Thanksgiving in January

This week seemed pretty short mostly because it was spent playing catch up from our trip to St. George.  Also because we were dealing with sick kids. 

Colby was sick Sunday night through Wednesday with some kind of virus. He had headaches and high fevers for those those days.  I couldn't figure out what was going on. He would act fine and then he would have a really high fever. Monday night was the worst because his fever was 105 and the Ibuprofen was not bringing it down very fast. Finally I got some cold wash rags to put on his head and body to help cool him down. He thought that felt really good but my hands were freezing. The fever finally came down about 3 hours later. Tuesday his fever was again high at 102.  I took him to the doctor on Wednesday and, wouldn't you know it, he healed right up as soon as we walked into the doctor's office.  Dr. Labrum could not find anything wrong with him.  His ears and throat looked fine and the strep test came back negative.  These were all good things but what was causing the fever?  Based on the symptoms Dr. Labrum decided he had the flu virus and it should last about 5 days and them be done.  Well he was right because the fevers went away that next day.  I was glad that was done.  Knock on wood none of the other kids get it.

Another fun thing we did this week was have Thanksgiving!!  We have had a turkey in our freezer for over a year now.  I decided to cook it this week before it got too freezer burned.  Well the turkey turned out great and tasted great too.  I even brined it in a molasses brine to enhance the flavor.  

Yum!!  Well if you have turkey, you have to do the whole Thanksgiving shebang right!  So I also made, potatoes, gravy, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, rolls, and even a pie.  Then I realized that there was way too much food for us to eat so we invited our friends, the Checketts, over to celebrate Thanksgiving in January with us.  It was fun to have them over.  After dinner, the kids ran wild downstairs while the adults played a fun game of Hand and Foot.  It was a fun night full of great food and great company.

My blog books came this week too:

It is like Christmas in the mail when these books finally come.  This year I did two books.  One of all of last year's blog posts, and one of just the cancer posts.  I am excited to read through them again.

Finally, a funny picture of Charlotte:

Yes that is an entire box of Qtips scattered all over the floor.  Charlotte has always had an obsession with Qtips but this is the first time she has dumped a whole box and spread them everywhere.  Let's just say that I looked away for a few seconds and then everything went quiet.  You know when it is quiet, they are up to something.  I turned around and this is what the front room looked like and right in the middle was Charlotte just smiling as big as could be as if she had done nothing wrong.  All I could do was laugh and grab the camera.  What a funny girl!!  

Dancing and Fire Training

We just got back from a fun trip to St. George.  It was a good time to go too because Hyrum had a snow storm during the weekend and came home to about 4 inches of snow.  In St. George we just got a little rain but the temperatures were great.  I was even able to go for a 3 mile run one morning without a jacket.  

Before we headed south, Logan was able to perform in the Mountain Crest High School talent show with his preschool class.  They did such a good job and all of the high schoolers loved their dance and cheered so loudly for them.

For their dance they performed to the song "Watch Me"  They whipped and nae-nae-ed so well up there on the stage.  The dance was so funny to watch but they did a great job.  They performed twice because there were two assemblies.  It was so fun to watch.  All of the high school kids that performed were awesome as well.  There are some pretty talented kids in this school!

After the talent show, we headed down to St. George.  The reason we were going down was so that Russell could attend Winter Fire School through UFRA.  He attended classes all day on Friday and Saturday and learned a ton.  He also had a great time. 

While Russell was at class, the kids and I hung out at my parents' house and played with cousins.  We also spent the weekend bottling meat.  Pork was on a great sale so we bought a ton of it and bottled it up for later.  We bought around 80 or more pounds of pork roasts between my mom, Lacie, Haley, and me.  We spent the weekend cutting, browning, and pressure canning the meat and came out with somewhere around 35 quarts, 18 pints, and 34 half pints of meat.  It was a lot of work but the meat turned out so good.  We opened two bottles and added barbecue sauce and had pulled pork sandwiches for lunch on Saturday.  It was so delicious.  While we worked, the kids had a great time playing with their cousins.  It was so fun.

It seems like the only pictures I take these days are of Charlotte.  Maybe because she is so dang cute! 

She is getting so lovable toward her dolls lately.  As long as her baby is wrapped in a blanket, she will carry it around and love on it all day.  She gives it kisses and hugs and them puts it on the couch to let the baby take a nap.  It is so cute.  

The second picture is of Charlotte being locked in the jail made by her brothers and dad.  They built this jail out of Charlotte's foam letters and then put her in it and shut the door.  Aren't they mean!  Well Charlotte thought it was so cool but then she knocked down the walls like the Hulk.   

This picture was taken at Grandma's house after Grandma made a yummy peanut butter cake.  Charlotte loved licking the beaters afterward. She was in heaven and the cake batter was all over her face.  Love it!

Also an important thing happened this week for the Church.  On Tuesday, January 16, the church held a special meeting and announced the new First Presidency. 

The new prophet of the church is President Russell M. Nelson, and his counselors are: first, Dallin H. Oaks, and second, Henry B. Eyring.  After they were announced, each one of them spoke and shared their testimonies.  I was really impressed with their testimonies and their love for each other and the members of the church.  I truly believe this will be a great first presidency just as the others were.  I am excited to hear and learn from them in the future.

Engineering Night

It seemed like there was something going on every night this week. From piano lessons to doctor and dentist visits as well as Activity Days. 

On Wednesday the kids had a dentist appointment. This was the first time Charlotte has seen the dentist. I was sad that I didn't get a picture of this event. They all did great. We were told that Emily will need an orthodontist soon (yeah...), Colby has two cavities we are going to watch (yeah again...), and Logan is cavity free (Wahoo!). Charlotte absolutely hated the dentist. She did not want to open her mouth. (I don't really blame her because I don't really like our dentist either...)

Thursday was our super busy night.  We were gone all night having fun. First we had Activity Days and then we headed straight to the elementary school for Engineering Night.

This was such a fun night. The kids had a blast running from table to table trying out every experiment and building each project.  At the first table they built rockets and shot them off. They loved shooting off the rockets and watching them fly. 

Then they moved to the next table to try out the hydraulic lifts.  It was cool to see how simply moving water through the tubes made the lifts and pulleys move.

Next we made paper bridges to see how many nuts they could hold up.  We learned that if we folded the paper into triangles like a fan, it was stronger.

Colby's bridge held all of the weights.  This was about 200 nuts.  He was pretty excited. Logan's bridge was not quite as strong because he did not use the triangle fan folds.

Another fun building project was building catapults out of Popsicle sticks.  The kids really had to use their brains to figure out the best way to build the catapult in order to make the pom-poms fly the farthest.  

There was also goop to play in, metal boats to float, paper cup bridges, and balancing spinners.  The best part of the night though was the Egg Drop.

And our egg survived! We were so glad that the egg lived.  We won 1,200 points for the unbroken egg.  Unfortunately our box was kind of heavy so we did not place in the winning.  That was okay with us though because we still had a great time.   

This was a great night.  We finally got home at 8:00 and still had to eat dinner and do homework.  It was a late night but a fun night.

What a fun week.

Snow, Food, and Parties

The first week of 2018 has been full of adventures before school goes back in from Christmas break. On New Years Day, Russell and Emily headed out with the four wheeler to play in the snow. The boys were too busy playing with friends to go with them.

This was an exciting time for Emily because it was the first time she was allowed to drive the four wheeler. Russell wanted to try out the sled so he handed the four wheeler over to Emily and taught her how to drive. She absolutely loved it! I think she might be a natural driver.  The snow was pretty old so it was as hard as ice.  This made crashing pretty rough.  They still had a good time though.

Tuesday night we decided to go out to eat to end a fun Christmas break.  We decided to go to Texas Roadhouse because we had a gift card and free kids meal coupons. 

The kids love Texas Roadhouse too because of the delicious rolls.  I will agree the rolls and honey butter are the best.  Charlotte was so funny at the restaurant.  She was eating everything in sight.  The rolls were her favorite too and she liked her mac & cheese.  The funniest part was when we were getting ready to leave.  We had gotten to-go boxes for our food and I was putting the food in the boxes.  Well Charlotte picked right up on that and started putting her mac & cheese in the box as well.  She wanted to save her food too.  The funny thing about it though was that she was putting one noodle at a time in the box.  Every time she put in a noodle, she would look at us and laugh.  She thought she was so smart.  This was a good family outing.  

The kids went back to school on Wednesday so it was back to our routine.  On Saturday we travelled down to Syracuse to be with some family and celebrate Rider's second birthday.

This was a really fun party and we were able to see Tami and Roy as well as Josh and Hallie.  It was nice to spend time with family.  Josh and Hallie surprised us on Monday by coming up to visit us and invite us to Rider's party.  We had a great visit for most of the day.  Charlotte and Rider really got along and had a great time sharing (kind of) the toys.  The birthday party was another fun time for them to play together.  Charlotte loved helping Rider open all of her presents.  And by helping I mean ripping them open for her.  Rider didn't seem to mind though as long as she got to keep the toy inside.  Charlotte didn't care about the toys, she just likes ripping things.  

Emily, Colby, and Logan had a good time at the birthday party too.  They really loved the punch balloons and banged on those things the whole time.  The party theme was Mickey Mouse and the decorations were so adorable!  We had a really good time at the party and I am glad Josh thought to invite us especially now that they live so close to us in Ogden.  

This is a cute picture of Charlotte in the dress she wore on Sunday:

She is such a goof with all of her faces.  I made this dress for Emily when she was Charlotte's age.  It was so cute then that I had to have Charlotte wear it too even though it is not Christmas time anymore.  I guess it could be considered a winter dress rather than Christmas.  

Here is the picture of Emily at this age.  Don't they look so much alike!  Cute as ever!

Well that is our first week of 2018.

One tragic thing did happen this week though.  Late at night on January 2, our beloved prophet, Thomas S. Monson died at the age of 90.  

I was really sad to hear this but I knew that he had been having some health problems.  Because of these health concerns, he was unable to attend General Conference for the last couple of conferences.  I know he is happy and health now as well as united with his wife and Savior.   President Monson was a wonderful prophet and has served the church his whole life.  What a great man and a great example of service and living a Christ-like life.  I loved listening to his talks.  He will definitely be missed.  

2018 Resolutions

Hello 2018!!!  I'm not going to lie, I was glad to see 2017 go.  Last year was a rough year.  A lot of things happened last year that we did not want to happen.  Now we are on to a new year though and here's to hoping good things happen this year!  As a family we talked about some of the goals we want to accomplish this year.  I think we came up with some pretty good mental, physical, and spiritual goals.

Russell wants to graduate with his Bachelor's Degree this year.  He is 10 credits away from graduation so he is taking 7 credits this semester and the last 3 in the summer or fall and then he will be done.  Russell also wants to really get his nutrition in check and lose 30 pounds.  He wants to do this by eating right and exercising.  He also wants to grow spiritually by going to the temple more often, and praying for missionary experiences.

Emily thought of some good goals for herself too.  She wants to get better at drawing, reading, and her piano.  She wants to do these things without whining!  Emily also wants to become a faster runner and her goal is to do a 5k this year.  Finally her spiritual goal is to memorize the Articles of Faith and read the scriptures more often.

Colby thought of his own goals too.  He wants to write his own piano song and practice drawing.  He also wants to get better at running and work on running 3 laps during running club.  (Each lap is about .75 mile so three laps would be over two miles.)  His spiritual goal is to start memorizing the Articles of Faith and prepare to get baptized next year by reading the Book of Mormon.

Logan's goals are to learn to write better.  He wants to be able to write the whole alphabet well before Kindergarten.  He also wants to run with everyone and learn how to play soccer.  His spiritual goal is to be more obedient and learn about the Articles of Faith too.

The goals Russell and I have for Charlotte are to learn to talk better and get potty trained!  Yeah no more diapers!

My goals are similar to the goals I have every year.  I want to write in my personal journal more often.  I write in the blog a lot which is great but I should update my personal journal too.  I asked Russell and the kids if I should stop the blog because it really stresses me out sometimes and they all said "No!!!"  So I will continue with the blog but maybe cut back a little.  My major mental goal this year though is to not get stressed out or overly OCD or too crazy and uptight.  This will be the real struggle but my physical and spiritual goals should help with this.  My physical goal is to get back into running.  I want to be able to run with the kids during Running Club this Spring.  I also want to run the 5k with Emily as part of her goal.  I think getting more exercise and away time will really help me unwind and be less stressed.  My Spiritual goals are to read the scriptures more often, study the lessons for Sunday, and read the Ensign rather than so many novels.  I want to attend the temple more often as well.  There are a lot of projects I want to get done around the house this year too so we will see how that goes.

As a family we also made some family goals.  We want to be more consistent with Family Home Evening, family scripture reading and family prayer.  We also want to take swimming lessons and go on a big family trip.  For a trip we thought about Glacier National Park, Missouri/Nauvoo/Church Sites, or even just back to Moab.

We have a lot of big plans for this year.  I just hope it is a good year and we all remain in good health this year.  Welcome 2018!