Morgan goes to JA City!

You're looking at JA City's most amazing teacher ever! Miss Morgan! 

Many 5th graders in this part of Utah get to go to a place called JA City.  It's a super sweet made-up town where the 5th graders get to go for the day and run the city.  

They kids interview for different jobs ahead of time, and then they go to "work" for the day.  Morgan got to be a teacher and had a great time!  She earned a paycheck (which she spent some of at the town Maverick store where she bought a fountain drink :)  They had a real little Maverick store being run by 5th graders!  

Here's Morgan taking her paycheck to the bank to deposit it in her account. 

What a fun, memory-filled day for her :)

Baby steps towards getting ready for baby!

About 9 months ago, Mike and I made a deal… We wanted another baby, but I had two concerns… 

Concern #1- I had to be pregnant again, blah... and

Concern #2 - Where were we going to put this baby??  

So we made a deal… I'd take care of dealing with concern #1 and Mike would take care of concern #2.  

The next month we found out that I had taken care of getting my part going.  We were pregnant!! YAY!  

So for the following 6 months I nagged Mike about following up with his part…  The poor guy was already busy enough with traveling, work, school, homework, high counselor responsibilities, and being a dad, but somehow he managed to figure out a way to get going on making room for this baby.  After all, a deal is a deal, right :)

Our basement is a dark, scary, COLD dungeon.  There was no way I was moving kids down to this cold, dark place the way it was….  So we got busy.

The first thing we did was install a furnace (the previous owners had some flooding and filled in the vents with concrete… WHAT??  What a mess…. So we had to add heat ducts in the the ceilings to get heat throughout the basement.)

Next- Mike enlisted the help of my electrician/handy man extraordinaire brother-in-law and together they added a dozen can lights to the dark space (which isn't dark any more!!) and they knocked out a wall… Not just any wall - a load bearing wall!!  Mike learned all kinds of cool stuff, like how to add a support beam and all that good stuff.   (He felt so manly!)

We took out a section of the brick fireplace to make the wall look better, we took down the home theater system that took up way to much space, and we took out the wet bar and sink that were just hideous.  It's coming along…  The dry wall crew has started patching everything up and the painters will be here next week.  

Once we get up new paint and carpet, its going to feel like a completely different place.  It's no longer cold or dark.  The big kids are going to love it down there…  Esp when we get it all set up with the fun kid stuff we have in mind….  I love that our house is growing and we are adding more little people to fill it up with noise and chaos!

I forgot to take before pictures, but he's some of the work in progress..  Here they are adding support so they can take down the load bearing wall without the ceiling caving in :) 

I can't wait to get rid of these ugly brown walls and get some light fresh paint instead!! Soft, cozy carpet everywhere will be so much better than this ugly stained concrete….  I CANNOT WAIT!  

Not the before picture I wish I would have taken, but See how small the doorway was to this room before they opened it up.... TINY.  Drove me crazy!

The doorway after.  So much bigger!  I love how it opened up the room.

The boys have enjoyed being dads helping hands.  Mike's even thrown in a few new tools to play with.  Miles loves the backpack blower :)  Just because we are working in the basement doesn't mean we can neglect the yard :)   

I'm so excited for all the changes going on this next month.  It's so much work, but it will be so nice to finish up and then be able to sit back and relax and enjoy the fruits of our labors…. Esp the yummy smelling baby girl that we all plan to snuggle to pieces!!   

Going Private

I know it's super annoying to have to sign in to see a blog, but Mike and I decided with all the weirdo's out there, it's worth it to keep our lives private online.  

Easter 2015

I LOVE that Easter fell on Conference Sunday this year.  

The Easter bunny was off the hook for finding everyone new Easter church clothes.  The Easter bunny really didn't feel like it anyway!  It's okay to break tradition when pregnancy is involved right :)

The Easter bunny did find everyone new spring sandals and a spring toy, so it wasn't like the Easter Bunny totally slacked off...  

The traditional egg hunt with the cousins at Grandma & Grandpa's house.  

I think there were about 700 eggs to find…  SO MANY EGGS!  

Showing Grandpa her loot  :)  

HAPPY EASTER!  

**Side note for history's sake….  This year was the first time (that I can remember anyway) that there were opposing votes in the conference center during the sustaining of church officers.  When it happened, I didn't even notice…. Mike did, but didn't even say anything…  I heard it talked about later that day when we meet up with my family, but how in the world did I miss it???  During the reading of the names, I totally tuned out. (in my defense, I was getting 4 kids settled for conference)… But to me, it was just one of those things they do at the start of conference that I stopped paying attention to.  Well, now I am thankful to those people that voiced their opposing vote.  It has since made me reflect on what the sustaining vote is all about and what it means.  Next time I am asked if I sustain the Prophet and our other church leaders, (even if I am just sitting in front of the TV where they can't see me) I plan to raise my hand a little higher and make sure my children see me raising my hand in absolute certainty.  So high that my children never doubt that their mother knows that our Prophet, currently President Thomas S Monson, is an actual Prophet of God, and he was called by the Lord and everything he teaches is what the Lord himself would teach.  There is no doubt about it.  

I love these men and everything they teach me.  Let it be known, they have my sustaining vote!  

Countdown to soccer...

Over the winter I heard one question so many times that I wanted to scream.  "Mom, how many more times do I need to wake-up before soccer?"  Ahhhh…  "Like over 100" was usually my response.  This question was asked at least twice a day, sometimes many many more times.  It was driving me crazy!  As soccer started getting closer, Will started asking more and more…  He was obsessed!  It started to get even more exciting when my answer started to sound more like, "you only need to wake up 20 more times".   This made him start asking even more…  Finally I said, "Will, why don't you make a countdown calendar so you can stop asking me how many days?".
Then he left.  He was quiet for awhile so I checked on him.  I found him in the kitchen cutting out little paper strips...  Tons of little paper strips everywhere.  So I left.  When he was done he called for me to come look.  He had made the strips of paper into stars and taped each one onto a piece of paper and then attached them all together.  Then he asked me to hang it in his room.
I thought it was so adorable.  I didn't even care that he went through 2 rolls of tape to finish it :)
The best part - he stopped asking me how many days until soccer!  

How cute are those snowflake-stars :)  

Even though it felt like it would never happen, soccer finally came.  He had his first practice a couple days ago and games start on Saturday.  Sometimes waiting so long for something makes it so much sweeter when it finally comes!!  He is one happy boy.

And this picture is just because it's so cute!  It was taken by a friend on Will's preschool field trip.  

What a sweet boy.  I love this age so much!  

Spring Break - Our Staycation

Last week the kids had spring break.  We decided since I am big, tired and pregnant, Mike is busy at work, and it feels like we just got back from Disneyland, that we'd hang out around here for spring break. 

It turned out to be a relaxing week and I think the kids had a good time...  Well it was relaxing for me and the kids, but Mike was busy with work and home improvement projects that never seem to end.  On the plus side, he is turning into quite the handyman!  More about our projects later....  

For now, a few pictures from spring break.

The weekend before, we had us some Nadauld time!  We can't ever get enough of that.

The boys played basketball for what seemed like hours.  Blurry....  I am getting lazy with picture taking.

 The boys!

The girls! 

 Each day we tried to have some sort of outing.  One evening we packed up a picnic dinner and went for a hike by the temple.  It was just the right distance for little Meggie and this pregnant lady.  Such a beautiful view!

There was even a table and chairs already up there which made it easy to eat some yummy chicken and wild rice soup.  

 I think the biggest highlight of spring break was our new trampoline!  We finally decided to just do it and buy one.  I'm hoping it will keep the kids at our house this summer and give them something to do while I'm on newborn duty.  It's already given them hours of outside fun over the last couple weeks that we've had it.  I love it!  

Meg loves it too.

The static hairdos are fun too.

One day we went with Grandma and Grandpa to see the new Cinderella movie.  I give it two big, fat thumbs up!  Very well done!

We spent one day with cousins at Kangaroo Zoo.  Always a hit!

They love each other (most of the time).

One day our outing was to meet Mike at work for lunch.  It's so cool that Mike works right smack in the middle of City Creek.  The kids love that we eat at the food court and they can choose anywhere they want to eat.  We usually end up going to three different places, but that's what makes it so fun.  

For about the last 6 months Meg and I have been meeting Mike for lunch once a week while the others are in school.  It's been a fun way to sneak in extra time together with his busy schedule.  It's a new tradition I hope we continue through the years.  

Overall, I'd say spring break was a success.   Lots of relaxing, family time, and even some friends sprinkled in here and there.  It got me all excited for summer!  It's just around the corner!