Carlie is amazing...AGAIN!

Sometimes I feel like I just blog about Carlie. Carlie this, Carlie that...just wanted to clarify that I love each and everyone of my kids and that I would never want anyone to think otherwise:)

But...Carlie has seriously been working her hind-end off this month. Back in late December our new ward Music Chairman came up to me and asked me if Carlie would be willing/able to play the organ in sacrament meeting every time there is a 5th Sunday in the month. I said, "Um..sure." Sis. Ecalano then goes on to say, "By the way...the first 5th Sunday is January 30th." "Alrighty then!" I say:) SOOO....teaching Carlie to play organ has been on my "to do" list for a while but it was soo easy to put off because it's never convenient to go over to the church building a couple times a week to let her practice. Kinda wish I had an organ in my home. But when given a deadline, we planned and CONQUERED!!! So today was her first time ever playing in sacrament!!!! And she ROCKED!!! So at 10 years of age, she can now play organ for sacrament meetings! I did not know that this particular Sunday would be our Ward Conference and that the Stake Presidency would be there!!! But I didn't tell her that anything was different or special about this Sunday--not that it would have mattered at all to her. She seriously has NO stage-fright what-so-ever. Girl....you are AMAZING! (I took this pic while she was playing postlude--I don't think I broke any rules:)


So as if organ wasn't enough, she also began learning oboe 3 weeks ago as well--we're going for all the "O" instruments apparently:) What happened was that I wanted her to begin band on flute. I felt that it was a good starting instrument and that it would be easy to transition to the oboe. (I played flute and oboe throughout my band career:) Well...once again, she was constantly begging me to let her start oboe because there are a bazillion flute players, and once again, I was putting her off. Well Honor Band auditions were coming up for 6th graders. 5th graders can only audition if they are recommended by their band teachers. But as kids signed up for audition slots, there were a bazillion flute players and so they decided that NO 5th grade flutes could audition--all good, they had to draw the line somewhere. But Carlie was DEVASTATED!!! So she was BEGGING me again to teach her oboe. "Okay! Okay!!! Let's see what we can do in 3 weeks." Soo....I began working with her daily on this instrument which is widely know as one of he most difficult instruments. She worked and worked on it. I took her to the auditions on Thursday and what happened?!?! She flippin' makes first chair oboist in the 6th Grade Honor Band!!!

Soo...now I am GLADLY handing over her oboe lessons to a trained professional:) I was able to get hooked up with an oboe teacher who is almost done with his doctorate in oboe at ASU. She had her first lesson yesterday with him. He is also a professional oboe reed maker so her made her 2 customized reeds right there on the spot yesterday. I am SUPER excited about this!!! It's costing A TON of money but I am soo glad to pay it (my piano tuition is a BARGAIN:). I'm kinda tired of carrying the responsibility of this amazing girl!!! I've taught her everything she knows up to this point and now it's time to have her move on from me--just on oboe for now:) She's passing me by musically in every way and every day. I couldn't be more proud of her!

Night out!

This week has been a long, busy week and I've been sick on top of it all. My darling hubby lets me know on Wednesday night that he's leaving on Thursday and will be gone over night and then he would be gone the next night camping with the scouts--I knew about the camp (gotta LOVE those "surprise trips:)!" Anywho, all good. Thursday I had piano until 6, then Carlie had a band audition at 6:20. I never feel like cooking dinner anyways, but when I'm sick...it just wasn't happening:) So the kids and I hit Chick-fil-A after the audition for dinner. It was family night at this particular Chick-fil-A and the MOST AMAZING balloon man I have ever seen was there making the MOST AMAZING creations ever!!! He could make ANYTHING! And my kids asked for some interesting ones. Sure made my night (and my kids too:). So here are the kids with their amazing balloon creations!

Carlie and Tinkerbelle:


Ethan and Mario:


Max and "Underdog:"


Tatum and her flower bouquet:

Student of the Month!!!

Carlie got student of the month!!! Woohoo!!!! Soo proud of your girl!!! Her teacher this year has her bachelor's in piano (and her master's in teaching) and she just LOVES Carlie. She said, "I knew Carlie and I had a special connection...we're kindred spirits!" Thanks Mrs. Schanacker! Carlie thinks so too:)

Upgrading my status:)

I posted this on my other blog but felt like putting it here as well--because my kids read this blog and I want them to know too:)

This is a design that my new BFF, Nicole Stapley, made for me that just HAD to be put into a charm:) This is a charm that I will be wearing everyday this spring as my hubby begins his busy-travel time for work. I'm pretty much a single mom from March though June. I'm getting myself mentally set for this upcoming year--I need to with 4 kids and 60 piano students:) So I'm no longer just "The Boss"...I am now:

"THE QUEEN OF FREAKIN' EVERYTHING!"

Thanks again Nicole! This is my MOST favorite charm of all!!!

Don't mess with Mama!!!

Poor Ethan!!! He and I were having a little wrestling match in the kitchen where I was holding him down and tickling him. As I was letting him up, he hit his mouth on my watch and it knocked out his tooth!!! AHH!!! It all happened soo fast!!! One minute we were laughing and the next minute blood is spilling out of his mouth!!! He told me a few days ago that his tooth was loose but I didn't realize HOW loose it was! This is only his 3rd tooth lost (he didn't get his first tooth until he was 14 months old and so he's loosing his teeth a lot later than other kids his age). So anyways, we joked about it the rest of the night because it was really funny. The only reason he cried was because he saw blood--the tooth part didn't hurt at all:) So Ethan....don't mess with mama!!! She will knock out your other tooth:)

Just LOVE this little guy with his Kool-Aid mustache:)

Happy 6th Birthday Maxwell!!!

What could be more fun than a Halloween birthday party in January--nothing of course:) So this is our 2nd annual January Halloween/Birthday party for Max (and yes...I'm thinking there may be a 3rd, 4th 5th, etc...) But it was a blast!!! We only invited boys this year--the girls that came last year seemed a little disturbed. The boys had the best time just being together and doing their own thing despite all my fun/planned activities!

Here's the Birthday Boy! (In the traditional (and kinda ugly) Birthday crown:)


We had a few friends of Carlie and Ethan come over to help run all the little stations. This is Maya Koehnemann. She ran the body parts station where the kids had to figure out--without looking--what they were touching. Eyeballs (olives), guts (spaghetti noodles), a bone (rawhide dog treat), brains (gelatin), and fingers (vienna sausages). Boys totally dig this gross stuff:)



Carlie and Catlin Brecker (who are suppose to be "Ying and Yang")ran the Mummy Wrap. Here are some of their masterpieces:




Ethan and Brandon Park ran the Mad-Ball T-Ball (Sorry guys!!! I forgot to snap a picture of you two:(


I ran the "Pin the face on Frankenstein" station. Not many people know this but Chris is actually a FABULOUS artist so he whipped up this Frankenstein for this:) (I'm going to save it and use it for Primary singing time in October:)


This is what Frankenstein looked like after the kids put his face back on:


THE CAKE!!! I have done all my kids cakes in the past but Chris was super excited about this one so I let him run with it and decorate himself. I thought his did a SUPERB job! The cake turned out AMAZING! My hubby is a ROCKSTAR:)



Okay...this was MOST exciting to the boys. Ethan trapped a bee under a cup. They pretty much talked about this the REST of the time and now Ethan is some kind of known as "The Great Bee Hunter:)"


We had such a fantastic time!!! Can't believe my little Max is 6 years old!!! Love this little guy tons and tons! Happy Birthday Maxwell:)

Baby no more:(

Just having one of those days where I'm feeling like my kids are growing up WAY TOO FAST!!! Seriously!!! Have Chris and I REALLY been married for 12 years now?! And do we really have 4 kids?! I swear that Carlie should be like 3 years old tops. Ugh....it's all good:) My youngest has been in the Sunbeams in Primary now for 3 weeks. We no longer have any Meeker kiddos in the nursery:( I was just thinking back to her last photo shoot that I had done back in September for her 3rd birthday and realized that I didn't put any of the pictures on my blog!!! What was I thinking?!?! My good friend, Sarah Goodman, does all of my family photos. She is an AMAZING photographer and always just captures those things that I love most about my kids. She reminded me back in September that this is the last year of "baby fat" (or "phat":) So we just HAD to do a tutu session with Tatum. My most favorite pics of Tatum EVER!!! I could just stare at them all day. And I just LOVE LOVE LOVE the "baby phat:)" Makes me want to go pinch her right now! I also LOVE her hair!!! All of my other kids have super straight hair like me but Tatum got some of her dad's curl. Her hair has just the right amount of curl and body--makes me super jealous:) Dang she's cute!!!

We're seriously addicted....

Well since our Utah trip got cut a day short, we took a short road trip this past weekend up to Pine, AZ. After a short 2 1/2 hour drive we were in the snow! We just can't seem to get enough of this stuff!!!

Max and his snowman:







The kids kept eating the stuff!!! (Don't worry...it wasn't yellow:)

Max's 6th Birthday Invite!

It's that time of year again!!! Every day is Halloween for Max! Come if you dare!!!

Customize an invite card

Click here to see his invitation from last year!

Our Little Songbird

Tatum has a song for EVERYTHING! She literally sings her day away. Chris feels like he's living in a musical because of our two girls:) She was singing this song one day at the piano. I know that Christmas is over but this was just WAY TOO CUTE to not video!!! I knew what song she was singing immediately. Chris couldn't figure it out!!! I think her technique is awesome and that her Latin ROCKS! Tatum....you're just DANG CUTE:) (By the way...it's "Angels We Have Heard on High")

Salt Lake City, UT

So we headed up to Salt Lake City. It is funny because I've been Mormon pretty much my entire life (since I was 2) and I've only been to Utah once. Chris has only been to report to the MTC for his mission. We have NO family there and NO real reason to go there other than we wanted to see the church history stuff and some snow. Everyone was very friendly and we were asked over and over again, "Now who are you guys visiting?" We always answered, "Umm..no one." One guy said, "How can you have NO family in the Mother Land?" Hmm....not sure. I guess we're the step children:) But any how, we were there and we were going to see and do everything we could!!! Here we are at Temple Square:

It was a beautiful manger scene and I'm sure it was even more beautiful at night but us Arizonians couldn't muster up the courage to go out after dark--TOO STINKIN' COLD!!!

The Tabernacle:


AMAZING organ and I hope I NEVER have to play it!!! TOO much pressure for this self-taught organist:)

Ethan trying to be like Noah:)


The Conference Center all decked out for Christmas:


I just LOVED this Christmas tree in the Conference Center!

I REALLY enjoyed our tour of the Conference Center. I walked away from there having a greater appreciation for Pres. Hinckley. What an AMAZING man!!! I never knew that he was involved in literally EVERY detail of this magnificent building--right down to very ample leg room between the rows of chairs. Our tour guide told us that when Pres. Hinckley was drawing up all of the plans for this conference center he was told that it would take 7 years to complete. He said, "No, it will only take 3." When the builders disagreed with him he said, "You do your job, and I'll do mine." And the center was done miraculously in 3 years. I just LOVE knowing that we are lead by inspired men.

Here we are on the roof of the conference center:


The Salt Lake Temple!!!


The Beehive House: My one trip to Utah was when I was 16. I went with my Laurel class to watch a session of conference (in the old Tabernacle) I remember the Beehive House most vividly. It was my most favorite part of the trip. On this trip, WAY back in 1993, my classmates and I were waiting for our tour of the Beehive House when we were all asked to stand up because the Queen of Tonga had just finished her tour of the house and would exiting before we started our tour. It was SUPER cool to see the Queen and all of her bodyguards. She was soo kind and said "Hello" to each one of us. We were awestruck:)


I LOVE the stair banisters:



And SNOW!!! OF COURSE!!!







This is my idea of a winter wonderland. Just beautiful!!!


We like to get the MOST out of each of our vacation days. After the snow, we hit the "This is the Place" Monument. Really neat and inspiring place.



DAY TWO in Salt Lake:
Well, we woke up Wednesday morning and checked out the weather forecast--SNOW!!! And LOTS of it coming. We were really wanting to stay another day because we were having soo much fun. We LOVED Salt Lake but we wanted to keep loving it--being snowed in for a few days may have changed our minds:) So we quickly ate breakfast, packed up, and headed out for a few more hours in SLC. We went right back to Temple Square, visited the Assembly Hall:


Then we hit the South Visitor's Center and finally my new most favorite place: The Church History Museum--A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! I could not believe all of the cool stuff they had in there like the death masks of Joseph and Hyrum, the original printing press that printed the Book of Mormon, original journal entries of Joseph Smith and other prophets....I could have easily spent a few hours in there. BUT we had 4 kids and we were also trying to beat a serious storm so we ran through in about 1 1/2 hours. I just know that I gotta go back there someday.

All in all we had a FANTASTIC time and really loved Utah. We were sad to cut our trip a day short but we were sure glad we did when we watched the news the next day! We made it all the way back to Las Vegas, stayed the night there once again, and then headed home the next day. I was really glad to be home even a day early. I had to get Christmas put away:)