thoughts on a sunday

• I'm sitting here thinking, "who blogs?" and sometimes when it comes up in conversation (rarely) I laugh that I'm still at it.  But where else am I supposed to keep this record.  It's the easiest place.  I wish I made time to do more of my thoughts, but that's hard for me to keep up. But here I am, today!

• Today in Relief Society we had such an amazing lesson on the Word of God.  The scriptures.  I heard many things that inspired me and helped me want to do better.  We discussed Lehi's dream, which I have been thinking about a lot lately.  It's just...well, it's happening right now.  All of it.  It's so easy to compare and assign symbolism in life happening right now and that dream.  

• We talked about how sometimes we make things more complicated than they really are.  I thought about how holding tightly to the rod, with both hands, is really all we have to do.  There are distractions all along the way, but if we hold on we will make it.  It's very simple, and hard.  But simple.  Other things make it seem complicated, but it's not.  

• Another great thought is that the scriptures, basically God's declarations, are our most powerful weapons.  Oh I need to remember this.  I need to do better and discovering the scriptures for myself and making them a priority.  That's a hard one for me, always has been.  It was good to hear that certain blessings come ONLY through the scriptures.  I may being doing good at a lot of other things, but if I'm leaving that one thing out, I am missing out.

• Another thought I have been having a lot lately is how my prayers are being answered.  Sometimes I get frustrated because I feel like they are not.  But then I have to remember that the Lord answers in small and simple ways.  And often very quietly.  I pray often for inspiration regarding my children.  I realized this week that I have been touched by the spirit by way of warning against potentially harmful things for my children.  Not once, but several different times about several different things.  That is what I am praying for, and I hadn't put it together that those warnings were answers to that prayer.  I am grateful to realize this.  I am grateful to have the gift of the Holy Ghost to guide me and help me know.

• Ellery is addicted to cart wheeling.  She does it on the road- in the middle of the filthy street- without a thought.  She does it on dirt paths, driveways, kitchen floors, stairs, and decks.  She cannot stop.

• Sometimes I look at McKay and I see how much he is growing up.  He is such a good and nice boy.  He has had some struggles with anxiety this year, and maybe always, but it was particularly bad in January.  Things have improved a lot since then, mostly due to the fact that we were made aware of situations going on at school with another student, and being able to pinpoint that a lot of his difficult behavior was from anxiety.  That is a story for another day, but I just wanted to say that he is working hard and doing better and I love him.  

• Layla gave a talk in church today, and I hope I can always remember the sound of her high little voice in that microphone.  Sometimes I wish I didn't hear it so often, when she's shrieking around the house, but in talk-mode, it was pretty adorable.  I actually am quite acustomed to her shrill voice, and only notice it occasionally.  And when that happens, I wonder how every one around her who is not so used to it is doing.

• I will end with my favorite story of this week.  In the middle of the night, as I'm sound asleep, I suddenly hear a tiny panicked voice call out, "I'm gonna throw up!"  I sat straight up in bed and tried to form my first thought into words.  "Okay, throw up in your...."  I could not think of a single thing for them to aim into from their bed.  "Throw up in your...quilt"  A blanket, afterall, can be tossed in the washer.  It was the best I could do at 2 a.m.  As soon as I got that out of my mouth, I flew out of bed, determining I might have time to catch it!  I ran into the girls room, threw on the light and dove for the barf bowl that is kept under the bed.  With the bowl in my hands, I shoved it into Ellery's face and immediately got angry/concerned that she was still lying down.  She was supposed to be aiming for the quilt!  It was then that I looked in her sleepy, squinty eyes and realized that she had been sound asleep.  She was confused and a bit startled at me having jammed a big blue bowl in her face and I quickly apologized to her, just as I noticed McKay hunched over the toilet in the bathroom.  Wrong kid.  Oops.  But when someone claims they're gonna throw up, Elle is my go-to gal.  

• He did not throw up after all.  False alarm.

Happy Sunday.

march pictures

Puzzle day where Layla did every puzzle we had.

Ellery has been great at reading to Layla.  This is a joy that I never anticipated.  Elle gets her reading done, and Layla gets read to.  How great is that?!

I have recently been into making pavlova- and when I was assigned to make dessert for Sunday dinner with the Matthews, I decided to practice my merengue.  Brian and I each decorated one and asked the kids to judge which they thought was prettier.  This was torture for Ellery, as she didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings.  But, I mean, you can tell who wears the face of defeat.  Can't win them all, Bri.

 Teacher Appreciation Week was in March, and I did another door- this time for Ellery's class.  It was a lot of work...but fun and it turned out like I had hoped.

The Art Extravaganza was also in March.  Here is Mack showing off his work of art!

And Elle with her cute little alien guy.

March Maddness was serious business around here- as you can tell by McKay filling out his bracket.  It was quite stressful for him.  He got second place in our family, and was thrilled to have beaten Brian.  Duke delivered for me- which means I get to pick myself out a prize.

St. Patrick's Day green dinner.  I randomly picked up those green drinks for the kids, and Brian quickly noticed that they were called Fruit Shoot.  He had quite a good time coming up with all sorts of jokes with that.  The kids, of course, think he is hilarious and I am constantly having to remind him that they repeat the things that he says and does.  I don't know how it's so hard for him to remember this when it comes to potty humor, but it's a real struggle.

In preparation for hosting a dinner for Missionary Month, we got out all of Brian's New Zealand stuff...which turned into going through Brian's box.  It was cute walking in on them surrounding him looking at all his treasures.

It can be boring sometimes with the kids in school all day, but if I get this girl into some water of some sort, she is good to go.  This day we did a cooking show and she helped me chop fruit for dinner, and then she spent an hour doing the dishes.  

This is the first funeral I did in my new calling as compassionate service leader.  It was for a veteran in our ward who died from ALS.  His wife isn't a member and this was a great way to show her support and love.  She was really happy with the luncheon and the patriotism that was displayed.  This happened to be the same day that we hosted some young women in our ward for Missionary month.  Brian was supposed to do my friend Tamara's epidural- he just happened to be on OB on her induction date- but I asked him to trade for an early shift, since I had this funeral, plus feeding the girls that night.  It was a good decision.  I was at the funeral luncheon for several hours, while he was at home taking care of dance and groceries and cooking most of the dinner.  

I didn't get a picture of the table- in which I used for the first time ever, Brian's New Zealand stuff he brought home from his mission.  But it turned out cute.  We had a lamb roast (which was a bit on the rare side), root vegetables, sliced white bread and a fruit salad.  All of which are as close to New Zealand family dinners as we could come up with.  And of course pavlova for dessert.  

I must say, this was extremely stressful.  I was at the church cleaning up until 6:40, and the girls arrived for dinner at seven.  It put a lot of stress on Brian, and really we just weren't as prepared as we would have liked to be.  But there was nothing we could do about it, and the girls got fed and it was a good experience for them... I hope.  They were sweet.  In the pic above, we were doing a Tim Tam slam.  

This is quite the hairdo, a result from  her "Ugly Day" hairdo at preschool.  She thought it was fantastic.

Layla has swimming every Thursday.  We usually play with Jana and her kids afterwards.  This was a fun day at the park.

Waking this child up in the morning is my first difficult task every day.  He is not a morning person, Monday-Friday.  This is the "lay on top and squish him" method.  It is mildly effective.

I love when I drive by the school at the right time and see this cute girl and her friends at recess.  Often times if I pull over, she will be near the fence and run over to say hello.

My parents, Layla and I went to lunch at Masa.  I had heard good things about it, so I dragged my parents there as we were running errands together.  It was a really long, unanticipated wait, and the food was not good at all.  We laughed about it during and after, but I also was really annoyed.  We live and learn, I guess.

I cannot keep this monkey off the counter.  It's like her little perch.  Here she is eating the flesh off of mango skins.  She really is a monkey.  And sucking the leftovers from mango skins is something that gets her very excited.  Excited enough that simply sitting on a stool is not acceptable.  

warm weather trip 2015 (aka, the family reunion)

I usually make a book of our Disneyland trips, and I still plan to do it...but just in case I don't get to it, I thought a post on here wouldn't hurt.

It was in the Fall when I decided that our family was just at too good of a stage to not go to Disneyland for our warm weather trip...even though we went there the year before.  I told Brian and it's not very hard to talk him into going to Disneyland.  He mentioned it to Darrell, and much to our surprise, they were interested in coming with us, and adding a race in St. George to the trip.  Of course McKay, Adele and Marilyn are always on board when someone's going to the happiest place on earth, so we were happy that they were coming too!  At this point we all talked about making this the reunion for 2015, but it wasn't working out for everyone else, so we left it at that.

Except...somehow...all the stars aligned at the very last minute and suddenly everyone was in!  And it did become the 2015 Matthews Family Reunion!  It was so exciting and a real dream come true for us all to be there together.  It's a trip we will remember forever and cherish that we got to experience such a fun trip as a whole, big family.

We started with going to the race expo and then dinner at Brick Oven.  It was crowded and we waited a looooong time, but still fun.  

The next morning was the race and Brian, Darrell and McKay made us proud.  The race was held at Staheli Farms and the kids had so much fun playing around on the "farm playground" equipment- including a rope swing off of hay bales (with a pig sleeping soundly underfoot), slides, teeter-totters and other fun things.  

After the race we headed off to Glitter Hill, which was an amazing activity that the kids loved.  They all collected about a hundred rocks.  

After that, the men took the kids swimming and the ladies shopped for a bit.  Pioneer Park, or as we call it, Red Rock Park, was next and we all had fun climbing and exploring the red rocks.  Except Marilyn.  I'm not sure she had fun hobbling around, but she was a trooper to try.  My favorite moment from this was when Alex had a car full of little boys who all suddenly needed to go #2, headed for the bathroom.  

Next up, in this marathon day, was dinner at Denny's- where kids ate free!- and although it wasn't very quick, it was the perfect restaurant for such a big, rowdy group.  Dinner was followed by the St. George temple visitors center.  I didn't think we could do it, but we got every activity we planned done.  

The next day we drove the rest of the way to California, where we got settled into our cute little house, and met the rest of the family.  

There are entirely too many pictures of our time in California, but here are a bunch of my faves.

This little thing was afraid of nothing!  She surprised me by going on everything from Tower or Terror to Star Tours and Space Mountain.  She loved all of them.

It was so fun being around the cousins who lived far away.  I could watch Iris all day long- she's such a cutie.  And I loved watching Rock casually join other families- such a friendly little guy.  McKay especially loved playing with him.

In an effort to entertain in probably the longest line we waited in (Toy Story) the kids took the sour ball challenge.  They were all pretty brave.  I was lucky because Wayne chose me to go on this ride with.

Pin trading was something we had never done before, but it ended up being such a fun part of this trip for all the kids (and some adults).  

Back at the house we had fun relaxing and talking after our busy days.  Yoga-like practicing and watching zit/ingrown hair videos on youtube were some of the highlights.

Adele and Layla's first time on Tower of Terror.  

Beach Days

I don't know if it was the weather, the company, or the beach we went to, but this was our best beach experience yet.  The kids stayed busy for hours- playing in the water and the sand.  

The first beach day was spent at Newport Beach.  This is McKay as a mermaid.

I am actually heartbroken because I had some amazing pictures of Ellery doing cartwheels on the beach- the water and sun behind her.  I took some really beautiful shots of her.  But somehow they are no where to be found.  The only solace I have is that we are going to a beach in July and I can take some more.  

We went to Little Corona Del Mar for our second beach day.  There were tide pools and the kids had fun collecting shells, crabs and sea creatures.  We even saw a seal bobbing around in the water.  

This was the day that we had to say goodbye to the cousins...which was sad.  It was so fun having all these kids together.

I guess the perfect end to a perfect trip would probably be this gigantic ice cream sundae that we shared at Farrell's.

Such a fun reunion.  I'm so happy we could make these precious memories as a family.  We are lucky to belong to such an amazing one!

february pics

Early on in February Ellery had her gymnastics program.  This year the theme was "Dancing With the Stars" and they had judges who parodied the characters on the actual show.  Ellery has never seen this show, so she was super confused at why one of the judges was so mean and gave negative reviews.  It was kind of funny to hear her talk about "the mean one".  She did a great routine to the song "Bare Footin'".  Miss Anita had chosen Elle and one other girl to do a back kick-over in their routine.  For several weeks we practiced and worked on getting it down and she worked so hard.  But by the time the performance came, she was still inconsistent, and so Miss Anita told her to do her backbend and stand back up.  I was proud of how hard she worked for something, and kind of bummed that it didn't pay off like we'd hoped, but she has kept working on it since and I love her determination.  

On Friday  night we decided to redeem some free kids meals that McKay and Ellery had gotten at school for Texas Roadhouse.  We decided to make a night of it and go to Scheel's too.  Dinner was great- I can't remember the kids being so good at a restaurant in a long time.  And Scheel's?  It was the perfect way to spend a Friday night with kids on the cheap.  Between the fish tanks, the play area, target-shooting games, browsing our favorite team's apparel, and of course the ferris wheel- it was a big hit!  Bonus- it was super inexpensive.

Ellery was extremely excited when it was finally her turn to bring Pancho the penguin home.  He rotates through the class, so she has been waiting all year to bring him home and spend the night with him.  I had to completely not worry at all that he had spent time and slept with over half of her class...he looked clean.  She read to him, colored with him, did gymnastics with him and snuggled him to sleep.  And then she wrote all about it in the journal that travels around with him.

Layla wanted to do a backbend too.

McKay played Jr. Jazz for the first time this year.  It was such a fun thing to do in the winter and I was so glad we signed him up!  He enjoyed it and did really well.  There was definitely a learning curve and the whole team got better as time went on.  

I love watching him play sports.  He puts his heart into it and works hard.

His team.  Mostly familiar faces.  We were excited to have Josh on his team.  We love that we get to share so many sports with the Wrights.  Ellery especially loved having Rexton and Adam on each side of her during many of the games.  I have a picture of that somewhere...

If you spend time with Layla you will quickly know how much she likes to play games.  It is her favorite thing to do.  With Ellery it was all about playing "girls", and although Layla likes doing that, playing games is much more fun to her.  We play a lot of memory, Spot-It, Guess Who, Go Fish, Happy Family, Slamwich (in which we've made up our own game entirely) and any board game we have.  The girl loves games.

I babysat Wayne and Alivn one day and we decided to go to Farm Country at Thanksgiving Point.  It was absolutely crazy having a baby and a young toddler to look after in a public place.  I didn't tell Lindy or Al, but I lost every kid in this photo at least once, with the exception of James.  They just go so fast!  It was only for seconds...or maybe a minute or two for some...but it was terrible and I felt really rusty at having little ones.  My little one is not so little and it's easy to keep track of one!  Wow- I was tired after this trip.

The good news is that we rode the ponies.  Wayne was unsure, then scared, then once I went and walked around beside him, he was happy and excited.  I think when it was done he was pretty proud of himself.

And lets not forget this cute girl.  She enjoyed her pony ride and especially liked looking at the pig's trough, which was completely disgusting.  Wayne actually liked that a lot too.

Brian and I got to go to the Blue and Gold Banquet with McKay.  This little bear made this suit of armor for the event, and all the cute boys battled each other in various medieval events, such as sword fighting, jousting and marshmallow catapulting.  McKay won the sword fighting battle.  At the end, when they were giving out awards, his anticipation of getting first place in something was tangible.  He was really happy to get an award in an actual event, and not a made up category.
 

The leaders went all out on this one and it was really fun and well done.  McKay had fun, and he ate that big turkey leg, and that's all you can ask for when you're nine at a banquet, right?