Easter and Conference with This Big Family!

Our first Easter and first General Conference in the new house!

As well as our first time all being here in a somewhat settled (rather than "in the thick of moving") state!

There was a late-night movie (Project Hail Mary). And the older kids took all the younger kids to play pickleball. There were games. An Easter egg hunt. Old Pleasant View ward friends over for dinner. Easter dinner with cousins. And a lot of lounging about listening to conference.

I love how light everything is in the new house! (I also recognize that it looks perhaps a bit too starkly white with nary a thing to be seen on the walls. But it's tricky. I tend to want everything to have some sort of meaning for us--like the Lochinvar photos, the pea-vine knobs, and my dad's back sketch, but it feels a bit daunting to first find or think up all these meaningful things, and then actually ... I don't know ... print or frame them and so on, and then also decide where to hang them! It's going to take me a minute!)

I hear plenty of arguments against having a big family. (Society, on the whole, seems mostly aghast at the very idea of numerous children.) With my later kids I experienced some of those feelings of hesitancy in announcing the news, and I fielded my share of the invariable tiresome comments. Obviously, I know firsthand the work and exhaustion of a big family. And my kids know the reality of not being able to participate in every extra-curricular activity or to have me available for every school function, etc.

On the other hand! 

This! 

This home full of people who love each other and laugh together!

I simply can't help but feel, overarching all of those arguments against a big family, something along the lines of, "Yes, but do any of you know what it means to have given our kids THIS????"

To me it seemed the most glorious thing in the world to grow up surrounded by a host of siblings who loved me and made life more entertaining. 

And it feels the most glorious thing in the world for my younger kids to have all these older siblings who they long to have around, and who they want to call or text with any bits of news, and who make a fuss over their slightest achievements, and take them places, and make their lives more fun. 

And it seems the most glorious thing in the world for my older kids to have all of these little people clambering about them and adoring them and creating a full and fun place for them to come home to.

I can't help it. I feel so grateful and kind of awed and even a bit proud of ourselves that we actually managed to create this large family!

Anyway! Enough of that. But I just felt it so much with all of them around on this Easter weekend. So many years, and so many pregnancies, and so many prayers and fears, so many completely sleepless nights with newborns and sick children, so much potty-training, so much teaching. It feels a miracle to see all ten of them here!

But. Moving on:

Kenya braids for the girls.

I did, perhaps, fall asleep a bit too often during conference. 

Weird that our family photos are starting to look full of more adults than kids!

Couches and Turtles and Such

Our March weather was ridiculously warm. We had a number of days where we were hitting 80 degrees. And then Spring Break arrived ... and it turned cold and drizzly. We even got snow. And of course, we need rain and snow. We are in a terrible drought. Still ... I might have preferred those unseasonably warm days to have hit when the kids were out of school and wanting adventure. 

As it was, we still managed a bit of out doorsyness. Zootah for example.

And! We finally have a couch for the reading nook! Mike found us a great deal on a super nice used one on ksl. I really ought to have waited 'til morning for a picture of it (the morning light is lovely in that room), but everyone was excited about it the minute Mike and the boys carried it in.

Starling could not stop crawl-leaping back and forth from one end to the other.

Outside view of the house.

The kids were up late every night of Spring Break. I found Hans in his room one afternoon like this:

Mike and I were driving to IFA for animal feed with some of the younger kids one evening when the car overheated. While he went in search of some water, Mette and I enjoyed our view of the temple.

The older kids all had adventures in March. Abe and Kenya went to Arches, Goldie and Wyatt went to Idaho Falls, and Daisy went with her whole cohort to St. George. (Though she failed to send me even the smallest proof by picture.)

The laundry room taking shape. It's all function and very little aesthetic, but it's wonderful!

My sister-in-law Debbie sent me housewarming wind chimes! What a perfect gift! I love Debbie so so much--perhaps mostly because she always makes me feel so special and loved.

Abe occasionally changes the name of our family group text. It always makes me laugh. Prior to "The Family Where Jesse Delays Artemis" (Jesse was super excited about the Artemis II launch, but I was super eager about the chore I'd tasked him with getting done that day) we were "The Family Where a Bird is in the Chimney" or something close to that. 

Look!!! In our pond! Where did it come from? How did it get there? 

My first theory: spontaneous generation. (Abe told me he thought they'd closed the books on that one, but I've always believed, mostly due to fruit flies, that perhaps they closed it prematurely.) 

Second theory: someone released their pet into our pond. (A rather boring theory, but possible.) 

Final theory: it escaped from Zootah and made it several miles to our pond in a Watership Down sort of adventure. 

Whatever the answer. I hope it is pregnant (or, I guess, has laid fertilized eggs???) because I want more turtle sightings!

Speaking of couches: we now have one for the main room! We had some of our carpet left over from the upstairs bound into a rug as well, so, slowly, the house is getting more inviting and cozier. 

The living room is perhaps a bit too brown at present (but a green couch is coming and eventually there will be throw pillows to add a bit more color, I imagine).

Summer working on our Easter tree:

The house all lit up at night. I wish our house would only ever be approached from the north at night!