Eden's Small Ensemble

The youth are doing a sacrament meeting program with music and talks.  Eden is part of a small group orchestra number that the kids in our ward put together for one of the musical pieces.  They have a bass, two cellos, a violin, a viola, and a harp.  It was super impressive what this group could do!

Despite the look on her face here, Eden was excited to perform with the group, and loved how their number turned out.  The congregation was really moved by all the beautiful music, and the messages the youth shared.  It was a beautiful and meaningful meeting.

Well done little musicians!  I sure love all these youth and their amazing bravery and talents!

 

Magnolia and Olive

These two really keep Erin and I on our toes!   They are so fun, and independent, and full of ideas!  They have been besties since they could barely talk, and they keep going strong!  They are fighters with all their siblings, and sassy with the world at large, but they never fight each other and have the cutest bond. It's always been these two vs. the world - and I love that for them.

These are the two that never complain of being bored.  They always have something creative they are coming up with, and they like to figure things out for themselves. This picture is a cute little fairy room they made with whatever materials they found in the craft room.

Sometimes they learn the hard way that being independent and not accepting any help can sometimes lead to less than desirable results.  This time they insisted on making cookies completely by themselves, and were horrified (but also completely entertained) when they tried the final result and realized they switched the salt and the sugar.  Two cups of salt in the cookies was a definitely fail!

They of course thought it was hilarious and then wanted to trick others into eating them.

I'm so grateful for all our Haslem family friends!

Spring School Pictures

 

Pinewood Derby!

April has been the craziest month with school projects, and medical travel, so why not add a Pinewood derby in there too?!  Once again, another real team effort to pull this one off and get Olive and Bentley's cars ready for the race.  All the primary activity night aged kids hold the race together and it's tons of fun to see all the different cars and the competition between the girls and the boys. And fortunately, the leaders have a lot of the tools needed to shape the cars. Well done Brad!  He did his best to make the kids descriptions come to be!

After Olive got hers cut out, when she looked at it, she saw a duck so she knew exactly how she wanted to paint it, and it turned out so adorable!  I love that her creative mind took her there. She was super happy with it, and named her car "Quick Quack."

Then after the shaping and painting, it was time for grandpa's workshop to put on the wheels and add some weights. Thank you grandpa!

Bentley rolled off of Olive's duck theme and made his a twist of her cute car, and named his "Death Duck."

Olive had so much fun and laughed and giggled watching "Quick Quack" race against her friends.  Bentley was a little frustrated at his car and it's less than perfect performance.  We have a couple families in our ward that are HARD CORE pinewood derby people - they win every year.  Bentley wants to beat them, but I'm just not sure he has the right team to help him make that happen. Sorry to let you down buddy.  You'll have to do more research on your own for next time. :)  He still had fun though.

Well done at the races kids, and kudos to the production team!

Eden's School Project

 Eden's at Tony Hillerman Middle School this year, so she doesn't have all the same projects the other kids do, but it was fun to see her present at her new school this year!  She had to talk to her class about different career options she is interested in.  So she taught them about interior design, and then she taught them about being a film composer.  As part of her presentation, she brought in her harp and played a song for her classmates.  They were completely mesmerized.  I loved watching their faces and their reactions as she played.  When she finished, they all clapped so loud and said the nicest compliments to her about how beautiful it was.  

Well done Eden!  You are amazing!

End of Season for Karly and the Mermaids

Today was the last game for Karly and the Mermaids! After 16 games, in both the fall and spring, the season has come to a close. Karly has done so well in her first soccer season.  She plays hard, scores lots of goals, plays great defense, and has a lot of fun with her teammates.  To make it all even better, she has two close friends on the team - Brielle Bogopane and Addie Vogelsang.  They all have such a fun time together. It's been so fun watching her learn the game.

She was beyond thrilled to get a trophy this year!

Despite all of that though, she isn't sure she wants to play soccer again.  She didn't really love the idea of getting coached and pushed to do more than she wanted to do, or to go to games or practices when she just felt like staying home for the day.  :)  We will see after some time passes.

Karly it was so fun to watch you play, learn and work hard this season!  Good teamwork Mermaids!

United Soccer Game with the Boys

 For Bentley's birthday, he got tickets to the NM United soccer game.  He invited his buddy Cayden along, and the four of us had such a fun night cheering for our soccer team!  We, of course, had to get matching swag.

Both of these boys are soccer players so it was so fun to watch them yell and scream and cheer.  We had an absolute blast.

They also made a huge mess with their funnel cakes! Yum!

Good game United!  Thanks for the fun night Bentley! These types of bday presents are always the best!