FHE

Monday night is family night.   Most of the time that means I give a lesson, on whatever gospel topic strikes my fancy.  Sometimes we do personal progress for Hannah or Duty to God for Ethan.  Sometimes we read from the Friend magazine.  We always have a treat, often play a game, usually sing some hymns and always pray.  It's a good night usually, when it's not a disaster :)

Tonight I felt a little flash of whimsy and we did something a little different. The primary children gave their mom's baggies of ice cream toppings for mother's day. One baggie was filled with little colored marshmallows.  So I invited the children to hop up on our bar stools and then I threw the marshmallows at them.  Depending on which they caught they had different assignments.  Ethan, who is pretty much the only kid who can catch not surprisingly caught all but one.  The one he missed was the one that said "help serve dessert", which he didn't want to catch.
So Ethan chose the opening song: The 5th verse of "If You Could Hie To Kolob".
Ethan said the prayer.
Ethan gave the lesson, which meant he looked around the room until his eyes landed on Harry, a pine cone he picked up on a previous hike and hauled home for me.  It's been sitting on our mantel next to it's friend Harold. Also a pine cone.   He picked up the pine cone and said this pine cone is like the church.  It has many individuals that work together and form the church.  It spreads it's seeds like the church spreads the gospel.  Then he ran outside and got a little pine cone that wasn't open and didn't share.  So we should open up and share our testimonies and spread the gospel.
Next Ethan chose the game, so we went to the garagmahal and threw baskets.  We had to throw until we made a shot.  My first time it took 16 tries, on the second round it only took me 2.  Ethan got it on the 2nd try first round and 1st try second round.  Everyone else scored similarly to me, except dad who got it on the 3rd the first round and the 16 the second.
Ethan did not serve dessert, but he did say the closing prayer.

Everyone enjoyed our change of pace FHE.

Mother's Day

I love mother's day.  It's an awesome day where I can tell my kids to do chores and they quickly do them.  They make dinner and clean up the mess, with their dad's help of course.  Sometimes I get nice presents, sometimes I can hugs and nice words.  The programs at church are always sweet and touching.  Today was Grace's last primary mother's day.  The children sang a beautiful song.  The end of an era.

This year I also got some nice presents.  I got beautiful flowers from Nana and Abba, Rob got me a beautiful bar necklace that I wanted, and Hannah gave me a bird watching book.  It was perfect.

Another thing I love about mother's day is just the huge amount of love mothers have for their children. It is a little glimpse of what heaven will be like to see moms and their children.  They sacrifice, they care, they laugh and love, they teach and pray and worry and dream.  I have been blessed with a wonderful mother who exemplifies what all that means.

Here's a little tribute to some of my favorite moms:

 Kelly.  She is amazing and talented and self-less.  She takes care of my crazy brother and Katy and she's an awesome example to me.

 My Dani.  She grew up to be such an incredible woman.  She is a patient, kind and fun mother, a good wife, a wonderful YW leader and a fabulous daughter.  I am so proud of her and so happy she's my daughter.

 Val, with Kenz.  She is so fun and has so much energy.  She is always cheerful.  Always up for a good time.  She is a great leader and a great wife.

 Mother's in nature, gotta love them!

 Andrea: fun, party princess, helpmeet, companion, boy mom, great cook, strong testimony, fun and cheerful and fancy are just a few of the words to describe my cute sister.  She is such a sweet mom and auntie.

 JaNee.  I don't know how my brother got so lucky but she is amazing.  She is a good cook, a great decorator, stylish and kind. She's fun and smart and so loving.  Love her!

 Anna.  I love this sister.  She is so smart and so hard working.  She is feisty and strong and faithful and fun.  She has two miracle boys and she mothers them with passion and fierceness.  I love her!

 Emily is compassionate, passionate about her family, smart and tidy and funny and stays true to herself and her convictions.  She takes great care of her family and is a good daughter, sister, mother, and wife.

 Nana is my dear mother in love.  She raised a wonderful man and then accepted into her heart and life the craziness that comes with a big blended family.  She is smart and talented.  A great cook and seamstress.  She is a great cruise director and a wonderful grandmother . I am so blessed to have her in my life, to be my friend, my example, my mom2.

And of course my mom, with her 8 kids and 20 grandkids and huge heart to love everyone and serve and help everyone.  She is selfless and kind, funny and well read, creative and wise.

And then there are my friends, too many to list and picture but from whom I have learned so much.  Women older than me who have paved the way and shown through their examples how to mother.  Those in the trenches with me, who are a village watching over and guiding and spying and helping and talking and feeding and all that many verbs that go with being a mom with me.  And those who are younger, who follow, but who also teach with their enthusiasm, new ideas, energy, passion, and pintresty parenting.  Each a blessing.  Each an angel.  Each a beloved mother.

Saturday

Rob and Grace spent the morning making our front walk so inviting and pretty. It's actually been kind of cool and windy so it doesn't feel that springy but it sure looks pretty!

I took Ethan to sign up for soccer. Which stirred up lots of Sabbath day angst. Why can't people honor God's commandment to give that day to Him in worship? It's frustrating. 

Hannah went to Heather's house and helped her with a personal progress project. Several girls went and they had fun working together. In the evening she and Sawyer went out and they ended their night here watching Big Hero 6 and hanging with the family.

Rob and I went to see Captain America and I really liked it. Then we went to Chilis, so nice date night:)

I was asked to sub for nursery tomorrow so we stopped for some paint so we can make Mother's Day cards with the kids out is their handprints. We made a practice one with Ziva's paw print. Then the kids painted pictures and a watermelon and each other. 

....yet Sawyer comes back?:)

At the end of the day we gathered in my room for scriptures and prayer. Dad suggested we try and read earlier in the day and we've been trying but today worked out to be a late night reading. 

See how attentive and reverent the children are? Hannah was under her blanket, Ethan was playing with the hamper, Lu was playing with the cat.

They were all quiet though and when Rob would stop to ask a question they would answer. 

So it was a nice day.

Not as fun

Some days are cheery and bright, filled with happy surprises and sweet moments.

Today was not such a day. It was a day of great blahness, although nothing really bad happened. 

Hannah had an AP test. It was her second of 3. Stressful for her but I told her there is no worst case scenario. If you do well you get college credit, if you don't you got practice testing in a high stress environment. She is a worrier though. After it was done she felt like she did well so awesome for that. Today's test was in European History. Two days ago it was Calculus, which she is more unsure about. 

We did assorted chores. Here is Ethan fetching the pool scoop that he accidentally dropped in the cold cold water. 

We got some dwarf peach trees and some flowers to beautify the yard. Our yard needs some maintenance, Rob's garage door is being temperamental and our pool heater is leaking and some of the sprinklers are old and getting too worn. 

We were supposed to meeting Andrea and Yoho and boys and Anna at Disneyland but Hannah's test started an hour late and ran an hour long so we couldn't go. I was super bummed!

It is cold and windy today.

Nice day

What a pleasant day it turned out to be. This morning Ethan and I went to the dentist. He's new to us but I liked him very much. Of course I didn't get my teeth cleaned, that's in two weeks, but all in all it was a good dental day. No cavities for either of us.

Then we went to cafe rio for Cinco de Mayo.

Then I took him back to school and met Heather at Albertsons. She is our trek food person and I am her assigned helper. Luckily she is awesome so that's very very good and I am a good helper!  She has a whole spreadsheet of where and at what price and when she's going to buy all the items we need. She is being a very good steward of the Lord's money and I'm happy to help her.

Grace and Katherine

This evening the elementary school had their talent show. Admittedly I was not super excited to go. However I was delighted to find it was a well thought out and wonderful show. They held an audition and actually didn't let everybody participate, this sounds mean but believe me it was not. I cannot count how many elementary school talent shows I have been to where it is 10 or 15 minutes of torturous non-talent followed by a couple good acts, repeated endlessly.

This whole talent show took less than one hour, every act was wonderful, I smiled and felt good and enjoyed wholly every single child's performance! It was great!!!!

Hannah's friend sent her this cute throwback picture. This is Amanda, Kalina, Hannah, Bethany, Helaman and Cedric.  So cute!!

so sweet

And here is the happy family! Michael and JaNee and Scarlett and River.

Tonight Hannah and I had a camp meeting.  It went well and another day is done :)

A day to remember!

Today River Michael Arhets was born!!! The first boy Arhets in 40 years. Dad has one brother, who had 3 daughters. Dad had 6 daughters and 2 sons. My brothers had 1 daughter each... until today!  So yay for the whole family! 

I'm super excited since we will be going to a wedding in a couple of weeks and we can stop and see him!! Can't wait!

In the meantime what a handsome boy! May the fourth  (force) we with him:)

Today is Star Wars day. A favorite. We made a Star Wars dinner: Hutt dogs, Vader-taters, Vader-ade, Obi-wan kebob-ies, tie-fighters and "do, or do not, there is no try" pie. We had to eat in a rush because Rob had quorum visits to do and Grace had her end of the year band concert.

I asked her to pose for a picture because she looked so pretty and so musical. This is the face I got. 

Julia and I went out to lunch. We had a super fun visit. 

We also had a camp meeting this morning. I have lots is assignments so I better get on it!  Less than 2 months until camp.

I'm reading this fun book. I've read some of her others and have liked them. They are light and magical and set in the south. All things I enjoy in a book.

Also a brag on my own boy. He scored the highest score in the school in science. His teacher was thrilled and said he was so happy to have a ringer from MD. I won't comment on what I think that says about the school system here. 

And this dude is a budding botanist! One boy each for Dani and for me. Boys are rare in our family.

Watermelon lemonade

We had walking tacos for dinner and I found a pinterest recipe for watermelon lemonade.  It was really good but a huge mess to make and it took a long time.  Luckily I had two helpers :)

Sierra went home yesterday.  I enjoyed her visit very much.  We had some days with everyone, then travel days, then a few more days with mom and dad and lastly a good week with just Sierra.  It was very nice.  We did some fun things like go to the movies, Disney, pedi's, target.  We watched movies and ate lunch and took walks and had some talks and some nice quiet stretches just enjoying being together.  It was great.  I love that girl.

yummy

This one loves to sit in the sun.  I think he wishes he could go out and chase a bird or two but he's stuck looking out.