Father's Day 2015

It was relaxing, loving Father's Day at the Atwood home today.  My children are blessed to have a wonderful father.  I am so grateful for Jason's influence on our children.  He works so hard, and still finds time to teach and play with his kids.

The day started with Father's Day wishes and cards from the kids.

Bowen weaved his dad a bookmark.

Tonight we had a special dinner.  All of Jason's favorites.  Barbecue steak, roasted mini potatoes, roasted peppers, caesar salad and deviled eggs.  (Jason has been begging me for months to make him deviled eggs - so I finally made them today), with strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Patiently waiting for dinner.  She loves to eat.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!!

Music Recital

Friday night was my student's year end recital.  The preparation started quite awhile ago.  I've spent the last couple months working with each student to prepare their pieces.

I think this year was one of the best recitals I've had. The students were well prepared and they all did an awesome job.  I had several piano students who played a couple of pieces each, quite a few solo vocalists, and one group number and three guitar students who performed.

Ashton did a great job with his piano piece, and Bowen sang "Everybody Wants to be a Cat".  I was sure proud of them.

I had a captive audience so I decided to perform a number as well and sang and played "Sooner or Later".  I hadn't performed it for a long time and it was fun to sing it again.

After everyone performed we took a group picture before I served refreshments.

I served homemade buns with ham, roast beef, cheese, pickles and all the fixings.  Then on the dessert table I had fruit platters with coconut dip.  As well as homemade chocolates, toffees, and mini lemon cupcakes.  It was lots of work, but I enjoy feeding everyone and having the time to mingle and talk with students families.

So grateful for my mom who came up early and helped me cut up everything and then put all the food on platters, and kept the tables stocked with food.  I also couldn't put on these recitals without my family - my husband is so supportive and helps where ever I need him.  The boys helped by setting up chairs and the food tables, and especially helped by watching Cadence.

It was such a great night!  Now for a bit of a break before I'm back at it in September.

Sunday Afternoon

This is what I found when I returned from choir this afternoon.

Sunday afternoon naps with daddy are the best!

MPS Award

Today at Ashton's school they held an awards ceremony.  A couple of weeks ago I received a call from Ashton's teacher letting us know that he would be receiving an award and to keep it a surprise.

We sent Ashton off on the bus this morning, and then quickly got ready and went off to the school.
The assembly we attended was for grades 5, 6 & 7.

He received an "Outstanding Commitment in Science" award.  He was excited and surprised.  He went up with recipients from other classes to receive his award and was standing with everyone to get their picture taken and was thinking that he wished mom and dad were here and then noticed his dad taking a picture of him.

After school we took everyone out for dinner to celebrate.  Ashton got to select the restaurant, he picked the Cheesecake Cafe (his favorite).  Ashton got a cheesequake for dessert.  He is always determined that "this" time he'll be able to finish it in one sitting.  I think the tally is now Cheesequake 6 / Ashton 0.

We are very proud of him.

14 Months Old

Cadence turned 14 months old yesterday.  The months continue to just fly by.  She is the age where she is into everything.  She grabs anything she can reach and deposits it in random places all over the house.  She got into Kenny's memory box today and destroyed the dried rose I had kept from his casket flower spray.  I had a little cry.  I should have known she was up to something when she was so quiet.  She can get up on the couch but doesn't understand she can fall off and get hurt.  She is definitely keeping me on my toes.  She loves to steal the remote controls or any of her brothers gadgets.  Despite the fact that she is a complete menace, we love her to pieces and are so grateful we have her.


Age - 14 months (June 7th, 2015)
Weight - 22.5 lbs
Wears 12 - 18 month clothes
Shoe size - 4
Finally has a second little tooth, on the bottom next to the one she already had.
Continues to get more and more wavy dark hair.
Eats everything.
Can use a straw (but tends to dribble quite a bit)
Sleeps through the night.
(Had to do some supernanny techniques a week ago, she had gotten into a bad habit of waking up and wanting mommy to get up too a few times a night.  Now occasionally I only need to lay her back down once or twice and she goes back to sleep.  No more getting her out of bed.)
Dances all the time.  So cute.  (I will try and get it on video)
Loves her soother, but can go to sleep without it.
Can climb up on furniture.
No more bottles for over a month now, just sippy cups.

Snack time

The most kissable cheeks!!

Such a beautiful little girl inside and out!!

Various Going Ons

It has been so long since I've updated my blog.  Nothing lately has seemed particularly blog worthy. Or at least I didn't have any pictures to share.

I've been busy with the last few weeks of music lessons.  Trying to get my students ready for the year-end recital.  I've also babysat Dane and Bennett quite a bit.  They are such good boys and really aren't any trouble, but it does add to the busyness of the household.  Last week I taught the relief society lesson at church (which I do once a month), and of course there is always choir music to be practicing.  I'm also loving my bookclub!  It feels so good to be reading on a consistent basis and the discussions (and food!!) have been so fun.  Oh, and housework.  There hasn't been a whole lot of time for that lately - I'm feeling a bit behind.

Ashton has been busy with school.  It has been a bit of an adjustment going to a new school this year, but he is doing really well and is enjoying Mountain Park.  We attended his final band concert of the year this past week.  I was impressed how much the Grade 5's had improved in a few months.   He plays the trombone and is doing really well and will continue with the trombone again next year in band.  After Ashton turned 11 in March he started scouts at church, since he is the only 11 year old boy he goes in with the 12/13 year old young men.  He is enjoying the activities and I'm grateful for the good influences of these young men.

Bowen is also busy at school.  The month of June is always so hard to stay motivated.  His new passion is pokemon cards.  He has some very generous friends who have given him their duplicates and he has quite the stack of cards going.  Cubs has wrapped up for the year, but not before they had a soap box derby, and a night of laser quest.  He's had a great year of cubs and I'm appreciative of dedicated cub leaders.  Most days after school Bowen plays with a friend who lives a few doors down, jumping on the trampoline and riding bikes.  I love that both my boys have friends right on our street.  Both boys are really helpful to me watching their little sister while I teach piano.

Cadence continues to grow like a little weed.  She is getting so big.  Running around the house and being a menace!  We love her so much.  Her little personality is so fun.  She is such a tease.  She will wait til we are not looking and grab the remote and then wait until we notice she has it before she runs away with it.  Her new skill is being able to climb onto the couch, but she hasn't figured out that she can fall off it.

Jason is busy with work.  Where do I even start with Jason's work.  His job was in such a good place when we moved into our house 7 years ago, then a hit to the economy and the dental field has never recovered.  So much business now being sent to China has hurt the industry even more and we are grateful Jason still has a job, but there has certainly been less work to go around and several pay cuts.  We know a change is inevitable, but to what is the question!  We just try to continue to have faith that Heavenly Father is mindful of us and everything will turn out okay.  Jason has also been working on doing some renovations in our basement.  He is building a room for Ashton, and an office for himself.  Our weekends always seem to be so busy it's been difficult to find time to get it finished.  It will be nice to have the boys in their own rooms again.

So that's what we've been up to lately!