Back to Josh Ritter's Reality

Back to our rhythm!

Saying goodbye to the Miners was sad on Tuesday, but knowing we get to spend a week with them in May made it easier.  

Jet lag didn't seem to hit us so hard after this trip, which we're both really grateful for.

Westin loved baking lots of cookies for his youth activity this week. We have a big bake sale coming up to earn some money for camps.

That same night Bennett loved going on a nature walk with the Activity Day crew. They saw wild turkeys, deer, eagles, and even a bull snake, and they were all stoked about it.

I saw Meg and Olive in Shrek this week and Robin in Catch Me If You Can. These girls are talented. Young Womens is the best. I love being in YWs with such good friends.

Asher did soccer on Friday with Reece and he sure loves it. Camden loved it on Saturday, too. He always makes a break at some point to score a good goal and it's so fun to cheer him on. I need to get it on video but it's tricky to time! His little team is so cute. Those Hot Dog Rockets.

Saturday night was Josh Ritter with the Gregorys, which is just the best. We got Middle Eastern food first and then went to the beautiful church he was playing at. I love his concerts so much. Carrie said, "I forgot he was such a cherub of a person," and she's right. What a joyful man, and I love any chance we get to go hear him sing his songs.

View from the swing

Making cookies for our youth bake sale

Activity Days nature walk -- complete with eagles, snakes, turkeys, and deer!

Back to the Environmental Learning Center the day after the Activity Days walk to see if we could find the bull snake again. Success!

These boys loved watching this snake for a while.

I took Westin to piano and came home to these three rolling a ball to each other and laughing.
Pretty sweet kids.

Meg and Olive were great in Shrek at the middle school!

Asher has loved starting soccer this spring.

The boys built this teepee with friends.

Soccer Saturday!
Camden is a great sport. He usually gets a good goal in but his team has quite the losing streak,
and still he just loves the experience every Saturday.

Beautiful concert venue in Denver

Josh Ritter! In a church! With the Gregorys!
Saturday of my dreams.

Slowing Back Down

 This week was a much needed slow-down. We had easy dinners, check ups at doctors and car dealerships, book clubs, Stake Easter celebrations, a date night to Come From Away with friends (we had three couples in our van for the drive down to Denver and it was so much fun), music night at the middle school to help Westin feel out what instrument he might choose to play next year, and then Saturday the Findlays visited us for the day before they started their ski week for their Spring Break. They came to Camden's soccer game with us and we hung out at the house and played basketball. Camden scored again and it was so fun to cheer him on! Danny had big dreams for our garage so that Michael can fit a truck in there someday. He's such a doer.

Sunday we went to a baptism for a mom and her three kids who are joining our ward. It was really special and the way so many people came out to support and love them was really sweet.

This was a good week, but a lot of these pictures are of sleeping children or cats. 

Last week wore us out :)

I just love this little buddy of mine. 

Haha this kid -- always in our business all through our workouts and we love it.

Kitty lately: Extra snoozy, extra chatty, extra cuddly, extra hungry for real food.

Shining star for integrity! Sounds about right for our cute Westin guy.

Kitty recently started getting onto the top bunk and we think it's so funny.
She goes by way of the bottom bunk, to the dresser, to the top bunk.

Come from Away with the Schmidts, Allemans, and Gregorys.
We LOVED this play.

Easter egg hunt haul!

Soccer High Fives

One day of North Carolina cousins!
We're so glad they came up before their ski week.

Not long after cousins left we found this cute guy.
Hard to be the youngest when life moves this fast.

"Rise of Clark"
I think Clark was over during my Sunday downtime :)

Palm Sunday!

Sweet preschool guy

Monthly FHE with the Miners

The boys love when they get Kitty to park it on their bed at night.

Denver Stock Show and Broncos Heartbreak

 On Monday I hosted neighborhood book club, and I was kind of dying last week because I put off reading the book and when I did -- I realized I recommended a different book than I thought I had. I thought I chose this one but instead sent out THIS one, and they are not the same. Ha. I told everyone we'd have a funny read for Christmas break and as I was reading it I was like, um when does this get funny??

So even though it wasn't the comedy I was expecting, we had a good chat about neurodivergence and judging. Whoops. I love book club nights.

The boys had to choose their science fair projects this week and fill out proposals. Three kids in elementary school is different than two! Luckily they chose some pretty straightforward experiments so hopefully it's ok :) 

Michael and I both had book club on Thursday, and Westin had a field trip Friday.

Saturday we did a day trip down to Denver for the Western Stock Show, which sounds random and it was. But those cows! So fluffy and perfectly groomed, down to the last little poky hair at the top of their tail. We watched a pig talent show and some animal races, plus saw tons of bulls and cows and different animals being perfectly groomed for the show. My favorite was seeing a mother pig and 10 little piglets, they were just so sweet. Then we went almost straight to the Behunins to watch the Broncos game. Such a stressful game with a HAPPY ending, but then minutes later we found out the Bo Nix broke his ankle. Westin was absolutely devastated. Those big feelings still get big sometimes and I felt really bad for him, especially after his love for the Pacers last year and Haliburton's achilles injury just minutes into game 7. The life of a sports fan is rarely great, but maybe Indiana will deliver for us Monday.

Sourdough forever!
Michael mixes it up, stretches and folds, I bake. 
I think this with butter is my all time favorite food these days.

Ready to host neighborhood book club!
This is pretty new and our third month of doing it,
and I LOVE getting to know my neighbors more.

I keep thinking our house feels like a breath of fresh air without Christmas up.

New blank wall coming together.

I love these pictures.
I see these from my bed so I needed to pick two pictures I'll never get sick of.

Fluffy cows at the stock show!
So funny how multiple grown men just get every hair in place on these cows.

Such a big dude.
Getting hairsprayed.

Spanky the pig new lots of tricks and I think this was the boys' favorite part.

Asher the Ram is worn out.

Children's Museum, Finished Floors, & Leprechauns

We're not a construction zone anymore! But we still feel like we haven't moved in yet, because I need to touch up all the baseboards before we move furniture back inside. It's a process :)

They finished the floors on Tuesday, plumbing hooked back up Wednesday, and stairs finished on Thursday. Feeling grateful to have our home feel a little more calm again! The boys are disappointed the new floor isn't "as slippery for chasing" and I guess I did not factor that into my decision making. But other than that we're super happy and grateful to have this done!

This week was Spring Break and you wouldn't have really known that around here... with Hawaii last month and our eclipse trip to Indy next month, we are lying low through Spring Break and just hoped for a quiet week of double call for Michael. Which luckily we had! The boys said, "We're not going to get new floors next Spring Break, are we?" So they were happy to hear that they're not getting new floors around here ever again :) Haha hopefully next year is less construction and more spring break-ness.

We did go to the Children's Museum in Denver for the first time though and the boys had a total blast! Asher and Camden loved the firetruck room and the bubbles, Bennett loved the ball area with the different paths you can manipulate, Westin loved sculpting with clay, everyone loved the cooking class and just being there with the Baileys.

We went swimming with the Whitneys on Saturday and when the boys got home they were intent on making a leprechaun trap. They woke up to snatched gold (yellow paper they left) and a fruity rainbow and yummy treats. Bennett was so set on catching one, cute guy.We had corned beef has for lunch and green eggs and ham for dinner which ended up feeling like 3 breakfasts and it's fine. :)

Found this little square of wallpaper behind our old baseboards,
and I love seeing past stories from my house.

This kid wanted me to hug him for probably a full 20 minutes one morning this week and it was the best.

All boys home from school this week and lots of flooring construction still happening...
we used Grandma and Grandpa's very kind Christmas Chick-Fil-A gift card to help with being out of the house a lot!

Park picnics for dinner as well.

Floors in the laundry room!

Beadboard still going up...

We needed a perfect circle in this template to cut in the beadboard so Michael used his actual geometry tools and I couldn't stop laughing.

Can't argue with the results though haha.

First coat of green going up!

Boys are in a lego phase again, this time all four of them. So cute.

Second coat happening!

This is why you never freak out after the first coat.
Look at the difference in the second!
Also realized I never painted this door even though all the others in my house got a nice couple coats of grey paint haha. This corner just really got neglected after painting everywhere else.

Basement is still chaos while lots of things are down there!

New banister is up! I miss the runner but these fresh stairs sure are feeling nice.

This little pantry (Former coat closet) used to be its very own carpet that was no where else in the house.
I love seeing everything flow now.

Pie day! Quiche for dinner.

First time to the Denver Children's Museum! We had so much fun with the Bailey fam.

The little cooking class there was super cute.

He loved cutting an avocado so much.
Eating it, not the same story.

Successful day :)

That sneaky leprechaun!

He made this face the whole time he ate this powdered donut.
Made me laugh remembering Bennett loving on a Mickey beignet from sweet Emily.

This looks disgusting.
Corned Beef Hash for St. Patrick's Day and I don't know that I'm up for this to be a tradition haha.
The boys liked it though! No one is surprised by this.