The Reasons

Grandpa Lunt and Aunt Sherri

Everyone that could make it out of my parents' family.

Grandpa and Jill watching cousin Curtis perform.

Cute table decor at the open house featuring Grandpa's favorite sayings.

Aunt Sherri and Uncle Clel.

Grandpa going through his famous sayings with cousin Suzanna.

1. Grandpa Lunt's 80th birthday celebration.

2. Aunt Sherri's 10-year battle with cancer is coming to an end.

3. Gilbert temple tour.

Those are the reasons I decided the long drive to AZ without Justin (who had school) would be worth it.

Had been going back and forth for days and finally decided to go the day before we left.

The pictures above are from the celebrations for Grandpa's birthday. Was so glad Sherri & Clel (who is also suffering so much from his cancer) could attend both for a little bit in the midst of such pain. They are saints.

Saturday night there was a big open house for friends and family. 

Sunday night there was a family dinner and Jeopardy in my parents' backyard.

Getting to tour the temple was a big hope, but I wasn't sure it was going to happen. The whole family had gone Friday night. We got in town just in time to clean up and get to the open house on Saturday. The second the program at the open house was over we booked it for the temple. I knew we'd be cutting it close, but didn't realize how close. Pretty sure it was a little miracle that we made it. We were literally the last tour of the last day of the open house. It was so beautiful inside but I was also so struck by it's presence from the outside. We could see it glowing from at least 3 miles away. I loved when Sally said, "We get to go IN there???" The baptismal font and the celestial room were favorites. Drew wants to get baptized there. I told my mom that and she reminded me that Grandpa Lunt had been baptized in the Mesa temple font. So awesome.

Between all that Sherri & Clel's family is going through, I was extra grateful to go through the temple and be reminded that families are forever.

We Made It

2/15

24 hours after leaving home we made it to Arizona.

That's a long time for a 10 1/2 hour drive.

1. I actually kind of liked our bargain hotel. It used to be fancy but is now out-dated. But we got a renovated room and it was big.

2. I did not like that they sent us across the street to their sister hotel for the free breakfast. Said breakfast was served in a nightclub and the food was laid out on the bar. Hahahaha.

3. I made the kids pose in da club.

4. Target pitstop. Every single Target visit consists of August bolting for the "bah." (one of his few words and has at least 5 meanings)

5. This is what we looked like upon arrival. August's face most resembles how I was feeling. We stayed w/Jacob & Rachel the first couple nights since my parents' house was booked. Rachel ran out to greet us with fresh squeezed orange juice for me and a can of whip cream to squirt in the kids' mouths. A lovely welcome!

Feelin the Love

Why am I posting this? No shame.

This is how hot we looked for our Valentine's date.

When I picked up our babysitter, her uncle looked me up and down and I'm pretty sure was suppressing a laugh.

But we were getting fully clothed massages and Justin's dinner of choice was Chipotle. So comfort came first.

I had been to this massage place the week before with girlfriends and loved it so much I had to get back ASAP.

This was Justin's first massage experience and unfortunately he was not impressed.

We both felt a little beat up afterwards and had Indian burns on our legs.

But then we went to the Inn at Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach (yes, looking like that) for some delightful hot chocolate around a fire while listening to live jazz music played by an extra old white lady on drums, a medium old black dude on piano, and a young white guy on bass.

We were entertained.

This was Feb 13 because the kids and I were headed to AZ right after school on Feb 14.

Speaking of Feb 14...

Our Valentine's traditions consist of extra large Hershey kisses, a scavenger hunt to find their little gift (Owen's reading a clue above), and as much heart-shaped food as possible.

The gifts:

Class Valentines:

Printed these Minecraft Valentines online per the boys' requests (no, not from Pinterest. I did this crazy thing called a Google search). I think that middle one is border-line inappropriate. My pun-loving self was happy with the "Are you a block of dirt because I dig you" one.

You may have noticed Sally's gigantic lip above. The day before Valentine's she got a tooth extracted and a double dose of numb lip. While her lip was numb, she bit it over and over. Next thing I knew it was HUGE. She was (understandably) self conscious about it and wasn't up to school on Valentine's Day. So sad to miss party day. I texted her teacher about picking up her Valentines at the end of the day and she said she'd send them home with Owen and Drew. Then later that morning Mrs. Wright texted to see if we were home and could she stop by do personally deliver Sally's Valentines. She ran over during P.E. and made Sally's day. Mine, too. So, so sweet.

I love that Sally does a full on smile in spite of the lip.

Drew came home with this awesome Valentine's box.

Owen came home with a clever Minecraft (surprise, surprise!) one.

And then we were off to AZ.

Sally set the van up for our trip while the boys were at school.

And 5 minutes into our drive, he already needed his first distraction: balloons. Or, "ba."

We broke up the trip that night with a halfway hotel stay in Pomona.

4 kids and me in a hotel on Valentine's night wasn't exactly romantic, but it was memorable.

The 3rd Child. And the 4th.

2/3

Sally lost her first tooth and this is the best I have to show for it.

She had a huge cavity that abscessed so the dentist had to extract.

Sadly, it was a tooth that normally doesn't fall out til like 12.

So she has a spacer in there until then.

Same procedure gets to be repeated this week on the other side.

The above picture was before putting the tooth under her pillow for the tooth fairy.

She had been sleeping in our room after waking up so much in the night cause of pain.

2/7 

I feel like I should offer Sally's Valentine labeling services to those in need.

It's her favorite.

2/7

 Friday was the 80's themed daddy-daughter dance at school.

Sally won the kindergarten hula hooping contest and those glasses were her prize.

I'm not gonna lie...pretty proud to have a hula hooping champion in the family.

 Love this picture.

Also loved this:

Yes, Justin's Facebook name is Ju Ho, "for security reasons."

He took it upon himself to locate a crimper for the occasion.

We ended up with a waver, but close enough.

 Sally won the fun weekend award.

She got to go to a very cute rainbow-themed birthday party for a school friend on Saturday.

2/8

And August's love of all things plush is still going strong.

2/8

As is his love of water.

He got good and wet during Owen's baseball assessments.

But all that wet means we got more rain. Yay!

Nothing to do with children numbers 3 and 4:

2/6 (photo credit: Lauren)

Made Danna's famous raw mango tart for a friend's birthday brunch.

It was as pretty and yummy as I remember.

The Backyard Front Porch

They really need to re-enact this picture in 60 years.

I'm doing Weight Watchers again. Last time was before I had August and it worked.

So far this is about how it's going:

- On Monday I made a huge pot of (healthy) minestrone. It was supposed to be my lunch for the rest of the week. But after perfectly healthy Owen threw it up all over the table I could barely get it down one more time.

- Tuesday I went to the farmer's market for fresh produce. I came home with Chinese food and a gourmet caramel apple. That counts as fresh produce, right?

But really, it's going alright. I reached one mini goal and that means everyone clapped for me at a meeting. Whatever love language that is, it's mine.


Back to the farmer's market.
Sally spied George and his birds and had to hold one.

Then George insisted Auggie have a turn.

Drew took this picture of a piano practice with Owen:

I finally started teaching him and Drew lessons over Christmas break. Tried Sally, too but she's not ready.

They don't love the idea of practicing, but once they're focused they do awesome.

I'm actually liking teaching them so far. I can practice w/them every day (and do the teacher duets that make the songs sound so much better). I can catch little mistakes right then instead of them practicing wrong for a week in-between lessons. Also, if they're ready for a new song mid-week we can do it, instead of them being bored w/a song once they know it.


A quick hour at the aquarium with just him:

 White trash and shirtless is better than soaking wet. Those smocks are useless.

Yesterday there was another free community event:

Family Day at the Monterey Museum of Art (La Mirada).

A. I love that museum.

B. Doing art in an art museum is cool (especially since the mess isn't at my house).

They had an Ansel Adams exhibit and one of the projects was using copies of his pictures to make a dreamscape (pictured above).

In another room we learned how to make Valentine's dream catchers.

Never knew there was such a thing.

Here's the model:

And here's Sally's version:

And here's how the boys felt about it all:

So I took them out to the little pond till Justin could come rescue them (he had been at a scouting merit badge thing all morning).

This duck picture looks peaceful, but it was not. August wanted in that water bad.

After the boys got picked up, Sally and I stayed another couple hours until it was over.

She was in heaven.

On the way out we ran through the gardens real fast. I mean, she ran.

That bright fuzzy tree in the background was full of cherry blossoms.

These two are earlybirds.
This is what they came up with this morning while everyone else was sleeping.

Safety first!


Today our stake had a special fast for rain. Not sure the extent of the drought going on but rain is needed bad.

It was awesome to wake up and see it had rained some overnight.

This morning Owen said his prayer to start his fast and minutes later it started raining again. Cool for him.


And then after church August discovered my dress.

Aside:

Some of these are camera photos and some are phone photos (like pretty much all my posts).

Every now and then I take awesome phone pictures.

Too often I take bad pictures with my real camera.

But hands down I like my real camera better.