MLKJ Day

MLKJ DAY
I am really happy with his this day off went!  Most of the morning we spent just hanging out at home.  Charity took Noah out for scones for his birthday, Bradley and Luke played with Bridger a little bit.  Erika played with Kate and Jack played with Will.  Molly, Kelly and I just kind of bummed around :).  And then Emily texted, inviting us to go to the Church History Museum.  Which was SUCH a funny coincidence because that had been the only place I'd thought of while racking my brain for a fun, cheap entertainment for the break.  We were thrilled :).  Scrambled to get in the car and made our way to Walmart to get groceries and then downtown.  We had a great time wandering around the museum.  I think the kids were in heaven with all the hands-on exhibits!  I really loved the kids area- I got to take pictures of everyone and made the discovery of a lifetime- Auto with a no flash setting!  Holy Moly!!  Pretty awesome.  It was a great time with the Maughans and a great way to spend our day off.  When we got home Luke took Noah out for donuts and ice cream.  Then Nate took us all out to dinner at Applebee's (took us about a 1/2 hour to stumble on the decision to go to Applebee's!).  It was quite entertaining sitting by Luke and Molly.  Charity and Kelly and Erika too- it was a pretty enjoyable dinner.  I love my family.  No matter how many weird looks we get from fellow restaurant-ers.  Everyone did really good.  Came home for FHE- a very nice lesson from Noah about Apostasy and milk shakes courtesy of Nate Jack.  I made the kids watch that video about Millenials and cell phone and social media addiction- hopefully something sunk in.  Who knows.  ANd then it was time to watch the Jazz game!  Sleepovers for everyone who's not into Jazz.  Fun weekend!  1-16-17

This was when I quit trying to do manual and used auto with the flash and then accidentally stumbled upon the no flash setting while in full auto!!  This was revolutionary!  Especially for these times where every angle of the room is a different setting and there's too many people to be flashing flashes all over the place.  I LOVE how good this camera is in low-light.  It makes shooting indoors much more enjoyable.  

Pillow fight in Noah's ark.

Jack and Will were hilarious!  I am still cracking up about Will telling the nice old lady, "no" when she wanted them to share the camels :).  HA!!  So awesome.

Blurry, but with this lighting....

I just love this little boy!

Hatches

HATCHES
Brent and his family came Saturday evening.  It was pretty relaxed evening, we just played and talked.  We introduced Sarah to the game It Came To Pass, Kelly made cream cheese wontons for everyone and her own homemade Sweet and Sour sauce, and Bradley and Bridger made Rice Krispie Treats :).  All the littles ran around playing with each other and all the toys.  It's been so fun to have Brent and his family around and be able to catch up with them a little.  I still feel kind of bad that I was feeling the way I was that night.  This week has been a doozy.  I wish I could have a break from it!  I wish we had more time with them to get Molly warmed up to Brent.  She really didn't at all.  1-14-17

Family Meeting One on One

FAMILY MEETING- ONE ON ONE
Grandpa Russ is still needing to stay away from germs and is still pretty tired.  So they decided that rather than having the whole family over for family meeting on Sunday that they would have each family pick a different day to go and have it individually.  We picked Friday.  Headed down there first thing after picking up kids from school.  We had a nice lesson from Nate, everyone got to talk about their talents and then most of the family performed musical ones as well.  Erika played the piano.  Noah played the piano and recorder, Luke played the piano, grandma insisted that he play at least three songs :).  Bradley passed.  Kelly played the ukulele and sang.  Charity played her ukulele as well and sang.  I wish the three girls had played a ukulele song together.  Grandpa Russ recited the poem the Jabber-walkie.  Grandma played a song on the piano.  Nate recited a poem he and his companion wrote on the mission.  I'm not sure how I got skipped over, but nobody wanted me to play bad enough to notice- nor was I going to point it out.  We played some games, then ate some yummy dinner.  Then played some more games.  Everyone was so excited when Grandma suggested It Came To Pass game.  We played a few rounds of that, frustrating Jen in the process, and then it was time to go.  It was a great time with everyone- lots of fun memories!  The kids and I (minus Nate and Charity because they were headed to their Jazz game) had to stop at Seagull Book and get our own It Came To Pass game since our old one is missing too many cards to play anymore. 1-13-17

These pictures are all a little dark because I didn't want to use the flash- it's not as well-tolerated with the Mayneses as it is in Hatch settings :).

Sorry Charity, this was one of the few shots of Grandpa!

Cute Jackie randomly got down and was doing push-ups :).

So everyone else jumped on the bandwagon.

One- handed push-ups

And we talked Nate into trying it- pretty sweet!

Then of course, some sit-up competitions 

Molly was Nate's handicap.

Just for the record, Jack has drawn new tiger stripes on his face every time he's had a bath.  We do bathe him.  He's been so proud of them, it's been hard to make him wash it off though.  

Look how great this picture is!  Such a hottie.