Me and my Peeps

Thursday, February 7, 2019

Happy two weeks #5

We celebrated Grandpa Robertson's 71st birthday this Sunday. He's such a good man. He only wants the best for everyone around him and I've only seen him upset a handful of times in the last 15 years. I love how he treats all of the grandkids like they are little adults. He has very clear expectations that he expresses for them, even if he doesn't exactly think that they'll do them. I asked once why he asked little kids to do certain things and he said, "If I don't tell them what I expect they have no chance to learn to do it." I think that's true with our Heavenly Father. As we learn to follow His commandments we are given instruction and we learn to do them. We often don't get it all the first time, but we know what's expected. I love the talk 'Be ye therefore Perfect, but not yet.'

We got together for Grandma's amazing lasagna with our Hansen cousins and with Emma and Stephen.

These two are peas in a pod.

Grandpa was asked to read Winnie the Pooh to everyone. They really are funny stories. I love watching him get a big of kick out of them as the kids are getting.

I asked to get a picture of these two and Amelia immediately smooshed cake all over her face. It was so funny.

Happy two weeks #4

This last week, we were also able to attend our cousin, Lance's, baptism. I'm so excited that they were able to get his records transferred over and that he was able to be baptized. He was so sweet and happy. Sharon and Brad hosted everyone for a potluck afterwards. It was fun to get to know Lance's family and just chat with mine.

Congrats Lance! (Evelyn was doing a selfie with him.... cuties.)

Happy two weeks #3

We got to celebrate Christian's 2nd birthday. I can't believe that he's that old already. His family is doing a lot better. They went from pregnant momma sleeping on a couch in apartment with 4 other people to having their own apartment, driving themselves places, having their own tax numbers, etc... They still have some progress to make, but now they're in they're in a situation to make that progress on their own. Now I'm just the friend. I'm very happy for them.

Sharon was coming down to visit Janelle and they asked if I wanted to come hang out with them. It was so fun. We went to the kids story time at the library, to eat at Zupas and then shopping at Costco together. I had to go to volunteer at Evelyn's class, so Janelle offered to keep Seth with her so that he could play with Vivien. They sure love each other. They giggle and tease each other. I love it.

Evelyn has just started ballet again. She's been asking for a long time, but now we have a reason for it. After some research into skewed feet, I found that before a kid's feet have finished growing they still have fairly flexible skewed feet. After about the age of 12 they harden and become inflexible. The number one thing that they recommend is to spend about 45 minutes on your toes a day. That exercise will prevent their skewed feet from becoming inflexible. So Evelyn is in dance and Ada is going to be doing barre exercises with me. Ada has grown so much lately that I just hope that we didn't miss our window to help her have a more comfortable adulthood.

Our neighbor, Laurel, has been super bored lately. Her best friend is in Jr High and in a play with play practice almost every day, her mom started a new job and works until about 5 every day, and her sisters are both in College and High School. She said that she doesn't like coming home to an empty house and just sitting to watch YouTube videos…. so any time there is something that we have going on she asks to come too. Sometimes it's something fun like the park. Often it's grocery shopping. She decided to come to Evelyn's dance class and it was the cutest thing. She said things like, "Look at how excited she is! She's so cute! You can tell she loves dancing." for the entire hour. It was fun to have someone remind me of the joy that you can have from others having joy.

Seth and I went on a whim to the dinosaur museum. It was good to be there with him again before our passes expire, but we stayed too long and made Ada late for the podiatrist to get her orthotics checked. Whoops. They were good sports though, and since I've never been to an appointment there that they were running on time, I'm guessing that it happens often.

They were supposed to be cleaning their rooms... and Sam, Evelyn and Seth were caught reading instead.... Awww cute, now get to work.

Happy 2 weeks #2

I love extended family get togethers. I love to see these people that are part of me, but not quite. This last week was my Great Aunt and Uncles' 50th wedding anniversary. It was fun to visit, hug and catch up with all these Aunts, Uncles, second cousins and their families. Congratulations Lynda and Doug! (Doug is fighting cancer and Lynda has severe arthritis, but seeing them with their families you would never know it. They are happy and Lynda even joined in dancing with her granddaughters.)

Seth decided that he liked Uncle Duck. Doug has been talking to kids like a duck since I can remember. He wins over any kid with his fun trick.

Ada has always liked Uncle Frank and Aunt Margaret. In my mind they are always 50... but they are both seeing their ages. I've never seen them as tired and willing to sit back and watch everyone else. I did promise that next time I'm driving up to Idaho that I would stop to say hi on the way.

Happy two weeks

We've had a very happy and busy two weeks. One of our happy things was Sam getting 4 loops and his Bear. He sure loves Scouts. He cried when they said they were changing programs. I'm sure he'll learn to love the next one too. I think more than anything, he loves spending boy time.

Evelyn had a field trip to the Children's Discovery Museum. Seth and I got to help out. It worked great because Seth has never been there and he loves spending time with Evelyn more than anything.

Evelyn and her friend Donnell having a sack race.

The Kaleidoscope

Racing lego cars

I asked them what their favorite part was, and they both said the grocery store. I think that's a popular one, it was hard to find any play foods to stock it with.

Seth also liked the new addition of a car in the shop.

Monday, January 21, 2019

Super Wolf Blood Moon

These are some of my attempts to capture the phases of the moon. When I have lots of money I want to invest in a 400mm lens, but these were fun anyways. The sky was clear until the very end.

This one was Seth bumping me, but I wanted to include it because through my lens I could see a ghost moon... It looked a lot like this but it was in a straight line instead of curved.

I love that you can see some of the stars in the background on some of these.

This is when it was wanning and the clouds started to come in.

Super Wolf Blood Moon

Ada was so excited to see the Blood Moon that she got out and set up all the chairs and blankets for everyone. We didn't go anywhere... just walked out our door. They were saying that we might miss it because of cloud cover, but we didn't get clouds until after it was starting to wan. Seth used his other Christmas present. I had found him an $8 pair of binoculars in some clearance bin and he was super thrilled. The three of us watched most of it in the cold while the other three would pop in and out of the house while making cocoa and playing a game to keep warm inside.

Lance is 8

My nephew just turned 8. He wanted a Harry Potter birthday party and Sharon did a great job with it. Sharon made sorting hat cupcakes with different colored m&ms inside them. You got sorted into the house depending on which color you got in your cupcake. Then you would rotate to the different stations with your house. She set up a would you rather game, pin the nose on Voldemort, quidditch, and a potions class. Evelyn loved the potions class, Ada the nose game and Sam the quidditch game. There was something for everyone.