Memorial Day

Rachel was the party planner for Memorial Day.  We all meet at the picnic area by Bridal Veil Falls after Neil’s nap.  It was sure bright and sunny!  Rachel had the table all set with a table cloth and taco pizza.

The rest of us chipped in with salads, chips, and drinks and we finished off the meal with tasty cupcakes.  We headed up the trail and and just kept on walking until it was time to head back home to get kids into bed.  Do you love the hat Isaac borrowed from Ken?  Neil stayed in his seat for a bit and then insisted on walking….that group didn’t get quite so far up the trail :-).  In the second picture Spencer’s hiding in the stroller.

I waited to take most of the pictures off the walls until the very end of packing so it would still feel like home. Jessie was my great picture packer, and I could feel myself getting a little sentimental about the whole moving affair. Jessie was still entertaining the neighborhood with face paintings.  Some of Abbie’s friends were over and they each got a butterfly, but each in a different color.  Unfortunately playtime was over before I caught a picture of them all.Neil got ahold of the camera….Mark had a friend over and we played Hobbesball together.  Mark and Donavan were on a team and Jessie and I were on a team.  It was so fun to be out playing with the kids.  And boy was that a bright sunny day.  We took turns standing under the apple tree for relief from the sun.When Neil plays with us  he runs up to the rack and place his ball up as high as he can reach.More face paintings.  Balloons this time.Mark LOVES Scouts and he has the most awesome leaders!  Here’s Mark receiving his Tenderfoot badge.  I was nursing Isaac so Neil took my place.  Way to go Mark.And after Scouts we took the first load over to our new house!  Our friends volunteered to bring over their truck when I texted them to see if they wanted to come see the house with us, so we ended up taking a lot more over on that first trip than we thought we would.  We are so blessed to have such good friends!  The initial plan was to take over the kitchen stuff and get it put away so we could cook meals the first few days while we were still unpacking….it was a great plan even though it didn’t work out at all.  Oh well.

So here’s a picture of our new house when we took the kids over to see it after we were pretty sure this was the right one for us.

And here’s a quick recap of how all this came to be….  Ken came home one night after a meeting to find me looking online at houses for sale.  I had tripped over something in the girls’ room that didn’t have a place to go for the last time.  We had talked about moving the girls downstairs and splitting up the boys up between the two small rooms upstairs, but trying to fit that many bunk beds and dressers in with the kids just wasn’t working without the mama going crazy!  After discussing and praying Ken and I decided that we’d start a formal more aggressive search for a new home. 

The story gets a little more interesting here, at least from my perspective, because almost exactly a year ago we were looking online late one night on a whim and found a great home only a mile or so away in Spanish  Fork.  It was still even in our stake.  Without the kids knowing Ken and I even went to look at it and decided to go for it.  But when it came time to make an offer we just got this overwhelmingly sick feeling about the whole deal.  No problem, we just dropped the subject and decided to stay put. 

Fast forward a year and this house went up for sale the day Isaac was born; Ken was so excited to go see it.  So a week later we had an appointment set up and came for a look.  It was by far the house most likely to fit our needs and wants of all the homes we had toured over the last two months.  The day we saw this house we also went and looked at two others houses.  When we walked into the second house we almost didn’t know what to do, the upstairs was even a little bit more of what we had in mind, but the basement….well after seeing that part of the house it was a definite “no.”

It just so happened on our first visit to this house that one of the owners came home just as we were wrapping up our tour.  So we sat down and had a little visit with him and it was interesting to me that he said just what I wanted to hear.  Just what Heavenly Father knew I was looking for.  So here we are.  And that’s not to say we haven’t had our share of small surprises about the house and little things that we hadn’t expected, but in the end I think it will all turn out the way it should.

So we almost have a spare room put together for visitors and we’d love to have you come and visit!!  Our phone number is still the same one from Spanish Fork  (so nice!).  And hopefully soon we’ll mail a “we’ve moved” post card out….we’ll see.

The last of school

We had FHE with Grandma and Grandpa after a hotdog roast (Grandma’s kitchen was still being remodeled and our was half packed for the move, so it was the perfect dinner).  The Friend had a great little lesson on repentance and for part of it we broke into teams to find groups of words that described how we might feel during each “step” of repenting.Grandma walked the 5K with Jessie and her friends for Fitness Day at the Junior High.  Neil, Isaac and I helped other volunteers pass out granola bars and water to the kids and adults as they finished.  Some of the kids at the school were just fun to be with and other thought that stealing a three inch piece of food was a real thrill – some kids!?!  It was fun the be there and see both of them.

Spencer’s school program was fun.  He had a line to say and I didn’t even know it!  The little girl next to him on the front row was one of his best friends.  He was a good little singer and so excited to wear his bow tie to school.  A really funny thing was that two nights before I scrapbooked a page of Mark doing this same program in 1st grade!!  I will never be caught up!Neil was more interested in playing on Dad’s ipod than watching the kids…I just LOVED Spencer’s teacher this year, Mrs. Bates.  She really capitalized on Spencer’s talents and was so excited for him to succeed.  Putting him in 1st grade this year with her was just the place he needed to be.It’s the last week of school and so what are my kids doing?  Playing school with the neighbor kids of course!

The day the kids at the Junior High went to a water park up north of SCL Jessie and her friends went to the temple to do baptisms, then went mini golfing. They finished up the day at Macey’s with King Cones and had a race to see who could finish theirs first.  Jessie came in second and wasn’t even hungry for dinner that night!  She even ate the whole thing with a tiny taster spoon.Most of the classes at Larsen had a play that they put on for the school. Mark’s class chose Narnia.  And after a small casting change Mark played the part of Peter.  He and I worked on his lines together and that was pretty fun.  He was a faster memorizer than he thought he would be.  He also supplied all the weapon props (wooden swords from Grandpa) and I had to drop them off in the office for him at school a couple of times.  Here he is meeting Aslan.My favorite line for him was the charge for battle: “For Narnia, and for Aslan!” he was so into the play.

Crowned: King Peter!Mark also brought our Indian costume that Grandma made and his friend,who was Mr. Beaver, wore it for his costume.

Jessie and Mark have been practicing this fun duet and they got to play it for the 5th grade talent show at school.  You can see them here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhBX2Jw_Mv0

My lupine that I thought died last year had two blossoms this spring!

I gave Ken the idea for his credit union shirts this year.  I think they turned out so cool!  You can still get one if you haven’t already.  They just ask for a donation to the 100% for kids school fund that they do.

Mark and his friend had a late over and made cookies to take around and doorbell ditch.  They made chocolate peanut butter ones off of his aunt Steph’s blog, yummy.  (Sorry, I couldn’t quickly find the post to link it.)Unfortunately it turned into a disappointing evening when one of the families totally missed the cookies on the doorstep when the came to answer the door and the other family wasn’t even home.  So they brought the cookies back home and tried again the next day after lunch.

Mark especially loves to help Isaac have tummy time.

And I just think this picture turned out cute.To celebrate the last day of school, we had dinner and a marshmallow roast with our friends and Neil loved riding on their stuffed giraffe.They also made the kids some totally awesome summer gifts: a new book, Scumble (the sequel to Savvy); a song from Wicked, Popular – even Rachel has this memorized now and Jessie loves to sing it at the top of her lungs!; and the cutest game of Go Fish ever, starring our family.

Jessie couldn’t wait for summer – she couldn’t even wait to get home.  She started reading right then and there and finished the book the next day, I think.Poor Abbie couldn’t get away from the smoke it followed her around all evening.And the boys ate more marshmallows than I will admit to.The Saturday after the last day of school Ken and I took Jessie, Mark and Abbie to watch The Secret Garden at the Hale Center Theater.  We had read the book together as a bedtime story and the kids LOVED it.  The play was really great, but focused more on the dad in the story than on the kids.  Abbie had a lot of questions, but it was still fun.  I love that kind of stuff!While we were gone the 3 younger boys stayed with our friends, and she sent me these fun pictures.

Everyone was downstairs except for Neil. So I went to look for him and found him reading a book. Makes a teacher's heart happy!Spencer was sitting in Quinn's old high chair watching TV. I thought it was so funny. We wanted to see if the tray would fit and when it did he decided to eat lunch this way.After the play our good friends, who moved away, came for a visit and to help do some packing.  It was just more than fun to see them!  After we packed up some of the craft room and pictures from the walls we played Apples to Apples.  That was one busy day!

End of School Activities

Our friends came over to BBQ and have root beer floats.  After dinner we played  a game of “Hobbesball” as the kids have dubbed the new game Mark made over spring break.  It was a ton of fun and a perfect night to be out.  (And look at that green grass – so beautiful!)  Jessie’s trying to see if she can make her face all red.  And Neil plays this game by walking up to the rack and placing his ball up as high as he can reach (at least he’s guaranteed a point that way!). :-)

Rachel got a bunch of strawberries and came to our house to make jam.  Of course we ended up with a lot of helpers because then they had an excuse for staying up late jamming out to Pandora’s disney station on the laptop.While the girls chopped and I nursed Isaac Mark read to me – some of his favorite chapters from Swamp Fox, a book he got from Grandpa Payne.And Ken made pancake mix for his credit union’s annual meeting the next day.Isaac was just being so sweet and happy and even fell asleep while we worked.Ken took Mark and Abbie with him early to set up for the annual meeting.  They were super helpers.  Mark helped with the scrabbled eggs and Abbie set out the syrup and stuff on the tables.  I think this was the best annual meeting so far.  Way to go Ken!After the meeting I had to feed Isaac and so the kids and I went to the park nearby while Ken finished taking supplies back to the credit union.Do you love how Neil puts on his own hat!Mark and Jessie got into a little tiff while we were at the park and Jessie’s shoes ended up tied to the top of the jungle gym.That night we all went to Spencer’s choir concert.  They sang one of my favorite songs: Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.

Sunday was an exciting day!  We got to see an annular solar eclipse.   A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partially obscuring the image of the Sun for a viewer on Earth. An annular solar eclipse occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun, causing the Sun to look like an annulus (ring), blocking most of the Sun's light. An annular eclipse appears as a partial eclipse over a region thousands of kilometers wide. This is also known as Ring of Fire.

Jessie made us this awesome box to view the eclipse since you can’t look at the sun directly.  And it worked perfectly.  We also watched live coverage of the eclipse on the laptop so we could see the exact time of the “ring of fire.”  Later our friends came over and let us use their special glasses to look directly at the sun.  That was amazing too, but you had to be in the right spot to look when you put the glasses on, because if you weren’t looking at the sun you could just see the reflection of your own eyes in the glasses and not what was in front of you.

Do you love Jessie’s eclipsing Oreo?

Neil loves to get into Isaac’s car seat, but he doesn’t fit very well.The day of Abbie’s school program the power went out at the school and surrounding neighborhoods.  We later found out that a lady had hit a power poll with her car.

Abbie was more that excited to feed Isaac with a bottle one afternoon.  Neil thought it was cool to and jumped up on the couch to help.Jessie art folder she decorated with her name.