May 2020
Hamilton Newsletter
FAMILY: May!! It was very different this year. Most years May is crazy-busy with field trips and projects and tests. We usually do a “jumping for joy” picture when school is done, but none of that happened this year. The girls weren’t quite “jumping for joy” because they had already been home for 2 months. But, nevertheless, we were SO thankful to finally turn back in those Chromebooks. At least mom was! :) WAY too much screen time was really affecting everyone. We are grateful to fully jump into our summer themes! For Make-it-Monday, we made stain-glass paintings. For Taste-it Tuesday, we made churro ice cream bowls, Nutella ice cream cake, and taffy. For Water-Wednesday, we went to the lake at the Hills and played with water balloons in the backyard. For Thinking Thursday we went to the Library and had a read-a-thon. For Forest Friday, we went to Spring Creek Canyon and we Moqui caves/sand caverns. At the beginning of the month, we watched our neighbor’s pregnant poodle, Tesla for a couple days. The 10th was Mother’s Day and the girls made it really special with lots of homemade and store-bought gifts. Daddy and the girls made yummy food, including pancakes with strawberry roses, a meat board bouquet for lunch, and cashew crunch salad with pork for dinner. For at-home church, the littles sang some mother’s day songs and later McKinley played “A Poor Wayfaring Man” on her cello. Her Mother’s Day gift was four trees! 2 shade trees for the front and 2 peach trees in the backyard. Yay! The 12th was Heidi & Jason’s 20th Wedding Anniversary! That evening they went to their favorite local italian restaurant & then to Brian Head to look at the stars. We couldn’t make it up to the Brian Head peak because of the snow, but it was still gorgeous and we saw lots of stars and one AMAZING shooting star that looked like a firework blazing across the sky. The other uncommon thing we saw were porcupines! Lots and lots of porcupines! It must have been mating season or something, but we saw 20 or more porcupines - mostly right by the road. That weekend, the girls went to grandma and grandpa Potts & were so excited to see them for the first time since they got home from their mission. They had fun with Grandma & Grandpa walking to the pond, getting ice cream from the ice cream truck, playing games, going to the park, etc. They slept over for 2 nights while Heidi & Jason headed up to Anniversary Inn in SLC for an anniversary getaway. It was wonderful. They got to walk around Temple Square and Memory Grove and reminisce about all the wedding day memories from 20 years ago. They also got some things for the downstairs rental, including a stackable washer/dryer and a small stove. The next week was the girls’ last official week of school and there were a lot of parades and turning things in :) Sedona got home from her Anchorage AK mission this month & we celebrated with Ireland making a yummy chocolate cake! We had to wait to hug her till her 14-day quarantine was over, though.The girls had an “official” end-of-school-year late-over on the last official day of school and had fun doing the chocolate fountain and watching a movie. Memorial Day weekend, just like most of the past few months, was different than other years. We decided not to Mapleton and instead we stayed home and on Saturday we took a road trip to Kanab. We stopped at the Orderville Park for a picnic lunch that we had brought. There was no playground, but we all had so much fun rolling down the hill and playing tag and mom doing back-flips. After that, we went to Moqui Cave. It was an interesting place and the girls especially loved the gift shop with all the rocks. After that, we went to the sand caves, which were SUPER neat. The best friend animal sanctuary was closed to visitors, so we didn’t get to go there, but we had fun eating ice cream in Kanab. It was a fun trip! And Memorial Day we worked in our yard and home. Right now in our basement, the plumbing is roughed in. Heidi and Jason filled the hole with concrete. The HVAC is almost done and we’re hoping to get it framed soon.At the very end of the month, on the 30th & 31st, we headed to Richfield to see family we hadn’t seen since December. We loved getting to hug Sedona & celebrate Grandma Devenish’s 75th birthday! Heidi & Jason worked together to make a special memory slideshow and birthday wishes slideshow. It was wonderful to be with family! MIRACLES: We were ready to head to Richfield and stop for a hike on the way there, but Oaklyn decided to put one of mom’s glass foundation make-up containers in the toilet. Clear back into the toilet. We tried to plunge, we tried the snake and finally we resorted to manual extraction. Unfortunately, Heidi & Jason’s hands were too small. We employed (literally - they earned $10 each) Ireland and Kezia and, after about an hour of struggle (and a hanger), it was finally free! We are SO thankful we didn’t have to end up getting a plumber here!
JASON : Jason is still busy with work - 90% of the time work at home. He is still doing the GS-12 job, but without the GS-12 pay yet. A detail got approved until the permanent job can be finalized, but needless to say, he’s been putting in a lot of hours! Sometimes not finishing till after 7. Jason also worked hard in the basement - digging out the pipe for Jason Barnes to put in his pipes and then doing the cement. He also put 2 returns in the hallway, by the ceiling, and that was a lot of hard work. We are so thankful for his hard work and dedication to our family. He enjoyed a day off for the 20th anniversary getaway & getting to do some relaxing, connecting and movie-watching.
HEIDI: Heidi took her mom out for Mother’s Day in St. George. It was the first time she’d seen her since their mission & they were still in “quarantine,” so Heidi couldn’t hug her mom :( But they still had fun going for a walk, getting Cafe Rio, and making a Target run. Heidi loved all the lovely Mother’s Day gifts and just the time spent with her treasures. She finished “Carried” by Michelle Schmidt (married to Jon Schmidt of the Piano Guys) and it was very good. She also finally finished The Hobbit, which was a fun read. It’s been SOOO nice to get fully into summer and not have to worry about trying to keep on top of all the girls’ schedules and homework. Heidi REALLY treasured their 20th anniversary getaway up North. It was just such perfect weather and completely relaxing. Yay for 20 years! It was MANY hours putting together DeeAnn’s slideshow and video wishes compilation, but so worth it. It was neat to see how many people responded and many pictures we’ve never seen before.
McKINLEY:
-End of middle school for McKinley!! :( :(
-McKinley did really well for all she had to do at home. The only thing she’s still working on is her Humanities Autobiography, which she has until the end of June to complete before her teacher sends it to print.
-It was fun to go to McKinley’s 8th grade parade and see her teachers :) She got an orchestra certificate from Mrs. Carrigan and she had Daizy on her lap & everyone thought she was so cute.
-(Micaela) Ella invited McKinley to go for a hike one day. They went on Ghost Flats up to Thunderbird Gardens. She had a lot of fun!
-McKinley has got to spend more time with Karmiyah and Ella & they have fun hanging out and playing instruments.
-McKinley got her schedule for high school! She’s really excited that she got all the classes she was hoping for - including 3 honors classes!
-McKinley did a really cute Come Follow Me activity time where we went on a treasure hunt and followed the footprints she cut out and answered questions about the lesson. It was super cute!
IRELAND:
-Ireland is now the queen of middle school! Going into 8th grade! She finished 7th grade with style - a 4.0 plaque, a CBEAR superstar certificate for highest Utah Compose essay score in class, and a certificate of achievement for math! Way to go Ireland!
-Ireland’s flute was broken again and rather than keep putting money into fixing it, we decided to go ahead and get her a new flute. We looked into renting, but in the end it made more sense to get the intermediate flute at Cedar Music Store. It was expensive! But Ireland is going to help contribute to the cost of the flute every month and she is going to take REALLY good care of her brand new intermediate flute! It does sound much better than her old one & it’s fun to listen to her play.
-Another Ireland saying “Peace UP!” :)
-Ireland has loved spending more time with her friends. She rotates with Mahina, Sariah, and Sienna.
-Ireland was bored and was craving chocolate one day and decided to make a really yummy chocolate layer cake!
-Ireland made a really cute Australian Shepherd stain glass for Make-it Monday :)
KEZIA:
-On Cinco De Mayo, Kezia dressed up in her Spanish dress & made a spanish craft :)
-Kezia is basically the queen of East Elementary now! Out with 4th In with 5th grade! Yay!
-Kezi has been reading - and loving - Harry Potter!
-Kezi started working on learning coding this month.
-It was a really sad day in May when Fox, Kezia’s chinchilla, died :( We are not sure exactly what happened, but Fox and Coyote were downstairs while daddy was working loudly upstairs. Charlotte Price was over and mom found Charlotte & Oaklyn in McKinley’s room. Coyote was under the bed and, according to what Oaklyn said, she squeezed Fox to hard :( It was so hard for Kezia to bury another sweet Chinchilla. Hard, hard day :(
-Kezi did a lemonade stand and made $70!
-Kezia’s boredom turned into creativity with her friends! Addie Price and Kezia did lip syncs on the fence to the whole Silly Songs with Larry album, she did a dance/lip sync with Paige Hillstead and Addie, and when Macie came over one day they did a cute card for Senora Engst.
-We had a big box and Kezia quickly turned it into a castle for her little sisters, complete with spray paint and a treasure chest full of precious necklaces! :) What blessed sisters Noelle & Oaklyn are to have a sister like Kezi!
-On the Saturday of Memorial weekend, we met after breakfast to decide what to do. Mom left for a minute & said she wanted a full plan when she got back. When she returned Kezia had a slideshow presentation about what she proposed to do: Kids get to watch screen time all day while parents go on a date :) It was a wonderful presentation and even had random puppies at the end!
-Noelle & Kezia slept in the back of the truck and in the tent this month! Great times :)
LINK: Mom thought a lot about you this month, our duder-dude. She had 2 friends lose their children this month, a cheerleader friend and a friend of Lena’s. What a difficult journey it is. We are so thankful for your love notes and the knowledge we will be with you again one day.
NOELLE:
-Noelle is done with Kindergarten! Hooray! She got accepted into East Elementary’s Dual Immersion program so she gets to be with Kezia for one year next school year. She’s nervous but excited :)
-One day mom’s friend, Carmen, came by to drop off some chocolate milk and we were visiting in the entryway. Noelle pointed & said “You’re only 2 feet apart!” I didn’t know we had a social distancing policegirl in our home :)
-One evening as we were putting the girls to bed, mom and dad kissed and Noelle said “If you guys kiss, you’ll get a baby in your tummy!”
-Noelle was explaining to Oaklyn one morning at breakfast “Did you know they make PIGS out of BACON?” :)
-Noelle & Oaklyn worked on riding a 2-wheeler with no training wheels this month! Noelle made GREAT progress! She does great starting, and is getting really good at balancing, but when she wobbles, she often goes straight into a curb and falls hard. Poor girl. We’re so proud of how she kept getting up and trying again! Pretty soon she’ll be as fast as her sisters!
-Noelle has been learning to code this month - yay!
-Noelle was SO sad and cried almost as much as Kezia when Fox died :(
-Noelle & Kezia slept in the back of the truck and in the tent this month! Great times :)
-Noelle’s caterpillars turned into butterflies and we let them go. It was so fun to see their transformation and watch them fly away into the wide world :)
-Noelle’s stain glass creation that she worked so hard on broke and shattered. She was so so sad and wanted mom to put it back together. Instead, mom gave her the butterfly one she made.
-Noelle was such a big helper for Kezia’s lemonade stand. She was out there helping her for around 3 hours. What a dedicated sister!
OAKLYN:
-Oaklyn continues to be a naughty girl this month, including making huge messes and hiding under beds with Noelle’s Leappad, phones, or even the laptop (it was missing for almost 2 weeks!) But the most devastating thing was one day when Charlotte was over and the chinchillas were downstairs. They cornered them into McKinley’s room and somehow Oaklyn got a hold of Fox and squeezed her too hard. She died. Kezia was so very sad and we tried to make Oaklyn understand how sad it was without shaming her. It was a really hard thing for Kezi to forgive, but she did.
-Oaklyn did so good on her 2-wheeler bike with no training wheels! Because of her balance bike, once she starts, she just takes off & does so good. But she struggles with starting pedaling by herself and using her brakes instead of her shoes like her balance bike. It will take some practice, but she is doing awesome!
-Apparently, at 3 years old, Oaklyn is facing reality. She takes her baby everywhere, but when mom wants to hug or kiss her baby, she’ll say “She’s not REAL mom.” or when she makes a drawing & mom asks about it, she says “it isn’t real mom!”
-Oaklyn also keeps making papers with letters on it & mom asks what it is and Oaklyn will reply “It says THE PARK IS CLOSED!” Oh, our poor COVID-19 kids!
-Another COVID-19 experience is when we were practicing riding our bikes at South Elementary, there wasn’t a sign there that said that the park was closed, so Oaklyn ran over there, started swinging for a few seconds, and then yelled “MOM! LOOK AT ME! I’M NOT EVEN SICK!”
-Little Miss Oaklyn has decided she’s done watching her sisters play Minecraft & has started joining in!
-One day mom asked Oaklyn how old she was. She said “Kind of like three, but not two. I was two a long week ago.”
-Another thing that was extra naughty of Oaklyn was that she put mom’s make-up foundation in the toilet and it took over an hour to get it out! NOT FUN!
-Oaklyn also keeps jumping the fence to Charlotte’s house whenever we’re not looking. Adelaide said one morning, they were sitting down for breakfast and Oaklyn just walked in and made herself at home!
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