the rest of February 2016

This month we had a music recital for Mattie and Pierce.We have friends who teach their kids music also and got together with us so the kids can get a little experience performing. Pierce did a great job - he played a Nocturne by Chopin:

And he played a version of "Stars" from Les Miserables that he's been working on for months and months. (He actually worked on it so much that he got himself twisted around a little, a horrible irony that someones comes from lots of practice, but you can see that he recovers well here.) He was much relieved when this was over and I think he did a wonderful job.

 This was really Mattie's first foray back into the world of playing the violin since her surgery. She did a great job! She says it feels weird but she can do it.

Another really exciting thing that happened this month is that Matt sold an art piece! He actually traded it with a lady he found who had a kiln she wanted to sell for $300, but he feels the kiln (and his art) are worth more. He had to drive to the other side of the mountain to deliver his metal lady, dig a hole and heave around a big rock etc., but came home happy and pleased.

It's a little hard to see the depth in this because he has two layers of the rings, but we tried to do a quick job of photographing it here:









This is a library by Zoe's school - we love the metal art sculpture and took a picture to show Matt. What a great idea at a library.


Here is a pipe necklace that Zoe made that needed to be immortalized. Also you can see that Zoe got glasses this month. Finally! She's been waiting forEVER to get glasses, and she loves them.


And here are her cute fingers and toes, fancied up at her friend Bella's spa birthday party. So fun! I feel like half of the pictures on my phone are of her fingernails or hair, a quick picture taken before they get messed up.

Zoe's Magic Shell inquiry

This month Zoe needed to whip out a quick Inquiry project for school. (That's a joke - inquiry projects are never quick.) She decided that she was interested in how Magic Shell separates, so we put some in a test tube and waited to see how long it would take. The first test tube is regular store-bought Magic Shell, the second tube is some homemade Magic Shell (very easy to make by the way), and the third tube is some store-bought Magic Shell that we'd had in the cupboard for awhile that had crushed pretzels in it (and was impossible to pour basically from day 1.)

In the first picture here we had waited more than a day, and the only Magic Shell that had separated at all was the one on the left, and only 2mm. Zoe had been taking pictures every 10 minutes for hours... hoping that something would happen, but even after waiting overnight we felt like these results were just not enough.


We had to be writing up her results almost immediately, so we did a little bit of panicking and decided to see how else we could get Magic Shell to separate. Here is a homemade centrifuge that we'd had high hopes for.


Matt hooked up a contraption with a drill to help her spin it really fast. But - not fast enough - it just mixed the Magic Shell and didn't separate it at all.


Next we tried heat. The blow dryer was not enough to do much, plus it was going to take a million years to do anything, so we put it in the oven at 200 degrees.




And it worked! Hooray! Store-bought Magic shell easily separated after hours in the oven, and the homemade sort expanded and separated in a different way and also overflowed so we couldn't measure it. But - enough success to write up. Whew.


Meanwhile, Mattie attended her Winter Ball dance for school. She went with a group of friends and had a great time. Doesn't she look pretty?

Las Vegas tournament - the aftermath

I would reallllllllly like to use this format to keep up with what we've done over the month. Maybe this month will be the start of a great record.

Matt took Pierce and Zoe on a road trip to Las Vegas, NV, where Pierce had a soccer tournament. They had a great time (maybe I can get the pictures Matt took off his phone). But sadly, Zoe left her special blanket in the hotel room in Vegas, and even though it was OBVIOUSLY special, the housekeeping service must have thrown it away because even though I called several times, they never "found" it. (We suspect it did not look like something that someone would purposely save.)

Anyway, one thing that has helped a very sad Zoe is to get some new fabric to make another Baby Bay-bay. It's not as good, and of course there's no finding that fabric again, but I let her choose fabric at the store and we made a little blanket for her to snuggle. She did really enjoy the process of choosing fabric.

Zoe's reasons for American Independence

Zoe's class is working on social studies this year, and they have had two projects. The first time, they could choose between making a brochure about American colonization, or making a video. She wisely chose to make a brochure. For the second project she got to do that video after all. So here she is, singing a song that we wrote about why the Americans need to declare independence from the British.

New Year's Tree - accomplishments from 2015

This year we all wrote down our favorite accomplishments that each person had made throughout the year. We even wrote one for ourselves.

Zoe (from Zoe): made a cute bird dino
Zoe (from Zoe): finished math test
Zoe (from Pierce): started reading harder books
Zoe (from Pierce): got tickled
Zoe (from Mattie): improving so much on Sophies
Zoe (from Mom): made her parents and teacher so proud at her most recent parent teacher conference with her amazing growth and improvement
Zoe (from Mom): went right back to enjoying playing soccer after recovering from a broken collarbone
Zoe (from Matt): for filling our home with color the entire year
Zoe (from Matt): for living her covenant of baptism for almost a year, and for guiding her family as well as herself using her gift of the Holy Ghost
Zoe (from Matt): for changing from a student who gets her work done when asked to a student who owns her own education and learns for learning's sake

Pierce (from Zoe): Made an awesome lego structure for pics
Pierce (from Pierce): started deacon's quorum
Pierce (from Pierce): learned clay work
Pierce (from Mattie): Gael's class art
Pierce (from Mom): won the essay contest _____ times
Pierce (from Mom): was worthy to receive the priesthood
Pierce (from Dad): for being patient and humble during countless opportunities for retaliation as being the only brother in the home
Pierce (from Dad): for becoming confident on the soccer field, to striving to be Christlike even during competition
Pierce (from Dad): changing to become a leader in his class - impacting those who are following his example

Mattie (from Zoe): started high school
Mattie (from Zoe): Whel Zoe is hurt, she helps me feal better
Mattie (from Zoe): back surgery, DONE!
Mattie (from Mattie): surviving back surgery
Mattie (from Mattie): starting high school (and getting through family school)
Mattie (from Mom): watched over young Beehive girls very kindly
Mattie (from Mom): attended 5:30am seminary faithfully
Mattie (from Mom): has teachers who trust her and believe in her
Mattie (from Matt): completing back surgery - all the bravery, gumption and hard work it takes to progress from flat on her back to herself again (almost)
Mattie (from Matt): for learning how to control her emotions when appropriate and using reason even in difficult circumstances
Mattie (from Matt): for transitioning to high school and becoming a new example of Christ to a whole new group of people. Also for amazing all of her teachers in a whole new school.
Mattie (from Matt): for hosting a beautiful violin concert that filled our home with uplifting music during and before her performance

Mom (from Pierce): started chemistry
Mom (from Mattie): doing so much to help me through surgery (Dad too)
Mom (from Pam): played the organ 2 times without an embarrassing mistake
Mom (from Pam): finished with relief society calling
Mom (from Matt): for setting the example for all of her family on becoming smart, wise, kind and Christlike. Our own lighthouse.

Dad (from Zoe): turned 29M
Dad (from Pierce): learned to 3d print
Dad (from Mattie): made the kitchen table
Dad (from Pam): innovated an amazing new kitchen table style
Dad (from Pam): pursued his talent in creating metal art
Matt (from Matt): for spending wisely on projects and tools

Zoe's baptism

It's hard for me to reconcile myself to the fact that my kids are all growing up so fast! My little Zoe turned 8 years old and was so very excited to be baptized. We learned about baptism at family night, we read some scriptures, we discussed the covenant she would be making, and she prayed about it. Then she was sure that she wanted to be baptized. Actually she was sure before all of that, but I was happy that she still felt the same way after some preparation. Mattie, Zoe and I went to the temple a few days before her baptism and took some pictures in her baptism dress.





This time she brought along her OWN new scriptures (the previous pictures we'd taken were using Mattie's scriptures, not hers, because she got her own for her birthday) and that made it even more special.












It was a special thing to do pictures at the temple. She especially wanted one by the door here. We talked about temples for the rest of the day and she is sooooooo excited for the open house for the Fort Collins temple! Unfortunately I think it will be late next year, so we will have to wait awhile.


Zoe's actual baptism was on February 17th - she had to wait almost a month after her birthday for our ward's baptism day. Here she is before we left the house.


So excited and happy. Also baptized at the same time were her friends Bella and Matthew, which was pretty neat also. Zoe and Bella have been friends since preschool, and we really like Matthew and his family also.


I'm so grateful that Matt is a faithful priesthood holder and can baptize his children.


We were also very grateful that Mom and Dad could come and visit us for the big occasion! We had a fabulous visit with them. It was warm and beautiful one day, then it got cold (for the baptism, can you tell that they are shivering here?) and we were afraid they might have to stay an extra day because it was really snowing in Denver, but their flight got them home just fine (dang it).




It was also really nice that both Mattie and Pierce gave talks on Sunday while they were here - Mattie did a great job in sacrament meeting, and Pierce gave what might be his last talk in Primary. (I fear for when he has to speak in sacrament meeting... I don't know if he'll be able to do it... but he did a great job on this talk!)

Congratulations to Zoe - she is an official member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! We love you Zoe!

Zoe's baptism dress

I can't believe that Zoe is about to turn 8 years old this week! Her birthday is on Friday, and she could not be more excited. There are so many wonderful aspects to her birthday - she gets to bring treats to school, she gets to choose her own cake for her true birthday, and then another cake for her birthday party, because it's on the next week - actually on Matt's birthday, so they are "sharing their pool party". Matt says that his friends are going to stomp Zoe's friends in a game of water polo. She is allowed to get her ears pierced (amidst many many questions about how much it might or might not hurt). The most exciting part is that Zoe wants to be baptized, since she is turning 8 years old. Her baptism date is 2/21/15.

Zoe and I had big plans to go to the temple and take some pictures in her baptism dress. That didn't work out (because she was throwing a gigantic temper tantrum and we ran out of daylight, but never mind the little details) but we were able to take these beautiful pictures of her reading the scriptures. She was absolutely darling and beautiful.








This one is my favorite, though I love them all. She has a hard time keeping a straight face but this expression is perfect.




We all love our Zoe so much! And I'm so proud of her for choosing to be baptized next month.