Ward Halloween Party

 

Our Ward had their Halloween trunk or treat. Jer and Sam had to miss it.  They were doing their 10 mile training run.  

New adventures

Sam, Nellie and Seth flew off to Ireland on Monday.  We'll miss them, but I'm so excited for them. I hope it's a great experience. So far, Sam has reported excellent food, an amazing library with the Book of Kells, a hop on and hop off tour bus of Dublin (where he was so jet lagged that he fell asleep and missed all the whiskey distillery stops), and a lost jacket.  Not a bad start for an amazing adventure.

I accompanied Seth on his school field trip last friday.  They walked three miles down Provo canyon to look at Bridal Veil Falls and to see evidence of erosion.  It was so fun and we ran into Grandma and Grandpa on our way down... they were on their way up.  I was able to keep up with the group and thought I was feeling pretty good... then I tried to jog for a second to get around another group of students and the last .3 of the walk I ended up hobbling.  Apparently jogging is still not my thing.... not since my ruptured tendon. Oh well.

We met up with Sharon and my parents to celebrate Nellie's birthday... but she got sick and wasn't able to be there.  It's not as fun without the bday girl, but we still loved chatting and playing with cousins.

Thea wrote me this cute note.  I love you so much zannie.

Evelyn played the prelude music for Sacrament meeting.  She did so well!  She was so nervous, but she plowed through.  She told me that she learned two things... one is to practice more and the other is that she wants to learn more hymns.

Ada's YW's group was in charge of the kids activities at the Ward BBQ.  You can see her helping just to the right in the middle... in the black hoodie.

 

Ward Christmas party

 

At the beginning of the month, we had a Ward Christmas Party.  I didn't really want to go.  There's so much to get done and it was on our "free" Saturday.  It was fun though.  I helped the Primary perform Silent Night with bells after one practice.  Yeah, it wasn't great, but they had fun.

The people that showed up in plaid.

random tidbits

 

Ward fall party

Seth's robot. He builds fun stuff and the daycare kids always love what he's built.... but then he's sad when they break his stuff to build things themselves.  I told him that we could take a picture and then give them a chance to build cool things too.

Seth planned, shopped for and made bacon mac n cheese for dinner for us.   The first attempt didn't go well, but the second was delicious.

We went to Cristina's daughter's birthday party on Saturday.  Mia is 4 now.  She's not afraid of me any more and is so cute.

Mia

Instead of a birthday cake on his birthday, Seth asked to have ice cream at Farr's.  They have yummy ice cream and free games.  I loved the pinball machine, but it's not there anymore.  

For his birthday dinner, he wanted Ramen noodles... He's a cute noodle lover.

Our dwarf pear is so loaded this year!

My Mom's cousin (I think it was Deena Harding) painted this for Aunt Margaret for her birthday.  I love it.

The 4 biological Ellis siblings.  We missed taking a picture with Reid by just a minute, but he did come up for the Ellis Reunion.

Diane, Mark, Moana, Beth

Back at it!

We debated whether or not to bring back Jer's birthday/chocolate party for neighbors.  We did it for 15 years and then did a family one for 2 years.  We decided to go for it.  It cost way more this year, but we have a nice big table this time and big kids to help with prep and set up.  It felt natural to have our friends and family back in our home again.  I wished I had more time to spend talking to each person individually, but time has a funny way of running out.  And now we have delicious chocolate to eat and a wonderful birthday man to celebrate.  I love that his Dad comes every year to help.  He's so sweet.

Each of the kids got to invite friends.  Ada's friends came, and so did her cousins.

Instead of donations towards chocolate, Ada helped set up these donation funds to different charities.  

 

YW's camp 2020

 

Halloween 2020

 It's been a little bit since I caught up on the blog.  Last week was Red Ribbon Week at the charter school, so we spent Sunday night making posters to hang all over the school for the week.  We showed the kids' Hocus Pocus for the first time.  That was fun.  I went to physical therapy a couple of times.  Visited my Mom a few times (she's doing really well after her back surgery by the way).  Had my second neck injection.... just two left.  The neighborhood had a Halloween Parade for those that wanted to dress up but weren't going to be trick or treating.  We quarantined for a couple weeks because one of the mom's at my daycare came back positive.  Her kids tested negative twice over two weeks and the mom never came in my house, but we stayed away from people for a while anyways just in case.  It's nice to step back every now and then anyways.  After being away from people, we first went to show grandparents our costumes, then we were able to trick or treat at a few houses in our neighborhood that had set up shoots or goodie bags on the lawn.  I stayed home to pass out treats and Ada helped Jer look after the younger 3.  They came home and we played our own family Hallow-lan party.  It's tradition to play Battlefield on Halloween. Sad to say that my 6 year old knows how to play better than I do.  And the 9 year old gets a kick out of killing her own teammates.

The Covid-19 numbers have gotten a lot higher in Utah over the last two weeks.  I'm torn between being glad and being annoyed.  It would be nice to have 70% of the population with the antibodies, but we have guidelines in place to keep people from spreading the virus and people are not following the guidelines.  All we can do at this point is be as safe as we can and move forward.

We had two Links from Legend of Zelda.  My Dad said, "Seth and Sam look like they could be brothers!"  and Jer added on, "The Links need to link arms..."  Thanks Dads...

Evelyn wanted to be a dragon.  She gave me two days notice, so I couldn't plan it as well as Ada's and Ada's costume is too big for Evelyn so I bought her a $5 tail from Joann's with wings to match.  At first she wasn't too excited about it, but then she agreed when Ada said that Evelyn could be her baby dragon.  Then she was thrilled.  We told Ada that we wouldn't spend money or plan a costume for her.  She earned up money and put together her own costume.  She was trying to decide if she was a Rogue, a character from Mistborn, or if she was an assassin.  

My sister's family costume was so cute again this year.  Though I loved their Cinderella.

This was at the ward parade.  I love that Seth forgot that he wore Evelyn's my little pony jacket... he was Link/Rainbow Dash all night.  We walked a 1/2 mile loop around half the ward and then went home.

Grandpa's making really good headway on the shed.  Jer wasn't able to help the last couple of weeks because we were quarantining, it was fun to see it progressed this far.