April

I really didn't feel like April was very eventful, but we still have a lot of pictures from the month's events.

Joseph and I decided to start a tradition for our family.  The year our children enter the youth program at church we have decided to take them to Salt Lake City to attend General Conference in person.  We have wanted to do this for quite a few years and we were just waiting for Kimball to be old enough.  He's finally old enough!!  Joseph and Kimball were gone 5 days and they had a great time. 

At Temple Square in front of the temple.

State Capitol building

The view from the Capitol building.

Listening to Conference inside the Tabernacle.  

Waiting for Trax--public transportation.

Temple square is Joseph's favorite place in the entire world!

Kimball really enjoys family history so they spent many 

hours at the Family History Library.

Working at a computer in the Family History Library.  It was cute, this senior sister missionary was impressed with Kimball's knowledge of Family Search so when she had a question about Indexing she looked around for him to see if he could help her.  Kimball hasn't done much indexing so he wasn't any help so she had to find someone else.

Inside the Conference Center

They had tickets to attend the Priesthood evening session of conference... 

...and the Sunday afternoon session.

The view outside the Conference Center.

Church Administration Building.

The steps of the Salt Lake Temple.

This is outside the Provo City Center...mall.  

McKay (Joseph's brother), Kayla and boys met up with Joseph and 

Kimball so they could visit together.

Grounds outside the Tabernacle.

In addition to visiting Temple Square and doing baptisms in the Salt Lake Temple they also attended a Jazz Basketball game.  The Jazz played the Sacramento Kings and the Jazz won!  Joseph and Kimball aren't Jazz or Kings fans, but it was fun for them to have the opportunity to go to a professional basketball game.

Making breakfast Sunday morning.

We really missed Joseph and Kimball while they were gone, but we enjoyed our normal Conference traditions and food.  We were happy when they came home!

Spring has come to Syracuse so Joseph is starting on his various projects for the yard.  Here Lincoln is helping Joseph take out some dying bushes.

Kimball had his first official Boy Scout Court of Honor in April.  

He earned two rank advancements and 3 Merit Badges.  

Twinners!! These two cuties are ready for school 

one rainy morning!  They are good friends.  

We did our usual Easter traditions this year.  Here the kids are dyeing eggs. We read about Christ's last week out of the Bible.  It was wonderful to listen to some special songs about Christ and watch video's portraying Christ's last few days.

What kind of mother doesn't take Easter pictures Easter Sunday???  ME!  I have no pictures of the girls in their dresses.  Eden was sick with a stomach bug so this was the only photo I took.  Thankfully she was feeling better by dinner time because it was hard telling her "no" when she begged for food.  

Eden trying out a fancy lawn mower at Lowe's.

Festival of the Arts

Rebecah had a picture in the Art festival this year.  She also sang with the school chorus.  Kimball's orchestra performed, too.  Thankfully their performances were back to back because this festival is always really crowded.  Joseph dropped the big kids and me off at the school and took the little ones to McDonald's.  The Festival of Arts is boring for little kids.

Kimball is the bass player closed to the front of the stage.

Our budding musician.  Lincoln is playing Joseph's violin like a little cello.

McDonald's play area!

Lincoln saying his prayers.

Baseball season has also started.  Kimball has practice twice a week and now games have started.  The kids also had a week off from school for Spring Break.  We went to the movies, played with friends and enjoyed a more relaxing week.  I also braved the Mall with the two big kids for 2 hours.  I don't enjoy shopping so I told the big kids I had a 2 hour limit and when those two hours were up we were leaving.  Thankfully, we found what we were looking for and we finished 10 minutes early.  The positive side is that I got a lot of steps in while we walked the mall.  Our mall is the 6th largest in the Country so I had extra exercise.

Our kitchen remodeling project is coming along.  The cabinets are painted and the granite is ordered.  The counters won't be installed until the last day of May so that's a bummer.  You'll just have to wait until June for pictures of our whiter and brighter kitchen.  We love the changes so far.

March/Musical

What a month!!!  I felt like this month revolved a lot around Kimball, but it was still a good month for everyone!  

We had a few good snow falls in March.  This was the amount of snow we had at the beginning of the month.  By March 31st it was all gone.  Once it starts to melt it goes quickly.  Mother Nature wasn't quite finished for the year though.  We woke up today, April 1st to 2 inches of snow...a fitting April Fool's joke. Here are a few pictures of the snow fun.

Joseph built a little sledding track on the roof of the snow fort so the kids could play in the fort or on top of the fort.  They had a lot of fun sledding on it.

Joseph got home from work on day and brought in this really long icicle from above our garage.  It had already started to melt by the time we thought to take a picture.  

We have decided to remodel/update our kitchen.  We had corian counter tops and oak colored cabinets and we are going to upgrade to granite counter tops, new back splash, and off white cabinets.  We (mostly Joseph) are sanding and painting the cabinets.  Joseph has done a lot of research on painting cabinets and they are turning out really well.  Hopefully next month we will have the finished project pictures.  The below picture is Eden comparing some wood samples with the granite.

I had a friend over for lunch to celebrate her birthday.  I made this Chocolate Lover's Cheesecake and it was probably the best cheesecake I have ever made.  It came out of the pan well, didn't crack and was so yummy.  I loved the layers so I had to document it.

Bath Buddies!

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day.  I tried to make Shamrock shaped sugar cookies.

Eden is sure fun to have as company while the other kids are at school.  She loves to look at books and she absolutely adores dolls and babies.  She is very good about sharing her babies with me so I never go long without holding and feeding a doll.

A kind-hearted person gifted Eden a copy of a Daniel Tiger story collection that she loves.  She loves Baby Margaret from the stories/TV show.  Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is the cartoon spin-off of Mr. Roger's Neighborhood.  

Kimball had a String Fest concert.  All of the orchestras for the district get together and have a concert.  There were 2 middle school orchestras, 2 for the Junior High and 2 for the High School.  I missed the concert, but I am determined to go next year.  Joseph said Kimball's orchestra sounded very good.  Kimball is transitioning to the Bass from the cello.  In the picture below he is the bass player farthest from the front of the stage.  I believe this picture is both middle schools playing together since there are 4 basses in the picture.

Kimball was very glad to have his name under the bass section.  Since he is a 6th grader he wasn't sure his name would make it on the 7th grade orchestra roster.  He is the only 6th grader in the 7th grade orchestra.

Middle School Musical: Newsies

The highlight of our month was the middle school production of Newsies.  Kimball was Tommy-Boy one of the main newsies.  The cast started practicing the first full week in January and as the weeks progressed the practices got longer.  In January, Kimball probably rehearsed roughly 12 hours a week M-F.  Once March hit Kimball and cast practiced 20 hours each week M-F.  It was intense, but the show was AMAZING!  I never thought I would say that a middle school production would be so outstanding, but it really was.  Last year I took Kimball to the school musical and I was impressed with the quality of the show.  This year's show was even better.  This production was better than any high school performance I have ever seen...not that I have seen too many, but it was very well done.  Kimball loved every minute of the musical--practice and performance.  He made some new friends, improved his singing voice and realized that he can learn to dance and still be cool!

The musical ran 3 nights and I went to the Opening night performance by myself, we went as a family the second night and closing night I helped back stage.  I was glad I could enjoy it without kids one night.  I did my best to take good pictures, but it was hard getting good shots working around people in front of me.  It made my heart soar to see Kimball singing and dance with all of his might!  He really seemed to have so much fun.  It was nice to have so many people come up to me and tell me how much they enjoyed watching Kimball perform.  Being in the musical is something we never thought Kimball would do.  He has always complained about singing and dancing, but it just took some encouragement from a few kids at school and seeing the musical last year to really bring out a new talented side of Kimball.  

My newsie--Tommy-Boy.  Each night I got better with his make-up.

The lighting director used 6 remote controlled projector screens to make such nice effects for the musical.  Not just these two shots, but a scrolling effect of sky scrapers in NYC.  I really thought the screens "made" the show.  In the Broadway production screens are also used.  The school director tried his very best to match the Broadway production as best as possible.

Kimball jumped onto this table.  I was so impressed.  

King of New York

Once and For All

After the curtain call. 

Closing night I volunteered to help back stage.  If I had known how much I would have enjoyed the show I would have just bought a ticket and not helped!  As it was Joseph was disappointed he only saw it once.  At first Kimball didn't want me helping back stage because he didn't want the kids to know I was his mom.  By intermission he was willing to claim me when he saw I had a bottle of water and was willing to share with him!  I took him to the cast party after the show and on the way out one of the female cast members asked if I was Kimball's older sister!  That was a great moment for me!  Here I am almost 40 and a 7th grader mistook me for Kimball's older sister...I'll take it!!  We are all a little deflated after the adrenaline high of watching Kimball perform.  We ordered the DVD of the performance so we are eager to watch the recording once it arrives.

On March 26th Joseph and I celebrated our 14th wedding anniversary.  Joseph got home from work late so I fed the kids early and waited for Joseph so we could eat together.  Our raspberry white chocolate cheesecake was divine!

The last two summers Kimball, Rebecah and I have watched the "Great British Baking Show" on PBS and it has inspired Kimball to want to help more in the kitchen.  He is getting pretty comfortable in the kitchen and it is nice to tell him to mix something up for me.  Here he is mixing up a batter bread to go with our dinner.