Post trip catch up

 

Our last two weeks have been full swing.  We're getting caught up on school work from being gone so long, adjusting to a new choir director for my calling as choir pianist, welcoming a new Great-niece (congrats Aubrey!), celebrated Evelyn at her orchestra concert, celebrated Sam at his Jazz concert, enjoyed watching Seth try out jiu jitsu for the first time, hosted cousins for a magic tournament, celebrated Jack's birthday at Bricks n minifigs, took Ada for a campus tour to USU (it was fun and a nice campus), had dinner and made apple turkeys with Sharon and her kids, watched Sam in a flute trio in church, got good grade donuts with Seth, Seth earned the 1st place class spot in the spelling bee (he'll move on to the school wide one next) did the Priesthood preview with Seth, and went to a Happy Fitts concert with Ada and babysat for Emma a couple of times while she was packing to move (I'll miss their happy faces).

Evelyn's in the back... I was able to grab a couple shots of her peeking around from the back.  

Seth loves doing this.  It is a lot more like wrestling and less like karate, but he likes that.

Nellie invited us over to divvy up Avatar cards.

Magic game players

Birthday goers

We've been making apple turkeys since I can remember.  My grandma used to do this with us every Thanksgiving and now that our kids are all teenagers, they aren't really super excited about it... but we did it with the littles and it was fun.

Ada's thinking of 4-5 different colleges.  Wherever she ends up, she's going to be great!

Sam sure loves the Jazz band.  Our choir has started to sing more jazz type music and three of the boys are members of the jazz band.  They love geeking out over the timing and energy of the music.

Seth brings in our cats from their enclosure every morning.  It's cute.

Making faces while playing.

Peter made a robot and wanted me to take a picture.

Jer's cat nap.  I think they missed us while we were gone.

Nya, Anna and Sam.  They played beautifully.

Sweet Potato Kit kats.... yum

Evelyn is working on learning web-development.  She's doing a fine job and I think she'd like something like this as a job.

Ada made chocolate dipped "turkeys" out of strawberries and pretzels for her club social.

Vinn is so tolerant of Seth... 

Jer and I almost forgot about Seth's Priesthood preview.  Thank goodness I had a notification go off on my phone.  We made it, they explained what next year will look like for him and I'm so excited for all 4 of my kids to be able to share in being in the youth together for a few months.

a tiny apple pie Jer made for Anita Taylor

Ada and I at Happy Fits. It was so fun.  I did okay, but man were my legs tired after.  It was especially fun to watch Ada singing along with her favorite songs.  I loved especially that the main guy has a cello.

Evelyn's band buddies.... She says that she loves orchestra but all her friends are in band.

sledding

He finally did it! Seth has been wanting to go sledding all winter.  Too bad that the times that it's snowed has been while he's in school, asleep or it never stuck on the ground.  We were at Grandma and Grandpa Robertson's house for Josie's baby blessing when it started snowing.  Seth was "sledding" on his feet down the hill and Grandpa noticed and got him some sleds.  He took Peter and Rosie out with him and they had a fun time.  After they were done the snow melted and was gone.  I'm so glad he got to do it! 

I got to hold Josie after all the craziness calmed a bit.  As soon as I picked her up, Seth asked if he could hold her.  So he did and she was happy with that arrangement.

 

Fast blog update

There were horrific fires in California. Including three towns of homes being burned down.  It's so sad, but I'm grateful that the temple is still standing.

Our beautiful new Lindon temple got it's windows.  They're so pretty!

My wonderful Great Uncle Duck (Doug) turned 80.  He's such a good man and I loved seeing all his kids and grandkids there.

Jer and Jim went to the Hanzel and Gretel opera in Salt Lake.

Sam was so tired.  Ada and him went to a youth fireside... Ada showed him the whale she'd made and it knocked him out.

Cutie patooties

Progress on my egg painting.

Patient cat with daycare kids.

We got to go to the Payson temple to do baptisms for the dead.  It was so cool because we got there and Sam exclaims, "I can do the baptizing now!" And so we arranged for him to baptize Evelyn and I... then Jer baptized Ada.

Tiredness is contagious.

We got to drive up to Ogden to celebrate Aubrey's graduation with McKay and fam.  Look at these great people.

New favorite cousin picture.

Seth gave a talk.  He's been giving a lot of talks lately.  I'm always grateful that he says yes.  I love watching him in Primary.  This last Sunday he was asked to sing a solo in sacrament meeting.  He said, "No, but I'll sing in a group."  So we invited his Primary class to sing with him.  The 4 that said yes sang the first verse of Joseph Smith's First Prayer.  His wonderful clear voice... 

Evelyn gave her first talk in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday too. When she was asked, she burst into tears.  By Saturday she was okay with the idea and Jer and I took turns walking her through writing her talk.  Then on Sunday she asked me to sit by her on the stand.  I did, she shook until she started her talk... then she wasn't nervous anymore.  She gave testimony of straightforward doctrine and then told me that she'd like to give a talk again.  She had started an outline in one computer file and then started a second with her actual talk.  To differentiate the two files, she wrote ACTUAL TALK across the top of the one.  She forgot to delete that part before printing it and joked with me for a good few minutes about having to have the ACTUAL TALK.  

I took pictures of Christian for his baptism.  It was so cold, so we set up our photo backdrop and did them really quick.  He's on the spectrum so taking pictures is not easy.  He let me take some if I let him take pictures of the dinosaurs after. 

He kept saying how much he liked Seth's lego dinosaurs, so I got him a lego triceratops.  

Crazy cats.... Vinn was hugging Syl's tail.

Jer had an ER visit over the weekend.  We were headed to an endowment session and he got dinner stuck in his throat.  Last time we had to go to the ER for this was about 13 years ago.... then about 15 years before that he had to...   So maybe we'll prebook a visit in another 15 years.  He's going in on Wednesday to get his throat stretched.  

I played the piano at Christian's baptism.  In true Ecuadorian fashion, I wasn't asked ahead of time.  I showed up and they said, "Hey you're on the program... and will you play Gethsemane for Isaiah to sing a special musical number too?"

Sam drove in the snow for the first time.  It just so happened to be with Robyn.  That helped Sam feel more secure knowing that she had his back.

I met baby Annie for the first time.  I was going to babysit from 5-9... ended up being from 12-8 and included two baths... one from a child throwing up all over and the other from a child peeing all over.  Whelp... that's the way it goes.  It was nice to meet Annie.

I did the taxes for the daycare.... now gotta do our personal ones.

Our Stake put together a temple activity over the weekend.  It was really neat.

Seth in the temple mirrors.

Making rice krispies temples.

Ada made the Provo temple and included an angel Moroni on top.

Evelyn got to go to the space center for Rose's birthday party.  They had fun.

For Primary, I gathered different Book of Mormons in different languages.  We talked about the different languages and how all of them was the same message of Jesus Christ.  Dale Yancey brought his Māori copy that his grandfather used as a missionary in New Zealand... I told him that it's possible that he had met my Great Grandpa and Great Great Grandparents who were members of the church there at the same time.  It was a neat lesson.

Again cuddling with the tail of her sister.