March 9, 2014

 Whew!  We have been soo, soo busy the last couple of weeks!  Below  are a few shots showing some of the things that have been keeping us hopping these last couple of weeks.  Above, is Rhyse in a huge box of can helping bag canned items at the food pantry.  The girls often end up accompanying me to the activities.  Here she was a great help reaching and sorting through the cans at the bottom of the box. 

 The last two weeks have been packed with church basketball.  Both Landen and Craig's team's made it into the Regional Finals and had some very intense games.  Landen's team was a teacher's team (with him as a deacon) and was the team that qualified our ward for the tourney.  They later brought a few of the priests to play with them.  They had made it all the way to the finals (5 games) and lost in a heartbreaker by just a couple of points in the last minute.  Church ball in Utah is a REALLY big deal and this was quite an accomplishment to make it that far and with a teacher's team to boot.  Church ball can also be pretty wild and aggressive and we had to be careful where we sat so we didn't get smashed during the game as well as have some debriefing sessions about how you can be VERY angry and throw a major temper tantrum but still be a good member of the church at the same time:}

 Tal and Prilly have spend many hours working on their ASTA songs.  They both performed last Saturday and did marvelous.  Capriel played a little Concertino by Perlman and Talia the Concerto in G by Seitz.  Prilly's song had a number of sections where she had to put her violin down while the piano (a very nervous me) played some challenging sections.  She came in and out perfectly on her parts. 

 Another late night this week was when the YW babysat so parents could go to the temple.  Breck brought out her ever popular face painting skills and kept many girls occupied for the night. 

 A cute shot of Breck and Devin at our "Break from Tradition" Thanksgiving Dinner at the Elements.  It was a fun experience, made the Holiday very relaxing and enjoyable, and freeing to break tradition for once. 

 Today Breck accompanied the choir in stake conference.  The choir leader had actually written the arrangement and was extremely particular about how it was performed.  She spent many many hours at rehearsals.  She played confidently, followed well and sounded great.  I was so proud of her!  She even had to coordinate with a soloist and an organist!

 I've been working at reorganizing the craft room and the girls have found a renewed interest in creating the last little while.  Capriel is especially creative and has spend many hours creating projects of her own design.  The glue gun is her new best friend! 

 
 We had our yearly ski night Friday night.  Rhyse went for her first time, and Landen boarded for his second (he'd gone the day before with the school).  He picked it up quickly, to no ones surprise, though it did come home from the school ski day with a giant gooseegg on his head from ....here's the story-"hitting his head on a tree in thick fog, on a black diamond run that he hadn't meant to go on, 20 minutes before they were supposed to be back on the bus to return home."  He said that his had hit the snow and tree and his board came over the top of his head.  Needless to say,  Craig shelled out the big bucks to get helmets for all the kids at the stake ski night.  Rhyse was totally stoked to ski and ride the "magic carpet" mini lift on the bunny hill.  The only trick is that both Craig and I are poor skiiers and helping a beginning to ski when you can't really ski yourself is the ultimate test in patience and agility.  By the end of the night she was beginning to leave her little safe haven between my legs and half ski half sled on her skiis away from me.  She is a very emotional, demanding, independent child who has very strong opinions on how she wants things to be, so it was touch to not abandon her on the hill.  But I was proud of her for sticking with it and working hard at improving.  I had one experience on the magic carpet where a dad and his child fell down and then crashed into me resulting in a tangle that I was almost incapable of extricating myself from as I was moving up the mountain on the conveyor belt.  Breck also tried boarding for the first time and was able to go down the runs many times.  She is extremely sore today!  Tal is a pro and took off as soon as we got there with friends and pretty much wasn't seen for the rest of the night.  Capriel did the same, except she did it (true to her style) at a breakneck speed.  The kids said that they would often see her on the lift all by herself, and multiple people commented on how fast she would cruise down the hill.  Sometimes she would even come and ski next to her friends practicing on the bunny hills.  She would often crash hard, but then just pop up and keep going. 

 Here's a quick shot of the state of our office/craft room during the Valentine's prep days.  These are the days when I feel proud of myself for letting my children "create" while cursing myself for ever letting things get this out of control!

 Craig got heart attacked on Valentines by all who love him. 

 My baby is getting so big!  I'm fighting a real sadness at seeing my kids grow up. 

 We had a wonderful Shepherder's dinner with my sweet Grandparents.  Lamb, potatoes, carrots, corn, biscuits that Talia made, salad, and peaches and cookies for dessert.  It was so fun to be there with them and hear Grandpa's stories about the life of a sheepherder.  We even got to eat on tin plates and drink out of mugs to keep it real.  I love my Grandparent's and feel so grateful to be close to them and be able to learn from them regularly.  They have taught me so much about devotion, discipline, love, commitment, endurance, and service. 

 Rainbow loom bracelets are also consuming large amounts of Tali and Capriel's time.  Tal is able to pull up difficult tutorials and create some very intricate patterns. 
Let's see, we also cleaned the church this week, cleaned the Spectrum (the USU stadium) last week (for a soccer service project). 

Spring is coming!  I've loved watching the baby lambs that are being born in a field