Reflecting on 2023, a year of change, challenges, miracles, and cherished family moments. We find solace in the guiding hand of God, who continues to bless our lives with abundant joy through our passions, work, and the laughter of our children. Our hearts are full as we joyfully welcome our newest blessing, Baby Logan in November. We are grateful for all our many old and new friends that we have connected with this year.
Micah (12) is having so much fun coding in python and building autonomous robots.
Quentin (10) is having fun in chess club, doing lots of book reports, and being in the SALTA program.
Emily (8) chose to get baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is a budding artist.
Jacob (6) started kindergarten and he LOVES going to school with the big kids. He is doing so well with full-time school.
Cumorah (4) is ready to start kindergarten but unfortunately has 2 more years. She is reading like a champion.
Lily Mei (2) is developing her strong and independent personality. She is learning how to be an older sister.
Logan (0) was born on Nov 19, 2023 at 9:29 am weighing 6lbs 10oz and 19.5 inches long. So far he is a very easy going baby and very content to go around to all the kid’s activities.
May Bo is as busy as ever keeping up with the kids. She runs the school chess club and coaches the middle school robotics team. In her free time she enjoys running her own and other people’s businesses.
Dallin is working, mountain biking, building camper vans, remodeling our house, but somehow finds ways to spend quality time with each and every one of the kids.
We wish you a very Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!
We sold our amazing house in Indiana. It was located in the best neighborhood and we were all so sad to leave. May Bo was able to do the whole sale by herself. It was easy since the market favored the seller back at the beginning of the year. We packed everything up and we decided to do moving containers. It was much easier than driving a moving truck with all the kids.
Now we’re back in Utah! We’re hanging out at Popo’s house or the house May Bo grew up in. May Bo’s mom is so nice to take us in during a time when the housing market is not favorable for buyers and the cross country move was very expensive. We see ourselves staying here for the foreseeable future so we started on some remodel projects that is going to take a lot longer than expected. Half the house is down to studs so we are all cozy living in three bedrooms. One room is for May Bo’s mom, one room for Dallin & May Bo, and one room for all the kids! It was a really rough transition at first but we have all seem to have gotten used to it. It has actually made bedtime easier when all the kids have to go to bed at the same in the same room.
May Bo’s brother Aaron got married to Oliva and that was a huge highlight in our year.
Micah started middle school this year. He is the best sport dealing with all the little kids in his room and is really looking forward to having his own room one day. Micah got into the First Lego League team at his school. The tryouts were hard and only a few students got on the team. Middle school has been a really good for Micah and he has met some really great friends this year. He also started back up with swimming but we are still looking for a piano teacher for him.
Quentin has been utilizing the gift of the Holy Ghost in his life. The elementary school that we started out with here in Utah was not working out for Quentin. May Bo really wanted Quentin to stay at the school but after praying about the situation, Quentin decided he needed to leave the school right away. It was really good he did because the situation at the school only got worse and worse. Quentin actually didn’t mind being the new student again and is really enjoying his new school. He probably got one of the nicest teachers ever and he has made a lot of friends.
Emily started 1st grade. She loves her teacher and classmates. Her teacher reads with Emily everyday and she has grown leaps and bounds with her reading. She started to go to art club. Emily started piano lessons this year.
Jacob started his second year of preschool this year. It is a lot shorter than his school last year so he spends most of his time at home. He loves going to school and has had zero problems going to school. Thank goodness! He started swimming lessons this past summer and asks to go back everyday. He is an energy ball. Since Popo cooks for us almost everyday Jacob told us we live at “Popo’s Pizza and Steam Bun Restaurant.”
Cumorah is amazing at singing. She turned 3 this year and every one thinks she’s 5 or older. We started a TikTok for all her cute candid moments of singing. She is ready to start preschool, but not old enough to attend so we started preschool at home since she already knows the whole alphabet.
Lily Mei started walking! She can take 3-5 steps on her own. She still thinks crawling is a lot faster.
Dallin is working hard and long hours at Primary Children’s and is adjusting to be back in Utah. He loves to read Brandon Sanderson to the kids and work on remodel projects whenever he is home.
May Bo is having way too much fun making over 50 TikToks and Reels on Facebook. She used to make all the movies for her senior class in High School back in 2008 so this has been really fun for her to make movies again with much better and faster technology! This may be the first year she has taken more videos than pictures.
One huge miracle that happened to us this year is that Dallin’s sister gave us her 15 passenger van. We have already gone on several adventures with it. We have lots of camper van remodel ideas for this car and we’ll see if we actually get any time to make it happen in 2023. The kids love the van life. HAHA!
We decided to use Quentin’s 4th grade national park pass last weekend to go take a picture for this Christmas Card at Bryce Canyon. We hope we can see many more of the parks this coming year!
The biggest announcement is that we are moving back to Utah in June 2022. Dallin matched on December 15 with the Neonatology program at the University of Utah. He will be working as a fellow in the NICU at Primary Children’s hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah. I am so proud of Dallin for getting a match and fulfilling his dream of becoming a neonatologist. It is a competitive specialty with each program only accepting about two fellows a year. I really did not want to leave Indiana and we even considered getting a general pediatrician job because I knew going through the match again meant slim chances of staying. We cannot deny that we felt guided by the Spirit that we should apply to the match again. 😱 We saw so many miracles as Dallin submitted his application and interviewed for the programs. We continue to see miracles as we plan for our move. I am so grateful we matched in Utah where we have family and friends and not some random place off the map. I am going to make the next six months in Indiana the best ever because I absolutely adore this place and all the people here! God has a plan for our family and we feel peace forward.
Micah got on the school’s swim team this year and he has been getting so much better with his strokes. He has been reading all the Warrior books and enjoys playing video games and programming his Arduino.
Quentin chose to be baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ this year when we were visiting Utah for a family reunion during the summer. He also joined the town’s swim club that meets the same time as Micah’s swim team.
Emily started Kindergarten and has made so many friends! She loves going to school after staying home for preschool because of the pandemic. She loves art and loves to draw a bunch of pictures!
Jacob started preschool this year. He gets to ride on a “big bus.” It was a rough start but now he asks me when winter break is over so he can go back to school.
Cumorah climbs a lot. She is amazing at singing. Her verbal skills as a two-year-old is just incredible. She can sing about 50 songs from memory.
Lily Mei was born this year. She was 6lbs 7oz at birth. Labor was a lot harder than usual!!! She was sunny side up and they lost my first Covid test so I had to wait 7 hours for a second Covid test before they broke my water! So yeah extra laboring time because of a lost covid test but the recovery has been really good. She is our first colicky baby and needs lots of love from us.
Hubbard's Cupboard 