Mother's Day Views..

Mother's Day weekend 2016...one of my best yet! 

A couple of things that made it special.

LAGOON!

with crazy thrill ridin' cousins.

An hour and a half yoga class I have been wanting to try forever.  Perfect way to celebrate, my comfort zone was pushed, my muscles are sore, but it was also soooo relaxing.  My yoga instructor said beautiful things about mothers, including mother earth...I felt gratitude, contentment, and peace. I find that after stretching and centering myself physically I am especially open to inspiration.

A family game of Qwirkle

The game that is both fun and beautiful!

Pig & Jelly Jar

I have wanted to try chicken & waffles for a looong time.  Hipster style southern food is fantastic!

4 Stars from this crew.

Lots of sweet expressions of love and gratitude all weekend.

Mother's Day ended with fresh raspberry freezer jam and homemade bread delivery from Diedre.

Caleb was earning money for scout and soccer camp by selling his mom's treats so I gladly helped him out. 

So grateful I get to do this motherhood thing. 

So so so grateful I have a mother and mother-in-law to help me along the way.

Also grateful that Darin is here to help me be the best, happiest mother I can be. 

Growing up...

Byron has been over-the-moon excited about the Cub Scout rain gutter regatta. He has loved every step of the boat making process, and has been practicing his lung skills.  But.... I wasn't looking forward to it.  I was nervous about hurt feelings, and sad boys.  My fears grew significantly bigger when Byron came home day of, in tears, from the Chess Club party EVEN THOUGH he got 2nd place in his division for speed chess.  See....I signed both Soren and Bub up for Chess but Soren only went twice and hated it.  He just didn't get how to play and didn't really want to learn.  He was having such a hard time going to school I decided not to push an after school club.  Well, since there were only 4 kindergartners who even signed up turns out Soren got 3rd place which came with a large chess-piece-head trophy.  Byron, who went every week he could, played his heart out, and learned how to lose with grace got this medal for speed chess and a small participation trophy. 

It wasn't fair.

And believe me I explained over and over how Soren's trophy didn't mean anything because he didn't earn it, but his little medal meant something. I also mentioned that all the trophies I had ever won were now in a landfill (or maybe DI), how we could go to DI right this minute and buy and even bigger trophy! All to no avail.  

It just wasn't fair, and he wasn't going to easily get over it.

Can you see why I was nervous about the regatta? Soooo many things could go wrong, broken boats, cheating boys, wet cold kids, crying 9 year olds. 

Turns out it was just another case of me worrying for nothing.

It was so fun! 

Everyone had fun!

And little B is totally over that whole chess trophy thing...just needed to cry about the unfairness of his mortal existence for a minute.  Like we all do sometimes. 

This guy....

Oh he is so fun. Full of music, and dancing, and laughter and great snuggles.
6 is such a wonderful age to be! It's not to old to be held in a lap, the world is opening up through reading, lots of free time and space to dream and be.

Soren is picking up chinese fast and furious, he still LOVES swimming best of all activities, music is a HUGE part of his life which is good since he spends lots of time in the car taking older siblings here and there.  He and I love to find good songs on the radio to sing our guts out to (ask him to sing some Bon Jovi next time you see him).  He really enjoys dancing (hello music!) so I have been meaning to find him a hip hop class...got to get on that.

After much deliberation Soren decided that he wanted to take a friend to Build-A-Bear for his birthday. His brother and sister each have them and now Soren's life is complete!

Then on to Johnny Rockets for lunch.

The staff sang to him backwards and he got an ice cream treat!

Then piano lessons, Modern Display where a worker there gave him a Mega Bouncy Ball because it was his birthday!  Then a rush drive down to Price to make it to Julia's end of the year recital.

Sadly, no pictures. I just sat back and enjoyed the show.

It was fantastic! My nieces danced their hearts out, and the show was amazing with this super hero/super villen dancetraviganza for the finale.  

My dad finished his gorgeous Riviera.  I got a ride to Wal-mart late one night for toothbrushes but sadly it didn't make it to the Moab car show because of a problem with the engine. 

Very disheartening after all that work...but let's just sit back and admire the beautiful car for a moment. I was reminded of an article I read the other day where the author said she was grateful for this "unfair and beautiful life" yeah...that kind of sums it up.

We had a family birthday party for Soren on Sunday...again no pictures...I am slacking so bad in that department! It was windy, and chilly but so fun to watch the cousins play tag all over DinoMine park.  Everyone was super generous with gifts for little S. He made out like a bandit...thats what happens when you time your birthday with a Price trip!

But now I am SIX!

When I was One, I had just begun.

When I was Two, I was nearly new.

When I was Three, I was hardly me.

When I was Four, I was not much more.

When I was Five, I was just alive.

 But now I am Six, I am clever as clever.
So I think I'll be Six now and forever.

-A.A. Milne



Six is our favorite! See HERE and HERE

Byron's Weekend....Plus

We finally got Byron to Topaz Mountain.  

It wasn't as desolate as I remember.  It was harder to pound the rock than I remember.  I think it was harder to find the Topaz than Byron expected, but it was a fun experience.  I am proud of all the kids for climbing the mountain and doing their best with the heavy tools!  They each found a topaz or two on the ground and helped us go through the rock we pounded. 

Along the way we saw antelope (good luck!) and wild Great Basin horses and of course lots and lots of rabbits.  

The weather was perfect...a comfortable 50 degree sunshiny day but 4:00 hit and my hands were getting too cold to pound the rock. The kids had scampered back down the hill earlier so Darin and I hauled the buckets of tools down ourselves. We headed out toward Delta and found a great place to get burgers. Ashton's Burger Barn.

We were hungry and the burgers were delicious!

We had loong night at the luxurious Budget Inn (that was sarcasm right there in case you didn't catch it).  The accommodations were rough but, the couple running the place were super duper sweet, and there was hot water. 

Darin and Byron set out for the U-Dig Fossil site "Best Trilobite collecting in the world". They were extremely successful.  Byron was over the moon excited about this experience.

S, M and I walked around Delta and found ourselves some fun at the city park.

The Great Basin Pioneer Museum

(I love how all the women embroidered their own flower motif and then their names...must have been a wedding gift)

Artwork made up entirely of butterfly and moth wings!

and finally, the Topaz Museum to learn about life at the Japanese internment camp.

This played right into my plans to teach the kids all about WWII this summer so we will be ready to visit Pearl Harbor when we go to Hawaii.

We met up with Darin and Bub at the Delta Dairy Freeze (fantastic malts...if you are in Delta drive right on past that nasty McD's and go to the Dairy Freeze down the street) and then drove happy and exhausted on to Huntington for the annual flashlight egg hunt.

Pre-dusk hot dogs cooked the best possible way.

I love that my kids get to explore Grandpa's farm in the funnest way possible!

Now both Byron and Miriam get to go to the big kid section of the farm.

Sunday was good/hard.  

Lots of fun cousin time, I got to see my sisters, but it was a long tiring drive home and no one wanted to see Monday come.  Well...that is not exactly true.  I quite enjoyed doing laundry all by myself on Monday.