Bragging rights

I have to brag a little about two of the men in my life. Every Sunday Matt makes us homemade bread. And when I say Matt makes it I mean he makes it without any help from me. I'm usually taking a Sunday nap. He's figured out exactly what consistency the dough needs to be and it always turns out perfect! He even grinds wheat to use in it so it's healthy!

Two beautiful loaves ready to go in the oven.

Fresh and hot out of the oven. Can't you just smell it?!

We usually eat almost one entire loaf as soon as he makes it. Hot and buttery with strawberry freezer jam. YUMMY! The kids love to make baby sandwiches so he always makes several little loaves for them.

Then he slices it all up and puts it in bread bags so it's as easy to use as store bought bread. The only problem is that it's so yummy we go through it super fast. The kids even love it.

Who's husband really does this? Oh yeah, MINE!

Now for another little story. Last year when Kolton registered for his classes for this year he signed up for guitar. But when he got his schedule he was in choir because the school had decided not to offer guitar. He insisted that he was going to change classes. I convinced him it would be an easy A and he should try it for at least one term. The first week in choir his teacher asked him to be in the advanced men's choir. He swiched his schedule around so that he could be. He really enjoyed it and decided to try out for Chamber Choir, the highest choir at the school, for next year. After he tried out he told me he didn't think he made it because sophomores very seldom make it for their junior year. Well guess what, HE MADE IT!!! I'm so excited. If you make it into Chamber Choir then you have to be in Concert Choir so he'll be in two choirs next year. I think it'll be such a great experience for him. Only 1 other boy sophomore and 1 girl sophomore made it. What can I say, the men in my life ROCK!

Last night he had a choir concert. He had a short solo but didn't tell us so we were surprised to see it on the program. Here it is.

Patriarchal Blessings

Today my dad gave Kolton and Lexi their Patriarchal Blessings. What an awesome experience. The spirit was so strong. Their blessings were both so beautiful and so perfect for each of them. He told them things that I've always known about each of them and it confirmed what special spirits they are. We also learned some of the great gifts they were given from their Heavenly Parents. I'm so grateful to have the gospel and to be able to raise my kids in it. It was so special that they were able to get their blessings from their grandpa.

Showtime Utah

For Christmas we gave Jeremy, Heather and my mom and dad tickets to a dinner theatre. We also got some for ourselves. We decided to use them this weekend and invited all the other couples in the family. Everybody but Jeremy and Kristi went. We got a cowboy dinner of biscuits, cornbread, pulled pork and chicken, corn, baked potatoes, and a root-beer float or brownie with ice cream. The show was a dad with his 5 sons that did an awesome cowboy music show. They were all incredibly talented. They played the guitar, banjo, violin, mandolin, etc. and had awesome voices. It was a lot of fun. The best part was that they pulled some men out of the audience to be can-can dancers and they grabbed Trent and Deco. They dressed them in skirts and wigs and had them do the can-can. FUNNY! Of course I forgot my camera so I'll have to steal some pictures from my mom when she updates her blog. Check back later!

Running with angels

I got a text from Noelle last week asking me to run a 5k with her. I made some excuses and said I couldn't. The next day I got another text from her saying that mom and dad were going to run with her and she was registering me and I'd be home in plenty of time to plant a garden so I didn't have any excuses. Needless to say I ran the 5k. I was really glad that I did. I did a lot better than I expected. I haven't run much all winter and just the last 3 weeks started training so I could run in the 5k on the 4th of July. I finished faster than I though I would and ran almost the entire way. It was a beautiful run, through the gardens of Thanksgiving Point.

Lexi had spent the night at Noelle's house to babysit and decided the morning of the race that she wanted to do it with us. She hadn't brought her running shoes so she borrowed some of Noelle's. The only problem is that they were a size 6 1/2 and Lexi wears a size 8. OUCH!

Noelle did awesome and finished in 29 min. 21 seconds.

Lexi's feet started hurting her pretty bad so about half-way through she decided to take off the shoes and run in her socks. She did great and kept up with me the entire time. We finished in

35 min. 20 sec.

My mom and dad ran the entire way and finished a couple of minutes behind us.

THEY ROCK!!!

Thanks Noelle.

Hershey's Track Meet

Last week was the Hershey's Track Meet. One of the mom's from Jensen's class had the idea of helping the kids make tye-dyed t-shirts so they would all match.

Jensen won her first race, the 100 meters, so she got to race in the semi-finals. She took second. Usually they take the first and second place finishers for the finals but they had so many girls running the 100m that they only took the 1st place winners.
Jensen's the one with the black shorts on the far side of the track.



She still had a great time!

Mother's Day

I love Mother's Day! I get so spoiled. I just wish it came around more than once a year. This year I got my favorite breakfast, crepes with strawberries, kiwi, chocolate and cream cheese, etc. YUMMY!

The kids were all so awesome this year and each took time to get me something. Addi bugged Matt for days to take her to Walmart so she could get something for me. She also really wanted to make me a cake so Matt helped her buy one of the individual microwave Hot Fudge cakes for her to make for me. Again can I say YUMMY!
Where's Oakley?

Hope of America

Every year in May, several of the Elementary schools around Utah County participate in the Hope of America program. It's mostly 5th graders. Jensen has been looking forward to this program for the last two years, ever since Lexi was in it and she finally got her turn. She was super excited because they got to be blue instead of the yellow that most of the schools from around here usually are.

It's an amazing program of patriotic songs with actions. As you can see, the colored shirts they wear form a flag. If you ever have the chance to go see it, GO. What an incredible program. TIP: go early to get good parking and a good seat.

They also have some other groups from around the county perform. One of the groups that performed is a dance group of women 50 or older. The oldest member of the group is 92. At the end of their dance she did a little solo. The next time you're feeling old just watch this video. This lady is amazing!!!

This video is of the last song they sang, We Can Be the Light. It was a really fun night.

Lucky #13

Deco and Kera are about to have grand baby #13 for my mom and dad. After our food storage day we had a baby shower for Kera at Noelle's house.

We played a fun game. Noelle had cups with ice that had a baby frozen inside. The first three to melt their ice, get the baby out and yell, "My water broke," won a prize.
The pink spots in the ice are the babies:)

Addi and I took second. She loved the little rubber baby inside and played with it the rest of the evening.

Lexi trying to get her baby out.

She did it!

Kera opening presents.

It's a girl so there was lots of pink.

Noelle made a super cute, yummy cake.

And a super cute diaper cake.

We all be Jammin mon!

On Saturday we had another Food Storage day. We met at Heather's house and she taught us how to make strawberry freezer jam. We all had a lot of fun and brought home a ton of jam.

By the time we were done we made almost 100 pints of yummy jam.

Crickets in a Box, AHHHHH!

So every Friday Oakley has a project due. It started out as book reports and progressed from there. Some of the projects have been pretty time intensive, at least for mom, and I've complained about them a lot throughout the year. Well this past week was definitely the craziest one his teacher has come up with yet (notice I say yet because there are still 3 weeks left, who knows what else we're going to have to do).

The project this week was Crickets in a box, yup, real live crickets. I went to PetsMart and bought four crickets, one of which was squished before we even made it home. Oakley put some grass and rocks into a shoe box. Matt looked crickets up on the Internet and found out they like to eat crushed up dog food (who knew?) and we should put wet cotton balls in a small bowl for them to drink. We cut three holes in the box and covered them with plastic wrap so that Oakley could watch the crickets. Then we introduced the crickets to their new home. I taped the top of the box on because I wasn't real excited about the idea of living with crickets in my house. I guess his teacher knows how to make a kindergartner happy though because Oakley was thrilled! And now he's so excited to have his own pets. I think they're still alive although Lexi says the box really stinks. I guess I'll have to let them open the box tomorrow (outside) and make sure they still have food and water. Fun Days!