Family Home Evening

Every Monday night, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints set aside time together as a family, known as Family Home Evening (FHE).  Sometimes, this means in-depth discussion of doctrinal importance and family council but most often for us, it means a quick refresher or reminder of something we feel important--to get maximum impact in about 5 minutes.

Jonathan as Ammon, Charlotte as a servant and Abish, Hyrum as King Lamoni, Hannah as The Queen and a servant, Heather(not pictured) as narrator and Spencer (not pictured) as a lamb.

A couple weeks ago, Hannah was perusing the Friend and asked if we could preform a pageant for FHE.  It was about Ammon and King Lamoni (Alma 17:19-39, 18, 19) and their experience as Ammon enters Lamoni's court and is instrumental in converting him and his people to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  I have always loved this story and our family had a good time acting out the story.  I hope the kids leaned something about standing up for what is right and working hard for the truth.

Memorial Day Weekend

This was one of those times I am glad to live near my parents.  Memorial Day marks the beginning of the planting season in western NY and PA.  This year, was no different and the kids and I invited ourselves to the planting party. 

Resting with Grandpa.

I picked Hannah up at school on Friday afternoon and we headed north.  It was an uneventful drive, though no one slept.  We enjoyed Friday evening and Saturday just hanging out since the weather was too cold to plant a garden.  The kids enjoyed exploring grandma and Grandpa's yard though.  Hannah played dress-up that afternoon with my old dresses, many of which came home with us.  Sunday was church and just enjoying a quiet day together.  Monday, we were up and going.  By 8:30 am we had cleaned up inside and were on our way our to the garden.  My parents garden is large.  As a kid it was way too big, now I am so excited for all of the good stuff that will grow in it--probably because I will get to enjoy some of it.

Spencer enjoyed getting into whatever drawers he could.  This one had shoelaces in it.

Hannah modeling one of my old dresses and her new haircut.

Dad had some tilling to do before we could get planting so we went to work weeding the raspberry beds.  Then pretty systematically and efficiently we went to work planting corn and potatoes.  Dad could till a row while we planted of corn then we tromp through the dirt to the other side of the garden where we'd plant a row of potatoes and dad would till the area for the next row of corn.

The green bushes on the left-hand side are the raspberries we weeded.  This garden is really big.  I wish a picture could do it justice.

We took about three hours planting corn and potatoes then took a break for lunch.  We had a pizza picnic.  The weather was gorgeous.  It was nice enough to plant but not blistering hot.  Hannah and Jonathan were great helpers and didn't complain at all.  I was really impressed.  Charlotte tried to help but when we wouldn't let her she just wandered over to the sandbox and enjoyed digging.  I think she happy not having to compete with her brother and sister for shovels!

After lunch we planted squashes-several varieties, cucmbers, green beans, carrots, and onions.  We finished up our job by about 3:20.  We ate a snack of juicy watermelon and then after a candy hunt and a few good byes we were off down the road. 

This was their own little dirt patch since grandpa hadn't tilled here yet.  Spencer was on the outside looking in and not too happy about it.

It was a great day.  I love being outside and able to dig in the dirt.  It was a lovely day and I was so happy to be with my parents.  I really enjoy spending time with them and it was a great opportunity to teach my kids about the garden.  I hope they always love it.  We had a long drive home due to some road construction--6 miles in an hour, not a typical I-79 experience--but we were glad to get home to see Hyrum waiting with dinner on the table. 

The kids were walking along with grandpa, tilling while grandma checked out the blueberry bushes.

I don't remember making a big deal about Memorial Day as a kid.  It was the day we planted the garden.  As teenagers we would play in the band for a couple local parades, but I would often zone out during the important parts at the cemetery.  This year though I realized how grateful I am for those that have served and I am thankful for my grandpa and Hyrum's grandfathers that served our country.  We have had grandparents and great-grandparents serving in WWI, WWII, and during the Cold War.  Thank you to all those who risk their lives and sacrifice for all of us.  May God bless you with peace and strength in doing what is right.

Hannah and Jonathan enjoying the creek on my parent's property.

A little of this and a little of that

 We had a great holiday season.  We spent Thanksgiving in New York with the Grandma and Grandpa and then hurried home to move into our house the first week in December.  It was a little overwhelming but I buckled down and got things put away just in time to get our Christmas decorations up and welcome Ian and Grandma and Grandpa H here for Christmas.  

Hyrum's brother Ian visited for a few days and then kids loved playing with him.  They were constantly asking for him to chase them around the basement.  He is a good sport.  We hope he'll come and visit again.

Hannah and Ian washing cleaning the kitchen.  I really hope he comes back again.

Grandma and Grandpa helping Spencer open his Christmas Eve pajama present.

Ready for Santa

Christmas was lovely.  It was fun to host it at our house and have my parents here too.  Between my mom and I, we made over 13 different kind of cookies and treats.  Those were multiple dozens of them too.  Let's just say there was some major belt loosening going on after Christmas.  

We also visited the Carnegie Science Center over the holiday break.  I love going there and so do the kids.  We stopped in to see the Miniature Railroad they have set up.  It's pretty neat.  There are little people moving, there was one guy chopping wood and a child swinging in a tree.  It was neat.

The railroad display covers things of Pittsburgh as well as all four seasons. 

Hyrum also worked on his traditional year-end sewing project.  It was fun to see him put all the patches together from the past year.  He had a great time putting together the map.

The 2012 Wright Family Adventure Patch.

We celebrated a couple birthdays between Hyrum and I. 

After Christmas, things calmed down a bit.  We have lots of projects to keep us busy.  Hyrum spent his winter Saturdays working on electrical projects.  We are working on networking our house so there are network ports in each room, plugging things into a central hub in our basement for internet access.  This frees up the wireless for things we can't or it isn't practical to plug into the network.  He's also re-worked some of our electric wiring and is gearing up to put ceiling fans and lights in teh kids' bedrooms and our living room.  He is enjoying this opportunity to be handy and learn new things.  I think he really enjoys it because he gets to buy tools, especially the power ones!

I am trying to keep things normal around here while throwing in a few projects too.  A couple months ago now, our neighbors gave us two twin beds.  I decided to paint them purple and make the girls a butterfly garden bedroom.  It's going to be a slow project but I'm excited to see how it all turns out.  I'll post pictures once I'm done.  It may be a while though : )

I started cloth napkins a year ago and just finished those.  The kids love picking out the color.  We have double sided napkins with pink/green, blue, yellow, red/tan.  It's kind of fun to have cheerful napkins though slightly painful to see my kids wipe their faces on something it has taken me a year to sew.  Oh well, that is why I made them. 

Then there are just the random moments of life.  Those are shown below.

Spencer discovered the joy of hiding under a blanket.  He's happy until the exit disappears.

Hannah had a snow day so, she decided to make a moose puppet and as the saying might go, "if the older sister makes a moose puppet, the younger brother will want to make on too."  Then of course Charlotte couldn't be left out so Jonathan made her one too.

Since Thanksgiving Hannah has lost four teeth.  They have all finally come back in and now she says there is another one loose.

An after church picture.  Charlotte was getting mad at me : )

One Friday we needed a fun activity and the kids wanted to make a craft so, I pulled out the Friend to see if there was an Easter craft and I found these sheep.  Thankfully I had enough cotton balls so we made some Easter Sheep.  It was fun and they loved doing it. 

This is everyone supervising Hyrum's hole in the wall.  He was working on opening the wall to put in a network port.

We visited Grandma and Grandpa for Easter.  The kids had a great time with the customary candy hunt, making cookies and candies and coloring pictures.

Then it was a visit to the cousins.  As a bonus, Grandma from Texas was there too.  Hugs with everyone.

These are the Wright cousins, and there is one more on the way in the Fall for Nate and Margaret, another boy.

This was the silly picture.  Hannah is trying her typical pose.  The littler boys were just done taking pictures and the littlest ones were just hanging out, waiting to be released.

Spencer celebrated his first birthday.  I can't believe a year had gone by.  What a year we've had.

The weather has gotten so beautiful, most days.  This Friday night, I packed a picnic dinner we packed the car and as soon as Hyrum got home from work we headed to Blueberry park for dinner, some baseball throwing and playground time.  It was a great night.

Charlotte trying to play baseball.

My Spencer-man.

Things are going well.  We have more projects than we think we'll ever get done. This weekend we chopped down all our hedges out front and I get to work on prying out the roots this week.   I hope to make it look a little more inviting and happy outside our house.  We're hoping to get a real landscaping/hardscaping plan put together so it's not just our uneducated ideas.  I'm excited to get it all done.

Jonathan is playing t-ball and Hannah is going to take a gymnastics class this summer.  We're planning on staying pretty close to home with a few day trips thrown in there and a visit from Grandma and Rachel later this summer.  Hurray for life.

Austin

A couple weeks ago, Hyrum and I took a little trip.  We traveled back to Austin for five days.  Hyrum went on business and I went to play.  Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa H.  I went childless.  The weather was sunny albeit a little chilly with the wind but it was so nice to see sun and feel it's warmth on occasion. I unfortunately only took one picture the whole time and it was terrible, so there are no photos but I promise we were there. 

We left on Moday, February 25th and had an uneventful flight to Dallas.  However, shortly into our flight from Pittsburgh to Dallas, we found out we'd been grounded for our flight from Dallas to Austin.  We have made the drive so many times over the past six years we decided that driving the 3 1/2 hours to Austin was way better than sitting in the airport for 9 hours.   It ended up being a really good decision since they ended up cancelling the flight we'd been re-booked to anyway.  We were able to enjoy a great lunch with Hyrum's mom and then headed to Austin where we enjoyed dinner with good friends.

The week was pretty much spent shopping--such a different expereince without three or four kids in tow--, eating tasty food, sitting on Reianna's couch and just enjoying a break.  We did a lot of reminiscing and we are thankful to have seen so many good friends.  Friday we were homeward bound after a stop at the university.  Thankfully we didn't have any problems this time.  We found all well at home and we glad to be back in our own space.

 It was a great trip and in a lot of ways brought some closure to moving.  While there are a lot of things that haven't changed, they will soon and if nothing else, we've changed a little.  It was also good to reminisce and realize what a special place Austin will hold in our hearts as we remember great friends and great times for our family. 

The Broken Arm

I never thought this would be how we would experience a broken bone in our family.  I imagined it would Jonathan with lots of blood and gore.  Well it wasn't.  Hannah broke her arm Sunday night and here's the story.

Sunday night we were at some friends' house for dinner.  They live just down the street so we walked down in the rain and had a lovely dinner while their older children entertained ours for a while.  Pretty soon Hannah came up to ask if she could take her tights off.  I said, "no", simply because I didn't want her to get cold and I really didn't want to have to track down teh tights and out them back on when we left. 

Well pretty soon, I hear a strange cry and didn't think much of it.  Then Hannah came upstairs in the arms of our friend.  She was hysterical.  They had taken her tights off and in the process she fell and put her arm behind her to break her fall.  Note:  Always sit down when taking off tights, pants, anything like that.

 I didn't out much stock in the crying because Hannah can be quite dramatic.  I looked at her arm and there seemed to be an odd bump so I took her to Scott, our host and figured he'd tell us what to do seeing as he is a doctor.  He took a look and thought it was alright and just bruised.  He suggested having her sleep on it and then if she was still in pain to take her in.

Sunday we put her to bed with some tylenol and I told her there was nothing we would do until the morning and to try and get some sleep.  I went in once, at about 10 when she woke up in pain, but other than that I thought she slept fine. 

In the morning she claimed to be in a lot of pain still so, I found someone to take the little kids for an indefinite period of time and we headed to the Urgent Care clinic since I still didn't think it was broken and I didn't want to to sit in the ER for them to tell me that.  The doctor saw us and put on a splint to immobilize the arm.  Then she sent us home with a call in to a orthopedist saying that she didn't see a break in the x-ray but we should make sure.  So much for my trying to save time. 

The Urgent Care doctor called to say the radiologist had seen a break so we made sure to get an appointment with the orthopedist.  We couldn't get in until today after school so off to school she went with her splint and her sling.  We went to the doctor this afternoon and sure enough it was broken.  (The top of her radius for those anatomically minded individuals)  Her arm is also pretty swollen from fluid but it should heal nicely. 

She was a brave girl and was really excited to get a pink cast.  She'll have it for four weeks and then we'll have to work hard to strengthen her muscles and work our the stiffness.  For a while though, she gets to be the star with her cast.