With the family in Gilbert

My whole family was able to go to Gilbert for Rob and Tina's sealing on May 31st.  I went up on Friday with the kids, but Nate had to stay and get some stuff done at work and didn't come until Saturday morning.  I went a slightly different way to Melanie's so I could pick up our finished sweatshirts for girl's camp.  Then Melanie and I loaded up our total of five kids and headed to Costco so I could do some shopping for girl's camp.  That night, we all went to dinner at Cici's Pizza.  It was fun, but a bit crazy to manage and feed four kids by myself at a buffet place!  That night, Christy's family, my parents, and me and my kids stayed at Melanie's house.  Chad's family stayed at Erica's sister's house nearby, and Rob and Tina drove back to Tucson.  I didn't really get to sleep that night though.  I went to bed at midnight--Damon then woke up and kept me up from 12:00-2:00.  He had just gone to sleep when Arie took over and was awake until 4:00 a.m.  It was not a fun night.

Saturday morning we put all the bigger kids (which meant my three crazies plus Hudson and Jade) outside on the trampoline with the sprinkler on.  They had so much fun and were entertained for a long time.

 

We all met up at the temple around noon.  The sealing was very nice.  After Rob and Tina were sealed, Christian was able to be sealed to them.  Then we went as a large group of family and Rob and Tina's friends to Red Robin to eat lunch.  Afterward, we visited at Melanie's for a bit and then headed home.

All of us kids--minus Rob and Tina, who were still in the temple. 

 

Mom and Dad, with all five kids and spouses.

Natalie is 9!

Natalie's 9th birthday was on May 24th.  It was a Saturday, so we were able to have the whole family together for the day.  Natalie, as always, was already awake and just waiting for us to come in and sing to her in the morning.  This is her popping out of her covers as we started singing "Happy Birthday." 

Kelton and Damon used their own money to buy Natalie this Applejack Equestria Girl doll. 

I think Natalie got everything she wanted for her birthday, plus some extras.  I somehow didn't take a picture of the presents she got from grandparents, but Grandma and Grandpa Webb gave Natalie her present a few days early because they were in town.  They gave her a set of Loom Bands and a loom.  She has been wanting that for a long time.  She is still making all kinds of bracelets to this day.  We also went out to eat for Natalie's birthday while grandparents were here.  We went to Texas Roadhouse.  It is the second time I have ever been there and I think it just might be the last.  Their rolls are really good... but that's about it.  I've not been impressed with anything else. 

Grandma and Grandpa Burgess gave Natalie an Anna doll and a Kristoff doll (Barbie dolls) from the movie Frozen.  We did FaceTime with them while she opened them.  She was very excited to have those dolls to go with her Elsa doll.

We gave Natalie an (absolutely-impossible-to-find-I-had-to-check-many-many-times) Elsa barbie doll, a Rainbow Dash Equestria doll, the game Clue, two shirts, and a Lego Creator 3-in-1 set.

After Natalie opened presents, I came downstairs to find that she had lined them up and was debating about which one to open first.  It made me smile.  (She picked Applejack.)

After Natalie's requested pancake breakfast, I got to work on her cake.  During one of my shopping trips to see if Target had the Elsa barbie back in stock, I found that they happened to have this little Elsa doll in stock.  That's when I got my idea for her cake.
 

My sister-in-law, Erica, had made snowflakes to put on her daughter's cake, so I copied the idea from her.  They are piped from candy melts and then sprinkled with sugar crystals.  They were pretty easy to make, but harder than I thought because I think I got my candy melts a little too melted.  When I would go to draw the snowflakes, the candy melts would come out way too fast.  So I had to be even faster.  It was a little tricky to keep the snowflake shape without the lines blurring together.

Natalie is truly my daughter--scraping out the remaining frosting from the bowl. 

Cute girls.  :)

After lunch (and after much asking from the boys if it was time for cake yet) we had Natalie's birthday cake.  Arie was entranced by the fire and the candles.

I don't know how she did this, but after we sang "Happy Birthday" and Natalie blew out the candles, not a single flame on any of the candles went out.  She looked at us and I immediately said, "They're not trick candles... blow again."  She got them out on her next try.  It was pretty funny.  I've never seen someone blow at that many candles and be 100% unsuccessful.

That afternoon, we did something we have never done before.  We went to Madera Canyon.  It is kind of crazy to think that we have lived in Sahuarita for over 8 years and Madera Canyon is only 20 minutes away, and we had never gone there.  Natalie was very excited to go.

After being a bit confused at first, we found a trail to walk on with the kids.  I found the canyon to be very pretty, though it still looks really desert-y in the pictures.  (But I've decided all of  Arizona looks like that right now after a very dry winter and spring.)

There was a squirrel in this tree that was right off the path.  I took a better picture of the squirrel (where you could actually see it), but it didn't have that other cute and crazy critter in it.

The kids quickly discovered that there were a lot of cool rocks to climb on.

"Look mom!  Grass!  Take a picture!!"  My poor desert children.

Kelton was really loving finding the big rocks.  But he kept running ahead to find and climb on them.

Then we rounded the corner to find him on this rock.  We then told him he needed to wait for us before climbing the rocks because it might not be safe.  Then he couldn't figure out how to get down off that big rock.  Nate and I, as awesome parents, were unsympathetic.  We told him, "you figured out how to get up... You can figure out how to get down."  It took him a minute, and I think he was a little scared, but he figured it out.

The kids thought this wooden bridge was awesome.

Natalie holding her daddy's hand...

When we got back from our walk, we sat in the picnic area and ate dinner.  We had packed sub sandwiches and chips.  After that, we drove back home and went to McDonalds for ice cream and to let the kids play in the playplace.  Then we put all the kids to bed, except for Natalie.  We let her stay up to play her new game of Clue with us.  The rules were changed a bit, making it easier, but we were still surprised to find, that by chance, the game was solved before we had all taken a turn.

I think Natalie had a good birthday.  It was fun to spend the day together as a family--we don't always get to do that on birthdays because of school and work. 

We love our outgoing, crazy, sweet, beautiful Natalie!

Arie the talker

I'm in the middle of a few catch up posts... but in the meantime, Arie is cracking me up today. 

First of all, she discovered cake about a week ago and learned the word after being told what it was just once.  It is, after all, a good word to remember.  But now, she has started calling herself Arie Cake (instead of Arie Kait).  It makes me wonder if she thinks they are the same word.  Or maybe she just thinks she has a totally awesome middle name.  It is so funny. 

This morning, I went to kiss Arie and at the last second, instead of kissing me, she lowered her head and bonked my nose.  I said "ow!"  Then Arie said, in a sweet, sing-song voice, "Ohhh, is it hurt?  Ohhh, is okay?"  Little turkey.

Then this afternoon I was playing with her.  When she wants me to do something, like spin her, or throw her in the air, she now says, "Ready...set...TWO!!"  I kept telling her to either say "ready, set, go" or "one, two, three" but she insists on "ready, set, two!"

And now, the boys are playing with each other and Arie feels left out.  She is trying to get their  attention and is standing by them yelling, "Guys!  Guys!"

Cute pictures

 Natalie had a school spirit week toward the end of school, and one of the days was a Disney day.  Her teacher, who is around six feet tall, dressed up as Snow White and asked all of the kids to come as dwarfs.  So funny!  I wish I could have seen them walking around school. 

I was making cookies and heard a hissing type sound behind me.  I turned around to find Arie making a face because she had helped herself to a handful of flour out of my bucket.

The cookies tasted much better.

These next two pictures show how Arie will sometimes give kisses.  She first kisses her hand...

Then places her hand over your mouth while making the kissing sound.  It's so cute.

I love this picture.

Kelton doesn't really put up with the other kids messing with him.  But there is something different about his little sister.  He wouldn't let Natalie do this to him, and there would be a lot of screaming and yelling involved if Damon tried to climb on his face like this.  But Arie does it, and he lets her, and smiles about it.

Damon!  This kid is so happy.

I love this beautiful, sweet girl.  She is growing too fast.  I realized not too long ago that her second birthday is only a little over three months away.  A lot of times I wish I could just keep her the cute little baby I see in the next three pictures.

Natalie had been asking for me to paint her nails, and I wanted to paint my toenails too.  As I was doing those, I realized that I had never painted Arie's nails.  So, we all got our nails painted!  I let Natalie photograph the event.

I was blowing kind of silly in order to keep Arie still while trying to speed the drying process.  She thought it was pretty funny.

My mom took this picture while Nate and I were at Disneyland.  I think it is such a cute picture of both Arie and my Dad.

This picture probably doesn't fall into the "cute" category...but oh well.  I was driving the kids somewhere and we were still in our neighborhood, when I had to brake to avoid running over this snake that was crossing the road.  It was such a pretty coral colored snake and was fairly big too.  It probably stretched out to about five feet long.  I pointed it out to the kids, who also thought it was pretty cool, and we watched it for a few minutes.  Nate and I looked it up later and determined that it was a Coachwhip Snake (not poisonous, but I was already pretty sure of that just from the way it looked).  It had a black head and would stick it straight up in the air while the rest of its body was laid out flat.  I've never seen a snake do that.

I have to say that I find most desert creatures fascinating.  Well, as long as I don't feel any imminent danger from them.  I always think lizards are cool and I like to watch them.  Recently I have heard of a few people finding Gila Monsters and I am jealous that I've never seen one in person.  But I even like to see snakes and things like scorpions--again... as long as I know I'm in no danger of being bitten.  Yes, I know this probably makes me weird because I think most people are grossed out by lizards and snakes, but I think it's fun to [safely] discover them out in the wild.

Odd way to end a post full of cute kid pictures... ;)

Recital and graduations

My piano recital has gotten pushed later and later every year.  It always sneaks up on me and I can't believe it has been a year since the last one.  This year, the recital ended up in May, around the same time as all of the end of school stuff.  The recital was on May 9th and, for the first time ever, I had the recital at my house.  I am never happy with the church's pianos, except the one in the chapel, and I don't really want to do a recital in there.  My piano isn't absolutely wonderful, but the kids are used to it.  Anyway, we moved our couches against the wall and we had plenty of room to put up rows of chairs for everyone.

This was Kelton's first recital.  He did so well.  He played a song called Teeter Totter and a simplified version of Book of Mormon Stories which even required him to move his left hand.  Kelton hasn't had many lessons, but he is doing so well.  He gets frustrated very quickly when he is trying to learn, but as soon as he gets it, he is so happy he can't stop smiling.  It is fun for me to watch him enjoy playing the piano.

Natalie continues to do very well.  She has so much natural talent and picks up on things so quickly. I will admit, it fills me with excitement and pride. She played The Entertainer and Keep the Commandments (from the Hymn book--not a simplified version).  I was so amazed by her dedication to learn the hymn.  It was a little tricky for her, but mostly because her fingers are still so small.  She will have a much easier time with hymns once her fingers grow a little longer.  At one point, I was feeling like there was no way she was going to be able to finish learning the song by the recital date.  I asked her if she wanted to stop and learn something a little easier.  But she was adamant that she was going to learn Keep the Commandments.  It was so awesome to see her stick to something that was hard for her instead of taking the easy out I had offered her.

My other students are doing very well also.  I have a good group of students.  I currently have nine students, including my own two kids.  For this recital, I had all of my students play one recital type song and one hymn or primary song.  The church songs are so much harder to play and require a lot of work, so I wanted to showcase the hard work that my students had put into those songs.  In the picture, from left to right on the bottom row is Allie Mawson, Hailey Bryson, Raena Mawson, Samantha Bryson, Alexis Egbert, Kelton, and Natalie.  To the left of me is Kanesa Gay, and to the right is Emma Vaterlaus.

Then next morning, May 10th, we had Joyschool graduation.  This past year, I have been involved in a Joyschool co-op for preschool with three other moms.  Actually, the first half of the school year, there was one more mom, but she had a baby and didn't continue with the second half.  Damon has loved going to Joyschool and playing with his friends.  I, as one of the "teachers" had mixed feelings about the joyschool program.  First of all, it is very outdated.  It was created around 30 years ago--I remember kids my age going to joyschool--and it hasn't ever been updated since.  Really, it is a great program that focuses on values, but it just isn't really my thing.  It is a little too.... fruity and fluffy for me, if that makes any sense.  I will skip it in the future if the opportunity every presents itself again.

In the picture from left to right are: Damon, Alice Hale, Haydn Mawson, and Eugene King.

Kelton had his Kindergarten promotion was on May 20th.  They had a cute little program to go along with it, a slideshow, and cake.  Nate was able to go in to work late so he could come see Kelton.

Kelton has had the greatest Kindergarten teacher this year--Jenn Vaterlaus.  She is also in our ward at church.  She does so many fun things with the kids and cares so much about them.  She put together a giant book of different things the kids have made throughout the year and gave it to us at the end of the promotion.

It is kind of hard to believe that the school year is already over--that Kelton is no longer in Kindergarten and Natalie will be in 4th grade!