We wanted to do something fun to connect with people and find a way to serve (while still social distancing), so we decided to host a coloring contest for a couple of families. We dropped off a picture with instructions to seven (?? if I remember correctly?) different families, and I think four of them participated. Anyone who colored a picture got some frozen cookie dough balls, and then the winner got a home-cooked meal from us. The competition was close, but we ended up voting on the Craguns as the winners, and we took them chicken avocado tacos for dinner. It was a fun little activity and an easy way to connect with people, and I'm realizing we should do something like that again!
It was our neighbor's birthday, and the boys had fun decorating their driveway :)
One of our favorite parts of COVID is the lazy mornings--quite often the boys join us in bed, and Hudson likes to make himself comfortable in whatever position haha:
More views of home church--Hudson has learned to be so reverent, and it's so cute!
Updates to the boat! Before we headed off to Lake Powell (which we were SO excited to find out would be open in time for us to go on our assigned week!), Curt wanted to make some cosmetic improvements to the boat. Project #1 was new vinyl to change the color scheme. The boat was this hunter green to begin with:
And then Curt wrapped it in black and sparkly silver vinyl--it looks so much better!! (And we got a new black bimini top to match, so we didn't have to keep the green one haha):
The other big project was to make a new boat cover. We priced it out to have someone else make a custom cover for us, and it was going to be somewhere between $800-$1200 (!!!)...so Curt decided he would just sew one himself. Which I appreciated for money purposes...but that's kind of a crazy huge undertaking, and this was the first time I ever doubted Curt in his abilities (not that I ever told him that). ;) But I should not have doubted, because he did an amazing job!! I seriously am so impressed!!!!! He just used our old, loose, bungee cover (that didn't work very well) for the fabric, and he cut it down and finished the edges and installed snaps--just as easy as that. It took him an entire Saturday, but he did it!! And it turned out SO much better than I imagined it would! (A few other projects he & Collin did on the boat were moving the tower, installing speakers on the tower, and installing new lights--it's a pretty dope boat now!)
Rather than worry about getting makeup on or doing anything on my to do list...Hallie had fallen asleep on me this day, so I just sat there and held her and enjoyed it. And I'm so glad I did.
The boys made Chex Muddy Buddies all by themselves--and they did so well! And they actually turned out great!
Standing very precariously on his high chair...!!
And Duke was watching VERY carefully to see if Hudson was going to drop a piece of his bread, haha:
MOTHER'S DAY. My first Mother's Day with five kids...and this is the best picture we could get, hahaha:
This was my Instagram post:
This picture pretty much sums up real-life motherhood perfectly—trying to do our best to teach and raise our kids to the best of our ability (i.e. take the perfect picture)...but nothing ever going how we plan, and each of them expressing their individuality in their own way. 😂😂😂 Despite how this picture looks, I actually had a really nice Mother’s Day (minus the part where we tried to get a picture with everyone smiling 😉). Every day I look at all these kids and wonder how on earth I got so blessed...and also how on earth I’m supposed to take care of and teach them all! 😬 But I’m so, so grateful for them and the opportunity I have to learn and grow. And I’m so grateful for other amazing women around me who I can learn from and lean on, and for those who love and help mother my children in various ways. And I’m so grateful for @curtalansmith and the amazing father & partner he is, and most importantly for my loving Father in Heaven who helps give me the strength & help I need every day. Tucker, Calvin, Bronco, Hudson, and Hallie: I love you so much, and I feel so blessed to be your mom. ❤️ But let’s work on getting a better picture next year, okay? 😉 #mothersdayfail
My very favorite part about Mother's Day was the church lesson Curt planned, talking about the importance of mothers. And then he had all the boys sing "Armies of Helaman" (one of my favorite songs, especially being a mom of boys)--and I couldn't keep from crying. (Even Curt lost it a little too.) This whole motherhood thing is so hard sometimes, and it seems like such a thankless job most of the time...but it's everything I ever wanted to do with my life, and I'm so grateful for the opportunity I have to grow and learn. I love these kids so, so much.
For part of our Mother's Day gifts to our moms, we broke social distancing for the first time, and we went and visited my mom in person, and then we had Curt's parents to dinner. We gave my mom a coupon to come on a boat ride with us, and then the boys made these amazing paper flowers that we put into a vase, with reasons why we love my mom:
And then for Curt's mom I made this printable and framed it. It's amazing how perfectly the number of kids & grandkids lined up!
And for Mother's Day Curt got me/I bought myself a new ring with Hallie's name added in (it has all the kids' names on it), and some new sandals for summer. The kids also gave me nice cards.
Bronco lost his other front tooth! How is he so old?!!
And we also found out that he is quite allergic to cats...! (he touched a cat he found in the neighborhood while playing outside--his reaction was so crazy!)
Sometimes we leave the older three boys at home playing minecraft or watching a movie (with the younger two asleep) so Curt & I can go on a date. We leave our Wyze Cam to "babysit," and we caught this footage of the boys sneaking treats while we were gone one time, haha:
Oh Hudson...!
Apparently he tried to take off his shirt by himself, haha:
He was obsessed with this book for the longest time--we read it every afternoon before his nap and every night before bed, and when we finished he just wanted to look at the pages by himself. So cute! (And so frustrating when we were trying to hurry, haha)
Sweet Hallie girl asleep--she looked so cute I couldn't resist taking a picture :)
The Bellows' dog, Roxy, passed away just a week after we got Duke. It was fast and unexpected, and they were really sad about it, so we tried to help brighten their day with a box of sunshine (just a bunch of yellow treats). We were going to try to do a ring-and-run...but they were out sitting on their porch and playing in their yard, haha, so we ended up just visiting with them (from a distance, of course). We miss being able to get together with them and other friends!
I can't remember if I've talked about this before, but Hudson is obsessed with putting any and all stickers (or anything sticky) on his cheeks:
...And the funniest is when he does it with giant labels or things like that, hahaha:
Here Curt is accepting his new job offer...by signing his signature on his phone! (post on that to come next) :)
Hudson still loves visiting Curt at "work" (in our bedroom) and sometimes doesn't want Curt to put him down:
Hard to see in the picture, but both of his arms were covered completely in lotion (face palm)
First time on the boat for the new season!! (the water was freezing, so no one did anything behind the boat...but it was still so fun to just be out on the lake!)
And it was Hallie's first time on the boat ever--and she did great!
END OF SCHOOL. The end of the school year was so different and so anticlimactic compared to other years, since we had just been doing distance learning from home for 8 weeks, and there were no fun activities or field days or anything; all we did was turn in chromebooks and pick up old supplies. The poor teachers had to clean out all the kids's desks and return everything to us in bags since no one else was allowed into the school--bless them! The fun thing was being able to see all the teachers in person (through car windows) as we did drive-by graduations/drop offs & pick ups--each grade had a different day and time to drive through during the last week, and it was fun to be able to say goodbye in person, instead of through zoom. What a crazy year it ended up being! And I'm not going to lie...I was not sad to see it end. Distance learning was a struggle, and we were all so excited to be DONE!
I had each of the boys write out a message to their teachers on the letter boards, and it was funny to see what they each chose to do:
There was SO much fighting in the back seat of our car with all three big boys right next to each other, so we ended up buying a bench seat off KSL, and Curt installed it in the middle row where we had captain's chairs. I was so sad to see the captain's chairs go--I loved having an aisle, and it felt much more roomy--but having the bench seat has made a HUGE difference and made life SO much better for everyone involved! Moral of the story: we have too many kids. ;)
I'm so grateful for our neighborhood and all the good kids our boys have to play with:
So there was randomly this giant peacock walking around our cul-de-sac one morning??! CRAZY!!!
The Nielsen's took the neighborhood kids on their boat one afternoon, and we had just been given a whole bunch of wetsuits from Curt's aunt (thank you, Dorene!), so the boys wanted to wear the wet suits since they were worried about the water being cold. And Curt took pictures of them because it just looked so funny, haha!
We tried to help Chad & Lisa the best we could during the 6 (?) weeks that the twins were in the NICU, so we brought them dinner a few times. One of the times, we brought Duke with us to meet their dog, Ollie, and it was funny to see the kids all circled around both dogs...mostly trying to keep Duke from humping Ollie too much (face palm)
Cute Hallie girl! One of the Nielsen boys, Clark, had to sew something for an end-of-school project, so he sewed a little bib for Hallie, and he got extra points if he had a picture of her wearing it. :)
And now for some videos...
This is my absolute favorite video of Hudson (currently, haha). He was/is still learning his colors, and his favorite is green. I started asking him what color his shirt was, and he would say green every time...even when I told him the correct color. And his little voice and humor with it were just so cute and hilarious!
Hudson gets into so much trouble when we're all busy doing things...and I don't remember what exactly was going on at the time, but this day we found him dumping a bottle of paprika all over the mudroom and pantry...
Oh my gosh--and this day I caught him eating Hallie's nails...! (crying face emoji)
The boys thought this was HILARIOUS--so I obliged and let them take a video. Bronco somehow got his leg stuck in the seatbelt in the car, and it took a little bit of effort to get it out:
And then this video just makes us smile. Duke loves taking car rides and hanging his head out the car window--he's so teeny it just looks hilarious!
