VP of Events

Last night I was voted in for another year of SBO (orchestra boosters) as Vice President of Events. This parent meeting was huge. I kind of wish I was doing travel, but after 3 years of events, it is getting pretty easy, so I’m excited hù to stick with this role

 

Home

 Ryan is home. 

I knew he was coming but he still somehow managed a suprise drop in when I was decluttering the basement storage room and he just side stepped through the doorway like nbd. I dropped my armload of stuff for the best mom hug ever. 

“First stop” He ran errands and afternoon kid pickups with me, we took Soren for sonic run and to make assessment of needs for his short term stay at the mains res, home to hoop with my boys, dinner and a few hands of poker with the fam. 

I left for the 2026 SBO board election and came home to Littles in bed and Aaron with big kids watching the Cavs v Knicks (great game). 

These few pics sum up the day perfectly:

Corbin dog piled onto Reese. Logan dog piled on Ryan, who was hitting Corbin and Reese with a sofa cushion. 

We’ve hit up the Fitness Center, CAVA, walmart for 2 pounds of rainier cherries, Sonic, and a dozen other places. 

Full house and a very full happy mama heart.

Throwbacks: Elder Willardson

Found some photos of Aaron on the mission. Dang that smile is 100% Quincy. 

His very humble and very messy 1 room apartment

Hooping with the boys.

 

Big things

Goodbye Big Red: with the coming and going of adult children, we have been shuffling and purging closets. The spring cleaning is working its way to the kitchen cabinets. I finally threw away the big red soup pot. This was the first kitchenware that was replaced after our fire (shout out katie Gulbransen for looting the Sam’s Club associates sample table for us!) and when I had half a brain to start cooking again in our rental, I cooked everything from soup to scrambled eggs in this bad boy. 2 years ago it earned the dent when it was accidentally launched it off the countertop by a friend. The kids hated that it didn’t fit in the dishwasher. Not sure if big red will be missed, but it’s a significant thing to see it go. 

Big day: My Sunday school seniors graduated this morning. Big things ahead for all of them. Esme and Corbin went with me to the ceremony and I got great big lineman tackle hugged after on the field. I love them SO big. Congrats to Madilyn, Bethany, Hyrum, Neal, Davey, Bryce, and Ammon! 

Esme got the Big Three Award at Cooper Roundup yesterday! 

Big A has stayed over at our house with Corbin a few nights this week. Late night NBA semi finals watching, chips and Chuys ranch, driveway ball with Logan, an ice cream run, garage weight lifting, and non stop tomfoolery. Yes they still were up at 1am binge watching The Summer I Turned Pretty. No, Corbin did not wake up in time to make it to his first period class either day 🤦🏻‍♀️. Senior year will be an adventure for sure. 

Big Announcements: attended two more mission call openings for young friends. 

Big Brother: logan is filling the big bro role quite nicely. We realized we do not have any photos together, so we have epic plans to correct that with our own Brogan photo series over summer vacation 😂 but here’s the selfie we took right away because we just cannot have no photos together. Logan will get his own son in law tribute post soon. He’s fitting in just great. Big appresh for this guy.

Twinning with Mary. Love her big. 

Big Growth: Soren came with me to watch Esme get an award yesterday and saw his kindergarten teacher Mrs Hamrick. She was shocked over how tall he had gotten. 

Big L: the Lakers sold hard to OKC Thunder, season is over and some Willardson are more sad than others. 

Big Upgrade: I put up wallpaper for my friend Angie in her home office on Tuesday. I love the way it turned out, and visiting with my friend for 2 hours totally filled my cup. 

Taking myself on a weekly date to the temple has been such a nice practice for me. 

I’m applying for a passport for Corbin after 6 months of it being on my to do list. We want to take a mom and son trip this summer and might end up having to postpone because I didn’t get my act together soon enough, but hopefully it will have a super fast turnaround and we can make some big  international memories together. 

Esme is making progress in violin lessons! I’m so proud of her. I bought her a cd to listen to the Suzuki recordings and she is catching the suzuki bug. Something big has clicked and we have motion! 

 

Congratulations Corbin!

 

Ya boy Corbin made 2026-2027 Chamber Orchestra! 

He worked hard for this, and invested a lot of time in improving his talents over the past last year. It really never stopped being a sore topic for him to not make it last year, but I am very proud of him for persevering and using a difficult and painful situation to practice patience and motivate him to work.  

Corbin is really happy to be part of this group next year. There will good friends to connect with, good music to create, and good times in New York to look forward to! Congratulations, son!

Celloverload 2026

Still have recitals to go, but here’s a sample of recent orchestra things.

Soren had his spring concert. He played 2nd chair in the 7th grade orchestra, which was a surprise since he is not enrolled in the class. Mr J gave him the music to learn and Soren rehearsed with them during priority/flex hours. 

He played 4th chair in the 8th grade orchestra, and was excited to be invited to play in the WJHS chamber orchestra, who performed at various events in NWA over the last few weeks. My favorite of these was a collab with the WJHS choir. They performed a song called Fly Away that was really beautiful. 

(Trace, Soren, Sawyer, Tommy, Santi) 

Soren has had fun running around with the 8th grade boys, this semester. Benson R and Tommy B, and Santi C all live in our ward, and Sawyer H is in Bella Vista Ward. These guys are great musicians and also sing in the choir. I hoped attending their concert might inspire Soren to join, but alas, he wants to take Spanish for his elective. 

Soren with his twin, Trace. This guy is such an easy buddy. They are hilarious together! 

Some pics of Soren at various concerts in the past week. I loved all of them! 

Corbin had his last concert with Camerata on Tuesday night. Camerata was stacked with talent and sounded incredible this year. Corbin had fun with Ammon and Hyrum, Richard A, James S, Kyle, Gisele, Mae, and of course Goatum. 

I love that my Sunday school kids want a pic together every concert and that’s the one they share on their socials. 😂

A pic I grabbed of Corbin rehearsing. It was a fun angle to watch them on the backstage monitor while I tied bows on roses for senior recognition night. 

I failed to take many pics at the banquet this year, but it’s done and the students were celebrated. Cheers to another year of orchestra in the books! I love what this program offers my children. 

2026 orchestra seniors. Time is flying by and it’s hard to believe that Corbin will be sitting at that table next year, sharing his plans for the future. 

 

Mother’s Day 2026

 Mother’s Day was wonderful! On Saturday, I talked to my parents and it was decided that since my mom hasn’t been feeling 100% lately, we would forgo a big family dinner this time and celebrate on our own. I got my mom a cute felted wool pot holder,? and had a visit with her on Friday afternoon. 

Saturday night, Aaron took me out for late late dinner and we shut the taco place down just sitting in a booth catching up on life. We weren’t ready to be home yet and ended up sitting in the car in a parking lot talking another hour after, just to debrief since we’ve been working opposite shifts lately, it feels like. I love a good one on one, and Aaron’s undivided attention is a much cherished podium level prize. 

On Sunday, Sloane crawled into my bed and practiced reading the talk she wrote. 

6 months ago, she asked bishop if primary children can sieak in church. He looked it up and said yes. Sloane set to work on what she wanted to share. This was very important to her and age kept a note in my phone for weeks and bvweeks with screenshots of quotes from the gospel library app and examples she felt prompted to include. She started to hand write her thoughts in a journal, but reading it back with her perfectly imperfect spelling and handwriting presented the challenge of not being able to read it back out loud smoothly. Dyslexia and dysgraphia are hard. Her intentions were so pure though. I typed it word for word into a word document with large font and even wrote out phonetically a few of the tricky words from her quotes. Over the last 2 weeks, she practiced reading and made changes. 

She was so nervous but this is something she has been wanting to do for many months and we are so proud her for her prayerful obedience to follow a prompting. She was asked to speak about “what it means to be a Chikd of God.” She shared “If we are all Children of God, then we are all brothers and sisters and we should treat everyone like family.” She talked about the struggles of learning to be a peacemaker and examples of showing family love. It was so wholesome and from her heart. 

Speaking of family love, Esme made me a beautiful little book card about how I am gee forever mom and she is lucky because I chose her. It made me ugly cry. 

I got a couple emails from a sister and elder with Mother’s Day wishes for mama Meg. I will champion these young brave people forever. Love them so much and Hurrah for Israel. 

We called Lynda and talked to her today for a bit. I miss her! 

I got my Mother’s Day FaceTime with Jamine Willardson, who also ugly cried reading Esme’s card. It was beyond precious. My missionary Mother’s Day call happened during Quincy’s regular Sunday night pday call, but I did get a solid hour to talk with just her and I loved that. 

A fun suprise, Noah Hill showed up at our door tonight with flowers for me from Ryan, who made arrangements with him last week to make a special delivery. I had a 1am mother’s day text from him in Beijing, but flowers are next level. My mother heart could just burst. 

Reese and Logan are house/doggo sitting this week for friends but spent the evening with us and gave me such a thoughtful gift: a karaoke top 100 music history Trivia game that I can’t WAIT to destroy them at. Muahahaha! Logan and Reese miiight give me a run for my money though. They are both experts in this field. It makes a mother so proud 😂. Sitting with my daughter and mother in relief society was a real treat today! 

I love Mother’s Day. I love my calling as a Mother. 

House full of people to love, hallelujah. 

Also, a shout out to my mama. Ages the reason we don’t sit next to people, we sit ON them. Cheers to a second generation of Velcro children. Bring on all the cozy blankets. Let’s snuggle!