April-May 2011

I believe it was during Conference weekend for our church when this photo was taken.  Maya was pulling her cousins in their wagon.  Zeke really liked that adventure.  While they were playing between sessions, Newel was helping Casey tear down a wall in their kitchen.  Manly destruction!
After some demolition, we headed over to the Walters for the second session of Conference.  We were wondering what to eat for dinner...Nuggets!
Kristen and I drove to McD's for 100 pieces of nuggets with all kinds of yummy sauces.  We had to take a picture...because this reminded of good times with HB and nuggets.
We devoured the nuggets.  Oh, the Goebels were also visiting, so we got to spend some time with them. Anni and Gretta spent the night over at their cousins.  While they were here, they announced that Anni was getting baptized next month, so we invited ourselves over for her baptism.

Anni's dessert

While the Goebels were visiting, we had FHE with the family and Anni had worked all afternoon on that lovely dessert.  She even made the chocolate shaped creatures.  All that work needs to be recorded.

Not long after that, Uncle D was diagnosed with lung cancer and he needed surgery.  G-ma was a fantastic nurse to him and we tried to be really good visitors.  While he was in the hospital, we even had FHE with him.  The kids found it interesting to play with Uncle D's medical equipment and watch him blow on his breathing machine. Very interesting.


I really like this photo of Mayita.  I have a video of her dancing while wearing this outfit.  It's so cute.  I think we were out on a date and the older cousins were babysitting our kids.

Homemade skirt

As I waited for the weather to warm up, I worked on some projects around the house, some decluttering and spring cleaning. One of projects I worked on was redoing the rocking chair and foot stool I had bought at DI.  After I finished the project (I forgot to take a picture of the final project) I gave to it Arden's Spanish teacher.  She really liked her rocking chair and I got more space in my house. A few weeks later she gave birth to her baby girl.

First lost tooth

We have too much stuff for such a little house...so I've been working on getting rid of stuff, but we use just about everything we have. My in-laws gave us a lot of their food storage so we have even less space. I'm dreading our next move.  May be I can find more things to get rid of.

With the leftover fabric from the rocking chair I made Maya a skirt and head band...she's posing her new outfit.
Around the middle of April, Arden lost his first tooth. It took some time for that tooth to come loose and out.

As spring was trying to come to UT, the lawn mowing people did some yard work and in the process broke my window.  Funny thing was that a couple of weeks earlier, our windshield window had a crack and the windshield needed to be changed.  It leaked and I needed to get it changed again.  The same day the window guy came to change my windshield, I found  my rear wind broken by the mowing guys.  Luckily, the mowing company paid for the repairs...but it wasn't a pleasant view.  I thought somebody had broken into my van.
During these days, Arden fell off a play structure at school.  I thought it was only bruised, but it turned out it was fractured.  This was Arden's first cast.  That same day we went over to the Utes spring scrimmage.
Although Arden was a bit nervous about getting a cast, he was also excited.  I'm glad he was no longer in pain because after he had fractured his wrist at school, he had fallen and tripped two days in a row and it looked like he was uncomfortable.

Easter was coming and my mom sent the kids their Easter baskets along with some clothes for them. Maya being all girlie, immediately put on her dresses and modeled them.

She's such a cutie!

Spring break!
During spring break we did a few fun things, but we mainly hung out and avoided the crazy schedule we normally have on school days. I think Beatrix had a sleepover with Arden and on the following day we went to Boondock's to play games. It was pretty fun for them.
Another day, I finally took them to the aquarium.  It wasn't an appealing idea to me, after living in FL and Cali...we've been to some fun and nice aquariums, but for living in a landlocked state, it was nice.
Plus, these kids are always happiest when they are enjoying nature in some way or another.
One of the funniest part was when we were testing the shock of an electric eel.  Arden and I could barely touch the button that has you feel a mild eel shock.  Maya on the other hand, was so tough and would touch the button with no problems.
 She's such a tough girl.





On one of our final weekday off, we wen to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point. I've never seen so many tulips in my life.  The grounds were beautiful.  We also went to the children's garden and that was fun, too.  There fun gardens for them and play structures.  They played musical instruments and Maya found a box of dress up.
There were so many fun gardens, not just tulips. It was a pretty impressive place.  The weather was a bit chilly, but were lucky enough that it wasn't raining.  It felt like the entire month of April rained or snowed. It was nice to have a good weather day.

Vegas
Las Vegas for Annie's baptism.  We brought Ruth-E, Zoe, and Beatrix on the trip with us.  They were great.  We had a lot of fun with them and they pretty much take care of themselves.  It was a cousin fest!
I think it's also good to report that the trip was uneventful...as in we all got home safe.  I enjoyed seeing the cousins play and I couldn't wait until the Vegas cousins come to live in UT.

The week after we got back, we went to Arden's school after school so they could give the mom's their Mother's Day presents.  I got a lovely card, a book about our family, a home grown plant, and a lovely portrait of myself.  I would have enjoyed going to the school more, except that Arden decided to play hide and seek, and not tell me he was. So, for about 20 minutes I was looking for him, getting really worried.  Eventually, he showed up, and yes, I was relieved he was okay, but pretty mad at his stunt.  Oh, well, life is about learning and making mistakes.

Gobblin Valley
The second weekend of May, we camped at Gobblin Valley.  Helen invited us for that sweet hit! The Vegas cousins met up with us there.  It was such a good hit.  We really liked those Gobblins and the cousins. I couldn't believe how high these kids climbed those rocks.  Maya had so much fun playing with her little cousins Phoebe, Sophie, and Hallie.  Arden had fun hanging around with his cousin Pete. We didn't bring the other cousins since they wanted to stay home with their mom, Kristen.

Mother's Day That same weekend was Mother's Day, so we invited Newel's parents over for dinner on Sunday.  Newel cooked us a lovely meal.  Arden was our server and he was such a great server. He also made the cheese appetizers.  These guys went all out.  I got breakfast in bed.  They made a menu, we got flowers, cards, spicy chips (that was my present)...it was so lovely.  It has been one of the best Mother's Day I've had.We were treated like royalty.

As the school year was winding down, so were we.  I spent more time reading and one day I made Maya some fun hair clips. She's so funny about modeling them. I also made a cover for our filing cabinet.  It was an eye sore. Slowly, I've been working on our house, trying to make it look nice.  I've liked the way things are turning out.  It's a simple house, but I love making it our own little place.

Maya also had her first sleepover with Tabitha.  They were sooo cute!  The girls kept going downstairs to talk to us, and finally around 11:30PM, they fell asleep.  The next morning, they were up very early, around 7:30 to play some more.  As the morning progressed, their energy dwindled and at one point they just sat on the couch and watched a DVD. They had such a great time together.  Arden also had a sleepover at Beatrix's house.
Ooh, in May, we went to Kristen's ward for a spaghetti dinner. The food was good, but the funnest part was the dessert auction.  That was so fun and yummy! At one point, Newel and I were outbidding each other. 
Other great happenings were: 1 Paid off our credit cards! 2. We have the house back to the bank! We're no longer owners of the house in FL! What a relief.

January-March 2011

Grocery shopping

Arden the Fox

These were some of the longest months.  Have I complained enough about how much I don't like winter?  We tried to stay busy during these months.  After our trip to MX, it was time for Arden to go back to school and do our routines...like grocery shopping. Maya loves to use the small shopping carts at Smiths. I like those better than the ones shaped like cars and you have to drive the kids in it...I always bump into things since they are so big.
In January, Arden's class put on a program.  They did the story of the Mitten and Arden was a fox.  A very cute fox.  I was really proud of him because he did a good job focusing on his performance and his dancing number as an old school rapper snowman was superb.  Mayita of course wanted to be part of the action, after the performance, Arden let her try on his fox costume.  What a good brother.  We enjoyed the show.
At the end of the month the FL Whites came to visit the family. It was so fun to hang out with Mia, Mae, B, and Karen. Newel was teaching a nerd class at BYU, so he invited HB to go to class with him.  While we waited for them, we took the kids to the mall to play at the playground.  It was the perfect playground for the kids...so many dinosaur things!

Entertaining the primas while waiting for the check

After class, we were starving so we headed off to a Japanese restaurant.  They gave us our own room, which was perfect because there were many little children around. For having 6 kids with us, they were pretty good.  Towards the end of the dinner they were getting anxious so we turned on our phones for some entertainment. 

I believe the following day or so, we went to a jumpy house place and the children really liked that. It was so fun to hang out with so many cousins.  It wasn't a huge place, so we didn't worry too much about losing one of them.  Maya and Arden really liked playing air hockey.
Side note:  Not everything in our lives is about fun and entertainment.  That same day, Arden was in time out for a while, for lying about school work, I think.  He was in time out for a while. But I think he learned his lesson, at least for a while. 

The bouncy house was so much fun it made us all very hungry, so we went out to dinner...the classic, Carls' Junior.
 While the FL Whites were visiting UT, we tried to get together as much as possible.
The kids loved playing with each other so much.  Mia liked wearing Tab's pioneerish dress.  Doesn't she look cute?

Time went by and sometimes it was challenging trying to figure out what to do on the weekends when it was FREEZING! I don't like the outdoors when it is cold.  Skying?  No thanks. 

Hunting...sort of

A couple of times we went to Cabbela's.  It's a hunting store by our house and we let the kids play some games, look at the fish tanks, and the animals.

Sledding in our backyard

Although,  I don't like the cold out doors, on one of the days Arden had a furlough day from school, we went sledding in the back of our apartment complex.  That's the only real outdoors activity I like to do. After sledding, we enjoyed some Mexican hot chocolate.
We had a lot of fun sledding.  And it wasn't that cold that day.
Maya really enjoyed eating the freshly fallen snow.  I just made sure it wasn't yellow snow.

Arden gets Eagle of the Month for his class

At school, Arden was put under contract with his teachers so he could do a better job at finishing his assignments in class.  After a while, he was doing really well, turning in homework and completing his classroom assignments.
Also, his reading level had improved a lot.  In February we received the pleasant surprise that Arden got Eagle of the Month.  We were very proud of him. And he was proud of himself. He had worked hard to improve.

Learning bowling rules

One of the winter activities we did this year was to go bowling with the primas. There were so many of them, we only bowled one game.  They had fun and realized that it wasn't the same as bowling on the Wii.  This game required more coordination.
I was unable to bowl because I had pulled a muscle on my behind and it hurt a lot.  As a matter of fact, I was unable to exercise for an entire month. After my muscle/ligaments healed, it was so hard for  me to get back into a work out routine.

FHE at Aunt Cupcakes

While G-ma and Paka were on their RV trip in California we continued to have FHE.  One of those nights, Aunt Cupcake invited us to her house for FHE.

We had a great time.

Looking back at these photos, I've realized how much time we spend with our family.  It's so nice to have family near by.  It's always fun to be around them...especially for the children to be around their cousins.  With their cousins around, every get together, is always more fun.  Just look at this photo of the bigger primas pulling the little primas on the wagon or carrying them...so much fun.

Tour of the candy factory

My ward had a playgroup and one of the activities we did was go to a candy factory.  I think it was more fun for us, the mommies, than for the children.  It was so cool to see the candy being made and all of the sweet smells.  We also bought candy at the end of the tour.

Before

I couldn't wait until the weather warmed up more, so I started to sand my old night stand and dresser. After sanding it, I primed them and then painted them red. It took me a while to get this done, since I had to wait for the 'warmer' days to let the paint dry.

Night stand, after

Oh, I also gave the furniture a black glaze finish, which gave it a look I really liked...almost antique.

Dresser before

After

I also changed the knobs.  I found them at Lowe's for like a dollar each.  That was a good investment.  I've had these since I was about 14 years old and they've been with me at every move.  It's one of the few pieces of furniture I haven't gotten rid of.  Now, the night stand is at the entrance of our house and the dresser is used by the children in their room. I was kind of sad to let the kids use the dresser because I knew in a few months, they probably would chip the paint.  The other day I found some water damage on the paint, some chipping, and blue toothpaste on the dresser.
At least they looked nice for a little while.
I'm glad these have been put to good use and they look way better than they did a few months ago...they were an eye sore.
My next project is the computer desk and our coffee table.