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.
We wish you a Merry Christmas and we hope you are all staying well and healthy this holiday season.
What a year it has been and it feels like we haven’t done anything but stay home which is quite a contrast to last year.
This year started out with me (May Bo) watching the news and preparing for the pandemic. I followed the news closely in China and I knew it was coming. Then just two months later in March the kids were switch to remote learning which was a big learning curve for everyone.
It has been a great blessing to stay-at-home. It has given us back time. I don’t know how we’ll ever be able to go back to a fast paced and busy life. All the extracurriculars were stripped out of our lives. We have nothing to do but spend time as a family which was awesome.
Dallin has been enjoying residency and is about to take his last board exam for medical school since it kept getting delayed due to Covid.
Micah and Quentin was at-home learning from March to May. Then we were fortunate to start in person school again in July. They don’t mind wearing masks or going through the precautions. They were just happy to be at school again. The cases has been minimal among the elementary schools.
We decided to keep Emily at home for preschool. So that has been an adventure. She is learning how to read and write letters. She loves writing letters to everyone!
Jakey is just rambunctious and playful. He is one smart cookie. He gets into everything. However, Cumorah is catching up because she is climbing on everything and move chairs around to get the chocolate. She’s just turned 1 it is quite impressive.
We have posted a lot of highlights of the good and the bad of the 2020 quarantine on Facebook.
We would love to hear from you so let us know what you’re up to!
This is the best way I have found to make gluten-free bread rise. Here is the PDF of the presentation or see pictures below for more details. Let me know if you can get it to work. Good luck!
Equipment:
Oven preheated to 350 degrees
Medium Pot with lid
~1.5-quart bread pan
Saran Wrap
Stovetop
Ingredients:
2 cups Cold Water
1/4 cups Corn Meal
1 ¾ cup + 1 cup Gluten-Free Flour
1/3 cup oil
2 Eggs
1 tsp Xanthan Gum (if not in flour already… doesn’t hurt if you add more)
1/4 cup Sugar
¾ tsp Salt
1 Tbs Yeast
Instructions:
Put 2 Cups of Cold Water in a medium pot (it must have a lid!)
Add ¼ Cup Corn Meal
Add 1 ¾ Cups Gluten-Free Flour
Mix well with a whisk
The mixture will look like milk
Put the pot on the stove on medium heat
Use a rubber spatula or wooden spoon to scrape and mix while heating
Heating up the GF flour changes it somehow so that it can rise
Keep mixing on the heat until the mixture can stick together like sticky dough (~5 mins)
Do not leave on the stove without mixing or else it will burn!
Turn off and remove from heat
Immediately after removing the pot from heat add these ingredients to the pot
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1/4 cup sugar
¾ tsp salt
1 tsp xanthan gum (if the flour doesn’t have it)
Mix well until pudding texture
The dough should be cool enough (~100°) to add 1 Tablespoon of yeast
Cover the pot with a lid and let rise (30 mins)
Add 1 more cup of gluten-free flour
Mix until flour is incorporated into the dough
Transfer dough to bread pan (~1.5 quarts) and cover with saran wrap
Let rise a second time (30 to 45 mins)
Take off saran wrap and bake at 350 degrees for 27 mins
Dallin and I were recently called to team-teach Gospel Doctrine Sunday School at our church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is doing the Come Follow Me curriculum. For the year 2020, the entire church is studying The Book of Mormon. I wanted to print out a simple reading schedule and I couldn’t find one anywhere. I spent a long time making this so I thought I could share it online with all of you!
Her name is Cumorah. She is named after the Hill Cumorah in Palmyra, NY. The reason why this hill is significant to the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that it is the place where The Book of Mormon was discovered. The Book of Mormon is a history that tells of a family from Jerusalem who came to the Americas and their struggles. The book tells how this family overcame hard times by following the teachings of Jesus Christ. We read this book to help us get closer to God and to overcome our own struggles.
I wanted to practice sleepy baby pictures but this girl was born almost 2 weeks late. She acted like a 2 week old by the time she arrived. She is bright-eyed and ready to conquer the world! 😀📸
I woke up early to make cinnamon rolls to celebrate the first day of school but they were too excited and didn’t eat much of it. I hope they won’t be starving today but at least they drank their milk! Micah = 3rd Grade. Quentin = 1st Grade. Emily = A wannabee kindergartener but she’s only 3 years old. She spent 10 minutes crying at the bus stop after all the kids got on and left. She got her backpack and insisted I pack her a lunch. Poor girl, she would have snuck on the bus if I let her.
This is our new temple! This is the Indianapolis Indiana Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Dallin and I are so blessed to still have a temple close by so we can meet our weekly temple trip. It’s definitely not the same as the 8-minute drive that we use to have but it is close enough. Every time I’ve driven to the temple it reminds me of the song that says “Over the river and through the woods…” because I am very literally driving over the river and through the woods to get to the temple. HAHA! It is a beautiful drive. I wish I can show you all!
Hubbard's Cupboard 