I love to see the Temple...

 A few weeks ago we went on a little outing to see the tulips at the temple near our house.  They were beautiful.  I love teaching my kids about the temple and letting them touch the temple.  I didn't actually get a picture of the temple--just the flowers--but it was lovely.

Ha ha!  Somehow the perspective in this picture makes me look like twice as big as Alan!!

Mother's Day

We had a lovely Mother's Day.  Alan made me delicious Monkey Rolls for breakfast (we got to enjoy breakfast with three of Alan's sisters who had slept over.)  Then we went off to church, and then after church we went up to Alan's parents house where Alan and some of his siblings made Navajo Tacos for dinner.  (It also happened to be Alan's mom's birthday on Mother's Day!)  Then we got to enjoy the lovely chocolate cake that Alan had made with his Aunt Annette's delicious homemade chocolate/sour cream frosting!  YUM!

Jared made me a cute decoration in preschool for Mother's Day:  It is a block of wood with his picture on one side and a love note on the other side.

The message says, "I love you Mom, Love Jared" although the "love" is crammed in a corner and he wrote his name backwards (not intentionally, I think. He just ran out of room.)  Now Jared thinks it's funny to write his name backwards and tells me all the time that I have three kids: Jared, Maggie, and Deraj.  :)  I love this and will keep it forever.

Alan's Bday

OK, so I'm way behind on uploading pictures.  We have a newer laptop we've been using, but we haven't transferred our picture program from the old laptop to the new one yet.  So, I have to find time to get on our old (SLOW) computer to upload pictures.

I regret that this is the only picture I have of Alan's birthday last month.  Wow.  I know, I'm lame.  We had a fun day, though!  Alan loved the presents we gave him, I made one of his favorite treats, and we also had parties with my family and his family (on different days).

On Alan's actual birthday, we hosted a dinner group from our ward over and had Cafe Rio-style pork salads and I made a Tres Leches for him.  The next day was Saturday, and we went out to lunch to Tucanos with my parents (using his birthday coupon!) and then had his family over for our 3rd annual fondue party.  It was super fun.

I love Alan so much!  He is my hero and my true love.

Audition Dreams

I don't usually remember my dreams--maybe only once every few weeks.  (Alan, however, remembers his dreams almost daily, and he'll have like two or three every night!)

At least once a month I have some sort of "audition dream," which usually means one of two things: (1) I dream that I am an adult auditioning for The Nutcracker, when suddenly I realize that I am super out of shape and haven't even been dancing for over a decade or I'll realize that I have kids and wonder who will babysit them during all my performances (I used to dance in a local performance of The Nutcracker when I was in elementary school); or (2), I dream that I am about to be a senior in high school auditioning for the high school dance company after having taken a year off from it, and I'm totally scared that I won't make it back in again. (By the way, that never happened.  I was in my high school dance company as a sophomore, but for several reasons I decided not to try out again.  I chose to try out for choir instead, which was one of the best decisions I made in high school.)  It's so weird that these to dreams are recurring--I wonder if I have some sort of insecurity about my dancing days???

Anyway, last night I had a dream I was auditioning for my high school drill team, something that I did in real life only once (at the end of my ninth grade year--I didn't even make the first cut!  Ha ha!).  Anyway, it was so real--I was dancing all night long and can still remember the sequence right now.

I think it's funny that all of my "audition dreams" have to do with dancing and not singing.  I have done so many auditions for high school and college choirs, not to mention high school musicals and choir competitions.  It's weird, but it's been giving me something to think about all morning.

Piano Teaching?

A lady in my neighborhood just called me the other day because she is moving and wanted to offer me her whole crew of piano students.  I have taught piano lessons sporadically before I had kids (I even taught some of Alan's siblings and one of his cousins), but I haven't felt like I've had the time right now in my life with my young kids.  I would have to hire a babysitter to come play with my kids, something I know that other moms do while they teach piano or voice.  However, I feel like as a mom I am already ignoring my kids often enough just with the housework and cooking and exercising I do, so I would feel even worse if I hired a babysitter so that I could ignore them even more hours a week.

It is a big dilemma.  I had a couple of amazing piano teachers growing up and I would love to teach as well, but I just can't justify being away from my kids right now.  Another problem is that when all of my kids are old enough to be in grade school, I would still be ignoring them because teaching would have to take place after school hours.  It's actually a lousy set-up to try and earn some extra money and "fulfill a need" that I have in life.

I have a friend whose husband is a seminary teacher, so he comes home at like 3:30 and watches the kids while she teaches piano in the afternoon.  That is an ideal situation, as far as piano teaching goes.  

I guess it all boils down to the fact that I could make teaching work out if I wanted it badly enough.  I must not. Ha ha.  :)

Arches

Most of the group--my sis-in-law and brother and a couple of Jared's cousins are missing.

Last weekend we went on a trip to Arches National Park with both of my brothers and their families (minus my sis-in-law and her newborn baby). The weather was looking cold and lousy, so instead of camping with them, we decided last minute to stay in a cheap motel in Moab.

Despite the cold and the wind, we never got rained on, and it was overall an extremely fun trip. Jared got really excited about all the arches and other famous landmarks, and he has already made a mental list of things we didn't get to see that he wants to see on our next trip. Jared was also thrilled about staying in a motel. This was his first time staying in a motel where he could actually remember it.

Jared did not even complain on any of the hikes we went on--he loved all of them! (Well, he did complain about the cold--but not that he was tired on the hikes.) I was so proud of him. Maggie also turned out to be quite the little hiker. She wanted to walk as much as possible and even walked the almost-mile to Landscape Arch all by herself! (It was more like "guided wandering" than hiking, but it worked out.)

One of the Windows

Turret Arch

Both "spectacles" with the nose in between

Double Arch

Sand Dune Arch. Our kids played here forever!

Landscape Arch

Jared and his cousin Collette

I didn't take any pictures of the last half of our hike on Saturday because it was just too cold and windy for people to pose for a picture. But we also hiked to Navajo Arch, which I had never seen before. It was a fun trip and we are looking forward to our next trip there!

Happy Easter

We had a lovely Easter weekend at our house. On Saturday we hosted my ENTIRE family over for the traditional dinner of ham, funeral potatoes, etc., which is a big accomplishment! Our house doesn't easily accommodate so many people, so we had to move around furniture to be able to set up some extra tables and folding chairs.

It ended up working out pretty well, and the weather decided to cooperate so that Jared and his cousins could play outside on our playground and have an Easter egg hunt. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries during the middle of the dinner, so I didn't get good pictures of the egg hunt nor the singing of "Happy Birthday" to my Mom and Alan. (We like to combine holidays in my family.)

It was a good excuse to dust off my china, silverware, and crystal goblets.

On Sunday, we had an awesome visit with Alan's brothers Spencer and Mason. We were originally hoping that we could host a nice dinner with about half of Alan's family (the half that wasn't out of town for Spring Break), but it turns out that no one could come for dinner except Mason. I think Spencer had pity on us and came to visit anyway, even though he couldn't stay for dinner. :)

Alan and Mason had a good long talk about Mexico, since Alan served his mission there and Mason will be leaving for his mission there in less than 2 months!!

Mason also brought treats from Alan's mom so that our kids could have another egg hunt. They loved it!!