It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

We've had snow for a couple of weeks now, and it's looking more and more like we'll have a White Christmas.  The morning after our first snow the kids insisted on going out to play.  Lincoln was not to be left out and loved playing in the snow.  Each time we go outside he insists on walking through the snow.

 We got our tree the first weekend in December from the Boy Scout lot.  It's beautiful and one of the freshest trees we've ever had!  We've been pretty busy lately.  So Dad set up the tree Sunday night.  I put the lights up Monday while the kids were at school, and the kids decorated it that evening.  Lincoln even helped this year!

 Our kids with Santa Clause.  As you notice it's the first year Carson hasn't sat on Santa's lap.  Although I don't blame him.  He and I had the talk about Santa a few weeks ago.  He is 12 after all.  During our conversation I got the impression that he already knew the truth about Santa.  After our conversation the first thing he asked was if he could help with the presents then...um, no.  Alaina is getting close to being too old for Santa.  Charlie is at the magic age and Lincoln still doesn't understand what Christmas is all about.  But I'm sure that Christmas morning will just be wonderful!

Glasses for Charlie

The last couple of months each of us have been taking turns going to see the eye doctor.  It now turns out the Charlie and Tony need glasses.  The day Charlie had his exam and had his eyes dilated he was given these "super cool" sunglasses.  He wore them for the next 3 days!  He's such a silly kid!

Young Man

This handsome young man hit a pretty big milestone in our church in November.  With Carson now being 12 years old he was ordained as a deacon.  This gives him the opportunity to pass the sacrament each Sunday.  He also has graduated from primary and now attends Young Men's and Scouts on Wednesdays with his Dad.  A few weeks ago he also had the opportunity to go on his first temple trip with the youth of our ward.  He thought it was really neat and it was an awesome experience for him and his dad who got to go too.  I have to admit that a small part of my mother's heart has a hard time with him growing up, but the majority of my heart swells with pride at the wonderful young man he is growing into!

Lily's Wedding Cake

 My latest wedding cake was back in November.  It's the first I've done in the new style of textured frosting.  I have to admit it was nice not having to roll out a bunch of fondant!  This simple beauty was fun to do for my niece and I'm still getting used to the fact that she's married!

Halloween 2016

Halloween was a bit busy this year.  I was partly in charge of planning a tri-ward trunk or treat.  It turned out well and I am glad to be done with it for another year.  The day before Halloween the kids and I carved pumpkins.  It's nice that Carson and Alaina are old enough to do most of the carving themselves, so I only had to do 2 this year.  Tony and I stopped getting pumpkins for ourselves because we were carving the kids and ours.  

 Lincoln with his "Boo" pumpkin, Charlie with his "Spider" pumpkin, Alaina with "Bat and Moon", and Carson with a "Spooky Skull".

Iron Man, Cowboy, Ballerina, and Nerd.

Halloween is fun.  We enjoy the activities, the candy, and the costumes.  But as a parent I'm also glad when the festivities are done.

Carson turns 12!

I will be the first to admit that I really hate throwing birthday parties for my kids, so when Carson asked for one I wasn't the least bit excited for it.  But with it being a milestone birthday I said ok.  Tony then told me that throwing a party for 12 year old boys is easy.  Just provide food, cake and video games and you don't have to worry about anything else.  He was right and I was relieved!  Carson loved having friends over and I loved not having to entertain them!  

 Carson wanted a cake with an Atom on it.

 Carson with his buddies.

Carson asked for some fishing gear for his birthday.  Now Tony will have to take him fishing which as many of you know will be quite the sacrifice for them.

We are so proud of Carson and the young man he is becoming!  We love you buddy and I will enjoy this last year before you're a teenager.

A Busy Fall Day

This particular Saturday in October was a busy but fun day.  The day started out with a soccer game for Alaina.  Then we went to a family day at Tony's work.  This was the first time the kids were able to go inside the building and really see what Dad does at work all day.  Lincoln especially loved exploring. Charlie and Alaina loved eating lunch in the cafeteria. Carson loved seeing all the big machines and had to see the robot.  Then we went out to our local corn maze.  The kids enjoyed the petting zoo, the hey mountain, the big slide, and the train.  Tony and I enjoyed the warm fresh donuts.  We all had fun in the maze and picking out pumpkins from the pumpkin patch.  We love this family tradition.

Faith in God Award

One of the perks of being the Primary President is that I was able to make sure the kids get something more than candy and a certificate when they completed their Faith in God.  Carson had actually finished his awhile ago.  Another perk of being the Primary President is that I got to give him this award.  It was pretty awesome and we're super proud of our boy!

Alaina's 9th Birthday

Alaina turned 9 in September.  She planned (and I really mean that she did the planning) a yellow and pink family party.  Papa John's Pizza for dinner and a lemon cake with buttercream frosting for desert.  She got sewing supplies as a gift from Tony and I, an awesome coloring book from my parents, and an easel from Tony's parents.  She loved all of it!

 I didn't really let Alaina choose how her cake was decorated because I needed to practice for an upcoming wedding cake.  But I let her pick the flavors and colors.

Alaina with her presents.  Notice the hairband she made out of the left over flowers from her cake.  Love this girl of ours!

School Days

Our kids have hit some major milestones this year.  Carson started 6th grade and is in middle school now!  He has adjusted very well and is part of the band.  He decided to follow his dad's footsteps and play percussion.  Tony has said many times what great timing Carson has and if he sticks with it he'll be better than Tony ever was.  Alaina started 3rd grade this year and is enjoying not being one of the little kids on the playground.  Charlie started kindergarten and in Moses Lake kindergarten is all day, everyday.  He loves school and has adjusted very well.  He's had to learn to use his words instead of his hands to solve his problems.  He is learning so much and I have to admit I enjoy the weekdays of just Lincoln and me and home.

 First Day of School; Carson 6th grade, Alaina 3rd grade

Charlie Kindergarten 

Vacation 2016

 Day 1 of Vacation we spent in Meridian, Idaho.  We had dinner with my brothers' families and my parents.  The kids got to play with their cousins and the adults got to catch up.

Day 2 my dad took us out to Black Canyon Reservoir near Emmett, Idaho for some boating.  I was super excited because it had probably been at least 8 years since I got to out on a boat!  Growing up we had a boat and almost every weekend each summer our family went and played on the lake.  The three older kids all went out on the tube.  The boys loved it, Alaina liked it fine but she enjoyed riding in the boat more than a behind it.  Tony got a nice battle scar across his nose when he wiped out while tubing.  I did some water skiing and showed the kids that their mom still had it!  We had so much fun!

 Day 3 the kids all had their haircut at Vidal Sass-grandma while I cuddled Lincoln.  He had thrown up the night before after we got back from boating and ran a fever for the next two days.  That evening Tony and the kids went a visited with the Fosters while I quarantined Lincoln so no one else would get sick. 

 Day 4 we visited Tony's sister Jana's ward for her baby's blessing.  After lunch we hit the road and traveled to Rexburg, Idaho.  We spent the night at Tony's cousin's house and enjoyed seeing how much Rexburg had changed since we had moved away.

Day 5 We had lunch with Tony's old boss and some old coworkers from Premier Powder Coating.  The kids requested eating at Pizza Pie Cafe which we all really enjoyed the food and the company.  That afternoon we traveled to Pocatello, Idaho and visited with Tony's grandma.  We went out to dinner and enjoyed spending some time with her.  After dinner we hit the road again and traveled to Syracuse, Ut and stayed with Grandma Deb and Grandpa Berry.

Day 6 we visited Hill Air Force Museum.  I had no idea it was so big!  There were so many planes to look at!  The kids even got to make their own gliders out of Styrofoam plates.  I always knew that planes were big but I was amazed at how huge some of the helicopters were.  

 Family Picture

We had to get a picture by this plane because it's a lot like the ones that Uncle Brian works with!

Day 7 we spent the entire day at Lagoon with Tony's brother's family.  I didn't get a lot of pictures because we were busy playing all day.  I even got to ride the new Cannibal ride which was awesome!

Day 8 we traveled to Logan, Ut to spend some time with my Sister and her family.  They live on the outskirts. It was so nice to visit with them for a short while and as always loved the artery clogging food they cooked for dinner!

Day 9 we traveled to Bear Lake for the Foster Family Reunion.  We were able to stay in some cabins and the kids loved spending time playing with their cousins.

Day 10 we spent the good part of the day at the lake.  Tony's brother Davin rented a water trampoline for the day and it was a lot of fun!

Lincoln taking a nap with his little cousin Jocelyn

Day 11 we traveled all the way home!  We spent twelve and a half hours in the car that day.  We watched 4 movies and had two meals on the road that day.  But surprisingly enough to kids did pretty well and we made it home!  We really enjoyed all the time we were able spend with our families and making memories together! 

Summer 2016

Yesterday I was asked what we had done this summer.  Well...

 Alaina's been sewing her little heart out making outfits for her doll, an apron for herself, baby blankets, and headbands.  Really anything that strikes her.  She has little to no direction from me and has learned to use the sewing machine quite well.  We've done sporadic organized sewing lessons.  But mostly she's done it on her own.  

 Carson had a skin lesion removed from the side of his head.  The dermatologist used a laser to remove it, which made Carson a bit nervous.  When all was said and done Carson did great and I think he was relieved to have it gone.  I took him to the store to pick out a treat later that day and he pick out cream puffs.  Which proved to be quite messy. 

 Charlie turned 5 years old!  We celebrated with pizza and a rainbow cake.

 The kids did the summer reading program through our local library.

 We visited the farmer's market where Lincoln enjoyed a cucumber.

 We played outside.

Lincoln is growing, though he's still our shorty and measuring in the first percentile.  His little personality it showing more and more.  Lately he enjoys wresting in the beanbag with his siblings, eating cheese straight from the block (unknown to mom) and putting whatever hits his fancy into the garbage can.  He also went to his first week of Nursery!

We also went on a Vacation...but that deserves a post all on it's own!

Happy Independence Day

This year Tony's parents and his brother's family came to visit us for the 4th of July weekend.  It's become a tradition to make our own patriotic shirts each year.  This year we made shirts for the family that visited too.  It was a lot of work, but it was fun and they turned out great!  The weekend included a visit to the farmer's market, the pool, and the lake.  We had good food and good fun.  We enjoyed watching the city fireworks over the lake.  Each year I miss not doing out own fireworks.  Fireworks are banned inside the Moses Lake city limits.  But we still had a great time with the family.

 Our family

 Everyone

 Cousins

Nathan's family

 Tony's parents

Charlie and Mack are best friends!

A Wonderful Evening

Tonight was one of those evenings where nothing really of consequence happened, but I thourouly enjoyed my family.  Tony and I enjoyed a little chat in our front room while testing out our new camp chairs.  We all had sandwiches, chips, and cantaloupe for dinner which means easy dinner to prepare and cleanup.  Plus no forcing the kids to eat.  Unloaded some free sod and loved seeing the transformation our house is undergoing with new paint and landscaping.  Laughed with the kids as they took turns being rock guitarists with Alaina's pink ukalae.  And now I get to tuck each of my kiddos in bed and then spend some alone time with my hubby! I love my family!  

A Little Blessing

As many know the bane of any women's shopping experience are bras, jeans, and swimsuits!  I needed a new swimsuit but was trying to make mine last one more year.  Last week I went into Marshalls to kill some time until it was time to pick up Charlie from Preschool.  I saw a bathing suit that was on an end cap that caught my eye.  I thought what the heck, I'll try on a couple of suits.  I picked 4 suits to try on.  The original suit that I liked was horrible once I put it on.  Surprise, surprise. The second one was just weird and meant for a women that must be all torso.  The third one was super cute and I would have considered it if they had had it in a bigger size.  So I put on this stripped suit.  Usually I'm attracted to flower or tropical pattern suits.  So imagine my complete astonishment when I put the suit on to discover that it fit and it looked good!  I don't normally just go out and buy stuff without talking to Tony about to first, but I just had to buy it.  I know it'll probably sound silly but I totally feel like it was a blessing from my Heavenly Father that I even found a super cute and flattering bathing suit when I wasn't even looking for one and in a matter of 30 minutes no less!  There a times in our lives when little blessings are sent our way that may not even be spiritual in matter at all, but are just for our pure enjoyment and happiness.  Thankfully last week I was the recipient of one such blessing.

Piano lessons for the Kids

Tony and I have always regretted that we quit piano lessons as kids.  Both of our moms play the piano and we had ample opportunity that we just didn't take advantage of.  I always said that I wanted my kids to be able to play the piano.  If nothing else than be able to play the hymns in church if need be.  Then came the realization came of how expensive music lessons are, especially when you have multiple children.  About a year ago we discovered a piano curriculum online.  All the videos are free we just pay for the accompanying materials.  Last week be bought the program and put together notebooks for each of the kids.  I'm really excited for the kids and am quite impressed on how quickly the they are picking up on it, even Charlie!  

Mother's Day

Growing up I never understood why my Mom really didn't like Mother's Day.  Why wouldn't she like a day dedicated to her?  When I became a mother myself I understood a little better how she felt.  There have been years where "Mother's Day" didn't feel so different from any other day of the year.  I would "see" mom's posting on social media about getting breakfast in bed.  Homemade gifts from their kids.  Elaborate gifts from their husbands.  Being waited on hand and foot and not having to lift a single finger all day.  Not to say that I didn't get some of those things myself each year on Mother's Day, I did.  But many times I would feel a bit of disappointment at the end of the "special" day.  This year I decided to take a different approach to Mother's Day.  Instead of comparing my family's outpouring of love toward me to other families, I gladly accepted each little show of affection directed toward me.  I tried to graciously accept each compliment and mention of mother's personally.  I tried to spend my day doing Motherly things maybe even better than I do on a normal day to day basis.  I spent my afternoon playing games with my kids instead of busing myself with my own projects or another futile attempt at a nap.  Yes, I was still the first one up on a Sunday morning to get myself and my family ready for church.  Yes, I still did the dishes.  Yes, I still changed dirty diapers.  Yes, I still played referee among the kids.  Yes, I received sweet hugs and kisses for my family.  Yes, I got little homemade gifts from my kids.  Yes, I got lots of "I Love You's".  Yes, my husband picked me some flowers.  Yes, I got a little treat at church.  Yes, my family cooked dinner.  Yes, my 11 year old son did a sweet family home evening lesson on motherhood.  Yes, I got to pick out some flowers for our yard.  So I'd say it turned out to be a pretty awesome day and I'm thankful to be a mother and enjoyed the day celebrating my role.          

Working on the Yard

Yesterday evening we got started working on our patch of dirt in the front.  It has been unusually warm lately and although it was 6:00 in the evening Tony and I managed to work up quite a sweat.  We cut out the beds and raked out the weeds Tony had sprayed last week.  We threw out some seed and are anxiously waiting for our grass to come up.  Tonight I think we'll need to spread some straw over the top to keep the birds from eating the seed.  I've caught them in the yard already.  We had no intention of getting so much done last night, but it went faster than we had expected.  We might bring in some top soil for the beds and maybe this fall we'll get some good deals on some trees, shrubs, and flowers for the beds.  Needless to say we were exhausted when we fell into bed last night.  The kids and I ended up sleeping in this morning until 8:00!  This was a total shock to me because that never happens.  The kids usually are up around 6:30.  Our family is coming into the busy time of year with scout camp outs, family reunions, end of school activities, and Tony is putting in two sprinkler systems for some families in the ward.  So we're trying to fit in our home projects where we can.  We still have to finish painting all our ceilings white.  Figure out how to finish our back yard since our source for free sod has flaked out on us.  Paint the exterior of our house, and of course all the other "little" projects we have planned for our home.  I know I've said it before; fixing up a home is a lot of work, but it is so gratifying to see the results of your labor.

                           

A Rip Roaring Writer

At the end of each quarter the kids' school does an awards assembly.  This quarter Alaina received an award for writing.  We're proud of our girl.

Soccer Boy

This year Charlie was old enough to do soccer.  He loved it although he mostly just ran around to field and managed to score one goal...for the other team.  But so it is with a four year old.  He had fun and thought it was super cool that he got a trophy from his coach at his last game.

Sewing

Alaina's Easter dress this year turned out super cute!  She picked out everything from the pattern to the material.  I've been trying to trying to do more difficult sewing projects lately to increase my skills.  This dress stretched me a bit.  The yoke (the green top part of the dress) was a bit of a challenge to attach to the rest of the dress.  The rose in the front of the dress also gave me a bit of trouble which I didn't expect.  I added some green tule to the underside of the skirt to help the dress flare out more.  The dress is also completely lined which Alaina likes because then the dress isn't itchy.  My biggest accomplishment with this dress is that I had minimal seam ripping, which mean I didn't have to take stuff apart and redo it.  I started 3 weeks before Easter Sunday to give myself plenty of time to work on the dress and I'm glad I did.  I had planned on sewing myself a dress for Easter too, but that just didn't happen.  I have a retro dress pattern I've had for over a year I really want to sew up for myself.  Last fall I sewed a button up shirt for Lincoln.  I cut down an old men's shirt and reused the buttons.  So no cost for me!  Again that project stretched me a bit and I certainly studied closely other button up shirts as I put it together.  My next planned project is to sew up a pair of jeans for Lincoln from a pair of Carson's where he split the crotch. Again no cost to me!  I've recently started teaching sewing lessons.  I've got two students right now.  A girl from our ward that's Carson's age and an adult friend of ours.  I really enjoy it and it's so fun to see their progress.

Easter

We had my parents come and visit us for Easter weekend this year.  We spent Saturday working in the yard.  With their help we were able to clear the rest of our back yard.  It's all level and ready for for sod.  Hopefully we can manage to keep the weeds out until we can get more sod.  The kids dyed Easter eggs in the afternoon.  That evening my parents treated us to dinner and we in return treated them to ice cream to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary!   On Sunday morning the kids woke up to some candy and a small toy in their baskets.  My parents then came to church with us and we enjoyed a very special sacrament meeting full of meaningful musical numbers and talks on the atonement. We followed church with a special meal of Ham, potatoes, asparagus, rolls, and jello.  We then snuck an egg hunt in for the kids before my parents had to leave for home.  We really enjoyed our time together and loved having them to visit for this special holiday.

Home Improvements

We've been in our house about 6 months and we're slowly making big and little improvements.  First we gave the whole place a good cleaning and replaced some of the carpet.  We've put up blinds in all the windows and got a lot of our pictures hung up.  Recently we've started painting all the ceilings white.  Originally they were the same brown color as the walls throughout the entire house.  We've nicknamed our house the brown house.  Literally everything inside and out was brown, even the lawn.  Painting the ceilings has proven to be a little more labor intensive then we were expecting.  We've had to prime and paint with multiple coats to cover the brown paint.  We've also been working on fixing the brown lawn.  We've rotatilled the back yard and removed all the old sod.  A coworker of Tony's cut up sod from his yard that we laid down in our yard.  Unfortunately we only had enough to cover a little less than half of our back yard.  Hopefully we'll be able to get more sod to at least finish the back yard and we'll seed the front yard if we need to.  We purchased a lawn mower last weekend for our soon to be luscious green yard.  We also replaced the light fixtures in all 3 of our bathrooms this week.  This was an unplanned project but the fixtures were on clearance at Lowe's and we couldn't pass up the good deal.  They look so nice and will be even better after we repair the huge holes left in the wall behind the old light fixtures.  You gotta love contractors.  If you can't see the hole then it's not there, right?  Our next big undertaking will be to paint the exterior of our house.  This is going to be another labor intensive job, but it'll be worth it.  We're hoping to replace the siding above the gable of our garage to a shake siding and paint it and the front door a contrasting color to the rest of the house to give some interest.  We have really been working hard on our home, but we enjoy it.  There is something so gratifying about it all.