Back to the Blog

I wish I didn't feel so overwhelmed by the beginning of my return to the blog. After all, this is the only scrapbook my kids will have. I HAVE to get in gear and keep up some of our family life happenings.

So, bit by bit the blog will get updated. Amazing details of events, milestones and our not so glamorous life are upcoming. Well, I think they are amazing...but if you read this you might find them amazing too.

Because I haven't posted since my kids were sent off to school in 2010, I need to first announce that they started school again in 2011. I took pictures, sent them off and enjoyed having all of them in school....even if the littlest one was only gone 1/2 day.

KELSON ---------> 7th grade

KARA---------> 4th grade

DEVRI---------> 9th grade

OWEN ----------> kindergarten

cant find his actual back to school photo???

And what was I doing while they were all at school? I was also going to school. I went back to school to get a bachelors in dental hygiene in May of 2010, and as you can see I have since graduated. YAY ME!

I wasn't sure if it was time for me to go back to school yet, but as it worked out I was going back - accepted to the program, able to get some financing, and luckily Dan was ready to be Mr. Mom so that it could happen.

It was a tough 20 months. I was not prepared for how difficult it would be and I did not prepare for the amount of stress I would feel as a wife and mother of 4. However, I did not look back but, when I look back now, I see that it was so quick and so worth it. Laraine Hartle BSDH, RDH.

Another post is in order to explain all the tasks and horrors of attending a high demand accelerated dental hygiene program. Whew

And what else happened over the past 18 months?:

(things I intend to blog about)

*Kara broke her arm (again)

*Devri made it onto the Timpanogos High School Soccer team AS A FRESHMAN :)

*Kelson began playing on the Rangers in a competitive league

*Owen learned how to ride a bike, read, play soccer, and is going to be the next Steven Covey (let's just say he's a planner)

*Kara was baptized

*Kelson turned 12 and is a Deacon

*Devri recently became eligible for a learner's driving permit

*We sold our house and moved

*Bought a camp trailer....so I won't fear the bears so much anymore

*Dan and I went on a cruise, our first one, to the Bahamas and it was COLD

*Christmas 2010 and 2011 were both successful, and 2011 was full of electronic gifting

*I began losing interest in crafting and creating.....and haven't gotten it back yet!

SCHOOL RUINED ME :(

*Visited Las Vegas and St. George twice since my 2010 post for soccer tournaments

*Devri grew taller than me

*More apprehensive than ever about not having a "little" boy in the house for much longer...my kids are all growing up so quickly.

If it takes another year to get all of this in here, I will get it done! Small bites, right?

Our Collage of Christmas

What a great Christmas! A good description of our Holiday Season would be "busy and fun with a sigh of relief that it's over". I realize Christmas has been over for a few weeks, but the January Blahs have not set in yet, and if they have we're to busy to notice. I thought I would have a lazy january day to sit and write all about our holiday events, but with school and work and kids activities-we've just move into other craziness as we've left the Christmas one's behind.

The joy of the season....we now have a Wii! If getting the best gift was the reason for the season, that part has been met. However, we tried to make it a point to celebrate, read about and focus on the Savior during the Holidays. I think we did okay and I feel good about giving myself a pat on the back for trying to pull the meaning of Christmas together.

On to the year of 2010. I say, "Bring it on"!

A sampling of our trip

We visited southern California for a week during the fall break. It was tons of fun!! Our hotel was fabulous (Sheraton Carlsbad if you ever get that way) and it was conveniently located right next to Lego Land! The kids loved it there, even our older ones. The best part was how it was all decked out for Halloween and lots of special events were taking place. We went to the beach, San Diego Zoo and Sea Life Aquarium as well. What a great week and I already miss the great weather. Owen calls it "Canyefornya"....and he can't wait to go back. Driving all together in the car was not my favorite part, but it turned out to be less of a pain than we had anticipated. Anyone know of any job openings there? I think I could live without the snow. I could however, live with the beach and palm trees, and cute little ocean side towns. :)

Mission Reunion !!

Dan with Presidente as he was getting ready to leave!
The group of missionaries who attended! Taking a break for a soda by the "bounce dragon" Owen and Kelson sliding and jumping! (why didn't we have these when we were little?)

Pres. Dewitt with the group

Kara and Owen in the dragon's mouth....after Owen finally warmed up to the idea

We were able to go to Dan's mission (Italy, Catania) reunion and see the Mission President (President Dewitt) the other night. It was a little nostalgic, sort of made me feel old and I don't really know how it made Dan feel? I know he liked revisiting the past and people from his mission. Time flies and before you know it everyone has kids, that are older than we feel possible and missions were 15 years ago or so. CRAZY! They had a dinner and for the kids there was a bounce house/obstacle dragon. The kids obviously loved that. The mission president was celebrating his 80th birthday and was only able to stay for a short time, but it was nice to see him mingling with everyone. I wondered what it must feel like for him to look back and see all the people he'd mentored and served with as missionaries. What a great responsibility! Well Done, and Ben'fatto !

Summer is getting away !

4th of July Fireworks and Parades.

Summer (school break, not the weather) came so quick, and now it's time to go to school again. I don't think I even took a break to look through some of the fun pictures we took. If I did, I certainly didn't blog about it. So sorry, to my future scrapbook, not my readers (because I know you are few) but I will make a quick attempt to square away a few of the undocumented summer activities for our family.

Uintah Mountains July 18th, 2009

Kind of a new tradition for summer, we have started spending Dan's Birthday in the Uintah's because he really likes to fish. It's something the whole family can do. Even though he spends most of his time tying poles and untangling for kids, it gives us a way to celebrate his birthday!!

There are many, many more crazy fun things we did, I just haven't sorted through all the pictures yet....especially the soccer tournaments! Whew, they were hot :)

To all the yet to be posted about fun times...wait patiently please I will get to you.

Celebrating Easter

Our Easter celebrations were pretty usual this year. The weather....cold again. I wished and hoped for warmth! It was chilly and rainy. So much for wishing. We started out with the ward egg hunt that only the two younger kids attended. It was pouring, but they didn't seem to mind. The amount of eggs was incredible (way to donate people), and the doughnuts and hot chocolate (in april) were a great finish

Later on Saturday afternoon, the neighbors put together a little egg hunt for all of the kids. It was Devri's last neighborhood egg hunt-bummer. We called it a "no sugar" egg hunt. The kids found things like balloons, money, and toys in their eggs. I really don't love all the easter/bunny/eggs/hunting stuff, but it really goes by quickly and even more so when it's RAINING AGAIN!

And finally on Sunday we wrapped up the holiday with a stinky boiled and dyed egg hunt which the Easter Bunny put together somehow. Good thing we counted how many we had before he hid them so we could make sure we found all of them....that could be Grotesque to find one later. The kids had a very modest amount of Easter goodies and toys in their baskets and we're thankfully very grateful for it all. :) Then off to church and to grandma's for her egg hunt. (see what I mean, it's a lot of the same old hunting) The kids loved every second of it. We had a BBQ, the weather was mild, and the kids found their last fill of sugary suprises. Somehow, it's the same thing every year, but the worth it if we remember the true meaning of Easter. I'll do better next year and I'll probably start a tradition that's more Christ-centered. We did manage to throw in a reminder here and there of what we were actually celebrating. Fun times and Im glad the eggs are all put away-WHEW!

Escape to the semi-warm weather!

Devri had a soccer tournament over Pres Day weekend. It was in St. George and the weather was extremely pleasant. Not the kind of weather I would prefer, but very mild compared to the dirty Utah County cold weather. Her team did really well, and in the end came in 3rd place for her division. Not bad at all. We had 4 soccer games and a day of free time. We played bball, soccer, and the playground at the elementary school near our hotel. It was lots of fun and the kids loved being outdoors and comfortable with just a shirt and occasionally a jacket. I needed the jacket or coat all the time, but that's because 75 degrees is considered warm to me. Owen kept the whole family laughing with his funny 3 year old comments. He's such a sport, constantly being the littlest brother dragged to all the older siblings events. One day, Owen, it will be your turn :)

Christmas Morning

Our morning was rather calm and slow on Christmas. This is unlike years in the past. The kids waited until 8:30 to come shoo us out of bed (they were awake well before that). We did our usual glass of orange juice and turned on the music as the kids waited semi-patiently on the stairs. Our gift opening didn't actually begin til about 9am and that was GREAT! We had a system of order this year for opening gifts too and this helped the opening last for at least a couple of hours. I really enjoyed it and I know they did too.

Just as the present opening had ended the kids appeared mostly satisfied without the biggest gift they'd asked for ! They probably wouldn't have said anything about not getting it, but we found that they were secretly anticipating maybe a "gift certificate" for it, perhaps, in their stockings? As he has done in other years, Santa saved the best for last and hid our ROCKBAND family gift! It has become very entertaining to play and to watch.

Good times were had by all. So far we've only taken back 4 gifts for malfunction or breakage. What is it now days, is everything made that cheap? Seems like it's worse every year!

All Hallows Eve

All dressed up Little Pirate Owen, Big Pirate Kelson, Velma Dinkley Devri, Cool Cat Kara

Halloween this year:

WARM, FUN, BUSY, TOO MUCH CANDY, GREAT COSTUMES, HAPPY KIDS!!

That is just a small list of words I would use to describe how it went and the

photos will tell the rest of the story!

click the pics to enlarge!!

Anniversary 13

Celebrating 13 Years. Oct 26th (yesterday) was our anniversary.I just want to recognize how grateful I am to be married and enjoying life with my husband. The celebration actually took place on Saturday, nothing big....dinner out and some Red Box movies. Simple as it was, it was great. The best part is being able to leave and tell the oldest child "Bye, thanks for tending, we'll be back". We really are grateful for where we are, what we've experienced together and how much we've grown individually and together in our lives as a couple. Spending time with each other is difficult with 4 kids and the demands of life-but I still love every second we get together. Thanks for the years, I love you Dan!

Time's going quick-Here's to the DADS

FATHER'S DAY! I know I am way off, at least a week and a day late, but I still want to recognize (in the blog world) the father's in my life. Growing up I didn't think about how much my dad did for me or how it would be to be married to the father of my children. I guess now I am able to appreciate all they do for us.
He looks so serious-He's really not.

I have a great Dad who has always been a super handy-man. Even now I wish he were here to fix up all the little mishaps that we have around the house. He had to raise 4 girls! Though without a boy, he got some of the toughest and sportiest girls there are. Lucky guy! Most of all he is a kind man with a soft heart. He is always full of nonsense words and jokes! Never a dull moment riding in a car on a long trip with him. He made up new lyrics to most nursery rhymes and entertained us the whole way. We learned camping and fishing and outdoor life with him.

I have a great husband and he is a great father to my children. It has been fun to see him enjoy the kids in all their different stages. He is so good to teach them to tease, and then I get to tell them to stop. But they like it! It's fun for them to wait for a big tickle or a joke from their dad. Dan is especially involved in helping them develop their talents in sports. It involves a lot of his time and I appreciate all the extra carpooling he's willing to do. We are so blessed to have a hard working and dedicated man in our home.

My father in law Dennis is a great man too. I have learned more "green thumb" tips from him than I could ever read in BHG. He has a love for growing all things green, and vegetably, and fruity. I guess he forgot to pass some of that down to my husband though....Dan doesn't get enthusiastic even when I try to grow a garden. That's okay, theres plenty of other good things they share in common. I need to thank him for all the time and teaching moments he has shared with my kids. They also love his creative Christmas handy work.

Easter 2008

Great weather, eggs, fun with family, and kids that got up too early to see what the Easter Bunny brought. That's an accurate description of our Easter this year. We had an enjoyable time and though we toned down heavily the whole "Bunny" and "Baskets" thing, the kids obviously think that is the best part of Easter. We talked about and reflected on the true meaning of Easter, and hopefully they will remember that...but I know it wasn't on their minds as much as I had hoped. We visited Grandma and Grandpa Fehr (that's where the pics are taken) for an egg hunt. The kids had a quick ward egg hunt (or EGG HONK if you ask Owen) on Saturday, but it was freezing and over in no time. We can only hope the weather shapes up soon so we really feel like spring is here.

A look back-JUNE 2005-memories I want to record.

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

Christmas 2007

Christmas was great! We just stayed home, but of course there was lots of Christmas partying beforehand. The kids were thrilled and didn't even get us up until 7:30. We are experiencing a special Christmas magic this year as we reflect on the images and memories of those who are less fortunate. Thanks to our recent trip to the D.R. we experienced a feeling of gratitude with our gift giving . Hope the newness of all the games and entertainment lasts for the kids. It won't wear off before they go back to school right?

Images of Christmas

Time in the Dominican

Just getting this whole blog thing up and running (trying to figure it out). Our family is a happy family of 6. Dan and Laraine, Devri (10) Kelson (8) Kara (5) and Owen (2). There are plenty of stories and exciting moments....but the most recent and exciting part of our life was a trip we took to The Dominican Republic. There will be more to come, but for now we are just learning.