Satan Had My Password

It was an unintentional long hiatus from the family blog over the past few months.  Our computer was on the fritz.  I had been busily preparing for the upcoming church girls camp and sure enough, the computer decided to break down with my files and preparations all saved on it.  Luckily, for that project, I had emailed most of it out, so those were recovered, so haha to Satan for trying to stand in the way of church camp and my sanity.  Ok, it worked a little bit to get me feeling frustrated. 

Every. single. time. I have spoken in church or planned a lesson, it seems like it gets lost or the computer shuts down.  Can works of evil be performed via computer shut downs at our house?  Yes, indeed.  Good thing we have Dave, whose determination knows no bounds.  He went to Office Depot multiple times, Best Buy, etc  and the computer is up and running.  But, then, blogger wasn't working.  That wouldn't stop him, he dragged his laptop to a Microsoft store for them to troubleshooting there.   I have debated on letting the blog go, but we both decided it is our family history and want to keep it up--so I will cover the last few months in a couple of posts.  

Backing up to Spring....

Spring brought us a few new experiences this year--Dance Competitions for Miss Brenna... 

Wow.  Boy am I not a 'dance mom,' but looks like I will have to be because dancing is this little lady's passion.  It just oozes out of her every minute.  

We loved watching her perform this year, even her first grade teacher came to her recital.  Mrs Christensen is awesome and will be so glad she came because she will be able to say she knew famous Brenna when she was a wee tike.  Brenna's current plans are to reside in New York City and attend Julliard.  Dreaming big over here...

Brenna lost her two front teeth and had an adorable lispy talk for a few weeks.  She was extremely angry with me because when she put a tooth under the pillow she asked me if I was the one that gave her money for her last tooth.  I told her yep, I had and she lost it on me.  She said I was not to do that again because if I hadn't paid her, the tooth fairy would have.  I'm thinking a dollar is a dollar, so hoping things get a little better with the next tooth exchange.  

She was toothless as she performed on stage in Beauty and the Beast as a Baby Napkin!

I had told my girls someday I would do a production with them and Beauty and the Beast was the one we did! (Along with half of the southern valley!  The cast was huge, but we had such a fun time).

Brenna the baby napkin, I was a candlestick and Katelee 

was THE salt shaker.  So she was a pretty big deal.  Ha!  We had lots of support from friends and family.  Even Katelee's teacher came-

the amazing Mrs Clayton and others had to sit through nearly 3 hours with this production, that's some serious love!  We'd love to perform together again someday, but probably won't be for a little while! 

Grant turned 12 in February, so this spring was his first time attending the Priesthood Session of General Conference.  To celebrate the big occasion, both grandpas attended it with Dave and Grant at the conference center.  We love having family visit.  Harrison was getting the family relations straight.  He was saying to Dave, "Dad, Dad, your Dad is here."  

Of course, all important occasions in this family's life need to be combined with quality food, so they topped off the night at The Roof restaurant.  

Grant is busily working on scouting, he nearly has his Star rank.  Here he is when he earned his 1st and 2nd class.  

He claims an eagle is his goal, but there seems to be a lot of gentle and not so gentle nudging on some of these merit badges and requirements...so good luck to us the year or so!

The kids had a week off of school before Easter and we took a few days to head south to St George and to explore Snow Canyon.  It really was like a 2 day trip, but we had some good times and some near death experiences, if you ask Brenna.

Our first hikes were easy, trekking up the petrified sand dunes, 

enjoying the red rocks and gorgeous scenery, then it all became traumatic for #3.   Katelee and Grant started up this cliff wall to get to the little cave you can see at the top of the pic below...

Brenna started crying because she didn't think she could make it after she went up a little bit alone. We encouraged her and she got nearly there and broke down.  Dave helped her up and then had a rescue party trying to get her down.  Harrison and I had this view for a good 30 min...

while we went back and forth between apologizing to Brenna for "trying to kill her" and building her up telling her she could do it.  She was certain the little hole in the rock would be her permanent residence.  Luckily, they got down and we were able to cheer up with a little swim at the pool!

The next day, there was no scarring of the little people, just park play...

and a stop at Cove Fort.  

The kids had a great time there.  So, overall I'd say the jaunt was a success. 

Easter was a highlight of spring, of course.

We love our church services that remind of us new life and continuing life.  Love this little/growing up family of ours. Harrison is just coming out of the phase of wanting to say every prayer for the family.  His prayers always included the phrases of, 'we go to church tomorrow,' (no matter what day it is) and 'Jesus is holding that sheep again.'  He has seen the painting of the Savior holding a lamb-sometimes he says it like he's totally annoyed that Jesus has the sheep, sometimes it is matter of fact, but it's a prayer I feel confident in saying is one of a kind.  

We had a whole photo session on the front lawn, and yet most of the pics were goofy, yep, that's how it typically works around here.  

  The Saturday before Easter, we had attended the 20 seconds of craziness that compromises our city "hunt." It seriously cracks me up every year.  I am always amazed we walk away unscathed.  We've never had broken bones there, BUT, we had quite the broken bone experience in May.  

Dear little Katelee, of course it was her, our most accident prone child, was riding her little motorized scooter outside.  She was trying to avoid hitting a car that was hanging over the sidewalk and she clipped the back of it, causing her to fall and fall HARD.  I didn't see the crash, but our neighbor brought her home with Katelee hardly even crying.  The minute the neighbor left, Katelee started wailing. She was holding her hand and I was attending to her scratches.  I thought maybe she had broken her arm, but thought we'd just watch it. When I asked to see her arm, she let go of her wrist to show me this...

off to the hospital we were.  She was screaming so hard, I had to turn to her and tell her she had to calm down or I couldn't stay calm.  After I said that, she was so brave and good.  She hardly let out a sound after that.  We got to the ER and they had a long wait, but once they saw her condition, they hurried us back.  We were so grateful.  I couldn't even look at her arm, it was giving me the queasies! 

Wavy bones are no good.  

She had fantastic care in the ER.  They sedated her and re-set the bones.  It's a disturbing sight to have your kid laying there with their eyes open but completely out of it.  The doctor just readjusted the bones right back into place and I waited for the drugs to pass through her system.  She was hilarious when she woke up.  She kept asking me if she was asleep and if she sounded weird.  She was asking me if they cut her open, if I could see her bone, to scratch her nose.  She started having some gas and we both giggled.  She then told me, "Good thing the doctors weren't here-they'd say 'Katelee McArthur what are you doing?'  And Miss Okelberry would say 'everybody makes those-it's part of nature."  All of this was cracking me up and I could actually laugh because she wasn't in as much pain, her bone was set, she was cleaned up, etc.  My favorite post-sedation antic was when the blood pressure cuff would beep as it measured, each beep it made would be followed by Katelee singing out operatically "Ahh.Ahh"  It was great.  

So, for 3 weeks, Katelee had a full cast

then, 3 weeks later, she was moved to a case just below her elbow.  It proved to be the worst cast ever and we ended up duct taping it together by the end.  We are so glad the casts are off!!  Her road rash healed well too, we will see if any of it scars.  

 We are consumed by the doings of our kids, which is just what we want to be doing at this time of our lives, but we still have a few minutes to focus on us.  We celebrated the big 15 year anniversary in May!!  We went to a playoff game for the Jazz (Dave's choice).

 Then, another night, we had a romantic delicious dinner and went to Cinderella (my choice).

 It's fun to have different likes/interests but great to know that we will always be each other's choice!

Lucky 'n Love

The last time I updated, it was the day before Valentines-the official day of love.  We have had lots of love going around here since then, with a sprinkle of luck, or at least our lucky little lady.

Valentines Day was celebrated with our annual 'fancy dinner/dancing date.' 

The love talk must have made an impression (and correlation) with the three year old because he frequently tells me, "Mom, I love you.  We should dance together."  So, we bust out some slow dances all the time, even as he is in his birthday suit in standing in the bath.  But, when you feel the love, you've got to show it!

Plus, I take the affectionate declarations when I can get them, because as the oldest has the teens on the horizon, those declarations have dwindled significantly...and are even sometimes replaced with looks of disgust and or humiliation.  But, he won't get out of dancing with his female family members easily.  Can't wait till we force it on him next year! 

Later in February, Katelee was lucky enough to accompany Dave on a work trip to Atlanta.  He had a convention and she got to spend a day with Aunt Anna.  

 They shopped and had a mani/pedi, went to eat together and met up with Dave later.  She was completely spoiled as she stayed at the Ritz Carlton with her pop and got some one on one time at the Coca Cola Factory.  She had lots of fun, of course!

 Katelee got to miss one day of school, which she was pretty stoked about, but she was back in time to go to Matilda with us.  

It was so great...and really hard to not sing a long!

Katelee loves rounding out the birthday season at the beginning of the year (poor Harrison, he doesn't get why it's not his turn for a day, yet. Curse the August birthday!) She has been planning her friend party ever since she discovered that the movie Beauty and the Beast was being released on her very birthday!  

We invited a lot of friends and went to the theatre to see it on St Patrick's Day.  

We all loved the movie! There is Amelia, Breanna, Capri, Nicole, Pyper, Hailey, Katelee, Brylee, Emily and Peyton.   We came back for donuts and presents and then each girl was sent home with a rose.  It wasn't an enchanted rose, my magic had all run out, but I'd still say it was pretty awesome.  

We had to run to play practice and then we came home for Katelee's birthday dinner (chicken tacos this year) with Shannon and grandma.  Dinner was followed by cake and ice cream

and presents.  I can't get the pictures to load, but we had a happy little tweener as she was decked out in a new hat, scarf and toting her new luggage set around.  Katelee is such a great girl and we are so happy to have her in our family.  Katelee is a stellar student and is really smart, she shares a lot of what she learns, like when it was a particularly cloudy day, she exclaimed, "Oh my, there is a lot of stratus today." She is very sharp and thoughtful-we love her!

It was an especially busy St Patrick's day because we had all of the birthday girl festivities and we had to pack up for an early morning flight the next day to head to Napa, California for Brian's wedding.  

We were so excited to be a part of Brooke and Brian's special day.  Katelee and Brenna were beautiful little flower girls (along with Karlie and another girl on Brooke's side) 

We had a lovely dinner to celebrate the happy couple 

The dinner may have been a little less elegant than it could have been considering the knife fights that kept breaking out...

But, at least the guests were happy.  After dinner, it was time to party and party we did.  

The family rocked the dance floor like nothing you've seen before.  Brenna leaped across the room, probably knocking out a few wedding party guests and Katelee's face was so red from her dancing moves, we had to keep sending her outside to air out.  It may be the last time we are invited to a reception, but it was memorable! Ha! 

It gave us an opportunity to celebrate love,

 enjoy the beautiful Napa Valley, 

get away and have fun.  Mostly, we were thrilled for Brian and Brooke and loved getting to make memories with our McArthur family that we don't get to spend enough time with!

No matter the years and distance, it's great to be family.  

On my side of the family, grandma had surgery and the kids took cards when we visited her in the hospital.  Harrison, opted to take his doctor's bag instead.  Other cards were taken to her on her birthday and Brenna's read something like this, "Happy Birthday!  So glad you are 72.  You are really old.  I bet you love old numbers."  Isn't it great to know that family has to love you just because you're relations?!

Now on to April, which means dance and dance competitions, Easter, spring break, soccer for two, play practice, scouts, activity days, field trips, school, and the fun that happens around the house.  A couple of our house mates have become obsessed with the movie Moana.  One in particular believes he needs to be Maui everyday.  Maui has a hook and now this little 3 year old has taken it as his job to make a lot of hooks, because you always need one wherever you go.  I mean who knows when you will need to fight or change into a magical creature.  The unfortunate side effect of this, is that we have few hangers in our house that serve their function now...

Every hanger he gets his hands on, Harrison snaps the top off and makes it a hook.  FYI, the bottom part gets pokey and hurts a bit when scraped upon your skin.  

It's not the only wierd thing that happens when you play with a three year old, sometimes you find him potty training a blob of plah doh (because that is his baby).  At least he looks dashing in his sweater with a tie that he wore to church.  Harrison was being dropped off to primary, the children's class when he turned to me, held my face and said, "I don't want anyone to tell me to be quiet today!"  Guess we know how well church is going for him!  His teacher says he told her "get me to the fun stuff." If he thinks potty training is going to be more enjoyable that church, he has a rude awakening coming to him someday!

I love having conversations with any 3-4 year old, this cute red head in particular.  He is quite the singer as we drive around chaperoning the older siblings.  He knows lots of songs on the radio, which is unfortunate.  At his age, Grant only knew Disney or children's songs I feel like.  So, when a song comes on that I feel is inappropriate and want to change it, Harrison yells at me.  When I explain to him the words are not good, sometimes he concedes and says, "OH, its a garbage man word."  But, sometimes, we argue about it.  I tell him the song has bad words and he finally relents and lets out a huge sigh, "Hmph, if you say so."  This is typically accompanied by sighs and an eye roll.  Really, 3 year old?  I think enjoying our family and home and life has a lot to do with love and probably a little bit of luck sprinkled in.  Glad we got to have both the last couple of months!

I am Party Pooped!

We have made it through our party weeks and while having a super time, this momma is worn out!  My birthday was the end of January and then Grant had his big day just a week and a half later.  He has finally turned 12!!  Grant has been looking forward to this age for a long time and the biggest reason is because he received the Aaronic Priesthood and became a deacon.  

He is a good hearted son, the best you can have and he has such bright future!  Grandpa and Grandma McArthur were in town for the ordination,

so, they were able to join us as well as the Petrick grandparents for his special step in the Lord's path.  We are so proud of this young man.  

I can't believe my little redheaded baby with the thick luscious lips is now a young man...especially when he gets crazy with some of his peeps:

We took a few of his buddies to Leatherbys to celebrate the birthday boy.  They were sufficiently embarrassed (and embarrassing) when the employees came to sing to him.  We sat nearby, but had enough trouble on our hands at our table!

Grant's actual birthday was on Super Bowl Sunday, so he opted to postpone his family birthday dinner because "people (dad) would be paying too much attention to the game and not his birthday!" Ha!  Well, at least he told it like it is. We had a few families over to watch the game, the commercials and pig out.  It was SUPER bowl fun!

The next day we made Grant his meal choice of Zuppa Toscana and twisty breadsticks before he dove into the 'tower of donuts.'

It was a weekend of Grant and we wouln't have it any other way!!

As soon as Grant's birthday is over, Brenna knows her special day is nearly hear.  Thank heavens!!  Grant had a campout on her birthday, so we had her friend 'game night' party while he was gone.  

The little ladies played partner Tenzi, crush the ice cream cones, musical game boards, uno and Picwits.  They giggled and danced

and had a blast.  It was a party where I was actually wishing we had more time.  The gals were so fun!  We had: Katelee, Emree, Megan, Jane, Brenna, Keira, Kate, Evelyn, Audrey, Averie, Lilly, Teva, Kinley, Madison and Tzipporah.  With that many friends, I was prepared for chaos, but we were pleasantly surprised!

Brenna is lucky to have lots of good girls to play with.  The other day I heard her and her friend Kate playing 'doctors office' with their stuffed animals.  Too bad for those patients, because I heard Brenna evaluate each one and declare,"I'm sorry, but this one has to be executed."  Next, patient, "oh  dear, I'm sorry Kate, she will have to be executed too."  Sometimes it's a wonder these people are not scared of her! 

For Brenna's family dinner, we made her drumsticks and peas and apples before we dug into her cake.  

I'm not even going to say what kind of cake this was.  Dave couldn't tell (how rude!)  so I'm going to leave it for posterity to guess.  Just think, she had a game night themed party the night before.  ha!  

Brenna had been asking for a bike all week and a day before her birthday told us that we were rude we hadn't got her one.  I asked her how she knew what we got her for her birthday when it hadn't been her birthday yet.  She was sure she wasn't getting a bike because she hadn't found it anywhere.  We let her open her presents (a straw and a little shopkin lego, along with a toy from grandma and Shannon).  There was no crying or complaining, so we decided we would bring out the last gift.  She looked like this when she saw it:

 The bike was a hit!!  We sure love this precocious 7 year old!! She is a great blend of spunky and sweet!  You can't help but be a Brenna fan!

 The other two kiddos have just been playing along and enjoying the festivities.  Katelee had one wicked blood blister from a wart removal...bleh.  As Harrison would wisely exclaim, "That's disguftsting."

 Harrison (and the girls) helped Grant as he worked on a school spanish project cooking authentic foods form Columbia.  Each semester he has had the chance to do some real world assignments.  This past semester one of the countries he was studying was Columbia.  Lucky for us, Janeth Castaneda is Colombian, so she and Adan came over for dinner and had the kids frying taro and platanos

 and making arepas.  It was fun and delicious!  Harrison is a big fan of "Castaneda!"

Two birthdays down!  It has been fun and very busy.  I've asked for assistance a little bit here and there, mostly from my 3 year old side kick.  But, lately, when I ask him to help, he says, "You're a big girl to do it." How encouraging of him! Needless to say, he is not pursuing a party planning career!