3 Teenagers, Happy Birthday Malia!

April 12th marks a historic day in our lives, Three teenagers now reside on Pine Meadow Place.

Malia Ruth Hansen

You are one amazing young lady, little sweetie. You are so self motivated. You achieve everything you set your mind to, even when it is challenging, you are up to the task. Your first name is the Samoan form of Mary, which was your grandmother, Grandma Ellis' mother, Mary Elizabeth Shoell. She passed away when I was only 10 years old but what a legacy she has left behind. We then named you Ruth after Grandma Ellis because of her great accomplishments. You have lived up to all that was expected and then some. Both your great grandma and grandma would and are so proud.

For birthday girls in our house, they get the day off of chores and responsibilities. They get to pick the meals for the entire day and get to call the shots. Malia wanted Roast, potatoes, and carrots from the crock pot for dinner, bagels for breakfast and just pizza for lunch. In the past, I would snag Malia from school and take her out to a nearby restaurant but this year she wanted to stay at school and be with friends. Kind of a sad day to know my place in her life......Just kidding! I was a little sad to not be a part of the celebrating but I understand friends are important.

I planned to surprise Malia and pull her from bed early early and take her to breakfast but since great minds think a like Teesh had already planned that as well so once again I was left behind(do you see a pattern developing?)

Teesh and Sierra got Malia out of bed at 5:30 and took her to Denny's. I wanted to come but also thought it was important for just sister bonding time so  I slept in;)

Teesh was a slacker and did not get photos so imagine Malia straight from bed, no glasses or contacts, pajamas and no shoes. They had to make a quick U-turn to allow Malia the ability to at least see what she was eating. I am so thankful they did this together. Sometimes, this will be shocking, but my girls don't always get a long;)

After having her locker decorated by friends, once again no photos;( and having everyone that came into contact wish her well she came home. Her BFF, Avery, came over for a weekend filled with adventure and excitement.

They spent the evening playing Wii and relaxing giggling. Malia had ballet practice so Teesh took her and Avery to Sandy, Then they stopped at Walmart for a bed makeover. Malia has wanted to change her room for a year now so that is what she got as her gift.

Saturday was filled with soccer games, more ballet rehearsals and much more giggling.

Grandma Hansen surprised us on Sunday and came bearing gifts.

Grandma knows how much Malia loves elephants so she brought her a flower pot in the shape of an elephant. Notice the shirt Grandma is sporting as well, more on that later.

 

 Malia reading her card from our family and opening up the letter "M" charm for her bracelet.

 Birthday cake time. Someone get the fire extinguisher, the house is going to blow, look at all those candles. Malia wanted a white cake with raspberry flavored frosting. First time I have done that and it was a hit. 

I love this shot because she is thinking of a wish and I said it can't have anything to do with a certain boy, she smiles and says, "oh shoot." Then the picture was taken.
I loved

 Grandma loves to purchase those infomercial items. I am not sure where she found this idea but each flower has a grandchild's name on in. She is expecting her 30th granddaughter in July and that is exactly how many fit on a shirt. win win!

 Grandma also gave Malia a 2 dollar bill and not just any 2 dollar bill but one with a bunny. She said she has had it for years and decided that Malia and Troy would become the proud owners of the 2 dollar bunny bill.

Happy Birthday Malia. Grandma gave her socks, tissues, elephant bag,  elephant mug with teddy grahams in it, and a card telling her nice things. I hope your day was great and I look forward to celebrating many more with you my little sweet Malia mafreea. We are so thankful to have you in our family.
XOXOXOXOXOX

Spring Break

Spring Break was a little tricky this year. Having girls in different schools doesn't exactly line up for best case scenario for any fun getaways.  Corby had an opportunity to travel this week as well for some training. So Spring Break was home bound with no Dad.

Malia only got Monday off from school so while her older sisters stayed up late and hung out she was on regular school schedule. Poor poor Malia! Even the little ones had spring break from Preschool, which made it even harder.

Leticia participated in a sewing class our relief society organized and never quite finished her projects so she decided to spend her time sewing. Sierra hung out with friends and was connected with her phone even when she wound up grounded from Wednesday to Sunday. Sweet sweet Sierra!

Leticia sewed a night gown for each of the little girls and finished the pajamas she had started with sewing class. Way to go Teesh, finishing projects is always the best.

Like I said we did not go anywhere exotic, but it was a fun week to not be in regular routine.

 She sewed the bottoms and Bria wore them. Now that the top is complete, bottoms have not been located. I am so impressed with Leticia's ability to sew. Not something I know nor want to know more about but you go girl, Teesh!

I say to the girls pose for the camera and this is what I get from Ada. She is a character!

And here is another great face from the child. Bria follows directions perfectly and looks so cute with her hands on hips.

As part of Spring Break, I went through my closet. Over the years, I have kept samplings of the girls school work for future reference. Here are some of Sierra's art projects. She has a little talent from her 'ole Aunt Lara Lee I'm thinking.

I took pictures of her talent and then promptly discarded the original. I hope I don't regret that but my closet  overfloweth

Even though we didn't do much, it was a fun memorable week and I think we caught up on a lot of little nagging projects in our house.

Easter Morning

With 9AM church, it made for a rushed morning to squeeze everything in. I woke up at 6:30 to get the ham and potato dish prepared and ready to go into the oven while we were gone. Corby had his usual meetings so he was up and outta here. I figured if the little ones didn't wake up early enough the hunt could wait until after church. Then this is what I saw......

Two blurry eyed girls anxious to see what their baskets were full of. Can you say morning hair?

The cotton  candy is supposed to take the place of that messy fake grass but we learned the hard way with a humidifier on our furnace what that does to our precious cotton candy so we use our imagination that the cotton candy is covering the bottom of our baskets instead of being in it's container.

Ada showing off her beautiful new dress.

Bria beginning the search for the coveted eggs. Early bird gets the worm  this morning. You snooze you lose.

As you can plainly see. Sierra is not happy she missed out on the majority of the  hunt.

 

Gold mine Teesh!

Cute Ada found a few eggs hiding

  And sweet Bria too

Malia is filling that basket rather quickly

That sneaky bunny found some awesome places to hide her eggs

Off to church with our matching Easter dresses.

After church we hustled home to enjoy the traditional Easter meal(at least traditional at our house)

 

These rolls are my families favorite! I don't make them that often because they aren't healthy but holidays aren't about healthy so bring on the yummy rolls.
After dinner, Teesh shared the egg story about the resurrection with the family for FHE. The little girls loved it. Teesh did such a great job preparing. Kathleen stayed down to spend the day with us. 
At 3:15 I had to take Corby to the airport. The girls stayed home and played outside, the weather did not disappoint on this beautiful Sabbath day.
Even though it was a crazy weekend, it all turned out and we enjoyed celebrating Easter as a family. Hope your day was just as swell as ours. Cheers!

Stand Ye in Holy Places

Our ward was lucky enough to get tickets to the conference center for the broadcast this year. I even was hooked up with free parking passes, (only 700 blocks from our destination), but it was all good!

Growing up, it was a tradition to attend the broadcast then go out for pizza. I have tried to re-create this tradition but it just doesn't seem to happen. Each year there is something we have to get back for or someone wants to join us. So much for mother daughter bonding!

Kathleen came down to join in the fun. We all piled into the Yukon and headed  downtown. Sierra met us there since she was already downtown with her friend.

We were supposed to be in our seats at 5:30 sharp but to find a parking stall took way longer than I had scheduled and then the walk. Wow, the walk was amazingly long.

The long and the short of it we made it and actually got super great seats thanks to our young women leaders saving them for us.

We were all seated waiting for it to begin when in walks the prophet. Complete silence in seconds and we all stood to show our respect.

The talks were phenomenal. Teesh busily took notes while I basked in the spirit and silence. Silence these days is priceless. I seem to always have noise and chaos around me so silence felt great. Malia brought her good friend Avery and Sierra sat with her friend Morgan. The talks were awesome! The theme  "stand ye in holy places and be not moved". The leaders are truly inspired. I really hope my girls felt what I did. These days there is so much evil but in actualality there is so much good too. Stay close to the prophet little ones. Stand in Holy Places and be not moved.

We made the 700 block trek back to our yukon and went to the store to score the makings for ice cream sundaes.

What a great evening! Now on to Easter celebrations.

 

Leticia, Kathleen, Malia, and Avery

Easter Weekend

Why is it that every Easter weekend is so jam packed, oh maybe because every minute of my life is jam packed!
The weekend began on Thursday for this household. We squared away Malia and Sierra with friends, Sierra doesn't have Friday off from school so she stayed back to keep that 100% attendance in play and Malia didn't have ballet practice, first time in weeks, and wanted to spend time with friends. So Corby, myself, Teesh, and the little nuggets piled into Lila and headed North. We had a few stops along the way, but arrived at our destination by 7:30PM. We stayed with Brad and Teresa's family this go around since we had to be on USU campus bright and early 8AM. Corby stayed up chatting, but I put little ones to bed and hit the hay. I have been so tired lately.
Corby dropped Teesh and myself off on campus around 8 and we registered and settled in our seats. The announcer said," oh students you will be divided into groups according to your declared degree and parents you will stay here with me". I wasn't ready for that but the announcer reassured us that we have to cut the apron strings soon anyway, so why not give it a trial run. I don't know about this college thing, the closer it comes the more I think Teesh should stay home.
It was a l-o-n-g day, but oh so great. Teesh met friends and I sat and sat and it felt nice. I learned all about the resources at the university and listened to how much this experience is going to cost. Lucky us, did you know that Friday the State Committee was reviewing and passing a bill that will raise all state college tuition by 5%. Isn't that the best news ever. I agree, I was smiling from ear to ear. The other special moment of the day was of all the people I could sit by, I chose to sit by two ladies that both have children that scored 33's on their ACT's. Hello! that is pretty close to a perfect score. So, while I am complaining about the outrageous fees and tuition costs, they are sitting back saying, "Go ahead, raise tuition, we have a full ride" Some people's children get all the luck.;) The principle of "what is best will happen and we are strong enough to handle anything that crosses our path" applies here! It was a fantastic day and we even took a tour of where Teesh will call home on August 17th.  She will be staying in the dorms, San Juan. We are trying to switch her to Davis Hall though, they are just nicer and have a few more features that will help with the tight, small, cramped, quarters of good ole' dorm living. I only lived in a dorm in the MTC for 3 weeks which was more than enough time for me! Good luck Teesh it will be great, I promise.
Corby spent the day visiting with Teresa and then headed to his sister, Janalberries, to dye eggs. This is the second year in a row I have missed this tradition, but Corby filled me in on the juicy details so it was as if I was there.

 Bria and Ada thoroughly enjoying themselves.

 

Such a sweet little face.

Bria enjoying the cousins and photo shots!

 Bria, Brynlee, and Ada

 Bria, Brynlee, Ada, and Kale

These photos crack me up! Every picture Kale is doing something funky with his face and hands. Gotta love two year old's and this one in particular is extra lovable.

Corby picked Teesh and I up from campus around 3:30. Bria and Ada rode with Daddy to come get us strangers. As soon as I entered Lila, Bria blurts out that Ada's pull up flew out the window. What? Corby smiles and confirms that yes, that is a true statement. As we were almost to Janalee's pad, Corby sees the pull up in the gutter by the side of the road. He makes a u-turn and grabbed that baby up so slick and fast. The little girls thought it was hilarious and I thought it was so unnecessary but none the-less, our pull up was found and I might add had to be used on the drive home. When we arrived at  Janalee's we enjoyed some summer lounging on the grass, playing games, and eating some awesome grub. We had to cut the evening short for our long drive home and busy morning that lay ahead.


Before we left, we met the newest family members in the Hubbard household.

I know Janalee, this isn't the best of you, but look at little Ada Rae peering out from behind you. Oh and by the way, Janalee is like 6 months preggers in this photo. Would you have known that if I didn't point it out? Yea, I didn't think so. Some people and their tiny little bellies, Jealous!

Kale doesn't like the feel of the chicks feet so this is how he holds his friends.

Teesh you are such a beautiful girl. Way to be brave even though you really didn't want to hold that animal.

Saturday morning, Teesh had to be at the park at 7AM sharp to prepare for the Community Easter Hunt. We showed up at 9 and by 9:03 the hunt was completed. Teesh was in charge of the 0-4 year old's group, Bria went with the 5-8(My poor baby almost got trampled) I prepped my youngins for a successful hunt by giving this advice, "It is a dog-eat-dog world girls, take out your neighbor" Bria thought that phrase was so funny, she thought I was telling her to be a dog. I was proud of my advise. Corby just shook his head as he often does with my counsel.

It was so fun to run into friends from our neighborhood.

Here is Teesh all official in her Taylorsville shirt.

The Loot!

I then took off to begin my 11 mile run, while Teesh raced home to change her clothes and head to the stake baptism, where she plays the piano. She caught up running with me around mile 4. We ran and ran and got to 9 miles when I simply just ran out of time to finish the last two. I felt disappointed to quit but I had an obligation at 1o'clock. I accepted defeat and was only a few minutes late to my appointment.
I attended a class titled "Intro to Alternative Healing" I learned from experts about different ways to heal ourselves emotionally, physically, and spiritually. It is interesting because most attendees aren't my same faith, but we all believe in a higher power. I feel more comfortable with others who don't believe the same as me, kind of strange but I do. I feel like I get the opportunity to bear my testimony and share my beliefs often which I absolutely love.
The meeting ended at 4:15 and I was back on the road downtown to the conference center with Kathleen, Teesh, Malia, Avery and myself. Sierra met up with us there because she had been to a Baseball game with our neighbors. It was an incredible evening. The speakers were wonderful. They had a tiny little 12 year old give the opening prayer, now that takes guts. She did amazing. I love the message which was "Stand Ye in Holy Places, and be ye not moved" I hope my beautiful daughters were listening because wow, so many truths were shared. What a great opportunity to share with my girls. We bought some ice cream and different toppings to finish the evening off right.