piano cups, Easter baskets and end of year sports

Her is Katie playing her jazz piece at this year's gold cup recital. She did a great job. Katie has worked hard to develop her piano talent and it is such a joy to listen to live piano music all the time in our home. Thanks Katie!

She earned her 30 point solo cup this year. You can earn up to 5 points per year if you get a superior at festival. Your Senior year, you can combine points from concertos, solos, and hymns and Katie is hoping to earn a 60 point cup next year, go girl!

The Easter bunny arrived just as usual at our house this year, Caroline isn't looking too excited to get up early for egg hunting before church.

Michael had to say goodbye to cousin Tara before anyone else because Tara left for London study abroad and wouldn't be back before Michael left for the MTC.

Here's David at Alpine Days track meet. He did the long jump. I need to work on my photography skills when the target is a fast moving person...

...almost got him in the frame...

...again. Maybe next year I will get better pictures but David did a great job and continues the family track tradition. Grandpa Lorin did track in college.

This is David's last game of the regular season and next on to tournament games.

Les Miserables

Katie has the biggest fan club around. Here is all the family that came to see Les Mis on opening night this year. Cousin Halle was a teenie in the play so it was fun to see both of them up there.

Looking pretty miserable

Caroline feeling miserable. No, really. She was in pottery earlier in the day and flicked pottery into her eye. She got most of it out in the eye wash station in the science room but couldn't get one last piece out. I took her to the eye doctor right away, they numbed her eye and got it out. I got to look through the instruments before he took it out, pretty weird. It was a little square piece of clay embedded in her cornea, no wonder it hurt. She needed ice during the intermission.

Do you hear the people sing? Great show!!!

Then Congers weren't able to come the first night, they get their own photo shoot! Thanks for all the support everyone!

Busy times

This is the end of the year swim banquet. Katie was busy with dress rehearsal for Les Mis but luckily the banquet was at Orem High so when she wasn't on stage, she ran over for little bits of the evening. Here is Caroline with Lars and Hans Anderson. Caroline got the "I love to cheer" award and Katie got the "There's a meet today?" award. I guess she has had a lot on her plate, swimming not being the first priority apparently.

Michael finished his Freshman year at BYU. We were all able to attend the temple with him. What a wonderful day and especially to have so much family with us.

Lazy Sundays

A bit earlier in the year I wrote about how we have been working on filling our Sundays with a bit less TV, etc. and a bit more togetherness and fun. Katie and I came home from ward choir practice a couple of times to find David and Caroline were...well...breaking out of the old mold on their own, with no prodding and encouragement from me!

This particular Sunday we found them both asleep. Yes, the sabbath is a day of rest.

My kids don't nap, ever, so this was kind of a novelty so we had to take pictures.

The next sunday we came home from choir again and found David tying up Caroline's hands and feet. Yeah, yikes! It looked like the old fashioned lady on the train tracks actually, nothing too threatening because they were laughing so much. Then they tied up Katie after Caroline got loose. I actually took pictures of that also but Caroline deleted them. So sorry you didn't get to see that. It is amazing what they are coming up with to entertain themselves, I think.

Of course baking sweets is always a Sunday favorite. Here are some cupcakes Katie made. They are pumpkin with cream cheese cinnamon frosting. Ooooh they were good!

Katie's Seattle choir tour

Katie should really be writing this post because, well, I wasn't there for any of this. I will write a little and she can log in and fix everything, how's that? Orem High's choir went to a music festival in Seattle the first weekend in April. Here she is at a totally real viewpoint of the space needle. Not.

This is the totally real viewpoint of the space needle. Don't worry. They went up in it another day and the weather was better.

Maybe I should've signed up to be a chaperone. There are questionable-type-looking people in the Northwest.

Cool guitar art piece.

Cingular. Raising the bar.

I have an obsession with zebras, and Nicole has an obsession with giraffes, so we both had a huge freak out moment when we saw these!

This is a real life killer whale that we all rode!!!

This is an otter. It was a lot cuter when you could see it for real...

General Conference Weekend

This year for general conference we went to Salt Lake and stayed in a hotel for the weekend. Nelson and I went up Friday morning to spend the day together and Michael drove the kids up in the evening to join us. We had lunch at The Roof. We always like to wander around the Joseph Smith Memorial Building because it used to be the Hotel Utah and our families stayed there the night before we got married. It ceased to be a hotel 3 weeks after we were married and was renovated for what it is today. What a fun memory and so fun that we got to stay at the historic hotel before it was too late! After lunch, we walked out towards the temple and I heard someone say "I can's believe it's you! Kirstin!"

My roomate from my freshman year at BYU , Krista, was there with her sister, friend and their daughters for conference, too. She lives in Salem, Oregon and I had no idea she was coming, nor did she know I was going to be at Temple Square either. What a fun surprise! It was so great to see her! We haven't seen each other since Katie was a baby I think. I am so glad she and I were roomates, she was just what I needed. Love you Krista!

We went on our way and had a nice afternoon together, not doing much of anything but just being together. It was nice. Michael drove David and Caroline to the hotel Friday night. Katie went on choir tour to Seattle so we missed her all weekend but she had a lot of fun on tour.

Saturday morning we watched conference in bed at the hotel, ahh, the luxury of being in Utah and getting conference on a local tv station!

After the morning session, we took the kids to a little shop that makes real Belgian frites (fries) and gaufres (waffles). We got too many fries and not enough waffles but we survived.

These were inhaled too quickly to get a picture of a whole one.

Then we walked to the Gateway and took trax to Temple Square.

Friday's weather was really nice and warm. Saturday it was a bit more cloudy, breezy and then it started to rain in the evening. Since we have had such a cool spring, the trees and flowers weren't in bloom as much as they usually are but still so pretty.

Conference is broadcast outside on Temple Square so we go to listen there. Here are the kids playing in the reflecting pool.

We found some flowers in bloom!

Here are the boys before priesthood session. They got tickets to attend in the conference center. It was great for the three of them to go together since Michael will be gone for the next few conferences. Caroline and I went shopping at the Gateway and had some fun girl time.

Brrrrr.....look what we woke up to Sunday morning. There was snow on the ground and it was pretty windy.

We had tickets to the morning session. This is us on the balcony of the conference center afterwards. The sun was shining and some of the snow was melting but still windy, so cold!

The snow made for fun picture taking!

What would I do without my blog?

People are always asking how I have time to have a blog. They wonder how much time and effort it takes, uploading pictures, typing, resetting the background. It takes as much time as you want to put into it like anything else. Maybe what they are really asking is not how do I have time, they just don't understand why I would chose to spend time doing it. This is really the only creative, indulgent thing I do and so that is why I do it. I get to chose to do this, unlike laundry, cooking, driving carpool, paying bills, preparing lessons, coordinating schedules, and all the other things that are part of my "job". Don't get me wrong, I love my "job", but let's face it, my life can get a bit like the movie groundhog day and this kinda shakes it up a bit. I look forward to the next post, the time I get to put pieces of time together and connect with whoever is reading this and because my kids all gather around to see what I have put about them. Maybe someday I will print it and have a forever hard copy, too. It's fun! So here's what's been going on lately...

There is a Hari Krishna temple in Spanish Fork and every year they have a festival of colors and invite the public to come throw colored chalk at each other and have a blast. Caroline went last year with a friend and Michael went this year with his roommate Zach and some other friends from BYU.

Good thing we stopped at DI to get some throw away clothes beforehand!

Crazy boys! Michael and Zach are awesome.

soap anyone?

On Sunday we went to a farewell/homecoming in Alpine. My cast team leader buddies had their youngest son Timmy's farewell, he was in my cast team, and their next to youngest son's homecoming the same day. Kenny got home Saturday and Timmy leaves next Wednesday. These brothers get 10 days together in 4 years but what an awesome thing to have such great boys. Their talks were fun and then we went to the park on the way to their house for some lunch.

They all had turns, swinging and playing on the equipment.

Adam, Jared and David at the Canyon View track meet Tuesday. It was pretty cold so these boys were glad the team sweats arrived just in time.

David ran the 200 in 30:23 and took 4th place.

Adam and David rounding the corner. They are sure having fun being in track.

I don't know where all my cupcake pictures went that I uploaded to this post...hmmm...oh well, these girls are cuter than more cupcake pictures. My friend had her 2nd little baby girl on Monday so I took dinner to her family. For dessert I had to make these cupcakes. My friend Suzette made them once and I have been dreaming about them ever since. The frosting is buttercream with real strawberry puree in it and it is so fluffy and so good. I cut open some of them and filled the insides with frosting, too. Then finish it off with a chocolate covered strawberry, oh baby. I actually was thinking next time I want to try it with raspberries. Here's the link if you need some, or come to my house in the next couple hours before I eat them all and I will share!

http://www.mybakingaddiction.com/chocolate-covered-strawberry-cupcakes/