the Chartrands

Merry Christmas

2012-01-06T13:23:00.000-06:00

We had a wonderful Christmas this year! It was neat to have Christmas on Sunday and to have a special program at church. I think it really helped us to focus on Christ. We also enjoyed giving gifts to each other. I overdid it last year, so this time around I went ultra-frugal, and everyone was just as happy! We bought a used 3-in-1 game table as our family present for a great deal, and we've been having lots of pool and ping pong tournaments (including after the kids go to bed :). I'm loving the presents Tim picked out for me--remote bbq thermometer and a hand-crank pasta machine! We were touched by the thoughtfulness of gifts from Grandma Kathy & Grandpa Zane and Nana & Papa, whom we love and miss dearly. Tyler and Claire have been learning how to sew with the sewing kit from Nana & Papa, and the kids have all been so warm and snug in their cute pj's handmade by Grandma!

We're thankful for Grandma & Grandpa!

2011-12-07T13:28:00.000-06:00

We had such a fun time with Grandma Kathy & Grandpa Zane! They got to spend Thanksgiving break with us. We went to the science museum, watched Polar Express 3D at the IMAX, played hours of Huckle Buckle Beanstalk, played Dominoes and Blockus, ate lots of junk (my gall bladder isn't so thankful for that), and just enjoyed our time together. Thanks for coming to see us, Zane & Kathy! We'd love to have any other visitors, too!

Don't try this at home...

2011-12-07T13:22:00.000-06:00

What to do on a free Saturday afternoon? The boys wanted to build a fire in a tin can (of course, fully supervised the whole time). Tim wanted to make it bigger. He even took an old fence board to use as firewood. Then the kids had fun roasting mini marshmallows. Luckily, no neighbors complained or called the police or fire station...

Fall Festival

2011-12-06T13:29:00.001-06:00

Claire was upset about not having a ward Halloween carnival, so I decided we should have our own! We invited our ward neighbor friends--the Cherrys and Robinsons--and had a blast bobbing for apples, fishing for prizes, and fattening ourselves up on junk food. (thanks for letting me steal these pics, Jana)

Claire was my co-party planner

lining up to fish (somehow Tyler snuck out of camera view for all the pictures!)

ring toss prizes

the donut was a little too big for Lil's lil' mouth

can rack for food storage

2011-11-14T17:27:00.001-06:00

Audrey-this post is just for you! I thought I'd put it on my blog in case there happens to be anyone else interested in making can racks for their food storage. I couldn't find the website that we looked at to plan out the racks, but here's a pretty good one: http://www.hersidefunnies.com/the-mormon-can-museum/ This style of rack utilizes space a lot better than the Shelf Reliance ones (although those are really nice), and it's nice that we could personalize our rack for the cans we use. Tim dadoed into the supports which made it look nicer. I put labels (with sticky tack so I can move them) on the front and back, so for multiple rows of the same food we know what row to get from/load into. If you want actual measurements, I can ask Tim for his Excel file, but I don't know how readable it is...

Fire in the hole!

2011-11-13T13:35:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was the first annual trebuchet contest for the teachers quorums in the Houston area. Tim calculated spending about 28 hours these past few weeks planning, building a prototype, and building the actual trebuchet with the teachers quorum and YM leaders. It was a fun project for him and a good challenge.

After they set up and got all the weights in, they did a trial run. And it broke. The leaders were ready to call it a day, but the young men were determined to find a way to stay in the competition. The Tomball stake kindly donated supplies and help, and somehow they got it working again. And, to everyone's surprise, our trebuchet ended up winning the competition, earning first place in almost every round! What a great lesson in never giving up.

Family history-we are doing it!

2011-11-06T21:54:00.000-06:00

We had Stake Conference today, and the talk by the Stake Family History lady helped me to remember that we're supposed to be doing family history. Both Tim and I have relatives who have done tons of genealogy, so I've always felt like, "What more could I do?" Plus the fact that I can't exactly read Chinese characters. So I was surprised to discover this evening that there is still temple work to be done for my family! My maternal grandmother's side. Most of the work is for males, so Tim will be busy, but I also found some family sealings that we can do together. I'm SO excited! This will be the first time that I will be doing temple work for my side of the family. Thank you, Uncle John, Mom, and Dad, for all your genealogy work and the records you got from China, and my cousins for doing the translation work and all the hard stuff. And thanks for letting us be a part of completing the work!

If you're not familiar with the website, check it out and see if you can find your ancestors: LDS FamilySearch It's for anyone to use, not just members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Say cheese!

2011-11-06T20:13:00.001-06:00

Our happy kiddos!

Happy Halloween!

2011-11-06T20:00:00.003-06:00

At church for trunk-or-treat

Pirate Scott

Lily Bumblebee

Claire Hermione (I had fun crocheting a scarf for the first time!)

Tyler the Benguin

Old MacDonald Had a Farm

2011-11-06T19:41:00.001-06:00

Lily and I went to Old MacDonald's farm a few weeks ago for playgroup. Lily enjoyed riding the train, picking out a pumpkin, and feeding all the animals. We're having a lot of fun with our playgroup friends!

Dress up

2011-10-31T15:14:00.005-05:00

Lily is all about dress up these days! And playing pretend. Yesterday she was having two sticks talk to each other and play together. Today we were blasting off to space at the park. She is such a fun playmate! Claire has tons of fun with Lil too.

Halloween pics with Miss Bumblebee & Co. coming soon... Today Lily was talking about her Halloween candy from trunk-or-treat. She said, "I put candy in my nose" (she had stuck Nerds up her nose). I said, "Yucky! Why did you put candy in your nose?" She responded matter-of-factly, "For safekeeping."

We love school!

2011-09-18T19:44:00.000-05:00

Claire was so happy to be chosen as the first star student in her 2nd grade class. One of her classmates told me, "I like Claire. She's like an angel." Couldn't be closer to the truth. All the kids are doing so well in school. Scott even admitted in his prayer the other day, "Thank thee that I like school now," which is a huge step for him, seeing as he cried through the first couple weeks and the teacher had to pry him off me in the mornings. He comes home singing all the color and abc songs he's learning, and he's learning a lot! At the open house, Tyler's teachers told me what a wonderful and smart student he is. I love their school--the principal, assistant principal, all his MAP teachers, everyone seems to know and care about Scott, and everyone is just so friendly and nice. I also started volunteering in Claire's class by tutoring students, which is one of my favorite things to do, and Lily and I enjoy eating lunch with each of the kids regularly. We're having a great school year so far!

The morning school bus!

Happy birthday to me!

2011-09-18T19:32:00.001-05:00

I really got spoiled this year! Tim made a nice breakfast for me, Jana threw a birthday luncheon for me and Mary Jane, Jana made me a birthday brownie cake and we got to celebrate with all the kids, and Tim and I watched a fun chick flick for date night. I wish my birthday was on Saturday every year! I'm so grateful for my family and friends.

Good ol' Tim

2011-09-11T21:37:00.004-05:00

We celebrated Tim's 67th and 68th birthdays with that many birthday spankings :) He likes to think he has two birthdays since his birth certificate has a different birthday than what his family members say his birthday is. Anyway, I made him a nice dinner and cinnamon rolls, since he doesn't like cake, and he was happy to finally have a wide-brimmed hat for all the work he does outdoors.

What a blessing Tim is in our lives! The things I love most about Tim: incredibly selfless and giving, strong testimony of the gospel, worthy priesthood holder, dedicated to being a caring husband and father, cute sense of humor, always the optimist, fixer and builder of all things, my best friend and my psychiatrist :) I love you, Tim!

Today our stake reorganized the wards in our area, and now we're in a new ward. We will miss our friends who are in the other ward now, but we know this change was the Lord's will and is a good sign that the church is growing. So many good memories serving with and enjoying our time with these good friends. I will miss the sweet kids in my Primary class. Because it's a new ward, we were released from our callings. Our dear Bishop Rodriguez was released, and Tim as his second counselor. Bishop Billings was called as the bishop of our new ward, and Tim as his first counselor. We love and sustain Bishop Billings and know he will do a great job. With Tim's new calling I am again reminded how blessed I am to have a husband who honors his priesthood and serves and sacrifices so willingly. We have been so richly blessed because of Tim's righteousness and service in the church. I don't know if anyone is reading this who isn't a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but if by chance there is, please watch this video about the blessings of the priesthood: http://old.mormon.org/mormonorg/eng/videos?channelId=ad1fcf6cdfeac110VgnVCM1000003a94610aRCRD&sourceId=4008747631f92210VgnVCM100000176f620a____ (click on "Blessings of the Priesthood")

Summer pics

2011-09-11T21:05:00.000-05:00

Scott, Ally, & Katie went to Mrs. Beth's Owl School for summer preschool. Mrs. Beth is so amazing! Scott had a blast, and it helped prepare him a little for Kindergarten. He started Kindergarten a few weeks ago, and at the last minute (on the first day of school) I registered Tyler and Claire. So now all three are in school, and it's just me and Lily at home! I felt like it was the right thing to do for our family this semester. I wish I knew what our plans are after this semester, but I guess we just have to take one step at a time and trust the Lord to guide us in our decisions.

Lily loved Daisy the pig at the library show! Talk about a spoiled pig-he sleeps with the farmer every night, can you imagine?!

Of course we had to attend the snake show

Not incredibly fancy (I still need to hang up the curtains), but this is our master bedroom. We finally got "new" bedroom furniture, after sleeping on the free mattress we had gotten in Provo when we got married (11 years ago, and when we got the mattress, it was probably already 20 years old...). It was nice to upgrade from our college furniture!

The kids enjoyed making a solar oven and roasting marshmallows with it!

Tim's big project this summer was tearing down the side fence with Phil and rebuilding our playground in our joint back/sideyard. It went surprisingly smoothly, and the kids are out there every morning before school playing out there--they LOVE it!

Lily and I are having such a fun time together! It's so nice to spend one-on-one time with her and not feel like I'm neglecting her all the time, like I felt when we were homeschooling. We've been going to library storytime--this is where she got the monkey mask from.

We enjoy having Matty over for sleepovers on Friday nights, and this particular time the kids got ambitious after they woke up and made everyone pancakes and eggs! I think Scott made smoothies too. I'm reminded about the time at BYU when I thought I'd do something nice for Tim and his roommates and make them breakfast. This was the first time I had even made pancakes, and they completely burned and were inedible. The things I wish I had learned before I left home...

Lily and Ally are such good buddies. Ally enjoys being in charge and Lily doesn't mind it (yet). Ally always tells Lily, "Lily, say ____" like "Lily, say okay" if she's trying to get Lily to do something, and Lily will almost always copy what Ally says. Then later Ally will get all upset when Lily copies her and say, "Lily! Stop copying me!" How we love Ally!

The finished product! Everything's pretty much the same as before except Tim completely replaced the monkey bars and swing beam to make it longer and a little taller. Now we don't have to worry about the older kids hitting their noggins every time they swing.

This is the view from our back porch-you can see the playground is in the side yard, and the Cherrys' trampoline is next to the playground. This place is our little bit of heaven on earth! What a blessing it is to live next door to our best friends. I'm still amazed every day and that it's actually real. Heavenly Father is incredibly generous with His blessings and gives way more than we deserve!

Our crazy kids who never stay still!

Lucky #7

2011-07-21T21:43:00.000-05:00

Yet another birthday party at the pool! Claire invited the Robinsons and Cherrys to join us. Claire got to ride her new pink scooter to the pool, which she was so excited about because it was the first time she got to ride to the pool on her own riding toy. We had a lot of fun, with the twelve kids running around and getting yelled at by the lifeguards :) Claire helped me make the fruity pebble cupcakes, which were just a bit too sugary, even for me and my big sweet tooth. We also made cupcakes and had a cupcake decorating party at our homeschool park day that morning. It was a fun day, and the best part for Claire was not having to do any chores or work (of course, she couldn't resist helping me with the cupcake decorating though)!

Claire with her friend Maryan

Splashtown!

2011-07-14T23:05:00.001-05:00

So for the past eight years we've lived less than ten minutes away from the biggest waterpark in the area, and never even gone! Finally a couple weeks ago we got to go, thanks to our friends who gave us free tickets! I played in the little kid areas and went down the little big (or is it big little?) kid slide with them, while Tim took Tyler and Claire on the big rides. Claire was just kinda barely tall enough for all the rides. She even went on Texas Freefall, which I would never dare go on! What a little daredevil. We had such a fun time we stayed for almost the entire day. Thanks Robinsons and Rixners!!

Lil' Miss Mischief

2011-07-14T22:54:00.003-05:00

Here's Lil', of course without a diaper! She hates wearing diapers lately--I'm going to have to resort to using duct tape.

Lily has been Lil' Miss Mischief! Especially during her "naps." The other day I thought (or at least I was hoping) that she had gone to sleep in her crib for her nap. I went outside for a minute and one of the kids commented that there was Lily, peeking out of the blinds. When I went into her room, she was buck naked, sitting on top of Claire's headboard, as happy as can be! She had also taken out all the wipes and apparently wiped her bum many many times to keep herself occupied. Another afternoon when I checked on her she had of course taken her diaper off, and she had also found a stash of Scott's long-lost gum. There were gum wrappers and chewed up wads of gum all over the floor. Sometimes she occupies herself by rummaging through Claire's keepsafe items (she recently figured out how to open that drawer in their dresser, which is hard for me to even open), and I find Claire's things strewn all over. I call her Curious Georgina. She's so cute and acts so innocent--a good little monkey, and always very curious!

Eng Reunion

2011-07-14T22:43:00.000-05:00

We spent a week in Branson, Missouri, with the Eng side of the family. Everyone was there, the first time we were all together since the oldest grandkids were babies (almost 9 years ago!). What a fun time we had! Tennis, including lessons from Nana, swimming at the indoor pool at the resort, trying to corral all our little kids who were running crazy through the parking lots during a treasure hunt for Scott's birthday, baby shower for Audrey and outlet shopping, amazing Chinese acrobat show, celebrating my mom's upcoming 60th birthday, Expo marker show by Audrey, talent show, late nights being beat down at Catchphrase and Boggle...Lots of cherished memories. My sisters-in-law took some group pictures that I still need to get my hands on, which I'll post when I get them.

The kids were so excited to spend time with Nana!

Audrey & fam at the Shanghai Circus

My brother Matt & his family-doesn't he look thrilled to be there? :) He was a good sport the whole time, even with his bum knee that he just had surgery on. I'm glad they were still able to make it.

Saying goodbye to my big brother Al

Very eligible bachelor, my little brother David

Happy to have found the treasure! I think I got all the cousins in this shot except Libby

Nana and Uncle Albert were great tennis instructors

We loved seeing Papa!

We gave our mom a photo book in celebration of her upcoming 60th birthday

Audrey made 60 cream puffs for the celebration!

Scott's celebration

2011-06-12T00:36:00.001-05:00

We celebrated Scott's birthday today! He wanted to have his party at the neighborhood pool (but I was too cheap to reserve the whole pool), so we had a small party, inviting the Cherrys and Nunnerys. We had a fun swim party! What a fun little guy Scott is. He knows just how to cheer up Lily and make her laugh (even after he's just terrorized her :), he's always thinking of new invention ideas or funny things to say, and he is so fun to tickle and chase around. We love you Scotto!

Scott wanted rice krispie treats for his birthday dessert! Phew, he almost got me spending hours on a Max & Ruby cake. Do you like the bendy candles? (there's a reason why there are only two!)

There's definitely a love-hate relationship going on with Lil' and Scott. When it's love, it's like heaven on earth in our home. They are such cute friends, and Lily adores him.

Scott begs to go to Katie's house every day. Those Cherry girls are the cutest!

Hooray for Scott's friend Samuel, who helps Scott learn how to play with boys his own age. I'm glad they're getting to be good buddies. I enjoyed Elise's impressive performances today of all her favorite Primary songs. We love the Nunnerys!

Done!

2011-06-12T00:18:00.000-05:00

It felt like moving day all over again! Well, not quite. But it was a lot of work to move all our buckets and boxes of food into our new food storage room. And it all fits! Tim designed and built some really cool can racks that I just love. I'm so happy to have all the food out of our bedroom closets and our bedroom!

Hard at work

2011-05-29T21:42:00.001-05:00

Well, Friday was our last "official" day of school! Tyler still has a couple assignments to finish for his online school (including a science project that got completely botched), but other than that we're done! I really didn't think I was going to make it through the last two weeks--Tim was out of town for a week, Tyler was struggling through long division (thanks honey for taking that over!), and then last week Tim had a bunch of work problems come up and had to work a ton, we got sick and I threw up, etc. etc. I am so ready for a break. I hope I can recover before the next school year starts. At least we can say goodbye to online schooling, that should make things happier.

We really had fun with our geography co-op this year!

Does car-washing count as schoolwork?

Tyler's favorite activity each week was Lego Mindstorms robotics with Hunter--we all had fun!

At the end-of-year party with K12 & IQ Academy kids. Fun, but not worth the 2 hours of driving and throwing up and migraine I got...

Okay, so looking back we did have some really fun times. I just need to learn to have more of a balance in my life and leave time for MYSELF. Jana and I are going to try an LDS curriculum next year called Kindred Learning that seems a lot more doable and flexible and FUN!

The lineup

2011-05-29T21:06:00.001-05:00

Taken right before Tyler's birthday. The Chartrand & Cherry kids were ages 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Thanks Jana for thinking of it and taking the picture!

9!

2011-05-25T20:56:00.001-05:00

Well, we didn't end up going camping (thank goodness! it poured that night), but we had a fun pool party at our neighborhood pool with the Cherrys for Tyler's birthday. It seems like every day Tyler gets taller--seriously, he's going to pass me up soon :( He eats at least twice as much as me and somehow stays skinny as a twig. Must be all that moving, climbing, jumping, and running around. I love his energy, enthusiasm, helpfulness, and inventive spirit. Watch out world (or Mars), this boy is going places someday!

Finally! what he's always wanted-a telescope

We love those Cherrys! Matty and Tyler are practically inseparable

Thanks Nana & Papa! Tyler's loving The Red Pyramid and is just about finished

Thanks Grandma & Grandpa, and Albert & Rachel for your thoughtfulness too!

Derby time

2011-05-03T22:59:00.002-05:00

Tonight was Tyler's first Pinewood Derby. He had a lot of fun making his rocket car with Tim, and his car did really well in the races. I was entertained by how excited the boys and the dads got about the whole competition--I guess it's a guy thing. Good job, Tyler and Cubs!