April Notes

I sure love April!  Especially General Conference.  This is the first time I didn't fall asleep at all!  I enjoyed it so much.  I am always sad when it is over now.  It is so nourishing to feel supported and inspired by our Prophet and Apostles.

 That weekend ushered in Spring Break for us.  We had talked about doing a family vacation, but things kept getting scheduled in here and there and we finally gave in and just stayed home.  I'm so glad we did!! It would have been fun to go on a trip, but it was much more fun to just be home and be together.

 My favorite thing about my birthday was that I didn't have to check the clock once all day.  We spent some time playing together at the park, we went to Pizza Pie Café, and we watched the new episode of Studio C.  It was just so nice and relaxing and lovely to be with everyone. 

We spent some time the next day at the park before taking the girls to their book club.  The next morning we got up very early and drove to Fillmore to play in the hot pots there.  It was a highlight of our Spring Break last year and it didn't disappoint this year either.  There were some other campers there, but they were just waking up and it worked out just fine for us to enjoy the pool.  We were hoping to go to the Statehouse museum again, but ran out of time.  We all went up to Trenaisa's so she and Tanner could go with Dallin and the boys to the Oquirrh mountain temple.  I stayed back with the little ones and had a nice visit with Paul.  The younger kids had a great time with Connor and their doggies.  Paul and Trenaisa are so generous to us!  They fed us a wonderful dinner and sent us home with bags and bags of amazing hand-me-downs.  What a blessing!  Trenaisa even let the little kids take a big bubble bath in her deep jetted tub.  It was such a treat, and so nice for them to go home nice and clean in fresh jammies.  Sullivan completely freaked out when we turned on the jets, though!

Brandon spent all Friday at a Constitution Bowl with his Key of Liberty class.  His team did not do very well, but he had fun and learned a lot about the Constitution, so it was all good.  Grandma and Grandpa came that night and stayed with us.  I traveled with them to Heber the next day to attend Garth Brown's funeral. (My first cousin)  It was incredibly beautiful and spiritual.  It was lovely to see Suzie and all of her children.  She has always seemed like such a soft and spiritual person.  True to that form, she delivered a very beautiful and spirit-filled life sketch of Garth's life.  It was really neat to see some of the family members that I haven't seen for awhile, especially Suzie's 11 living children and their families.  What an example she is!  We had fun sitting at a table with Tanaya and Sheryl and Chris and Kalynn and visiting with them during the luncheon. 

Nathan has been having a really great soccer year, getting better and better throughout the season.  It is always amazing to me what he can do when he is so much smaller than everyone else.  He has really learned how to hustle after the ball and keep up his energy during his games.  He got a couple of injuries that kept him out a few times.  I finally took him to the chiropractor and he instantly healed the hip flexor problem he'd been having for months.  He went straight from the chiropractor to one of his final games and was able to play just fine.  He hasn't had a problem with it since.  Unfortunately, he never got back on top of his game.  He kind of struggled for the rest of the season and ultimately told us he was done with soccer.  He was done with the profanity and bullying of some of the kids on his team.  It was really heartbreaking to hear that that was going on and that it really began to affect his ability to perform.  He was also trying to decide what to do about choir.  He decided not to try out, but to do other things.  His choir teacher begged him to try out, alluding that he would be able to make the advanced choir.  So Nathan practiced and made it to call backs and then wasn't chosen.  And his soccer coach who is a seminary teacher belittled him in front of the team for missing a couple of practices to go to the temple.  Let me just say that my mama bear instincts were fully tested!  I wanted to punch a few people in the face!!  I'm proud of him for handling it all so well and ultimately deciding to keep going with choir and soccer because he loves to do them.  (Some of this happened in May).

Easter was really neat this year.  In March, my friend showed me an e-book she downloaded about Lent.  We decided to do some of the activities and try to make Easter as special and Christ-focused as Christmas.  We learned some of the traditional sayings and rituals associated with lent.  We put up paintings of Christ that we have from several different artists.  We hung a banner in the living room that says He Is Risen!  We planted Wheat Grass to remind us of resurrection.  I hung my string eggs and some wallet-sized prints of Jesus over the kitchen table.  It was serendipitous that when Nathan's friend returned from choir tour and told us they sang in a cathedral, but couldn't sing All Creatures of our God and King because of Lent.  We pulled up some articles and found out that they save the "Alleluia" for Easter and don't use it during Lent.  We all wore purple one day as it is symbolic of Christ's bruising and also his royalty.  We downloaded some really beautiful music from Hoffmanhouse.com about the savior that really added to the spirit.  The Sunday before Easter was my Choralais Choir concert.  I was asked to prepare a children's choir number for the program.  I knew I wouldn't have time to practice with a group, so I just asked if my kids could do it.  They asked them to sing Gethsemane.  It was really really wonderful!  A lot of people said it was the highlight of the concert.  Ruby, Daisy, Simon, and Sarajoy each had a little solo part.  It was so cute to hear Sarajoy sing at the top of her voice, "Get-sem-a-nee, Dee-sus loves me!" and to see Simon with his little paper that he always wanted to have to remember his words.  The big boys stood in the back and did background harmony.  It was pretty special!  We sure love that song and another one by the Hoffmans, I will Anchor My Soul In Christ, that has become a sort of anthem for our family.  I also got to do a solo that really showcased my voice, so that was neat.  I was surprised at how much I loved singing in the choir this year.  I was so busy, but glad I made time for it.  The music really stayed with me and strengthened my spirit throughout the week.  I loved having a more Christ-centered Easter. 

We did Easter Baskets a week early since Grandma and Grandpa were here for Spring Break.  It was fun to have them be a part of it, and especially fun to stay up with Mom getting them ready.  So nice to have help!  We had lots of good candy, a few kinds we'd never tried before!  The kids got a few fun outside things like chalk and bubbles.  We got some nice soccer goals to use in the backyard and they've seen a lot of  use!  Hooray for having a lawn!  The day before Easter was a gorgeous day, and we had a great time at the annual neighborhood Egg hunt.  We were the last to leave because the hosts are so neat to visit with.  Brother Bigler has helped us a lot with our landscaping and he was telling Dallin about a good deal on a used fence he knew about! 

Shakespeare really got busy in April with lots of long rehearsals, and I was asked to be the costume director.  The director had already purchased quite a few costumes and the boys were mostly wearing their own suits.  I was in charge of all of the little details in accessories and props and also in charge of keeping everything in order and together.  It was a big job, but really fun! 

Thanks to Chris skyping in and giving us a tutorial, we were able to finally build the new computer.  It was a really neat project.  I'm still (in June) trying to figure out how to use it!  It has been nice, and all of the kids have enjoyed creating on minecraft.  I love how they can make their imaginings come to life.  Ruby is in heaven because she made a farm with horses she can actually ride and cats that follow her around everywhere. 

One night when I knew I was going to be gone and Dallin was feeling a little under the weather, I suggested he take them to the movies.  The Lego movie just happened to be playing at the cheap theater.  They had a great time.  Dallin was thinking he'd go on a campout with the boys, but the campout ended up being cancelled.  Brandon was really glad because he was kinda burned out from all of his Shakespeare classes and campouts are not his favorite.  He was thrilled that he got to go to a movie.  When the kids announced he wasn't going camping and they were going to a movie instead, he thought it was a mean joke!  They had a great time and so did I at a mom's planning meeting for next school year.