Gilbert Temple

Last Saturday we took our family to the Gilbert Temple open house.  We started by watching a video in the chapel next to the temple.  Well, Nate and the kids watched a video.  I tried to keep Arie quiet in the foyer.  I think she knows that if we are at church, she is supposed to be in the halls.  After the video, we walked through the temple.  It was beautiful, as expected.  The chandelier in the Celestial Room was especially impressive.  It was strange though... to be walking through the temple with the noise of a large, talking crowd.  It was so opposite from normal.  Not that this was surprising, but it was also interesting to note how absolutely different it feels to be in an undedicated temple as opposed to a dedicated one.  Maybe this isn't quite the right way to say it, but right now, it is just a building.  Once it is dedicated, it truly becomes a House of the Lord, and you can feel it.

Melanie and Tyler and Jade, Rob and Tina's family, and Mom and Dad also went to the open house on the same day, but we had different reservation times so we didn't go together.  But Melanie lives just around the corner in Gilbert, so we all hung out at her house afterward.  Then we all went out to eat dinner at Chili's.  It was a fun day. 

But, I did feel a little bad because Natalie and Kelton were both a bit sick.  They weren't complaining too much, but both had slight fevers and didn't look real great. 

Well, that was the beginning of a very fun week for our family.  There is a nasty flu bug going around like wildfire that has infiltrated our household.  It starts with coughing, then more painful coughing, then fevers, chills, severe aches and headaches, stuffiness and then feeling generally crappy.  It's one of those that morphs from day to day instead of getting better as each day passes.  Everyone in our house has caught it, some to varying degrees, but today, almost a week later, this picture just about sums up how we are doing.

But we'll live.  I hope.  I had friends tell me this one takes a full week to start getting better.  I didn't believe them, but now I do.  Being sick and taking care of sick kids simultaneously is not good for improving my patience.  But I must say, I am so grateful to live in today's world, with today's medicine that has made this somewhat bearable. 

My favorite 6 year old's birthday

Kelton turned 6 this past week!  He has been so excited for his birthday to come.  He's been using our calendar count down blocks to count down the days.  It's kind of funny though because there weren't really any presents that he was wanting.  He was just excited for his birthday to come. 

 

As always, we woke him up by singing "Happy Birthday" and gave him his presents in bed.  I love this picture... he's so excited, but still sleepy, and the light we had just turned on was really bright.  It's also fun to wake Kelton up because he is my only "baby" who is technically already the new age when we get up in the morning.  At the time we took this picture, he would have been about 20 minutes old on his actual day of birth, if that makes any sense.  (He was born at 5:55 a.m.)

It was a little difficult to come up with presents since we just had Christmas, and Kelton gave us absolutely no ideas.  I never took a picture of his presents, but he got Pikmin 3 for the Wii U, two Star Wars guys (Obi Wan and Darth Vader), Uno Power Grab game, the movie "Bolt," and an Angry Birds puzzle.  Grandma and Grandpa Burgess gave him Sonic Lost World for the Wii U, which he was super excited about.  If there is one thing this kid loves right now, it is Sonic the Hedgehog.  Grandma and Grandpa Webb sent a $20 bill (which made his eyes grow wide to get so much money) inside of a rousing, singing birthday card which took him off guard a bit in his sleepy state.  But he spent the afternoon after school listening to it over and over again until he knew all the words.  After presents were opened, we got kids ready for school and off on the bus.

The kids' schools do not allow anything homemade to be brought in for the kids.  I'm sure I've complained about this before.  I guess I get it, but it is still annoying not to be able to make cupcakes for a dollar or two to take in for a birthday treat.  So we took in popsicles.  Ah, the benefits of living in the desert in the winter.  I even had to take them in a cooler so they wouldn't melt too fast, and even so, it was close.  Kelton got to wear the special birthday hat while his class sang "Happy Birthday" and then everyone got a popsicle.  (Arie is friends with Kelton's teacher, Jenn Vaterlaus.  We are in the same ward and Arie always climbs up on her lap in Relief Society.  That's why Jenn is holding Arie in this picture.)  Because I took the popsicles in at the end of the day, Kelton got to come home with us instead of riding the bus, which he thought was fun.

At home, Kelton spent pretty much the whole afternoon doing his new puzzle.  I was surprised that he didn't go straight for the Wii U games.  It's kind of a cool puzzle.  It's three puzzles that push together, once finished, to form one big picture.  Each puzzle has different sized pieces.  In all, I think there are about 160 pieces.

You can see his two Star Wars guys in the back of this picture... He would intermittently play with them while doing his puzzle.

 

 

When Kelton first came downstairs this morning, he asked, "Where's my cake?"  I told him I hadn't started it yet and that it would be done when he got home from school.  I felt bad because I would have liked to have had it done and sitting on the counter when he woke up, but time just didn't permit.  I even ran out of time that morning and had to finish it after he got home from school. 

 

I have to interject something here, and hopefully my kids will understand when they read this someday.  I am getting burned out on cake making.  For the first few years, it was fun.  But making cakes is time consuming.  And with four kids who are still small, time can be hard to come by.  Birthday cake making has become somewhat of a chore.  For the last few birthdays I have found myself wishing that my kids would be happy with a cake, frosted in the pan, with some sprinkles or something on top.  Because that's what normal people do.  Not crazy, cake making people.  But years ago, I set a standard of crazy cake making, so here we are.  Really, I kept this one simple and the frosting transfer didn't take too long. 

 

Natalie came over right after I finished the cake.  I asked her if it looked good.  She said, in an even tone, "Yeah, it looks good.  I mean, it looks really good.....for a thirty year old."  She makes me laugh.  I'm still not quite sure how to take that comment.  It reminded me of how a mother talks to a preschooler who has just held up their prized drawing, and the mother has absolutely no idea what it even is.  Have I even mentioned that life would be very dull without Natalie?

 

Anyway, Kelton requested Sonic, and he got Sonic.


Here is his reaction to seeing his cake.  He loved it.  Which, I guess, is why I put up with the crazy cake making.

Happy birthday Kelton!  We love you!

Frozen

With six people to buy food for, we have been running out of room in our deep freeze.  Add that to the fact that every time I get stuff from Costco, I have to pretty much empty the whole deep freeze to rotate the food and get the new stuff put on the bottom.  I have been very fed up with the whole process for quite a while. 

But no longer.  As of today. 

We went from this:

To this:

So much better. 

Our little deep freeze served us well for nine years, but it was time for an upgrade.  Oh, and note to self... if you every buy another freezer, do it in the summer when it a thousand degrees outside--and in the house.  Because transferring a freezer full of frozen stuff to another freezer when you are already freezing is about as fun as it sounds.

10 years and counting!

Nate and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on January 2nd!  It was on the same day as Melanie and Tyler's wedding in San Diego, so we were in California for our anniversary.  So here's what we got to do on our anniversary:

 

We got to go to the temple.  I wish we could have done sealings, but it didn't work out time wise. 

 

We got to go to the beach.

We also got to go to dinner without our kids.  We put them to bed at the hotel and left grandma and grandpa in charge.  Then we went to Outback.  There was also a Krispy Kreme next door, so we got donuts afterward too. 

We are hopefully planning an actual trip to celebrate our 10 years of marriage.  In the past 8 1/2 years since we've had kids, we've never spent a night away from them together.  We've been saving up and would like to go to Puerto Rico (where Nate served his mission), but we will see if it works out.

I am so thankful to have this sweet, loving husband who makes my life so much better every day.  Ten great years down, and many more to come!

Trip to San Diego for a wedding

This past Wednesday, we drove to San Diego for Melanie and Tyler's wedding.  I also opened my new camera on the way and read through how to at least make it function, so I took a lot of pictures.  So maybe I will just walk you through our weekend using mostly photos.

On Wednesday night, we had a dinner with both of the families at a nearby church.

Damon and Jade--cute little crazies

Arie loving on daddy

 

Tyler's dad gave Melanie and Tyler a little test to see how well they knew each other.

The next morning, January 2nd, was the wedding in the San Diego Temple.  It was very nice.  I wish we would have had more time to actually be in the temple and look around.  We didn't get to see the spiral staircase or the Celestial Room.  But as soon as the sealing was done, Nate and I rushed out to go get our kids (who were being babysat at the hotel by a local young woman from one of the wards) so we could have them back in time to take pictures.

This next set of pictures cracks me up.  I was trying to get a nice picture of this shot...

...when I was interrupted by Thing 1... (Jade)

...being chased by Thing 2 (Damon)

And being at the temple, taking pictures, was hard work for everyone.

After lunch and a little bit of rest, we headed out to La Jolla Beach.  We got there later than we wanted to.  It was a pretty warm day, but we didn't get to the beach until about an hour before sunset.  So it was a little bit cool.  Mom, Dad, and Jade as well as Rob and Tina were there with us.

We really thought the kids would have fun just playing in the sand and maybe putting their feet in the water.  We were wrong.  Those crazy kids wanted to play in the water.  In the cold, January, Pacific Ocean.  Natalie actually got completely in and went under several times. 

 

Here's all of the "we aren't cold!" pictures.

When we finally got them out of the water for good, we heard nothing but crying about how freezing they were.  Natalie was even yelling about how she was never going to get in the ocean again in January.  It probably wouldn't have been so bad if the sun were still up in the sky, providing some warmth.  But it was really fun to watch the sun set over the ocean.

I tried to take one of those cute family-feet-in-the-sand pictures.  It didn't work.

Arie loved the beach too.  She spent some time chasing seagulls, but never got very close.

Right before we left, Arie decided she wanted to discover the ocean and just started walking out in the water, apparently not bothered by the temperature either.  I pulled her back and then had Nate walk her out.

Kelton has had his first loose tooth and it got super loose while we were in California. I pulled it out for him the next morning (after the beach) and the Tooth Fairy visited him at Melanie's house.  The Tooth Fairy has visited him twice (for three teeth) and has yet to retrieve teeth from Kelton's own house.  (His front two teeth were pulled out by dentist Uncle Chad and picked up at grandma's.)

The day after the wedding we took our time eating breakfast and playing in the hotel pool.  Then we packed up and headed to Melanie's house in Gilbert.  The next day (Saturday) was the reception.  We went to Costco in the morning and then spent the rest of the day getting food ready.  It wasn't until after I cut up all kinds of fruit and skewered them all day--and then cut up 12 small-ish baguette loaves that I decided to try to cut my finger off. (Okay, not really off)  Good thing Melanie worked as a nurse and had steri strips and my parents had super glue.

We all went and helped set up the reception.  It looked really nice.  And somehow, my kids made it through the set up, the reception, and the clean up afterward, which didn't end until after 10:00 p.m.

Miss Jade.

Cupcakes!

Photo station set up for guests.

Damon got upset for some reason, and wanted his own picture.

 

 

At the end, we all danced (but all my pictures turned out blurry because of the setting I had the camera on), then cleaned up, and headed home.  We didn't arrive until after midnight.  Our new church schedule is 9:00 and we were not on time this morning.  Considering that when I woke up it was almost 8:30, Nate was in the shower, and the kids were still in pajamas and hadn't eaten, and it takes 10 minutes to drive to the church, I'm surprised were only 20 minutes late.  Our kids looked a bit homeless with their hair undone and the boys shirts were dirty from the reception--but we were there!