Summer has been good but busy.  The kids just had their last swim meet before the championships.  Emma did so good this season!  At the first meet, she could only swim half the length without stopping and then she used the lane lines for help.  At the 2nd meet she swam the length by herself but it took her 4 minutes.  At the 3rd meet she did it in 2 1/2 minutes.  And then at this last meet she swam it in 1 1/2 minutes and swam backstroke in 1 1/2 minutes.  She's becoming a good little swimmer.  Cameron wasn't excited to do swim team this year, but we bribed him with paying for his drivers ed.  He's competing against all of the year round swimmers, at this age, but he still did well and it was good exercise for him.  Errolyn and Logan both did well too, coming in at the top of their races most of the time.

Allie is crawling and still a super happy baby.  The only sad part for me is, she is starting to self wean... and I am sad.  I love nursing my babies!  There is such a special bond while nursing that I can't even describe, but it makes me feel so emotionally connected to my babies.  Since this is my last baby, I've been extra sad that we are almost done nursing because I feel like I'm losing my baby and I will miss that special bonding time that we have together.  I know our family is complete, but one of my favorite parts of being a Mom is having a smiling, happy little baby.  I love just cuddling and playing with them.  I will miss having this phase of my life!

We are excited for our vacation this summer!  We're going to Carlsbad, White Sands, Pikes Peak, Mount Rushmore, Martin's Cove, Yellowstone, 3 family reunions, and Cameron & Errolyn will go to their BYU sports camps.  I'm excited to see my family!  :)  My friend Selena will stay in our house while we're gone since we'll be doing vacationing at the same time and she was planning on visiting here.

For Cameron's 15th birthday, my friend Maryann and I threw a joint surprise party for Cameron and her son, Ben.  I made a truth or dare game which was a lot of fun (the truths were "Would You Rather" questions and the dares were more like minute-to-win-it challenges, so nothing bad).  The boys were completely surprised, a lot of friends came, and it was fun!  The most fun part was probably the tornado warning that came through during the party.  Maryann made a duct tape pinata for the boys and right as Cameron hit the pinata a transformer blew, the electricity went out, the girls screamed, and everyone ran inside.  So, they played Mafia in the dark until the lights came back on.

Cameron and Errolyn made business cards and they've been getting a lot of jobs.  Errolyn has been babysitting for a ton of people and Cameron is teaching piano lessons.  They're both enjoying their new found sources of income.  Cameron plans on getting a job at Sea World next summer when he's 16 and because they work well with vacation schedules and they pay well.

During the summer, well always, our motto is "Work hard, play hard." So, the kids do swim team, their chores, their music practice, scripture study, reading, and a few other things in the morning and early afternoon, and then they can play with friends the rest of the day or go somewhere fun,  One of those "other things" is what I call "life lessons." I teach them a new skill each week.  Some skills are for everyone, but some are for just some of the kids (tying shoes, braiding hair, indexing, cooking, ironing, sewing, etc.).  I taught Cameron and Errolyn indexing this week (transcribing birth certificates, military records, death certificates, etc. for family history purposes) and they've been really enjoying it.  When they're bored or it's super hot, now they like to index.

Logan went to Cub Scout camp this last week (he was upset he didn't learn indexing while he was gone, but he's a little young for it).  He had fun doing archery, bb guns, swimming, crafts, and other classes.  Emma is our little artist.  She has been drawing horses and cats and other things that look way better than what I could do.

I've been busy planning the Messiah.  I've been called, for 1 year, to produce the Messiah (I will still conduct too).  But, I have some really, really good assistants and filled some new callings so the work load has been much more reasonable this time around.

I ordered Father's Day presents for our dads several weeks ago and then promptly forgot about Father's Day.  We got to church today and the Bishopric wished all of the fathers a Happy Father's Day... oops!  We normally do breakfast in bed for Mike, but we all forgot, even him.  So, we made him a special lunch.  But, Errolyn had the idea to make a fake lunch first.  We made him eggs, tomatoes, and chocolate milk since he doesn't like those foods.  The kids brought up the lunch, handmade card, and sang to him.  We could tell he was in shock about the lunch, but he figured out it was a joke.  Then we presented him with his real lunch.

We've been working on getting along better in our family and I showed the kids this talk about anger by Lynn G. Robbine in 1998: https://youtu.be/fGzDSurv1Zk.  It explains in a clear and concise way that getting angry is a choice.  We plan on watching it once month for a while and trying to drive home the concept.  Also, every dinner meal, we all share 2 things we are grateful for that day and one way we've been a peacemaker that day.  We've been doing the grateful thing for a while, but the peacemaker thing is a new addition.  Even though it's a small thing, it's fun that the kids are now looking for a way to be a peacemaker throughout the day so they have something to share at dinnertime.

Life is good!  I love my family!  :)

What a great evening of music! We had a Stake Easter Musical Fireside and each Ward contributed one or two pieces, all of the Primary children sang a piece, and then all of the choirs sang a joint piece together. Some of the music was so, so good! There had to have been at least 100 Primary kids singing He Sent His Son and it was fabulous and the Spirit was so strong. I conducted the last piece, Did You See Him in the Garden.  All of the Ward Choirs practiced on their own and we had never rehearsed all together... but it turned out great and was so powerful and the Spirit was so strong! There were so many other great musical numbers and choir numbers! Afterwards, we had a dessert potluck and there was a ton of good desserts. Cameron played in a cello duet for prelude and did a great job, Logan and Emma got to sing in the Primary number, Cameron and Errolyn sang in the combined choir piece, I conducted and ran the evening, and Mike ran the sound. And Allie was just  happy to be there. ;)

There have been a few hiccups with the land we're buying. We feel that everything will work out in the end, but buying the land will be one of those leap of faith decisions. I'll write more at the end of this process. We took the kids to hike the land on Saturday and they loved exploring and hiking around. I'm getting excited to own it soon!

Poor Emma is allergic to Oak pollen. Her eyes have been hugely swollen and she's been congested. The Zyrtec helps great, but if we give it to her even a little late, her eyes get so bad. Errolyn was excited that they got Sweepstakes at UIL.  Cameron's orchestra also made Sweepstakes. Logan is doing well in chess and has his first tournament in a couple of weeks. Emma started soccer for the first time and is so excited. Logan will be doing baseball this season, and Errolyn volleyball as usual, and Cameron's doing well in tennis at school. We've been slowly but surely getting the house organized. It always goes into disarray when I'm pregnant and then slowly gets back to where it should be after I have the baby. The kids have been super great at yard work and inside cleaning and I'm glad I have a hardworking family!

Life is good!

Woohoo!!  They accepted our offer!  3.5 acres!  w00t!  We were super worried because another offer came in.  So, we switched our offer to be all cash, instead of a loan (although we're still trying to rush through a loan so we don't have to use all of our cash), and a 30 day closing period.  They were "enticed" by the cash offer and took our deal.  And for those new to the conversation, we aren't building on the land until it's paid off... so it will be many years.  But, we will hike and play on the land in the meantime.  w00t!

So much for me writing more often.  :)  The Stake Conference in February went well and the music was good.  Now, I'm preparing for a Stake Easter Musical Fireside.  It's not too much work since all of the wards are providing the musical numbers, but it's a good variety of pieces so I'm excited.  We're having a dessert potluck afterwards to try to get more people out. 


Allie is 6 months now and tall for her age, of course.  She is gaining weight well and is eating baby food now.  Mike spent a long time installing a garage door opener in the Stake Center attic with a camera attached so it would retract out of the ceiling for Stake Conference.  Between that and his new webcasting equipment he had a nice set-up. 


Cameron, just came back from his High Adventure Scout trip.  They were supposed to hike for 30 miles, but they quit at 22 miles since one boy had severe blisters and others were complaining.  I was sad and wished they had finished since we don't want Cameron to learn that it's ok to give up when things get hard.  But, I wasn't there, so there may have been extenuating circumstances that I don't know about, who knows.  Errolyn had a blast at Girl's Camp and felt the Spirit a lot and made lots of friends.  She went with another Stake since she will be missing ours this Summer, and now she loves the girls in the other Stake.  I'm so glad she was able to go. 


Logan is in the chess club at school and loving it.  Emma is so excited that we got Sea World passes this year.  Her pass was free and I was waiting for a special to decide if we would get passes for the whole family or not since it's been many years since we've gone and it's quite expensive now.  They had a buy one get one free sale for a few days and so we took the whole family last night, bought our passes, stayed 30 minutes, and then left because it was closing.  Lol.  We knew it would be short, but the sale ended today and you could only buy tickets at the gate, so late last night was our only chance to cash in on the sale.


I'm sick right now... I think that's the only time I sit down and write.. when I'm sick.  It's just a bad cold, but I feel badly for Allie since it's her first bad cold too.  :(  The humidifier helps a lot though.


My parents and Janet's family came up earlier in the week and it was nice to visit with them.  I wasn't feeling good both days and so I wasn't very talkative.


We've been looking at land... we'll see what happens!  Other than that, I'm excited about our Summer vacation plans this year!  They are ambitious, but filled with lots of fun sights and experiences!

So, we all may write a little more on our blogs now that church is earlier in the day, but we'll see.  The Christmas season went well.  We went caroling to some friends and family, we went and saw Christmas lights, Errolyn had a Christmas Party with a ton of 6th graders, instead of acting out the Nativity this year we read and discussed it, we had lots of family in town, and we gave and received good presents.  Cheryl came into town with her family and it was fun to hang-out and play games with her.  We had the in-town family come to our house for a big Christmas gathering.  The kids also had a blast playing with their cousins.  Mom, Dad, and Janet came after Christmas and we got to spend time with them either at our house or at David and Heidi's house.  Games we played were Shanghai, Tossed Salad, Cash Flow, and Disruptis.

Allie is nursing great now and gaining weight well, although I may have said that last month too... it just took a little while to get her there.  Allie is a smiley, happy, laughing baby and the kids adore her.  Errolyn starts volleyball this week, and Logan and Emma start basketball.  Cameron's studying for mid-terms.  Emma's been sick and throwing up the last two days but is finally feeling better today.  Mike's been busy installing a garage door opener at the Stake Center.  :)  He is attaching a camera to it so it will retract into the ceiling when not in use.  It will be pretty cool.  I've been busy preparing for our upcoming Stake Conference, Music Training, and Music Workshops.

Now that Allie is sleeping through the night (10 hours now!) I've had to start helping Mike take Cameron to Seminary... not fun... so tiring!  But, Cameron loves seminary and has a great teacher.  We made our new family goals for the year and one of them is to do quarterly family service projects, but I want to try to do them monthly if possible.  So, we scheduled out the first four and the kids are excited.  I'm sure more has happened, but that's the short version.  :)