PRODUCTION
Monday was the most productive (as far as housework goes) day I have had in a really long time. It was amazing! I cleaned almost the entire house, like really clean! It took me ALL day and the girls helped a little and also played by themselves a lot, but I got a TON DONE! It was awesome! These days are few and far between. I even did several loads of laundry and several loads of dishes too. I was so proud of myself. It was pretty eye opening though, when the only comments I heard about my day's work was, "You cleaned the family room!" from Luke and "Thanks for making our bed!" from Nate :). Only a little discouraging, but that's not why I did it. Now it will be less work next Monday when I want to have it that clean again :). 11-1-21
BANANA BREAD
I made banana muffins for breakfast and had a lot of batter left over even after making three pans of muffins, so I poured the rest into some small bread pans. It's really fun for me to take small loaves of bread to my friends when I do this, so I started thinking of who I wanted to share it with. I had a lot of people come to my mind, but the ones that seemed most pressing were Heidi and my mom, Emily, Shar, Mary Jo, and Brooke. Molly saw me writing up cards for people and caught the bug, she wanted to take something to her friend Emily, so we made her a card and bagged up some muffins. It was super cute of her. We had a lot of fun delivering our bread. Even got to stop and play with Porter and Alyssa while we were delivering my mom's and Heidi's. Good stuff. 11-2-21
NUTRIGRAIN BARS
For the past few months, it's been hard for me to resist the urge to buy something for the homeless people outside of Sam's and Walmart. I don't usually have cash and I like to offer food rather than money anyway, so when I see them out there, I try to remember to grab something while I'm shopping. It's been interesting. A couple times, they were gone by the time we got out. Another time the person didn't seem all that thrilled with what I had gotten them. But today was especially fun for me and Molly. She had noticed the woman standing there. We decided together it would be fun to get her something from Sam's while we were there. We thoughtfully picked out the Nutrigrain bars since they are mildly healthy, nutritious, and yummy. We were getting all excited to give it to her. As we drove up to her corner, I rolled down the window and she came over to the car. I said, "I don't have any cash for you, but would you like this?" and handed her the box of bars. Her face!!! I wish I could have taken a picture of her face! She was SO HAPPY! The smile on that toothless grin and the way her face lit up as she said, "Oh I LOVE breakfast bars! Thank you so much!" It was priceless!! Even Molly couldn't help but smile! I had to point out to my girls how awesome that felt! And that that was the Spirit telling us we had done a good thing. Made my so happy and really just made my day!! I LOVED it!! I hope we can do that again sometime. 11-2-21
PLAYGROUP
I don't know if I should actually document this. It's been a huge source of contention for me all week and caused a lot of frustration, so I don't want to drum up bad feelings later, but I guess I want to remember it still. I want to remember that I am better off keeping my mouth shut. Even when it comes to laying out boundaries. Sometimes you just can't. Not without more of a fight than I am willing to allow. I did so good at keeping my cool there, even though I was fuming inside, I wish I'd been able to carry that over and not called Natalie after the fact. Self control would have been the better choice. 11-3-21
GRANDMA RUTHIE
Wednesday was our Grandma Ruthie day! Nate picked her up on his way home from the mid. We were able to have our Lunch Day with Brad and Luke WITH Grandma Ruthie! She was SO much fun to have over. Especially for Molly and Sadie! They played games nonstop! She was so good to keep going with card games and Bingo! Sadie got especially talkative with her which was really fun. I loved watching them together on the couch. We didn't do much during the day, should have tried to go do something, but we did get to spend some quality time with her. She was fun at dinner, complimenting my Pizza Casserole and wanting seconds :). Love that! And the drive home with Jack, Molly and Sadie was totally memorable. Looking for all the temples, singing "Twinkle Star", the ice cream cones! HA!! Too funny. I think that's the fastest I've ever had a kid go through an ice cream cone. Silly Sadie. It was nice to talk with her all the way home. She is such a sweetheart and such a good example. I am grateful for her in my life. I hope she will let us kidnap her again soon. 11-3-21
CHOPPED NIGHT
The kids did a "Chopped Night" again which isn't really like Chopped, but a cooking competition, and this time it wasn't even cooking, it was making milkshakes, but whatever :). I loved hearing about it all. Nate drinking enough sugar to kill him, Luke and Erika being in the same group, Luke accidentally putting himself in the wrong group- funny that he accidentally did that when Lexi and Maya were in the group he was supposed to be in. HA! It sounded like a fun night for all of them though. I was glad. 11-3-21
DATE NIGHT
Nate and I got to go on a date Thursday night. We went to Olive Garden and the movie Dune. Good time together planning our summer so that Nate could bid his time off. I hope we are able to go on our trips next summer :). With Kelly leaving on a mission, I'm just not sure how that will go! But we did plan our time off and had a lot of fun thinking about the future. The movie we saw was strange. Made me feel like it must have been made from a book and I was missing a lot of details. But it was interesting and I didn't fall asleep, so... 11-4-21
"TWEEN-TOH TWEEN-TOH SEEDEE DAAAAH"
That's how Sadie sings "Twinkle Star" it's so stinkin cute!! She is way into belting it out at random throughout her day now :). I love that she sings. Makes me happy. And we all can't get enough of her pronunciation of everything. "Up up up wer so HIGH like a dimon in duh GUY!" Cute little girl. 11-4-21
STRUGGLING
I'm not sure what it was this week- I mean, there's lots to choose from, so probably just a compilation of everything- but I was off. From Wednesday on. It was hard to rise above the chaos in my mind, the opinions of others, the constant bombardment of negative thoughts from satan. It all kept creeping in and getting in the way of my enjoyment of my family and life. Friday was especially hard. I just felt like I was in quick sand all day. Unable to move and get myself out of the slump. It was really annoying. I was glad that Erika needed to get out and get some new shoes and gift for Morgan. Things like that are good distractions. But I was still just dragging. I really need more of the good in my life I decided. More conference talks. More talking with the Lord. More scripture study. I am falling behind in these areas and I need to get that back. I can feel it in my lack of self control. It's not the end of the world. I don't feel completely hopeless, but I do feel like I need to strengthen my spiritual reserves. They are needed right now for sure. I am looking forward to a new week! 11-5-21
BASKETBALL JACK
Jack had his first game today! It's always fun when basketball season starts up. We had a big crowd (thankfully they're not doing the stupid rules they had last year with people attending games) to cheer him on! He looked like he was having fun but also working hard :). I loved having Charity's intensity there to keep the place rocking! 11-6-21
EAGLE MOUNTAIN
Nate wanted to go up and give Jared a blessing so we decided to make a big family outing out of it. We all hopped in the car and drove up to Eagle Mountain. We didn't want to overwhelm Jared with everyone so we just dropped Nate off while I went and explored the old neighborhood a little and then found a fun park to kill time at. It was a really sobering feeling to drive around down there. Not a ton of fun memories during that time of our life. Lots of stress and overwhelming challenges. We both felt the heaviness of that time as we were looking back. It was a nice home and great yard, and the kids were happy and healthy, so that was a huge blessing and when I look back, I do remember it being a simpler time. We made fun in the strangest ways. I distinctly remember the excitement of hunting for bugs being almost equivalent to the excitement of an amusement park back then. And all the crafts we did ;). It wasn't horrible, but a huge challenge. It's nice that we don't live there anymore. Although it has grown a ton! It's a completely different place now! No longer a half an hour drive to the nearest grocery store! The kids had fun at the park we found. Sadie let me push her on the swing for about 45 minutes! I'm surprised she was still functioning after that. I loved her experience on the spinning seat... she didn't, but she was so adorable when she wanted to stop. The older kids played the ground is lava all over the playground the entire hour and Luke and Jaxx played on the basketball court. They have funny ways of entertaining themselves :). It was a good drive, talking with Nate about some of our recent concerns with our kids. We got to stop at Carl's Jr. as well. I think this is the first play place Sadie has been to that she's been able to play! Kinda crazy! But we were glad it was open! Got home and watched the Jazz lose. It was a good night though! Good times. 11-6-21
FAMILY COUNCIL
It's been a while since we had a family council with Nate being gone all morning and then leaving for work during church, so since Nate had the week off, we decided we needed to have one. What a great thing that was!! The actual council was good, we were able to talk about a lot of things that had been weighing on our minds, we did a review about Pornography and repentance, jobs, cleaning up after ourselves. Kind of the usual, but it has been so long it wasn't usual. The kids stayed focused and participated the entire time. And it was pretty long. It was so great though!! I loved it! And then the best part was how awesome our home felt for the rest of the evening. So much love and positive vibes. It was amazing. Made me wonder if having Nate work Sundays was really the best thing for our family. But it was good. Then we had my amazing Spinach Artichoke Dip finally! With the Quest chips!! SO GOOD!!!! I loved it!! 11-7-21
STREET HOCKEY
Erika and Noah have been wanting to try street hockey, so Erika and I went and picked up some sticks from someone on KSL. Five sticks for $20! Kind of a steal. I hope they work. 11-8-21
FAMILY ROOM FLOOR
As part of Nate's vacation we wanted to work on the family room. So Monday we went up to Lowe's and Home Depot and picked out the perfect vinyl for that room. Nate was able to work on it a little that night and then all day the next day. Took him the entire day. We are so grateful for his hard work. It's like a breath of fresh air looking down there. I love it!! So much better than the ugly brown cork flooring. We still have the finishing touches and we'd like to paint the walls soon too, but it looks amazing!! 11-8-21--11-9-21
TUESDAY
My period has taken a turn for the worse. It's been really painful this time. I was completely out on Tuesday. Sat on the couch in pain working on my blog book most of the day. It was crazy. It was nice that I could and didn't have to do anything besides laundry, but the pain was pretty unbearable. Not sure what I should do about it. 11-9-21
ERIKA'S BIRTHDAY!
I got up early to make Erika's sign this time. I had talked myself out of staying up late. Unfortunately, I was so nervous about the sign that I woke up at 3:00am with ideas and played them out in my mind for the next two hours before finally dragging myself out of bed. I hate it when my brain does this. But it turned out to be a pretty awesome sign!! She liked it :). Noah made fun of the shuttle run guy all morning. For study time we all drew pictures of a fun memory we have with Erika. We had crepes for breakfast. Nate left after that with the little girls to go get Grandma Ruthie and then to drop the girls off at my mom's house. I started her hourly gifts for the 12 hours of her birthday gifts at 8:29 (that's what time she was born). When I learned that you could schedule baptisms at other temples, I had to get on and schedule baptisms for Erika's birthday! She was so excited! We checked her out around 9:30 and headed up to the Ogden temple. It was so great! I loved it!! She and I both got to do baptisms, Nate did the baptizing. We were able to do the names Becky gave Erika, but they wouldn't let me do baptisms unless I had family names, so I am the one who did them. Kinda strange, but whatever. We loved being there. We got Erika back home and changed and back to school by 11:30! She had fun at school, passed out her cosmic brownies. There wasn't a ton going on after school except Ward Pie Night. Which ended up being a lot of fun for her birthday. We even sang to her :). When we got home, we gave her the rest of her gifts, and her card telling her about the shopping spree with mom and dad. I think it was a good day. 11-10-21
ACT FOR BRAD AND LUKE
It was the free ACT test day at school Wednesday. The sophomores and juniors were supposed to go and take the test. Brad and Luke both did it, felt like they did pretty good. Then we got to have them home for the rest of the evening and we made good use of the time, with Grandma Ruthie, and went to Red Robin for some lunch! Brad brought Brandon which made Sadie's day. It was a lot of fun. 11-10-21
WARD PIE NIGHT
Nate worked really hard on his SMOKED meat pie for this thing. I was really impressed with how well he did on it and how much everyone loved it! There were no leftovers. I guess Nate never even tried it! Kinda crazy. But it was a big hit! We all went, had a lot of fun talking to everyone. I had told myself I would take a little taste of one, but never even did all night! I was pretty proud of myself! Sadie spent the entire time filling up cups with water at the water jug. Kinda funny, kinda embarrassing, a little dangerous, she slipped and fell a few times... it kept her occupied. I loved talking with the Pearces, Brooke, Cathie and Keeley even came over near the end. It was a good night. I loved singing happy birthday to Erika :). 11-10-21
ENDOWMENT SESSION
Nate and I had made our appointment for the Bountiful temple endowments long before the baptism ones with Erika the day before, so it felt a little redundant going to the temple again Thursday, but it was so nice! We got there a little late for our appointment, but they let us in on the next one thankfully! So we got to sit in the chapel for almost an hour just sitting there quietly. I loved it. It felt good to be there. Thanks to my mom for babysitting the girls. 11-11-21
FAMILY PICTURE
I did the annoying over-planning that always somehow happens with family pictures and stressed myself out all day thinking about the colors of clothes and annoying stuff. And it was cloudy all day so the chances of getting a good picture were slim. For some reason I just has this intense urge and need to do it anyway. I wish I know why. The awesome part of this experience was how helpful Charity and Kelly were when they showed up. They came in and just took over all the last minute things that needed to happen, did Molly's hair, helped find outfits, just their positive vibes were a real recharge. I LOVED that! The actual picture taking was fairly painless. I wasn't super thrilled with everyone's clothing, but we were making do. Everyone did really good during the picture. Even Sadie smiled a few times. But with all the cloud coverage, they were way too blurry. Such a bummer. We are going to have to try again I'm afraid. But we do have a picture. If anything changes- we have a picture of us right now. I don't know why that always feels so important. 11-11-21
ERIKA'S FAMILY PARTY
We had a great turnout for Erika's party! More than we'd planned on with the dinner or cake! Which was frustrating for me but mostly really fun for all of us! We had Grandma Ruthie, Becky and Jen who showed up almost 45 minutes early! While we were cleaning up the house! haha!! Then the Taylors, Grandma Hatch, Grandpa Hatch, and Heidi and her kids all came as well. I finished up the hedgehog cake topper while they were all arriving and thankfully Charity had volunteered to make the dinner. Such a good girl. Kelly was helping Nate and the others with the cleaning up. We really crammed too much into this evening. My bad. We had spaghetti, salad, french bread for dinner and then everyone kind of mingled for a bit. Then we had Erika open her presents. She got some really fun and thoughtful gifts! It was fun to see that people know her and knew what she would like. The easel and art stuff from Jen and Grandpa Hatch's Minky couture choice! Very cool. I loved that. Then we had Boston Cream Pie cake with a cute hedgehog on top :). The hedgehog turned out pretty cute and we got a kick out of how the fondant flame on the fondant candle caught on fire and melted a little from the candles! HA! Fun stuff. I hope Erika had a good time! 11-11-21
ERIKA'S FRIEND PARTY
Erika chose Fly High for her party this year. Her friends all arrived on time at 3:00, we drove up to Ogden for two hours of jumping fun. They seemed to really maximize this time. It was cool to sit and watch them. And I love that Nate and I got to do that together. It was good talking time. The kids were everywhere! They made up fun games on all of the different trampolines. I love how kids can do that. She has a really good group here- I hope these six (seven if you count Jeff :)) can stay friends for a long time. They are all really good kids. Very polite, not too crazy. Maybe a little craziness at dinner time, but so fun! I loved that Jeff bought an Icee for him and Erika :). After jumping we hurried home for dinner- Pulled Pork Sandwiches, fruit, and a Pringles buffet. It was fun to watch these guys interact. They had a lot of fun together. Then presents, cupcakes and ice cream, and a movie! It was a full evening! I loved it, hopefully Erika had a great time too! 11-12-21
MOLLY PARTY FOR EMILY
Molly got to go to a birthday party Friday night as well. This was pretty exciting for her. She had a lot of fun. I think she's liking getting out on her own a little more too. Didn't seem to care that I wasn't there with her. She really likes Emily- she's been a good friend. She came home with her little goodie bag of little girl makeup! Fun stuff. 11-12-21
ERIKA SHOPPING SPREE
We got to take Erika to lunch at Costa Vida and then shopping for her birthday gift. She was so cute, politely trying to pick where we would eat and go shopping. She's so fun to spoil because she is so polite about everything. We told her she had $100 to spend wherever she wanted and she chose Target. She found a bunch of cute clothes which she really needs. I was glad she was able to just spoil herself a little too. Then she deliberated how to spend the last $25 for quite a while as we wandered the store. She chose a Wubble ball and stress ball :). I loved watching her choose what she wanted. It was a nice time with her too, nonstop talking! I love that. Good times. And her four day birthday extravaganza came to an end! 11-13-21
WARD CHOIR
Have I mentioned that ward choir started back up about a month ago? The first week wasn't my favorite. We were supposed to wear masks which I think is ridiculous and Brad and I showed up without them. Always mixed feelings there, but it was fine. I was sitting on the front row away from everyone, so I feel like it was fine. But then the choir director made a funny announcement in RS the one week I was able to go, basically calling out people for not wearing a mask (Brad and I were the only ones not wearing masks). Kinda funny, also annoying. But then I missed a few weeks for other things- Evan's Farewell, conference, etc. and when I went back this week, Cathie Nybo was filling in! Kinda nice. Nobody was wearing masks, we had music for all the songs (last time we were supposed to sing a song WITH PARTS without any written music! So strange!! I was looking over at Brad like, what are we supposed to do?), it was a lot of fun actually. Cathie did amazing! I'm thinking I'll brave it again next week because I love to sing. 11-14-21
PRIMARY PROGRAM
We had a great program this Sunday! I loved it! They had Daniel (the man who is blind) sing the verses to this really beautiful song and then the kids walked up as they sang the chorus. It was a really cute way to get them up on the stand. Jack was in the center back, looked all old and experienced up there! I can't believe how grown up he is these days. He sang his little heart out and did an excellent job on his bog part with lots of big words. His part was: Joseph Smith was inspired by a passage he read in the bible, which eventually led to the restoration of Christ's Church, the Priesthood Authority was then restored to the earth. Molly was over on the side at the top of the stairs. I had to lean out to see her around the music director. She looked so cute and grown up as well! Thankfully, she's got a lotta years left in Primary. I know they will go faster than I want them to, but for now, she's still little :) ish. She sang all the songs perfectly! I loved watching her cute little face. She let me do her hair really cute too, that was fun to see. She said her part perfectly also. Her's was: I can show my love for others by sharing with my family. I think she made this up herself. Almost all of the kids (all who wanted to) got to come up and sing a little solo during the songs. They had them come up with their sibs. It was SO CUTE!! I was hoping Jack and Molly would and finally! During the song Search, Ponder and Pray they got to sing the second verse together in front of everyone. It was so cute!! I loved it! Great program. It was fun that we could send the link to the grandparents and have them watch it. 11-14-21
GRANDMA RUTHIE'S FOR DINNER AND THE FAMILY MEETING
Ruth invited us up for dinner this Sunday. Just the kids and me. It was such a great little moment when I panicked for a second thinking I hadn't thought of anything for dinner and then realizing it was because we were going up there for dinner. She made some really tasty food- bacon wrapped chicken, Brussel sprouts, mac and cheese (probably for Sadie), and some really delicious bread! I ate way more of it than I should have. But it was really nice to spend time with her and Becky and Jen. The kids didn't eat as much as I would have liked, but that's kind of how they are right now. I'm not sure what to do with that. But it was so nice of her to have us over. I was really grateful. We had the family meeting and Jared taught a really good lesson on the talk about the slope. Very cool. We had a nice time. I especially loved my chats with Bradley on the way there and back I really love that time with him. We both talked the entire way home. Almost no breaks :). He's such a great kid. I really don't know what I would do without him in my life. I'm so proud of him and all that he does and all that I can see him doing. So much potential in this kid. I hope he keeps up with himself and can use the momentum he's created, his whole life. 11-14-21
FHE
For Family Night Jack volunteered to give the lesson since Kelly wasn't here. He did a great job teaching us about obedience with the story about Nephi and his brother's getting the brass plates. It was awesome. We had ice cream and ice cream Snickers for the treat and watched a movie called Flipped for Brad's activity. Kind of a cool movie. Good feel to it. 11-15-21
NO ZOO
We were supposed to go to the zoo with Heidi on Tuesday but found out she was moving up to Dad's instead. Hopefully that goes well. 11-16-21
SPIRIT NIGHT
We thought it would be fun to support Columbia's Spirit Night and had dinner at Costa Vida on Tuesday. That was a lot of fun, just running into friends and teachers while we were there. We stood in line with Desmonds, saw Mrs. Downs as she was leaving, and caught glimpses of a few other teachers and friends. Good stuff. Who doesn't love an excuse to go to Costa Vida :). 11-16-21
HAIR CUTS
Brad was wanting his hair cut and I am feeling more and more unqualified to give him haircuts as we go along, so I suggested going to a hair cutting place. Took a while to find one still open but when we did we ended up being able to sit there and talk while we waited and then we both got haircuts before they had to close- kinda nice. Brad looks so good! I like his a lot. I will have to get used to my chunky layers! I had a good time with Bradley. 11-16-21
LUNCH DAY
We've had Grandma Ruthie two weeks in a row so when I asked Molly who she thought would also be there with Daddy when we got home for lunch, hoping she would think of Brad and Luke, she said, "Gahmmah!" Kind of sad to tell her she wasn't there, but super cute that she was wishing she was there. 11-17-21
KELLY STUDY TIME
Kelly was so nice to offer to teach study time for me on Thursday when she was down. She taught us how to draw the Plan of Salvation and talked about it. It was really cool. She did a great job. 11-18-21
GRANDMA RUTHIE ERRANDS AND MOLLY PLAYING HOOKIE
We got to go up to Daybreak Thursday to help Ruth run some errands. It was a lot of fun to hang out with her, and Kelly was with us so that was a little treat too. Molly had a sore throat on Wednesday, at the end of Playgroup, so she missed school Wednesday and then Thursday she was complaining that her stomach hurt and felt like she was going to throw up, so we just kept her with us that day too. Made it easier to help Ruth. She wasn't too happy about it of course though. She didn't look so good anyway. And when we got home she did throw up. Kinda weird. But we had a nice time with Ruth. She took us to Culver's for lunch. We all loved it when Sadie said, "So mini tumbo!" (So many temples!) 11-18-21
NXR IN TEMPE ARIZONA
As soon as we learned that Brad was invited to NXR we wanted to go down there to watch. Make a little road trip out of it. I was really excited to go but didn't want to pay to drive the van down there, so Nate consented to letting me go with a few kids. It was kind of in the back of our minds so we didn't think about it a ton and almost weren't sure if we were really going to do it, but Kelly got work off and we really wanted to go support Brad, so we did! I loved Molly's reaction when I was packing and she asked who else was going with me and I said, "Kelly and Erika", she just about died, "ERIKA?? NOT ERIKA!!" She was even more devastated than before once she knew Erika wasn't going to be here. I felt bad not taking her but 10 hours is a long time to drive. I don't feel like she would have enjoyed it all that much. But Erika, Kelly and I had a GREAT TIME!! It felt so much longer than two days!! We left here as soon as Nate got home from the mid, around 6:30. We stopped in Orem for some breakfast. Then Payson to look at Kelly's favorite temple. I love that one too- the color is really beautiful. Then we wanted to stop at the Scipio petting zoo but it was closed. Just a few animals roaming around in a fenced in area- kinda sad! We listened to Don't Miss This and then Kelly's Playlist. Talked and laughed. We had to follow the GPS on my phone pretty closely once we left I-15 because I wasn't familiar with that drive. We had our music going, Kelly was keeping me entertained and Erika was in the back doing beads, drawing, reading, doing homework- her math was my favorite part! HA! Actually Erika was quite the comedian the whole trip. Kinda funny. About five hours into the drive, we found ourselves driving over the Glen Canyon! We wondered if it was the Grand Canyon but there wasn't a big enough production leading up to it and we were still three hours away from Grand Canyon National Park. But we were pretty amazed by the Glen Canyon :). We finally got to the turn off for the Grand Canyon and were so excited to be headed that way that I forgot to fill up on gas. We drove for a really long time before coming upon the little ranger booth to pay our $35 to enter the park. Then as we pulled into the park and realized that this was a lot like Arches National park with lots of hikes and viewing points, etc., I started to panic that there wasn't going to be a gas station within the park. I knew it was going to be about 50 miles to get us out of the park once we were done, but we did not have that many miles left, so I said some anxious prayers about our need for gas. I tried not to let it stress me out and then a couple minutes later, I saw a sign that said, "Gas Station Camp Ground"! I hoped that this gas station campground was literally a gas station and not some figurative symbolism. Thankfully, we saw another sign pointing right for the gas station and left for the campground, they were not meant to be together :). What a relief when I pulled into that tiny, unmanned, gas station! It almost looked abandoned and seemed way too out in the middle of nowhere to be for real, but it was! And we used it! Filled up and let out a huge sigh of relief. So then we could really focus and look for a viewing point to see the Grand Canyon. The spot we found was interesting. There was a big parking lot, a few little shops and buildings with landscaped walkways leading you to an unknown point. Not a lot of signage if I'm being completely honest. We weren't 100% sure we were going to find the Grand canyon at the end of this little walkway, but we tried it out anyway. There was a really cool, old, stone tower that I thought could be a lookout point and that seemed cool also. As I looked around this little tourist attraction, I realized everything was basically abandoned. There were not many people around, mostly elderly people with dogs and nobody was doing much talking. We felt like we needed to whisper almost. We've compared this stop to the Twilight Zone. It was a little bizarre, but on we went. And very quickly we found ourselves at an amazing viewpoint of the beloved Grand Canyon! A railing and telescopes indicated that that was it! I don't even know how to describe how amazing it was!! Similar to my reaction of Crater Lake, just complete and utter awe! This was really beautiful and magnificent! We were amazed! Took lots of pictures, even asked one of the couples there to take one for us- this was the only couple who was for sure not decoy/robots. It was really fascinating! I had no idea I would appreciate it this much! We walked around a little more, rapidly taking pictures, and then made our way into the little gift shop at the base of the tower (which we soon learned was being renovated so not an option for viewing, bummer). There were all the usual gifts and an unusual spider hanging out in one of the little displays. That was creepy, but memorable :). I decided on some playing cards and happily made my way to the check stand where the woman (we assume she's real) proceeded to not check me out, but checked out someone who came after me, while another employee lectured us about not having masks. So strange. This is when it hit me that this place was stuck in 2020! That's why there were still signs everywhere, almost no people, an abandoned restaurant that looked like it hadn't been touched in a while. It was so strange. We just informed him that we didn't have any masks, and waited to be checked out and left. Kind of a sour moment. But we found a few other spots to take some more pictures and then another gift shop. It was a really fun little adventure for us! I hope we can take the rest of the family there some day. That was about all the time we could spare on that drive, so we hoped back in the car and headed back to our route to Tempe. We made a few more stops, one of them at a gas station on a reservation that was also very mask-happy. I started to get nervous that we were going to have to have masks on for this whole trip and panicked a little, worrying that they may not allow spectators at the race, etc. I was a little nervous. Thankfully, there was nothing to worry about once we got to Tempe, almost nobody was wearing them. Kinda nice. We did finally make it to our hotel after stopping at a couple stores for a swim suit for Kelly. We were able to swim in the dark for about a half hour and then back to our room for Footloose (after fiddling with the tv for way too long) or at least the first few minutes of it, before Kelly and Erika konked out :). We all slept really well. In the morning we grabbed our breakfast which was the perfect example of how not all free breakfasts are created equal. This one was subpar. But they did have a waffle iron, so that was good :). We headed over to the mall after checking out, but it wasn't open yet, so we moved some things around on our schedule and decided to go check out the Mesa Temple. It wasn't far, we could go see that and be back and still have an hour or so to shop. When we got close to the temple we noticed signs and people directing traffic and special event parking signs... we weren't sure what it was! I stopped and asked a girl standing on the corner and she was so sweet! She told us it was the last day of the Mesa temple open house, we didn't need tickets, we could go in our street clothes... it was great! We didn't have a lot of time, but we couldn't resist the chance to go see it. We parked, walked up, took some pictures, walked back to the car to put away my camera bag, and then walked back up to get in line. We got in pretty quickly. I had a really special moment as I was getting my booties on, realizing that them putting the booties on was similar to Christ washing his disciples feet and it made me tear up a little realizing that that was a special thing that I didn't need to wish away or do myself. I loved that temple! It was really beautiful! Small, but very pretty! I think there were some original things in there from before, which is always awesome. The font was super tiny! We are still baffled as to how they do baptisms there and where they put the tv screen, etc. But really beautiful tile and the oxen were very cool. We loved it. When we got done it was time to find Brad's race, go get some Subway and then get back to the race to watch Brad. Their race was at a golf course. We got a pretty amazing parking spot right by the club house. Didn't take us long to run into Jami and she pointed out the tent. We found Brad, gave him hugs and wished him well and he took off for the Start Line. We wandered around a little, looking for the perfect place to cheer him on on the route and found a cool spot where we would be able to see him four times (only three because we wanted to make it to the finish line), so we stood there and cheered and got video of him throughout the whole race. He had been feeling really sick for the past couple days so his hopes weren't too high for this race. He said his goal was to not drop out. And in his words, "I'm not nervous, I just hate running." HA! For how sick he was feeling and how hot (80 degrees as opposed to our 30-40s) and dusty it was, I thought he did amazing! We were proud of him and glad we got to see him race! I loved how excited Kelly and Erika were during this. Erika took off at the end to go meet him after the finish line! So cute! We stood and talked for a while and got some pictures, Jami and the Perrys were there, so that was fun. Then it was time for them to go. We hugged him one last time and then were off to the mall. We had a lot of fun shopping! This mall was huge! Took us two hours to get through the whole place and that was with us "being in a hurry". We got a few things, including matching bucket hats for the girls, got some pretzel bites and made our way back to the car. By now it was 3:00. I was really starting to dread this 10+ hour drive home! My phone was saying we'd get home by 1:00, but I knew it was going to be more like 3:00. I had to really psych myself up for this! We chatted and listened to music- this time we tried some 90s and 80s playlists that basically, I was the only one singing with them. We played some word games realizing that a lot of words end with the same letters, and not too much variety. This was when we got a little confused about the moon. First it was the sun, then we realized it would have to be setting in the east to be the sun, and we'd already seen it setting in the west anyway. Then I guessed that it was a fire. And finally, it hit me that it was the moon! A bright orangey-red moon!! Really beautiful and hopefully some of Kelly's pictures turned out. That was pretty funny. Most of the drive home was pretty uneventful. Some stops for gas, water, drinks, treats, bathroom breaks, and to wake me up. A stop at Jack in the Box for dinner. Lots of fun. Kelly was a lifesaver, pointing out the deer in the road- we may have hit that if it hadn't been for her. Good thing she didn't go to sleep right then. The girls slept for a couple hours and then Kelly woke up and was able to keep me awake for a while. I had been kind of anxious to use a bathroom for a while, but noticed that most of the gas stations were closed (this was around 1:00 am) so I prepared myself to wait until the Walmart in Payson. Kind of a usual stop for us on our Manti trips for the same reason. So I knew I just had to wait til Payson. It was a "baby steps" kind of hour for me as we turned each mountain range and I'd have my hopes up that that was the one. But thankfully, around one of the bends, the big beautiful bright light from the Payson temple was just smiling out at me!! Brought so much hope!! It was a huge relief! I was able to go to the Walmart there in Payson. Kind of a funny story, I went in, used the bathroom (after freaking out an employee as we startled each other coming around the corner into the bathroom), walked around a little to wiggle my legs, found a shirt I liked, headed back to the back to get some soda and ran into an employee who asked if I needed any help with anything, to which I said, "no, thank you, I'm good!" and then he came back with, "Are you a customer?" and of course I was, to which he responded, "We're closed! We've been closed for two hours!" HA! Kinda funny! There was no buying of any soda or shirts and he walked me out of there. Kinda funny. There were no signs that they were closed- all the lights on, plenty of employees stocking shelves, it was so funny to think I had been in there while lit was closed. This was a good stop though and I was able to stay awake the rest of the way home with Kelly's help and conversation. I was SO RELIEVED when we got to our exit. I couldn't believe we had made it home. That was a really long drive. So long. But I am so glad we did that. Such a fun time with my girls. Glad we got to be supportive for Brad- he was so sweet to send us thank you texts after his race too. It was just a great little vacation. And really, it felt so much longer than just two days! 11-19-21--11-20-21
KELLY'S LIST
Kelly was making a list for me throughout our whole trip (I was driving like 85% of the time!) of all the funny and interesting things we saw and experienced. I need to get that from her. 11-20-21
SICKIES
A lot of us are sick this weekend. Bradley was sick at his race, I started feeling sick on the drive home, Molly and Sadie seemed to still be recovering- Sadie still with the booger streaks all over. Jack informed me that he had a sore throat at the end of Sacrament meeting. It was nuts! So since Nate had gotten Sadie to sleep while I was picking up Brad. And since Brad didn't sound good enough to go to church, I left Sadie home with him sleeping and took Noah, Erika, Molly and Jack to church. We stayed for Sacrament meeting and then I took Molly and Jack home. It was interesting. I'm not sure what this bug is, but it's a doozy. I hope it goes soon. 11-21-21
SERVICE
We had a fun evening full of service (and potential service) last night. Took some lasagna to Keeley and her family because Elsie just got home from four days in the hospital. Then because the power was out I took some lasagna to Tarry Perry also. Then for FHE we went to the store to buy stuff for the Thanksgiving meal we are going to cook for someone in our ward. I'm really excited to try that. I loved it all! Helped distract me from how I was feeling. 11-22-21
FHE
For FHE we planned our Thanksgiving meal for a family in our ward. Everyone participated as we planned the menu and then we assigned out all the parts of the meal to each person. Hopefully it works out :). We had Fat Boys for the treat. Everyone was a little bummed we weren't following the chart and having a lesson and activity. Guess we should have done that differently. 11-22-21
UPDATE
I've been feeling like there's a lot of things I want to document about each kid so I am going to try to update on everyone. Hopefully I can do this in one sitting. Not sure though.
Sadie is two. She can hold up her two fingers and is talking like crazy! She has taught Alexa how to play the songs she wants somehow, and I mean SOMEHOW because half the time I can barely tell what she's saying. Smart little "Alekah". Sadie is the boss around here. Everyone still goes along with most of what she wants. No matter how many times I tell them not to. Luke is the only one who doesn't regularly give in. She sleeps really well as far as going to sleep when it's time and then waking up when it's time. I don't remember the last time I got up with her in the night. She wakes up and calls out for mom or dad all happily. Pretty cute really. Everyone fights over who gets to get her out. Then she tells them she wants mom or dad a lot of the time :). She LOVES music! She wants to be listening to it or singing all the time. Her favorite songs right now are Twinkle Star, Popping (Popcorn Popping), she was singing Happy Family the other day- so cute! and she will sing I am A Child of God with you if you start singing it. She doesn't like food all that much. She asks for it a lot and spends a lot of time looking in the pantry for what she wants, but only eats a few nibbles of anything. Even yummy stuff like ice cream sandwiches get left on the table and sit there forever. She will eat fruit snacks any time anywhere. She likes fish crackers most of the time and she will eat a lot of her noodles when we have spaghetti. She likes to be right next to me. She LOVES helping me with the dishes which for her means dragging a chair across the kitchen to shove it up next to me at the sink and playing with all the dishes in the water. It's ritualistic for her lately. She loves to turn on the sink when we're doing her hair also and LOVES to play in the tub. She loves Baby Shark Doodoo, Bubble Guppies, Nemo, do you see a pattern? She likes fish. If you ask her what you should draw, she wants "sheeshies". She likes to go places, walks, rides, out in the backyard. Any time someone is leaving the house, she wants to go. She is able to buckle her top buckle on her seat and insists that she "do dis one" whenever we get in the car. She likes to play the locking game after we get somewhere and lock the door so I can't open it to get her out. It's pretty cute, but also super annoying :). If there's a phone where she can see it, she is using it. She just likes flipping through apps, closing them, deleting them, playing a few seconds of each game, and texting people. She knows how to put on a movie on Disney+ also. But Sadie doesn't really like watching anything for very long. The girl is not capable of sitting still for more than a few seconds. She is going going going. She loves to run. It's fun to watch Sadie explore her world. She is a smart little girl, figures things out and then likes to show off her new skills. She's a people watcher like the rest of us. I wish she played with her toys more at home, but whenever we are at Grandma Ruthie's she grabs the baby and all the accessories and plays with them the entire time we are there. She loves babies. She looks up to Molly and Erika and wants to do everything they are doing. Loves her brothers and all the fun they provide. She gets really excited when Kelly and Charity come around.
Molly is six, in Kindergarten. She is getting really good at reading. She loves to write and draw and is really good at both. She enjoys coloring her homework very intricately. She is good at running and loved her first season of soccer. She likes to play with friends, but hasn't had a whole lot of luck with her friends that live close. She has really enjoyed playing with Emily Shaw though, and hopefully one day we will get together with Evi Smelcer or Kenzie from her class. She likes recess the most at school, but will always give me a hug and get really excited when I go for centers. She likes writing down the equations she plugs into the calculator and memorizes it. She copies the cursive "memories" on the frame in her room too. She looks forward to school all morning long asking when it is time to go, then it's a frantic race with the clock to get her there on time for some reason. She likes to be there first so she can be at the front of the line, but rarely is. She hates having me drop her off and not walking her up to the door. She hates cleaning her room by herself and will only do it with Erika there. But she has developed a love for vacuuming recently. Vacuums the whole house. It's kind of nice :). She isn't a big eater. She nibbles. Unless it's chips, fruit snacks, treats, toast, or spaghetti, she barely touches it. She does like to make her peanut butter roll-ups that I taught her. Hasn't occurred to her that it's the same thing as a pb&j, but she will eat that most of the time so that's good. She is a good sleeper and usually goes to bed pretty good. Just a stall or two up to my room for a minute, but mostly good. She comes up occasionally to sleep on my floor too, but mostly she sleeps until I wake her up for breakfast and even comes down for study time a lot of the time. She likes movies and watching tv. She'd do that all day if I'd let her. But her real passion is outside. Bikes, roller blades, trampoline, running, exploring... if the tv is off, that's where she is. She doesn't really play with her millions of toys either. She is into board games a lot and can beat anyone at Mancala. She likes to play cards too. She likes holding my hand and being right next to me when we are out and about. We love our time together. Molly likes cooking and always wants to make something. Especially tortilla chips with Kelly :). She is such a good big sister to Sadie and will do just about anything to help her. It's cute to watch. We've had to have some talks about taking care of yourself too though. She worships the ground Erika walks on and looks forward to every minute with her. It's cute to see how much she loves her and wants to be like her. Even changed her favorite colors to be Erika's and Kelly's :).
Jack is 9 and is in 4th grade. Jack is still such a good kid. There's really no other way to describe him but that he is very chill, very mellow, and VERY imaginative! He loves his dinosaurs and sharks. He is so fun to listen to when he's questioning who would beat who. He has a science brain and knows a lot of facts about any aspect of science. He seems to be enjoying school this year. He hasn't tried to stay home even once! I love hearing about his day and the few things he talks about. He loves his friends Kason, Will, and Liam. He is loving his basketball team and having his friends Ammon and Chapman on his team. He's getting really good at getting the ball and shooting. I've been really impressed with the progress he's made. On Sundays Jack likes to create things. His favorite mediums are paper cups, paper plates, tin foil, tape, and cardboard. He is also way into the polymer clay still from last year and loves making cute little figurines with it. He is really good at doing the things he's supposed to be doing. His job is taking out the trash and he does it without complaint every time I ask him to. He's good at helping and using his muscles for good :) aka: taking things down to the storage room for me :). He doesn't like most meat and won't eat almost anything I put in front of him at the table unless it's carrots and ranch. I'm not really sure how he maintains his figure. And he hasn't turned orange yet, thankfully. He likes all the usual junk food, but doesn't go overboard with it. He's become really good at running also. I am proud of how he sticks with things. He's a great artist and has drawn some really amazing pictures. Also some funny ones. I love having him at study time although he only comes a few times a week :). He has a strong testimony and is always so good at teaching his FHE lessons all on his own. Jack likes to be at home. He dreads most errands and will volunteer to stay home every chance he gets. He likes to get all snuggled up in his footsie jammies or the bean bag and fill it with pillows and stuffed animals and roll around on the family room floor :). I was impressed with how well he did on his backpacking trips this summer.
Erika is 12 and in 6th grade. She is a very mature 12 year old :). I am always feeling like she is older than she is. She loves school, friends (mostly Kate), being with her family, studying her Come Follow Me lessons, taking care of her hedgehog Hallie, and being creative with beads, markers, paint on canvas, you name it. She's super crafty. She makes time for studying with the family every morning. She is really good at making time for her sisters as well. I love how much she has helped Molly with getting into the scriptures and a bedtime routine. She's passing on the things Kelly taught her. It's really special. She is one of my best eaters and will eat pretty much everything I make. At least a little of it. And doesn't go overboard on the sweets or junk food. Erika is very helpful and always sacrificing for other people. At school she is known for reaching out to those without friends and being responsible and helpful for teachers. She is loving school this year with Mrs. Burns. It's so fun to hear her stories and things Mrs. Burns says. She feels very comfortable in her class. I love that. She has Kate and Morgan in there as well which is nice after two years without them. She is really good at making people feel special and does nice things for her friends all the time. She loves to be going going going. She is usually outside either running, riding her roller blades, playing soccer, basketball or more recently street hockey! She makes fun wherever she is. She has been really talkative lately and I love that. All of her funny stories on our AZ trip that had me doubled over laughing- she's a lot of fun. She is good at doing the things she needs to do as well. With little complaint. She's a good friend to her sibs and makes them a priority. It's cute how much she looks up to Kelly and misses her and Charity.
Noah is 13 and in 8th grade. Noah has done things a lot differently this year starting with getting up early and showering every morning. He says he likes staring out his day like that. I love it. His diligence is inspiring. Whenever I sleep in, I always want to get up when I hear Noah get up. He's a good example. He doesn't love school, but he's doing really well in most of his classes and doesn't complain too much about going. He likes B days best minus Mrs. Wilkinson. Although it's funny to hear his stories about her class. He wishes they did more physical activity in PE. He did a little cross country with Brad this summer and of course is signed up for basketball, but he opted out of wrestling this year. I hope he still does track, he loved that and did so well last year. He is very active and loves to be outside doing things. Basketball, soccer, street hockey now, with Erika, running. He's a lot of fun to talk to and will tell me a lot about his day. I love that. He likes a girl Calista and is super cute about her. It makes me happy to hear what a gentleman and good friend he is to her. She invited him to a lot of her volleyball games and he went every time :). He likes his friends and is trying to make new ones. I like that he is branching out a little, but still makes time for Jacob Downs. Noah is probably our most regular attendee to study time. It has been just him and me a lot of the time. I'm grateful for his dedication. He chooses to walk home from school and always goes about 15 minutes early in the morning. He is devoted to his calling in the Deacon's Quorum Presidency and struggles with the management. He likes most food and eats almost anything I put in front of him. Not everything, but almost. He's the only one who doesn't like alfredo/pasta and ham and cheese sliders though, not sure what's up with that. He still won't even think about chewing gum. He's very self-motivated and knows how to take initiative. Noah's cryptonite is ALEKS. He's a pro at getting songs stuck in people's heads. He's getting really good at the bass! I've been so proud of him and that he's sticking with it. He seems to like it.
Luke is 15 and is in 10th grade. Luke is getting really good at driving and getting all of his hours with me. I have loved our drives and the chats while we're out. Making trips to the D.I. and then down to Grandpa's house. He's a lot of fun. Still my comic relief most of the time. He has his serious moments though. Luke is a late riser, gets up minutes before school starts and then requires a good hour to wind down when he gets home. I can respect that. We love it when Luke joins us for study time a few times a month :). He has a strong testimony and shows it in the way he lives. He spends most of his time with Jaxx playing board games, longboarding, playing basketball, watching movies and just talking. It's fun to hear about their adventures when Luke comes in minutes before his curfew- so responsible! He loves his games on his phone, but is good at regulating his time. He is getting all geared up for basketball season and will be on Brad's team this year, which will be fun to have them on the same team again after a year off. Luke doesn't like school at all, that I can tell, but he is doing really good and getting good grades. We're really proud of his hard work and all that he does. He's very diligent about working on his homework every night. He's also been really diligent with his living room job. He doesn't love running errands but always hopes we're doing something fun. Luke is a great leader. He is extra good to his special needs friends and the kids in the ward who need extra care. I am constantly getting compliments from moms who appreciate Luke and his care. He is very diligent with the sacrament and preparing it and even passing it a lot of the time still. He takes it seriously and I love that. Luke is able to teach with the Spirit. He is a good teacher too. I'm always impressed with his lessons for FHE and how he can convey a message. He's a good family member- rarely disagrees with anyone except Sadie ;). He gets along with everyone so well. He's almost as tall as me :).
Bradley is 17 and is in 11th grade. Brad is a busy little bee. He is involved in Cross Country, Track, Basketball, Hope Squad and all the lives of his friends. He is a good friend, does nice things for them all the time. He's been having a lot of fun with Brandon this year. They get along really well and are good examples for each other. I'm really glad he has Brandon. This is one of the first years Bradley hasn't been my earliest riser. He hit a wall it seems and has had a hard time getting up most days. Although, he usually makes it to study time and contributes really well, which I really appreciate. Bradley doesn't stop going from the minute he gets up to the time he crashes in bed though. He's very active with the running, basketball, weight lifting, working out, playing with the sibs... you name it, he stays busy. I love that he chooses to eat healthy. He likes sweets and treats but uses a lot of self control all the time. He's probably one of my best eaters, minus that I think he should eat more :). Of the healthy stuff of course! He takes really good care of his body with sleep too- doesn't stay up very late and knows when to call it quits at night. Good example. He's been growing like a weed. He wants to try out for the football team next year, which is awesome. He just finished up his cross country season. I love hearing about his plans for his life and all that he wants to accomplish. He's got quite a bit planned with becoming a personal trainer and one day opening his own gym. I like that he is focused on the future. He loves girls :). Not just one, but all of them I think. I'm glad he keeps his options open ;). I love that he is respectful and gentelmanly with all the girls. It's fun to hear how much everyone loves Brad. I get compliments about him all the time and from complete strangers. It's awesome. He spent a lot of time this last year on youth committees with the stake and other stake and ward callings. He's very responsible and reliable. It was fun to help him get Brad Wilcox to come and that he was part of that for Youth Conference. I love hearing Brad bless the sacrament. He is good at what he does. And works at the things he's not. Very hard worker. He will take on odd jobs with people in the ward or Nate and is able to do so much. He's missed having Kelly around this year. It's a different dynamic with him and Luke in the morning. Instead of Brad nagging Kelly to go, Luke nags him :). He's not a huge fan of school minus the socializing :). I'm glad he has his friends and enjoys them so much.
Kelly is 18. Kelly works at Great Harvest and a clothing store called Adornit which she has put in notice that she is looking for another job. She doesn't like being treated like Cinderella apparently. She loves her job at Great Harvest, works with her roommate and enjoys her stake president boss. It's fun to hear about it all. She's working so hard to save up for her mission and pretty much only talks about her mission :). She finally talked her bishop into letting her start her papers! We're very excited about that. She is going to make a great missionary. She is a very patient roommate and will do what she can to diffuse the awkward situations there. She is rooming with Sierra but Sierra is planning on moving out soon. She loves boys and goes on dates pretty often, which is fun. She hangs on to her cute missionary boys though and keeps close tabs on Devan, Matt and Nate. She's a good friend to them and helps them focus on the mission. She's practicing getting to bed early and getting up early most days. It's been fun to have her around here a lot ever since she bought her car. The kids all miss her so much. She's a very positive influence in our home and a great example.
Charity is 19 and going to school at USU. She is studying sign language and wants to teach it someday. She is doing really well in school this year. I've been proud of all that she is accomplishing. She works at Golden West Credit Union as technical support and does a great job at that. She's moved up quicker than most and seems to really like her job. She spends most of her free time with Isaac who she wants to marry :). We love that he treats her well and that she is happy with him. She is really patient with her roommate Bethany even though she tries her patience almost daily. It's hard to hear about her struggles, I wish I could fix it all, but she's handling things really well and experiencing things that will help her throughout her whole life. Including her crappy apartment manager. She did so good at lining up the apartment for her, Kelly and Sierra, but they've been so hard to work with ever since they moved in. So she's learned a lot there too. It's fun to hear about her adventures and I love when I see a text or marco polo from her. She likes to stay up in Logan as much as she can, but makes time for us and our activities once in a while and we enjoy having her here so much. Everyone misses her.
FRIENDSHIP FEAST- MOLLY
Molly was so excited for her friendship feast this week! Tuesday couldn't come soon enough! They had made their little placemats with me at centers the week before so lots of anticipation leading up to this. Since we can't do normal things yet- stupid COVID- the friendship feast morphed into bring your own lunch from home. Molly LOVED this idea. She worked so hard on her nutella/peanut butter roll up and then stuffed her lunch bag with everything in the pantry :). She went all out. I was happy to let her spoil herself. She got to use her laminated basket weave looking placemat. She came home with the biggest smile about this and was so happy she got to do something so new and fun. I loved hearing about it. I realized after dropping her off I didn't give her a drink, but she never said anything about it. 11-23-21
THANKSGIVING BREAK- DAY 1
I'm not sure how I missed this, and a lot of the kids did too, but we had the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off as well as Thursday and Friday. I don't know why I feel like it's only been the two days in the past. But we made good use of our break. Everyone played with friends, went to see Ron's Gone Wrong (cute message, I liked this one for the most part), the library was a big hit with Molly and Erika. Charity and Kelly surprised us and came home Wednesday night, so we had a fun movie night watching Dear Evan Hansen (pretty sad... I don't know if I'll watch that again). We played some games, ate some junk food. We had sickies throughout it all. Poor Erika was at her worst on Thanksgiving. By the end she was back up at the church playing hockey, but it was not a good few days before that for her. It was a big, fun, weekend! 11-24-21--11-27-21
JUST DO IT!
Molly got dressed early on Thanksgiving- like before I had even asked her to- and came up to me and said, "Do you know why I'm wearing this shirt today?" She was really excited and like she had found the perfect shirt for Thanksgiving. I asked why and she replied, "Because it says juuuuusssst doooo iiit! It's like if you're thinking of making cookies, just do it! Just make the cookies! Or if you don't know if you should make something or not- just do it! It's perfect for Thanksgiving!" I loved it! 11-25-21
THANKSGIVING DAY SERVICE
Nate had the idea to do Thanksgiving dinner for a family in our ward. (We all speculated whether this was a reaction to being assigned to bring the veggie tray to his mom's house :).) We all loved the idea. We had divided up all the parts of the meal and assigned them to different people to be prepared that morning. Nate had the turkey. Erika and I did the rolls. Charity and Luke were over apple pies. Kelly was kind of a floater and ended up helping with Nate's pumpkin cheesecake dip at the end. Bradley was over the potatoes. Noah did the pumpkin pie. Jack did the sweet potatoes with my help. Molly did the stuffing- she was unhappy that hers has to be done last. Cute girl was in the spirit of service and didn't want to wait around. Sadie was our obstacle :). She had her hands in everything and gave us something to do while we weren't making our part of the meal. We also did a veggie tray, and a bottle of gravy for easiness. Maybe we should learn how to make gravy. Everything turned out so perfectly! I loved it!! We were so happy loading up in the car with all our tinfoil serving trays to deliver a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner to a woman who didn't have the time, energy or brain power to make one herself. We loved hearing that she had a few of her kids coming and even a kid from work who's from Alaska. So cool! Such a great feeling. 11-25-21
THANKSGIVING AT GRANDMA RUTHIE'S
After delivering dinner we all scrambled to get last minute things done, like the little girls' hair and dressed, shoes, we grabbed our apple pie, veggie tray and Nate's invention- pumpkin cheesecake dip with Nilla wafers- and headed up, with everyone in the car, to Grandma Ruthie's house! It was a fun ride with Kelly playing everyone's favorite songs all the way there. Sadie made a few requests- she's so into songs these days, it's way cute that she will just burst into song randomly :). We got up there a little before 4:30, helped set up the benches and tables, put our hand prints on some sheets and saw an old one from April of 2001! and wrote what we are thankful for. It was a lot of fun. Nate got to carve the turkey and Sadie sat on the counter helping :). The food was great! I had only a few little temptations with food, but I've done so well this week, I didn't want to ruin it! The rolls from Kneaders were amazing- well the half that I had was :). It was a good time. I got to sit by Charity at her request :). Kinda made my day that she yelled at me to come sit by her. 11-25-21
GINGERBREAD HOUSES
After we cleaned up dinner we got out our gingerbread stuff! We always go a little overboard on the candies, but always have enough for everyone :). I made the frosting beforehand- it seemed a little stiff, not sure why. I used the recipe from last year. But everyone's turned out really cute. I loved that Charity made one even though this isn't her favorite thing. We got a good chuckle about the back. Kelly loves this and went all out as usual. Hers looked like a log cabin. Super cute. I loved that she posted it on fb after :). Bradley made what was first a bridge with cute gummi bears walking across the top and then after a few comments from others it morphed into a Mario Kart track! Complete with mushrooms! It looked really cool! Luke has a tradition of stuffing his with all his favorite candies. He did a great job on the outside too, kind of an abstract version with a giant smile! I loved it! Noah got off to a late start and wanted to glue his crackers himself, but didn't know we had about five other boxes of crackers, so he was getting creative with all the scraps and broken pieces, which actually turned out pretty cool looking- looked like a house built in the 70's to me. He did a great job on his. He was a little worn out from Jarom bugging/teasing him, so I don't think he was able to give it his all that night. He did add more to it on Friday morning with all the leftover frosting and candy. Erika went all out this year. She used some of the cool ideas she got from the cookbook Grandma Ruthie gave her for her birthday. Hers was really cute! She's become quite the artist. Jack had a lot of fun with this activity too. His was really big and then he created all these cute little gumdrop, marshmallow, tootsie roll characters placed all over the plate. I was really impressed! You could see his clay experience coming out in these :). It was very creative! He was super patient about his roof falling down and totally made the most of it. I was proud of him for that. It looked like we had done it on purpose! Molly got way into this as well. She has the creative gene as well. She had trees, santa, a sled, all kinds of cute stuff along with her house. She loved this. I was really proud of how well she did! Sadie got to work with Sierra doing her house-- more of a teepee- it was so cute! I love how much she loves Sierra and that Sierra will humor her! They are cute cousins. It was a packed day, we were all exhausted when we got home. I didn't have the energy to clean up the kitchen at all so we went to bed! 11-25-21
MONOPOLY
Friday was when I got sick. It was a huge bummer. I cleaned up the kitchen from the day before and then even though I had had grand hopes for something really exciting in our schedule, I only had the energy for a game of Monopoly. A really long game of monopoly! Like five hours! It was Molly, Noah joined us after the first time around the board, Erika, Bradley, me and Jack. We had so much fun!! It started looking like Erika was going to be toast- she only had one little monopoly. So I decided to sacrifice one of mine and made a silly trade for a railroad. I always gotta have my railroads :). I never would have guessed that Erika would get as far as she did in that game! It was so funny! And Molly! She only had Boardwalk and Park Place to begin with and was in for quite a while. We all lasted longer than we should have. Poor Jackie was the first one to run out of money. He had some good properties but not enough money to build them up. Noah was next. Same problem for him. I lost when I landed on Molly's Boardwalk. Then Molly shortly after. Erika and Bradley were left, had hotels on all that they could, big stacks of money... nobody was going to die anytime soon. So then I suggested that we times the rent by 10 and he landed on something of Erika's that was $700ish and wouldn't have been able to come up with $7,000 so we just called it a tie. Kinda funny. This game always brings back memories of playing with Brent. Especially the all night round we played in California where we were writing down how far in the whole I was and Brent was the bank. "Piddlin' money" and staying up later than we ever had :). One of my favorite memories with Brent! It was a lot of fun. And then I laid down... this cold was a doozy! I couldn't believe how crappy I felt. My poor kids who had pushed through it still doing things even when they felt like garbage (i.e. Erika on Thanksgiving!). 11-26-21
A FEW THINGS I LOVED THIS WEEKEND
- Watching Shang Chi with Jackie. He got into it and laughed at all my favorite lines.
- Listening to Erika help Molly with her letter to Santa.
- Watching Jack stress over his letter to Santa and him telling me that Santa doesn't just bring one gift! Silly me.
- All the love from my kids as they watched me suffer with this dumb cold. Charity texting, Kelly calling and offering to order me some door dash, Brad's hugs, poor Luke was sick too and never mentioned it. Same with Nate. And all the help with Sadie from Noah, Erika and Molly. It was a tough day, such a bummer for our Saturday, but everyone was so good to me. I am so lucky.
- Noah invited a bunch of his friends over for a Risk night :). He was dying to play Risk and got his friends to do it. We got pizza and he ate a giant bowl of Chex Mix too :). Good stuff!
- I love all of Sadie's random "I love you"'s to all the kids when they are doing something for her. So sweet!
- Butterfly kisses from Molly during one of our many movies.
- Black Friday deals and lots of gift ideas for Nate popping in my head.
- Watching church with Sadie and Jack Jack. Jack's funny comments about how glitchy it was.
- Sadie's cute hair! I did one pony tail with the sectioned hair all the way back- it looked so cute!
- Hearing that Molly was such a good girl in Sacrament meeting, from Erika, and that she was drawing a picture of what the talks were about- the fish overflowing on the boat.
- Erika asking to play cards and playing Speed til she wins :). That was a lot of fun. I am glad someone still likes to hang out with me.
- Thinking to point out the connection with the part in the end of the movie 17 Miracles where it shows the people who have passed on helping to push the carts- I paused it and we talked a little about our own handcarts, the things we carry everyday, and who might be helping us with our burdens and challenges. Pretty sweet and everyone was attentive. 11-26-21--11-28-21
FAMILY POWER!
Molly was telling me about the "bully" she sits next to at school who has told her she is stupid. I was quick to tell her to just tell him he is wrong. That what he is saying isn't true! But then Jack chimed in with a few little gems: Yeah! You have a whole family of people who think you are awesome! And family power is the best! Nothing beats family power!
Total mom paycheck! I want to hang it on the wall! 11-29-21
PUTTING UP CHRISTMAS
First Monday after Thanksgiving, as usual, we decided to put up Christmas! I was so happy Charity was going to be able to join us, and then near the last minute found out she wasn't. Such a bummer. We missed her so much! I got out the nativities and other decorations and got those up while everyone was at school (Molly, Sadie and a coughing Jack helped me). We have so much stuff, I really only put up like half of it this year. It was an interesting night. Lots of extra things got in the way of it being a traditional "putting up Christmas" night, but I think we are learning to roll with the punches lately. We were still able to enjoy it all. We got our tree from the same place we have the last few years, just in a different location, up by Big Lots. Which was kind of nice because Noah was in desperate need of some running shoes for track, so we picked out the tree, then Noah and I ran (yep, I ran!) over to Big 5 and picked out some black running shoes while Nate tied the tree to the top of the van. We tried a few places for lights- Hobby Lobby was packed, didn't want to go there. There was almost nobody in Big Lots so I tried that, but of course, they took forever to check people out, so that was a wait. Then we couldn't settle on a place for dinner, so we did TWO places- Panda and Carl's Jr. This was really nice of Nate, it was obvious he was wanting to be accommodating to the kids so that they would have a good time. He went to Carl's after dropping me off at Panda. Then the thrill of the twine snapping while we were on the freeway coming home. We thought we'd lost the tree! Nate struggled through putting it back on, Brad offered to help, and it was all good! Thankfully!! We had planned on being further along in the night by now, so unfortunately, we had to drop Nate off at the rec center for his Junior High team draft. We didn't want to do anything without him and actually couldn't since none of us knows how to cut off the end of the tree. So we waited. I kept wishing we'd just picked a different night for this, but we made it work. When I picked up Nate we talked about waiting til tomorrow, but decided to just push through the night. I am proud to say- we did it! And we had a really good time! I think Heavenly Father took away some of the tiredness and sick feeling so that we could enjoy this. Sierra was here and Grandma Hatch showed up just as we got the lights on the tree. So we did have company, which we are learning to appreciate. Everyone scrambled around to put the ornaments on the tree, with the usual excitement and determination. I love that these guys love their sentimental stuff. Reminds me of me. We did our first ornament picture, a bunch of pictures throughout, in fact, I was the camera man this year, Nate was eating his dinner and frankly not feeling 100%, so Erika passed out the ornaments for a lot of the night. We got a good laugh out of a few of the poses from Sadie and Molly. They are adorable. This is all still new to them, so I'm glad the kids make it special for them still. I love the Christmas Spirit that feels the room when you put up a glowing tree! Molly felt it for sure- she was so sad it's not Christmas yet. We opened up the tin with the Holiday Specs and got some pictures with those. Then we opened Grandma Hatch's gifts- a wooden advent calendar with little drawers- totally looks Swedish, like she said. And a tree with small ornaments. Really nice. That was a fun thoughtful gift! We had a lot of fun. And then it was time for bed :). 11-29-21
MOVING THE BOYS
So the beginnings of some ideas to move the boys up and make their room a big, fun, game room happened tonight. Not sure how I feel about it all... it starts with a triple bunk bed for the three girls, so we'll see. 11-30-21
