve quite a bit.  It is strange, given their difference in age, but Maddie is a bit jealous of Eve, Maddie, having been the youngest for so long, feels a bit of competition with her.  So whenever Maddie is kind like a big sister it warms my heart!!!  

Dane and spiderman wanted in on the action for a bit.  We also did "conference fantasy" that the Ricks' introduced us to.  Where we make guesses about conference details beforehand and get points as we get it right.  We didn't do any buzz words, games, or bingo this conference which was kind of nice.  Just coloring.

I made a snacky lunch buffet that stayed out most of the day.

During the break Dane wanted to be in charge of a game/activity.  So he put together a Log competition where we had to build 2 pillars that would hold up the spaceship he built.   

Noah wasn't home to watch the evening session with us because it was the night of the spring musical.  So we sent this selfie to him telling him we missed him.

After the Sunday afternoon session we hosted "conference cookies" for all of our families we have done GWCTD for.  I made this little prophet/conference display and hung up some signs and a voting game - just to make the "party" a bit more conferencee.

Most of the teens play "5 second rule" while the adults visited.  And almost everyone humored me and voted on favorite talks and filled out my chart.

Then on Thursday I was able to get the booklets printed and delivered to those who wanted them.

And now it is time to study.

I don't think I have mentioned on my blog my study group.  Currently I am hosting a weekly women's conference talk study group at my house on Wednesdays at 1:15 (usually).  This is a combination of 2 different study groups over the last few years.  The first study group started by divine intervention in February of 2022.  Every week we would take turns hosting, we would have a yummy lunch and study the gospel topically.  We would pick the topic for the next week, share resources through a shared google folder, and then I would put together an agenda.  It was me, Christina Marriott, Mandy Ricks, Marisa Neyenhuis, Mollie Callister, and Whitney Olsen.  It was wonderful.  Mollie moved to England and Whitney got too busy and backed out.  It was mostly FOR them, so it dwindled.  Marisa was still needing something so her and  I got together almost weekly and invited people and sometimes we would hold successful study groups.  Then in April of 2023, after a RS lesson (my calling) Shauna Pearson asked if she could come over once a week and study a conference talk with me.  She wanted to learn how to really study and dig into them and felt like I could teach her how to do it.  She was busy and we had to work around her schedule at lot and it was just for her.  So for a while I was doing both of those.  THEN in October of 2023 Shauna asked if she could invite some friends to come to our study group on the same day Marisa said, "I am really struggling and need a consistent weekly study group, can you try and put something together?"  And this study group was born.  Some weeks it is just the 3 of us.  We have about 10 people that follow the groupme and on a typical week we have 4 or 5 women.  The regulars are me, Shauna, Marisa, Julia Neilsen, Leslie Prusse, and Becca Moser (from a different ward).  It is great.  I host and lead the discussion.  It has taken a lot of sacrifice since I also teach relief society so I am always prepping different talks, but the hardest part has been balancing Dane and Eve and wanting to take advantage of this last year with them before Dane starts school full time, and doing this thing I know the Lord wants me to do.  But it has all worked out, and I know it has blessed their lives.