Valentine's Day

 

Our Valentine's Day has been a little bit more low key.  Between Covid and it being on a Sunday, we are sticking to home base.  Jer and I showed the kids a movie last night, my Mom brought over her traditional Valentine's Day sugar cookies, the kids had Valentine's Day parties in their classes, I am picking up garbage all over the house, and I got to sleep in a ton.  We are planning on a family steak dinner too.  

Sam and Ada received their temple recommend interviews this morning.  It's too bad that we won't be on Oahu so that we could go to the temple.  The Hawaii temple is open last I heard. Sam has been looking forward to doing baptisms for the dead since Ada started going 2 years ago. Currently, the Utah temples are only open for live ordinances.  I think that's smart, but that's more time for Sam to wait.

Sam taught his first lesson today.  It was all over Zoom, but he prepared for it.... coordinated with our neighbor who was co teaching with him.... and did a great job.  He always wants to contribute to the lesson, so I bet it felt great to direct the lesson.  You could tell he was pleased, because he has been happier and kinder to everyone all day. Currently he is in the kitchen making brownies to share with everyone and getting after Dad that the brownie recipe is in the cookie section.

Jer made this shelf behind my computer yesterday too.  It's an electronic charging station.  We now have all our bluetooth devices, kindle, tablet and Ada's electronic drawing pad charging in one spot.  The cover is so that the daycare kids to throw anything on it from the kitchen.  Jer loves making things and everything he makes is always well thought out and useful.

Seth's class was asked to make bags in class rather than bring something from home.  Seth was kind of mad about that, but he got over it when he actually got to making a bag in class.

Evelyn made a monster out of a shoe box all by herself.  She was very proud of herself and it turned out super cute.  It will never fall apart though.  She used two whole rolls of tape on it.  I don't mind though.... creativity first, then conservation.

Daycare ring around the roses.  Seth was the only one that really knew how to do it.  He helped me teach them ring around the roses and London Bridge.

Midway Ice Castles

So, we're semi broke this year between paying for a fence with no saving and all, but we still wanted to do some fun things throughout the year.  One of them was the Midway Ice Castles.  We bought tickets to them almost three years ago, but the week before we could go to it the ice castles closed.  They said we could use the tickets the next year and they only opened for one week and closed because of the warm winter.  This year we were determined to use them.  And it worked out well that we didn't have to pay for them.  We ended up going with my parents and my sister Janelle.  My mom was a trooper since she just had knee surgery and we didn't know that we'd be sloshing through snow... I knew that they said to wear boots, but there was snow up above my ankles in most parts... which means that the kids kept getting snow in their boots too.  Evelyn was thrilled to meet Elsa and Ana.  Ada especially loved the slides made out of ice.  I borrowed my friend's camera and wanted to be careful with it, so I kind of went slower down the big slide and it back fired on me.... I got stuck on a part that had started melting during the days and had to wiggle my way down to where I could slide again. It was super fun.  Evelyn had a break down about half way through the night and I could figure it out.  We put some hand warmers in her boots and that seemed to help... then on the way out she cried until we got to the car and took her wet socks off... then she was happy again.  Baby really wanted me to hold him, but was mostly content with having people stand next to the walls so that he could rub the ice back and forth.  He loved going up onto the wall and watching cars drive around in the parking lot too. 

Christmas Family Party

This Christmas was Christmas Eve with Jer's family, Christmas morning with our own and Christmas afternoon with mine.  It was all so fun!  No one was sick during Christmas this time, the kids had a blast no matter what we did and I just loved chatting with everyone. 

With the Robertson's, we did a sing-along, played games, watched It's a Wonderful Life (which Sam thought he was going to die watching), let the kids play video games, read Christmas stories, made chocolate and just plain played with cousins.  (pictures posted in the last hanging out with cousins post.)

With the Wilcox's we built Legos, made Costa Vida pork, did the Nativity, watched the church's new Bible videos, did a sing-along, and played my mom's famous Christmas game.  This time we had a marshmallow gun contest, a puzzle race, a cup race (which two people finished at the same time and accidentally knocked everyone's over and the kids had a red cup fight), putting the words of a Christmas song in order, and we were going to play golf with straws but we ran out of time.  Always a fun game. 

Legos are the only great week after Thanksgiving sale item... (paid $35 for Jer's X-wing... $25 for Ada's tree house, $40 for Sam's... not a great deal, $20 for Evelyn's)

Grandpa got "tools" from Seth for Christmas... so he "built" things with Evelyn.  She had a blast figuring out  how the tools worked.



With our own family, Christmas morning... everyone one got Legos... they were so excited that it's what they wanted to do all day.  Even Seth was excited about Christmas.  He loved crinkling the paper, playing with new things, and eventually just bawled because he'd played so enthusiastically all morning.  Ada was thrilled with her new scooter and Sam played with his legos and ignored his stocking, Evelyn wanted to see what everyone got and was happy with everything she got.  I spent more than I'd intended to on people, but they enjoyed it... At least I didn't go above our $500 limit.  I was worried I'd be tempted to. I made gifts for each of the kids, but didn't finish Evelyn's yet, so I decided to give them their homemade gifts on their birthdays instead and gave everyone legos now.  They seemed to like it.