June 2021

With school out and us right in the middle of construction zone at our house, summer started off a bit crazy.  We also started back with 2nd hour church and since I'm still primary president that made it even a bit busier trying to get things all organized again.  But we got our kids into their summer schedules.  I always give them 5 things to do each day and then pay them 10cents for each item.  It isn't much but does add up over the 11 weeks of summer vacation.  They have to read, do a chore, practice their music, do some math, so some sort of writing.

We did still try to make time to do some fun things in June as well.  The kids had fun with this app that turned our pictures into cartoon characters.  They all look so cute I thought.

Aria spent one afternoon setting up a race horse track.

We ate hamburgers outside one night.  We don't eat outside that much but hopefully with our basement done we will start doing that a little more often.  It's hard to carry everything downstairs and then back up again but we always have fun when we do it.

We went on a hike to Battle Creek Falls in Pleasant Grove, pretty short hike but fun to hike to a waterfall.

Shane had a major milestone birthday and although I thought we would've gone on a trip or something a little more elaborate, we were in the middle of construction and with people at our house everyday it just wasn't working out.  Instead we tried to plan a fun weekend of doing 50 things in 50 hours for someone turning 50.  It was a fun weekend and these kids sure adore their dad and love spending as much as time as they can with him.

We let the kids choose one big activity they wanted to do this summer.  Jaron chose soccer camp and even though the week he went it was 100 degrees he still loved every second of it.  Siena chose a school camp at this charter school where they had a farm, did pottery and had a space simulation lab.  She absolutely loved her camp and couldn't stop talking about it each day.  She even learned about the supply chain cycle and gave us all a lesson about it over dinner that night.  It was quite cute to think she was having fun and learning so much at the same time.  Aria chose horse riding lessons and was so super excited. She couldn't stop counting the days and was lucky she got to spread out her lessons over the whole summer.  They all had a fun time and it was fun to watch them go out and explore different areas of things they love them most.  I missed a picture of Siena at her camp but here are some from Jaron and Aria.

My Aunt Joan died.  She had been living in St. George but was my aunt that lived closest to us growing up just 30 minutes away.  Jeff and all my sisters except Lori went down for the funeral along with my parents.  It was sad to say good-bye but we had a fun weekend seeing cousins and relatives we hadn't seen for a while.  We don't get to see my uncle Bruce who lives out in Florida so it was fun to see him.  We also made a weekend out of it and got tickets to Million Dollar Quartet at Tuacahn and had a fun Father's Day breakfast with my dad. Shane was a good sport to spend his Father's Day with just the kids and I made it back in time to have dinner with them that night.

I took the girl's to our now annual Lehi Round Up Rodeo.  Always a fun night and for the 2nd year we got tickets right by where the horses run in and out all night and Aria stares at them all night long.  Her favorite seat in the house!

House Projects

In March one night Shane and I started discussing re-financing our house since interest rates were so low.  After discussing it one night we decided to fill out the application and just do it all online.  We were able to lower our payment and then we pulled out some money and decided to finish our basement.  

We weren't really dying to finish our basement but knew if we were going to stay here for a bit having some extra space for the kids to go play would start to become more important.  Also, Shane needed to have an office that was a little bit quieter and right off the front door wasn't working so well on a lot of days.  We hired a contractor that a couple families in our neighborhood had used.  We got his bid and went for it.

We had the HVAC work done in April and then they started framing the first week of May.  We finished up the 3rd week of June with carpet and we are so happy it's done.  We had our share of issues and went to Home Depot and Lowe's way more than I can even count.  We spent more than we were hoping too but we are so glad it's done and glad we did it.  The kids love playing done there.  Shane has a quiet office down there and it's just nice to have everything done in the house.  We moved our treadmill and elliptical into the small bedroom, we put a small kitchenette by the back door and plan to get a couch, tv, refrigerator and stuff down there at some point.  I mostly just wanted soft carpet and I love the carpet we picked out.  Every time I go down there I think oh this carpet is soft.

Here are some before, during and after pictures.

And then in case that wasn't enough in the middle of it we also decided to redo our shower and floor in the master bath.  We had this tiny little shower that had this gross insert and I seriously couldn't stretch out my elbows while shampooing my hair without hitting both edges of the shower.  We basically had to move out of our room for about 2 weeks though, including clothes from our closet so they could tape off our closet.  This was right as school got out and was a bit, ok very, crazy couple of weeks.  Kids home, I'm working in Siena's room on her bed, we all shared the kids small bathroom to shower, etc.

To say I love my new shower is an understatement and I'm sure I love it more than I love the basement.  We knocked out a wall to make it bigger and then brought it out a bit wider as well, put in a bench and tiled the entire thing.  We put a frameless shower door up and then re-tiled the floor with some really pretty marble looking tile.  Every time I shower I think about how much I love my shower.  Worth every penny on that one.

So in the span of about 8 months we added a room upstairs, re did our shower and finished our basement.  We went from a 3 bedroom house to a 6 bedroom house and we are happy our projects are over for a while.

May 2021

 Aria and I watched the Kentucky Derby.  Aria is so so so into horses.  She wants us to move so we can buy a house with horse property and begs often for a horse.  So she was super excited to watch the Kentucky Derby.

Jaron got reading glasses.  He kept complaining about the scriptures being blurry when we would read from the Book of Mormon each night.  So I took him in and they aren't that bad but the dr. said to just wear them when he's reading or doing workbook pages up close, etc.  He hasn't been that good about wearing them but we're working on it.  He was very relieved he didn't have to wear them all the time.

Mother's day pictures.  Grateful we got to spend Mother's Day with my mom this year and it was a great day.  My kids always write the sweetest notes to me each Mother's Day and actually it's not that uncommon to get little notes from them and their latest is writing a note on my calendar that pops up the next day, or every day on repeat!  I sure love them and life would be so boring without them in my life.  They keep me busy, on my toes but they I love that they still love to snuggle and hang out with me.

Jaron's 2nd grade class put on the cutest Rock Star play all about rocks.  They had dance and song and Jaron was one of the narrators and I was shocked when I realized he had memorized all his lines.  He had a lot and I had no idea he was supposed to memorize them and he did it all on his own.

The kids got to have their dance festival this year.  The girls did Ghostbusters and Jaron's grade did Try Everything.  Both of them were so cute and I love going to see the whole school do their different dances.

Jaron had his last season of Cedar Hills rec soccer.  He's been playing for 4 years now every spring and summer and he can't get enough of soccer, he loves it.  He made a break through this year and Jaron scored multiple goals at almost every game.  In fact he said he had a hat trick of hat trick games (3 games where he scored 3 or more goals) We're moving him up to AA this fall so we'll see how it goes.

The girls finished up their soccer season being on Orange Crush.  They had a great coach, fun girls and a great season where they won most their games.

I got to volunteer for Field Day at the end of school.  I got to see Aria and Siena and I was in charge of the parachute game.  The parachute is always a popular one and it was a fun day.

Last day of school pictures.  We survived the school year and shockingly we never had a case of Covid or even exposure that would've caused them to quarantine for 10-14 days.  I think we are the only ones in the neighborhood that haven't had it or been exposed at some point.  We feel very lucky and blessed.  Besides wearing masks, no field trips and other fun parties, etc. it was a pretty normal year and we are grateful for in person school when most of the nation had online school for the majority of the year.  And the kids were most excited when the governor announced that kids didn't have to wear masks the last week of school!

April 2021

Jaron got to participate in 2nd Grade Market Day.  The girls had to do it from home last year so it was fun to see him actually get to do it in school.  He created a ping pong ball toss game and said lots of people came to his store to play the game.  

I didn't have any tricks or anything planned for April Fools so when Brigitte called me up and asked if we wanted to come to their mixed up dinner with them we were all in.  She made the kids menu's so they didn't know what they were ordering so they ended up ordering dessert first, a fork 2nd, etc. and it was all mixed up.  The kids had a lot of fun and a cute way to celebrate.

Just because most pictures on this blog are not of me since I'm taking them most of the time.  Just a cute selfie of me and my girls.

We had a great Easter.  We had the usual Easter baskets, egg hunt and fun.  We then went to church and then we actually got to go to my parents for Easter dinner.  With most adults at least partially vaccinated, we were feeling ok about it.  Even though not everyone was there, it was our first get together with multiple families since the summer before.  It was so fun and just felt like life was getting back to normal.

I still like to take pictures of my kids asleep from time to time.  I'll go check on them and they'll just be so cute or have their stuffed animals lined up just perfectly.

My niece Eliza, who I always call my cancer buddy because she had leukemia when she was 3 right before I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma.  Well she got her mission call to Australia, so once again we are on similar paths.  She is the cutest and know she will be such a great missionary.

We put together a cute little neighbor birthday party for our neighbor Lisbon since her mom is still on bedrest with triplets.  It was fun to have them over and they played a few games, opened presents and sang to her with brownies.

Each night we read scriptures together as a family.  A lot of nights this is exhausting and someone is always mad at someone else but this night was cute as I looked over and saw Siena holding her dad's hand.

Another season of soccer.  His friend Daniel's mom was their coach.  Daniel has been on his team for a few years.  His friend Graham, Parker and Noah were all on his team as well.  It was a fun season and Jaron did really well scoring multiple goals most games.  He's really taken to soccer and absolutely loves it.  He was pretty proud that he even got a hat tricks of hat tricks (3 goals for 3 consecutive games.)

The girls also played another season.  They had such a great coach that was so encouraging, patient and really good at teaching them moves and plays to use in the game.

Siena set a goal to learn and cook a dinner all by herself.  A couple weeks before she helped me while I made dinner and then this night she took the lead and made most of the dinner herself.  We had lasagna, rolls, jello and she did a great job making the lasagna.  She loves to cook and is starting to be able to make things herself, especially baking items.

Aria had her end of year orchestra performance.  I wasn't sure what to expect but was pleasantly surprised at how good they sounded.  They put it all together and it was fun to see her play in a group.  She really enjoyed going to orchestra this year and is already excited for next year.

We signed the kids up for the Provo city kids marathon.  They had to run 25 miles on their own leading up to the race and then the night of the race they came to Provo and ran the last mile.  It was a fun way to get them exercising a little and it was the first race they had participated in.  They loved the t-shirts, water bottles and bounce houses there maybe more than the race but it was a fun night with the Pace's and also Graham Alley and his family.