April in a Nutshell

School Project

Hunter's Curious cub project was due the week after Spring Break, he wrote his report on the solar system, and then painted a bunch of Styrofoam balls

And it turned into this:  

He did a great.  He loves learning about space,and he decided to hang up his poster up on his bedroom wall.  

Quincy

Here is just a random picture I took of Quincy.  I just love his little face. 

Walter's Birthday

Walter's actual birthday was the first part of April.  We celebrated with a birthday breakfast and the opening of gifts.   

We got him a pirate ship, which he just loved.  

Later that day we had some family over for a birthday dinner (he chose homemade pizza), cake, and he opened more presents.   

Walter is a wonderful boy and we are so pleased to have him in our family.  

BYU Rugby

BYU rugby ended another great season (they won the National Championship).  Walter just loves going to their games.  He says that when he grows up he wants to be a rugby player.  

He loves the haka.  I've seen him several times in front of the mirror practicing and he has also taught the other neighborhood boys how to do it as well.  

Soccer

April also brought the end of Spring Soccer.  Hunter still might not be the most aggressive player, but he has improved a ton since the the last season.  He was more focused, he kept trying and he got some awesome kicks in.  

Overall it was a wonderful season for Hunter.  

Walter has had a great season of soccer.  We still had to remind him a couple of times that there was no tackling in soccer, but he loved it.  He is a very determined little boy.  He had some great goals, and he also had a wonderful coach.  

So there you go-April in a nutshell.

The End of September

Soccer season came to an end in September.  Walter had his last game on Saturday. He really enjoyed soccer, and he loved having his dad as his coach.  He scored at least one goal every game.  We did have to remind him every game that this was soccer not football, so there was no tackling.  Here are a couple pictures from some previous games.  I was going to take more of his last game, but it started raining, so I just focused on keeping Quincy and me warm.

And then here is the one photo that I took at his last game.  

He loved soccer, and he had such a good coach.  Walter also had a really good team.  All the boys tried their best, and it was fun for Walter to have some of the boys from his primary class on his soccer team.  

Rise and Shout

Weston and I got season tickets to the BYU football games.  Last Saturday it was BYU vs. Hawaii.  And it was a true blue victory.  

 
(Do you like my caught in the headlights look?  So often in pictures I have my eyes closed, so I was focusing on keeping my eyes open.  But after looking at this picture I think I should focus not looking like a deer caught in the headlights.)



On your tickets it told you if you were suppose to wear white or blue.  So each section had a color and that way we you looked out at the crowd you would a pattern of blue and white.  I tried to get a photo of it, but it didn't turn out as well.

And here is the team setting up for the extra point.

 Hopefully BYU will have another victory this weekend.

One Year Older and Wiser Too

On Sunday we went over to Weston's parents house to help celebrate Sharman's 62nd birthday.  The kids had a blast playing with their cousins. And hopefully Sharman felt loved and is looking forward to many more to come.

The Great Outdoors

Weston also had the opportunity to hike Four Peaks in Provo with one of his friends (He is standing on peak two (above) and you can see peaks 3 and 4 off to the right in the background).  It took them from six in the morning until two thirty in the afternoon.  (8.5 hours) But it was well worth it.  He came back home a little scraped up, but already looking forward to his next adventure.

General Conference Prep 2
I finally finished "Our Conference Center" board.  From the moment I saw this on Jennifer Lund's blog, I knew I wanted to make it.  It is just such an awesome idea.  (like so many ideas that Jennifer shares on her blog)  It took me a little longer then I thought it would, but I'm so excited, and more importantly the boys are super excited to use it this coming weekend.

I can't help but smile when I see how excited the boys are.  At the end of FHE on Monday I explained to the boys how the board works, and then on Tuesday morning I found the boys playing with it.  I asked them what they were doing and they told me they were practicing for General Conference.

Jennifer has written a blog post on how to make the board if you are interested.  Right before I started working on mine, I saw on pinterest that Tiff Keetch had also made one.  Both Jennifer and Tiff have printable files.  So I printed and used parts of Jennifer's files and parts of Tiff's files.  
Here are the links:
Jennifer's Conference Center
Tiff's Conference Center  

Just one more day until General Conference I'm so excited!!!

And since no blog post is complete without a picture of Quincy, here's a cute one:

OK maybe two, he is just so cute.

A Busy, Fun Week

This last week was full of fun, memorable activities.
BYU Race Day

We signed Hunter up in the BYU Race.  He was so excited.  We met up with two cousins and took a quick picture before lining up for his race.  

(Can you find Hunter?)

They separated the kids by grade and gender.  

It was a mile long race.  Hunter loved it.  We told him, just to have fun and to try to run the whole time.  Well that is exactly what he did.  As I watched him, he was smiling and looking around him, and even at the finish line he jumped across it, and he ran the whole way.  We are so proud of him.  

When Hunter finished the BYU staff presented him with a card that had his time and what place he finished in this race.  We were surprised to see that his time was 8:53 (mile) and he finished 12 place for his race.  And he had so much fun and now he wants to continue to participate in races.

Bee Sting
On Tuesday during Weston's morning run, he got strung by a bee.  And we are pretty sure that he must have had a mild allergy reaction.  He was stung on the back of his calf and by the next day his knee down to his foot had swollen up.

He even measured his calf and the one on the left is 2.5 inches bigger then the one on the right.  It has finally gone all the way down, but for the second half the week his foot was so swollen that every time I looked at it I could help but feel bad for him.

High School Football and a Yummy Recipe to Share

So I have "pinned" a bunch of recipe ideas, and I have tried a few of them.  Some have turned out and some have not.  But this one was delicious.  Weston and the boys loved it.  This was actually the second time I made it.  Both times I also served it with steamed zucchini and squash (Which we grew in our garden.)
Crock Pot Chicken Teriyaki-  from Scattered Thoughts of a Crafty Mom
So easy- just throw everything into the crock pot, and so delicious.

 Weston serves with the youth in our ward and one of the young men plays on the sophomore football team, so one evening we decided to go see him play.  He was number 26, unfortunately we were only able to stay for the first half of the game, and he did not go in until the second half.

Dance Festival and Wendy's Birthday

On Friday night we went to Hunter's school for their Dance Festival.  It also happened to be Wendy's birthday, so we invited her to come with us.  The school had a dinner at 5:30 and then each grade presented a dance.  We told Wendy that for her birthday we were taking her out for dinner and a show.
Walter was able to provide us with a pre-show dance

Quincy sure thought the dancing was fun.  

Hunter waiting for the dance portion of the evening to start.  

Quincy and the birthday girl

Waiting for the dancing to start.

Then after the dance we went back to our house to sing and have some cake.  It may have not been how my sister thought she was going to spend her birthday, but I know that the boys were so happy that she was able to spend the evening with us.  Happy Birthday Wendy!!!

Soccer

Saturday was Hunter's last soccer game.  It was a fun season and we noticed that he paid more attention to where the ball was this time.  He still may not be the most aggressive player, but he sure has fun out on the field.

Quincy 1st Baby Food

 Quincy is six months old!  So this past weekend we gave him is first taste of baby cereal.  And it was a success.  He was a bit unsure at the beginning.  I can't believe that he is getting so old.  He loves to roll all over the place, and he can get into the crawl position, but he still has not figured out how to crawl.  It is only a matter of time.

General Conference Prep

General Conference is just 9 days away.  We are so excited.  As we reviewed the talks from the last conference we added a small visual to each picture.  This has been a wonderful activity not only for the boys, but it has helped me remember as well.  The paper chain on the side is our countdown chain.  This idea was provided in the September Issue of The Friend.  We have had so much fun reviewing and doing small activities.  Our favorite activity which we did earlier this summer, was the boat race that we did with President Monson's talk: The Race of Life.
President Monson spoke about how when he was a little boy, he would make small boat out of pieces of wood and then raced them on the Provo River.  He then compared our life to these small boats that are on the race of life:

"Our Heavenly Father did not launch us on our eternal voyage without providing the means whereby we could receive from Him guidance to ensure our safe return. I speak of prayer. I speak too of the whisperings from that still, small voice; and I do not overlook the holy scriptures, which contain the word of the Lord and the words of the prophets—provided to us to help us successfully cross the finish line."
-President Monson, Ensign Nov 2012

So we made small boats out of empty whip cream containers and raced them down the BYU stream.

The boys loved it.  And they now can tell you about President Monson's Race of Life talk and the four things that Heavenly Father gives us to help us "sail/race" though life. 

So because of this and other similar activities the boys are excited for General Conference, which makes me smile.  And I'm still working on more General Conference Prep.  

To Learn more about General Conference watch this short video below.