Catching up...

Where do I begin... As you can tell, I haven't been able to blog in a while. People are finally starting to notice! I can blame it on how easy it is to update Facebook rather than my blog but really, I haven't been good at doing that either.  Relay just ate up all my time and energy to tell you the truth.  I used to feel this itching desire to do something.  I didn't even know what.  I would throw myself into each thing that came up.  Callings at church, entertaining at home, exercising, eating right, school work, taking care of the kids, anything; just looking for the one thing that I could really sink my teeth into.  Well, I found it with Relay.  In fact, I bit off more than I could chew and it chewed ME up and spit me out in the end.  After trying to pick up the pieces, I found my endless energy was gone.  Now I'm facing the facts; there's only so much I can handle and there will always be more to do. So here I am. I'm taking a short break from Relay until the next year starts up in August. But I'm still in school and trying to just balance keeping the girls entertained and my grades up.

But here is what the family has been up to the last few months!

Natalie celebrated her 9th birthday at the end of February.  She was so excited all her cousins from Cali made it out to do crafts at Michael's as well as her group of friends from school.  They had a blast decorating their own T-shirts.  Then all the family came over to our house for pizza and games.  Parties like this lasts ALL day for us.  I'm sure the Briggs stayed until at least midnight playing cards or Settlers. At the same time, Stephen was working on getting a big senior project done with his classmates.  They were constructing a play house during the party.  It was a fun and crazy day!

The next weekend, Karl and I took Kylie to meet up with my dad at the Discovery Museum.  I was so fun to take Kylie to all the exhibits that I remember loving as a kid.  She really liked the water and sand sections but there sure were a lot of kids there!

The next day we had two families over for dinner.  It was so fun!  Each family had three or more kids so it was a full house.  Lately, we have been having the missionaries over once or twice a month.  It's been great getting to know people in our ward.

Karl and I celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary on March 10th.  I did a surprise dinner (no big surprise there) with a fondue cheese and chocolate dessert.  Sadly things didn't go as I planned - in fact I must not have planned well because cutting up all those dipping goodies took way too long!  The worst part was when I tried to demonstrate how to skewer a piece of broccoli and ended up skewering my hand instead.  I was such a baby and almost passed out when I saw the blood being pumped out of the little punctures in my palm.  I had to sit down while the family finished up dinner.  Then Karl cleaned up for me.  Not how I pictured the night going at all! We went out the next night for dinner and a movie and followed it up with massages on the weekend - that made everything better.

The rest of the month found me at Relay meetings every other day and dinner parties every weekend.  For one of my classes, I started attending the city council meetings which were very interesting.  I was also asked to perform in sacrament meeting to accompany a flutist.  I was so nervous but really enjoyed the challenge of learning a new piece well enough to perform and realized how much I looked forward to practicing in the middle of all my other responsibilities.

Natalie decided to change from tennis to gymnastics and Kylie is starting to get back into the swing of things back in her original class.  She really loves jumping into the foam pit and crawling across the squishy blocks. Kylie is really changing and starting to communicate very well.  I decided to take down the railing on her crib and convert her bed into a toddler bed.  She loved it!

She is doing a front roll here in case you were wondering!

We ended the month on a high note by visiting the Briggs in Roseville for Lexi's baptism and then having them over at our house the next day. Everyone had a great time!