Basketball

It is so fun to watch David play basketball because you can tell he loves to play. He is so fast, he sees the plays well and is an aggressive guard.

Lots of fun!

Nelson and Caroline at the start of a BYU basketball game. BYU basketball has been a blast to watch this year, we have a great team.

Storming the floor after the game!

What has gotten into me?

I must have Spring fever, or a severe case of boredom, or I just like to torture myself. These are some before pictures of my laundry/sewing/guest/everything else in the world happens in this room, room. It has been the most neglected. As you can see, the princess unicorn castle wallpaper that we put up when the girls were around 3 and 5 is still up, mostly, and the clouds painted on the ceiling along with it.

We walled off half of the closet opening so we could put the washer/dryer and utility sink in and never finished the doorway. The clutter looks pretty horrible but it didn't occur to me to take before pictures until I was halfway through taking everything apart to move stuff.

Decisions, decisions, decisions. I could NEVER build a house. Making decisions kill me, what if I don't like it next week? Will this color make me never want to be in this room? UUUGGGGHHHH.

Actually the driving force behind this project are a couple of things. First, I have desperately wanted to make this a "grown-up" room, no more princess paper. A room for me, a room that I will enjoy being in to do laundry or projects. Second, my dad was facing surgery for cancer for the second time in 5 months and needed to come stay at my house for a few days afterwards so, post-op, he could avoid the long and very uncomfortable drive to his home 4 hours away sooner than he had to. I don't know if he even noticed the improvement, he had other things on his mind, but it was a fabulous excuse to get it done and have a deadline, also.

I took these after he left and it's a bit messy, now trying to put stuff back away, etc.

I have been to Ikea twice to find lots of bins, baskets, shelves, etc. and will post pictures of the real after shots when I have it all totally done and decorated. I am excited to have a room I will love to be in while I am working. Notice the door is now framed, it's the little stuff that's the big stuff sometimes, yay!

Fun, fun, watch for the final result hopefully soon!

Region Swim

Katie, Alexa Hubert and Caroline at the Region swim meet this year.

Caroline had a book to pass the time between races.

We toured the rec center in between races. I have been to the rec center a lot but never down to the firing range before! Nana, Grandpa and Halle came to watch the girls swim.

Grandpa got a new camera and was glad to be figuring out how to use it in these not so great lighting conditions. Caroline at the start of the 100 backstroke.

Katie swimming freestyle.

Preference update

I know you were all dying to find out what the color-me-mine stuff turned out like, me too, so here it is. Katie made the one on the left for Hans (or Hansel as we know him) and he did the one on the right for Katie. Pretty impressive I think. I want to go and make myself one now, they turned out so fun!

Michael is going to....

Romania, Bucharest! He enters the MTC on May 18th.

The mailman delivered the envelope first thing on his route, it was nice to know it was actually here but so hard to wait another 12 hours to open it. I knew Michael was going to invite friends but had no idea he would invite 400 or so people on facebook to come. Well, we didn't have that many come. I think there were around 60 or 70 and that may have been the biggest crowd we have ever had at our house at the same time. It was really fun to have everyone come and be a part of the excitement. We had some grandparents on speaker phone, also.

Here's Michael reading the letter...Romania...and then cheers!

Hugs from Mom, what a happy day.

Here are all of the family who were able to come gathered in the kitchen for a picture.

Michael and a bunch of his friends who came. After everyone left, we checked out Romania on the internet. It is a very beautiful place and now all of a sudden I have a new place on my list of travel wishes! We listened to Romanian news stories to hear the language, found out that the population is around 21 million with around 2 thousand members of the Church. They are 87% Romanian Orthodox and 5% Catholic. They have the Danube river and gypsies. Our former bishop and his wife are there right now serving a 2 year mission and their daughter reports that they say it is a wonderful place full of wonderful people. What an experience Michael will have, we are so happy for him!

Crazy times at Costco

When Caroline was little we took her in to the eye doctor because she claimed she couldn't see at school. Well, the prescription she talked the doctor into at the time was not much beyond the cheapo reading glasses you get at Walmart but her new glasses appeased her. There must have been a really cool kid at school with glasses at the time. Ever since then, I just kind of respond with a whatever when she has brought it up since then. Well, it had been a while so we took her in and...gulp...her eyes are truly worse than Katie's and almost as bad as Michaels. They have been wearing glasses for years. How horrible do I feel? Wow, there's one for the guilt book. So, we went eyeglass shopping at Costco.

They both found what they wanted, so easy, so cheap. Yay! We had been to Target before and by now we are getting a bit silly. After we checked out, we noticed the most unusual hat we had ever seen. Really.

This guy was standing at the food court and I just had to get a picture. Amidst giggles and trying to act nonchalant we got a shot. Square hats, who knows, maybe the next big thing? I hope not.

Masquerade

I know this looks more like a 50's sock hop than a masquerade but this is the meal the girls chose for this year's Preference Dance. My friend Becca Salois and her daughter Alex came over to be part of the kitchen crew to cook and assemble. They were such lifesavers! I guess I never knew how hard it is to get 8 made to order burgers ready all at the same time along with fries, onion rings, and shakes. So sweet of them and it was more fun that way.

Cheers! After dinner, they went to color-me-mine, a paint it yourself pottery place. Unfortunately, there weren't any hovering parents so I don't have any pictures from this part of the date, just use your imagination. Katie and Hans ( above-the boy on her right) made mugs for each other. They will be ready to pick up later this week so maybe we'll get a picture then. After the painting, they each went home to get dolled up for the night.

Katie and Hans decided beforehand not to get corsages/boutineers for each other but Hans got her a single rose anyway. She thought that was so sweet, I agree, one rose is much better than a corsage.

It really was a masquerade ball and not a sock hop so Katie made, no, really Caroline and I made her masks while she was getting dressed for the night.

I am her mom but isn't she gorgeous? Tonight was one of those WOW! nights when your kids seem so grown up.

Katie loves her dress! We went shopping and of course had such a hard time finding anything modest so we got this with the intention of altering it. Well, the week got away from me and I ended up calling my neighbor who sews custom wedding dresses and asked her to fix the dress for me. She added the sleeves, complete with the silk overlay from material she just had in her workroom that matched better than anything I found at the fabric stores. Then she added the flounce to match at the bottom and built in an extra V layer in the neck so it wasn't so low cut. It turned out better than I could've imagined and definitely better sewn than I could've done.

Fun with the masks!

Karen, Katie, Aubree and Nicole. Such beautiful ladies!

Just the guys. Traditionally each year the swim team girls ask the swim team boys and they all go together in a big group but this year it kinda fell apart. Neither of the girls captains went to Preference so it didn't get organized. Katie and Hans are on the swim team and so is Devin, the guy on the left, so it's sort of a swim team date, sort of.

Funny kids! Off to the dance they went. After the dance we parents surprised the kids with a limo. Aubree's dad knows a limo driver and he gave us a deal to pick the kids up after the dance and take them the long way home for 20 minutes (we live at most 3 minutes from the school) before dessert. They were so excited! Supposedly this is the nicest limo in Utah (that's what the kids said), it seats 14 people and has a "dance floor". When they came out, the music was playing and lights in the floor and all around were flashing to the music. Aubree's mom said by the time they got to her house for dessert, they were so hyped up and having so much fun. She said they got laughing later on so hard they were all crying, worth every penny!

This thing is huge!

Aubree's mom made crepes filled with super yummy chocolate pudding, etc. Katie said it was such a fun evening.