piano performance for judging

It was the first time for Brayden and Kylee to go and play the piano in front of judges.  It was at the UTSA building.  I stayed home with the younger kids while Matt took them.  He was not? in the room when they performed.  He took pictures of them in the practice rooms before they went and played. 

Bluebonnets 2014

  

Bluebonnet pictures are pretty typical for this area, but there are good years and bad years.  It had been a while since we had done them.  This spring has been wet so this was a good year and we decided to take advantage.  It wasn't very planned out, so the kids were just in their school clothes for the day.

Kickapoo Cavern State Park

Matt took the week of spring break off so that we could spend some family time together.  Matt has been anxious to go camping as a family and we figured this was a great time to go.  Waiting to check the weather to see which days would be best to camp limited us on what was available.  Matt found some openings at Kickapoo Cavern State Park.  It offered tours of a cave which sounded fun for the kids.  We decided to go for two nights; Tuesday and Wednesday.  We invited the older Herrera cousins since Cynthia was due to have a baby in less than a month. 

We ended up taking some time packing up the cars and left later on Tuesday than we had planned, and the trip took longer than expected.  We ended up arriving around 3 pm.   Since we missed lunch Matt quickly set up camp and started the coals for dinner. The hobo dinners of hamburger and sausage went over pretty well and filled everyone up.  After dinner we went to Stuart cave to see the bats emerge around dusk.  It was really interesting (and a little stinky) to see about 3 million bats swirl around the cave opening and fly out to search for food.   We topped off our night with dutch oven peach cobbler and some "scary" story telling.  

The day was warm, but the evening was pretty comfortable and calm.  Our night started off well with Asher going down fairly easily.  Everyone else went down around midnight.  About 2 AM a crazy wind storm blew in, and at first got a little warmer, but as the storm continued it got colder and colder.  Matt had to get out and stake down the tents a couple of times because the wind was blowing so hard.  We could hear other campers around us getting out and staking down their tents and one group packed up and left at about 3 in the morning.  The girls were up with the crazy storm and started talking and turning on their light. Asher woke up 3 times, once before the storm and a couple of times during the storm.  One time during the night Matt had to stand up and rock him because he was not going back to sleep. We kept changing him from playpen to sleeping bag to keep him warm. Our best sleep of the night ended up being from 6-8 in the morning. The morning was pretty cold and the wind continued throughout the day.  We made lots of hot chocolate to keep us warm.  Matt made a yummy breakfast of bacon, sausage, and eggs to put in breakfast tacos.  After a fairly sleepless night for most of us, Matt and I decided to spend most of the day there and go home to sleep in our beds that night.  

When we had read about the cave tours we didn't realize that there were limited spots that had to be reserved ahead of time.  When checking into the park, they told us they were all booked up for Wednesday.  Luckily, with the crazy wind storm, a number of people didn't show up for their reservations, so Matt was able to take Kylee,  Brayden, David, and Tatiana on the tour.  It turned out it would have been too difficult for the younger kids anyway, but the older ones thought it was really neat. 

Wicked

For Christmas Matt got us tickets to go see Wicked.  It was the first time we really left Asher.  Cynthia and her family took care of him.  We really enjoyed the show and getting out to spend an evening together.  

February happenings

February 20 - Blake dressing up for Rodeo Day, and the hat he made at school. 

February 21 - Matt took the older 4 kids to see the Lego Movie in 3D.

February 23rd - Matt was put into the Bishopric when they changed the boundaries of our ward.  He asked Grandpa Whetten to ordain him a High Priest.  We were happy that Mamaquel and Grandpa were able to come and visit for that.  

Pictures with Mamquel and Grandpa before heading off to school.

Asher - 5 months

January 23rd - February 22nd

Feb 6 - he sit up by himself
Feb 8 - first time to take a bath in the big bathtub
He likes to get pushed around in the walker by the kids.  He is learning how to spit and likes to do it
The kids take turns entertaining him while I make dinner.  He loves having them play with him.

100 days

Blake celebrated 100 days at school by dressing up as an 100 year old man, and making a 100 item display.