Easter

I took very few pictures of Easter this year.  I kind of went through a rut.  If you couldn't tell my blogging is pathetic.  I can't believe I didn't blog once in the month of May.  I have only really missed about 3 months in the past 9 years I have been blogging.  Well while i have been in a blogging rut i have also been in a picture taking rut.  Sometimes I feel like - do I really need to take pictures of dying Eater eggs again?  Especially now when my children don't really change from year to year.  But, then when I go to blog about it I am sad their isn't a picture.  So I guess I just need to force myself out of those ruts!

Well, for Easter here are the pictures I DID take. 

Going down the stairs collecting eggs.

Looking around the house.

And them with their baskets.

After looking at these pictures I am reminded of the TRUE reason I am not taking pictures.  My camera is not taking good pictures really anymore.  I need a new one.  

Wolf to Bear

After I had Madison I was called as the Cub Scout Master.  I remember feeling like those boys were so old!  What does a 9 year old boy like anyways?  With 1 year olds to 3 year olds at home I truly felt like I was working with teenagers.  I can not for the life of me believe that Brock is now a BEAR.  I mean a Wolf I could handle, they were still new and little and cute, but the Bears - now those are real cub scouts!  

Spring Break: On the way home

On the way home from Boise we went back through Logan and this time my WHOLE family (including grandparents) came up to meet us and have lunch.  It was a fun surprise!

Then we went back to Daniel and Angie's house for an Easter Egg hunt.

The cousins (minus Caroline - they had to leave early). Brock, Sam, Madison, Audrey, Maya, Brad, Noah, Megan

We stayed a night in a hotel then got up to leave the next morning.  Sadly our DVD player broke and we were unable to watch a movie.  We don't watch movies much in the car anyways - I like for the children to be board and just stare out the window (I am such a mean mom).  But it is nice to have to bread up a long car ride - so it was pretty devastating to not have it for an almost 9 hour car ride - plus we were trying to beat a storm - so we never stopped.  Luckily my mom gave the kids Easter baskets - they became their entertainment.

Spring Break: Boise

I don't think I can over emphasis what a great time we had in Boise with the Bells.  I used to go to Boise about once a year when we lived in Utah - but we hadn't been in three years and the kids are all much older now (and more of them).  Karli and I also used to take the kids to St. George together when back when we had only 1 or 2 kids - so we are well versed in vacationing together  - but Jason has never come along for any of our trips and, as I said it had been several years.  I was unsure about how it would go.  I think it has been a while since I wrote about the Bells - so for a brief catch-up:  Karli and I have been friends since about 4th grade (we lived just 3 houses apart).  Our friendship grew the strongest towards the end of high school at first year of collage, and then once we got married.  She has 5 kids (10,8,6,3, and 1).  I look up to her and admire her more than anyone in the world - if I could be more like anybody it would be Karli.  She is the best wife, mother, visiting teacher, and disciple.  I love her husband dearly - there is nobody in this world better suited for her.  So basically they are the best!

Well if you couldn't tell already we had a full house between our two families we had a 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, and 1 year old (dang no 2)!  But I think between Jason, Karli, and I we ran it like champs (Skyler was working almost the whole time we were there).  Karli and I obviously had lots of kids close together so we were both vary capable of handling meals, clean-up and bed time of lots of children - we ran a pretty tight ship.   These pictures below are really bad but Jason took them while Karli and I were feeding the kids lunch one day. 

Truth is though Jason made everything a breeze.  He spent the whole week reading and playing with the children while Karli and I chatted away in the kitchen making meals.  Jason ADORES the baby to two year old phase.  If he could have an eternal 18 month old he would.  

The kids P-L-A-Y-E-D for days straight.  They jumped on the tramp, went on biker rides, played the Wii, played barbies, and all sorts of games and board games.

Probably our favorite night was going to the church on Monday night for FHE.  We played line tag (have to stay on the lines), hid and seek, and then a mean soccer game of Bells vs Herberts.  It was intense - I am happy to report the Bells won - which was good becasue they are super competitive and things would have gone down hill quickly if we would have lost.   :)

We had such a fun time.  Sometimes I wish desperately to live by them  - I know for a fact I would  be about 50% a better person.mom/wife if I lived by Karli (she even took me to an aerobics class - I haven't exercised in over 2 years - so ya she has a way of making me want to be better) - but then it is also nice to have these flash vacations where we get to get embedded into their life, and that's nice too.  

Brock, Payton, Noah

Madison, Lydia, Megan, and Brooklyn

Noah, Brock, Payton, Kaleb (high), Hailey, Lydia, Madison, Megan, and Brooklyn

Spring Break: On the way to Boise

We want to go to Disney Land or Disney World in the next year - but Jason really wanted a "trial" run to see how the kids did driving all day, staying at a hotel, then getting up and driving all the next day.  So for Spring Break I was tasked with finding a good destination for that "practice".  I drew a 16 hour circle around Denver to decide where we wanted to go.  Boise was in that circle - Karli, my best friend from childhood lives there.  All our kids are about the same age (except she has 5) and I hadn't been to Boise to see her for almost 3 years!  I love hanging out with Karli, she always fills my cup and I leave better than when I got there.  

The whole trip worked out perfectly.  Our drive to Boise went right through Logan, UT where my little brother, Daniel, and his wife, Angie, live - AND as luck would have it they had their first child 5 days before we were driving through.  We were ECSTATIC to get to see cute little Maya.  Living away from family we miss out of getting to see the newborns - so this was such a treat for us!

This was the kids first time in a hotel (we stayed two nights in one when we first moved to Denver, but none of them remember it, and it was really nice where they had their own room and there was no pool or anything).  On the way there we got a room with a King bed and enough room for them to all sleep on the floor and we took in sleeping bags.  That worked really well.   On the way home we got a room that had 2 queen beds (we were trying to see which set up we liked better).  Both worked great.  We all slept in the hotel room great and the kids absolutely loved it.  They loved swimming in the pool and hanging out in the hot tub, and eating the waffle breakfast with sugar cereal.

Brock's Algonquin project

Brock was studying Indigenous people.  At first when I heard about the project in my head I thought he was learning about indigenous people today - like those who live in Africa or Indonesia - to me those are indigenous people.  I would have thought a study of "Indians" (as known in my day) was now officially called "native Americans" - but apparently even that is now politically incorrect and they are called "indigenous people".  

Anyways, he had to dress up and make an artifact and give a presentation.

He really wanted to make a real life wigwam - like the way they did it - out of bending sticks, bark and mud for glue.  I talked him out of the mud - we used a hot glue gun - but he went and scoured the neighborhood for the right sticks to bend and he scrapped bark off of our tree.  I truly thought it was going to turn out terrible - but it turned out awesome!  I guess those indigenous people really did know what they were doing.

What to we do in the winter time...

Winter in Denver isn't really like winter in Salt Lake.  But I am so conditioned to cold, snowy, inversion-type winters that we still don't go out much from December to March.  I will walk outside and like 3:00 and I think "wow - its beautiful, why haven't we been out here all day?"

Here are a couple of random picture of what we do all winter.

A lot of wrestling

We have friends over to play

We did go to a park one day and watched as emergency workers ran drills for rescuing people from broken ice - that was really cool!

We have been cooking together a lot as a family.  Brock has especially started to love to cook and wants to cook either by himself or help us.  

We play a lot of games.  Madison is our game queen.  If she can't find anyone to play a game with ehr she just "practices" and plays be herself.

Megan and Noah do A LOT (I mean A LOT) of art projects.  We have bout 3 different desks/tables in our house that are just dedicated to art, writing, and drawing.  They make puppets, comics, random drawings, models of stuff using all sorts of objects, I wish I took pictures of some of it - most of it is really cute and creative.  It is all very endearing.  

Calling - Ward Missionary

After Krista got baptized I got released as a Cub Scout Den Leader (Bears) and Jason got released from teaching Primary (11 year olds) and we got called as Ward Missionaries.  Growing up in Utah I didn't even know ward missionary was a calling.  At least until Mike Ulrich in our West Jordan ward got called.  He was like a real missionary.  Going out and knocking doors in the neighborhood, ALWAYS bringing people to church, etc.  He was a good example.

 When I got called I had caught the "missionary bug" and had a list of people I had my eye on.  Being a ward missionary is kind of a hard calling for someone like me.  It can be a dream - because there is nothing you have to do - no one really over you, no deadlines to meet etc.  But I like to DO things and know that I am magnifying my calling.  So it is all between me and the Lord.  Some weeks I feel like I am doing missionary work everyday - and then I will go a week or two and haven't really thought about it.  I am busy with meetings though.  I usually have 1 or 2 meetings every week and am constantly in contact with the missionaries - we current'y have sister missionaries - so it seems like they are more comfortable coming to me with their problems.  It has been great and one of my favorite callings.  I always wanted to serve a mission - to be honest though this calling has made me realize I probably wouldn't have been very good at it and probably would have not liked it.  I am glad I had 10 more years of maturity and experience before the Lord asked me to share the gospel.  I hope that I can continue to do so.  I hope that my life going forward is full of missionary opportunities and that this is just where it all started.