Summer 2019

 Alaina “graduated” from 5th grade. It was fun to celebrate this milestone with her.

We bought a new family vehicle on! It’s a 2017 Ford Flex and there is a place for everyone to stretch out. We are so excited!

Our shirts turned out pretty awesome that year! We loved spending the day with my family. We enjoyed Middleton’s parade, splash pad, snow cone shack, had a yummy BBQ, did our own fireworks and made it just in time to see an epic fireworks display! Happy Independence Day!

So proud of this boy of mine! He made the choice to be baptized a member of The Church of Jesus of Latter-Day Saints. He was able to be baptized on the same day as his best bud and cousin Mack! So wonderful to celebrate this day with family and friends.

Catching Up

 It's been 3 years since I've posted anything.  To say life has gotten away from me would be an understatement.  I'm going to do my best to get everything updated.  Unfortunately a few months ago I lost my phone down an ice hole while fishing.  So any pictures will be limited to what Tony or I posted on social media.  I'm hoping to do much better about my "journaling".  So get ready for a dump of the last 3 years.  

Sewing for my Boys

With some our tax return money we bought a Serger!  I've been planning on sewing new blankets for all my kids and decorating their rooms for a long time.  With the new machine I was chomping at the bit to get going on this project.  I made coordinating quilts for Charlie and Lincoln who share a bedroom.  I did a superhero theme.  It was a lot of work, but it was a fun project and the boys loved seeing the progress I made each day.  And may I say that the Serger made this project to quick and relatively easy!  I love it my new machine!  I used my silhouette to cut out all the Superhero logos which I appliqued to quilt squares.  I came up with custom Superhero logos for each boy.  Lincoln said he's a Fire Ninja.  So his logo is a red ninja on a black background.  Charlie said he'd be super fast and his favorite animal is an eagle.  So his logo is a diving yellow eagle on a green background.  I also made red and blue curtains for their room.  Now to just decorate!    

Holidays

Here's a quick recap of our Holiday season.

 This year we went to our town Harvest Festival. It had games, face painting, food and a hey ride to a pumpkin patch.  Each of us got a pumpkin that we carved right before Halloween.  This year Carson was a vampire, Alaina was a unicorn (of course), Charlie was Spider-man and Lincoln was Optimus Prime.  We also participated in our ward trunk or treat which was fun!   

 We continued our tradition of getting a real tree for Christmas.  We went to a local tree lot to pick one out together.  Decorating the tree together was a controlled chaos as always but a time spent together.  

 It was fun to bake Christmas goodies for our friends and neighbors this year.  Alaina is getting more and more into cooking which means I have a baking buddy now!

 The kids with their presents.

 Tony and I celebrating our 16th Anniversary!

Easter was a laid back holiday.  We had Tony's family over for dinner and an Easter Egg Hunt.  It was windy but warm which we were thankful for.  

Middleton, Idaho

I can hardly believe it's been a year since we moved from Washington.  In some ways it seems like just yesterday and in others a lifetime ago.  When we first decided we would be moving back to Idaho we had planned to buy a home already built, but found our options to be lacking in December of 2017.  So we decided to look into building.  We looked at several communities but we knew we wanted the same small town family friendly feeling we had when we had lived in Rexburg and Moses Lake.  I remember the first time we drove through Middleton it was before we even decided to move back, it felt like a place I'd like to live with my family.  Everything seemed to fall into place.  We were able to find a lot in our budget and surprisingly build a bigger home than we had planned.  The build process took about 6 weeks longer than we were originally told and we ran into some snags along the way.  But so it is with construction.  We moved into our home on the 21st of July.  We have loved it here!  The community has lots of families, the schools are great, and the kids have made great friends.  Our ward family has been wonderful and we are looking forward to spending many years here raising our family!  

Just an update on all of the members of the family (since it's been 6+ months since I've posted anything).  Tony is staying busy with his job a The House of Design.  He really enjoys the people he works with and the projects he gets to be a part of.  He got to travel to Mexico for work last June, which was pretty cool.  He's done a lot of projects around the house before it got too cold.  Mostly getting the back yard put it.  He installed sprinklers, brought in gravel & top soil, and started to put up the fence.  Now the back yard is too muddy to work in until our grass starts to come up, so the fence will be finished then.  He works with the 11 year old scouts and the 10-11 year olds in primary at church.  He's a busy guy and many times seems utterly exhausted, but he manages to keep going!  We are so grateful for him!

I've been going through quite the transformation the last few months.  To say the move and everything that went along with it was hard for me would be an understatement.  I thought it was just circumstance and that once we got into our own home again I would feel better.  By the time October came along I knew there was something more at play and sought out medical help.  I was diagnosed with Bi Polar type 2, which is a type of depression.  The diagnosis came with relief because now I knew what was "wrong" but also with uncertainty.  I'm currently seeing a counselor and taking medication to help with the depression.  My quality of life has improved immensely, not to say that I don't still have bad days.  They're just less often.  I also am working part time.  I waitress at a Chinese Restaurant in Meridian.  I work 3 or 4 nights a weeks for 4-5 hours.  It's not too stressful and the tips are nice.  The money I get from my job take care of all the little miscellaneous stuff which helps lighten the load a bit.

Carson turned 14 in October and I'm constantly amazed at how grown up he is!  He does great at school and gets pretty much all A's in his classes.  He's part of a robotics team.  He loves all the nerdy stuff they do (don't ask me what half of it is) and likes hanging out with kids that have the same interests.  The robotics team is a bit of a sacrifice for us because it's all the way in Boise and they're meeting more often now with it being "build season".  But he really does love it, so we try to make it work.  Carson is still playing percussion in the school band and loves playing Fortnight with his cousins online.  With me working Carson has really stepped up to the plate in watching his siblings before his dad gets home from work.  We've had a couple of dinner incidents, but it's all about learning right?  We also got contacts for Carson and he looks so handsome!

Alaina turned 11 in September and is in 5th grade.  She is obsessed with unicorns (just like every girl right now) and is just bounding with energy.  She loves looking cute and is chomping at the bit until the day I'll let her wear makeup (12 years old).  She is so excited to be starting Young Women's and going to Girls Camp with the recent change.  She has an excellent teacher at school and her leaders at church are wonderful too.  She had a hard transition but is really starting to blossom!  She decided to try something other than soccer this year and enrolled in dance.  She's in beginning hip hop and really loves it!  Whenever her song comes on the radio she has to do her dance!  

Charlie is 7 and continues to keep us on our toes.  He's quite the little smarty pants and has already hit all his year end bench marks for 2nd grade.  He loves playing with his friend next door.  He loves being active but also loves to play video games.  His favorites being Mind-craft and the Lego games.  He also loves to build things and buys Lego's  whenever he has enough money saved up.  He just got new glasses a week ago and looks so handsome!

Lincoln is 3 soon to be 4 which means he is now a Sunbeam!  He's still not quite sure about leaving nursery behind, but he has a great teacher!  He is quite the character and surprises us with the big words and phrases he uses.  We are constantly laughing and smiling at his little personality.  Shortly after we moved into our house Lincoln was potty trained.  Thankfully he picked it up pretty quickly.  His favorite things to do are play with trains, construction vehicles, jump on the trampoline and play on the IPad.

(This is the face he makes when you tell him to "smile") 

Obviously there has been a lot more happen with us the last few months, but in the interest of keeping this post less than 10 pages long, I'll cover that another time.  Love my family, love my home!

          

  

Hawaii

The last time I flew anywhere was 12 years ago when Carson was just 18 months old and we took a trip to South Carolina.  The last trip Tony and I took without any kids was for our 6th Anniversary when Carson and Alaina were just little, and that was just a long weekend.  So to say that I was excited would be an understatement!  We planned this trip to celebrate our 15th Wedding Anniversary a few months before the job change so all of our flights were out of Seattle.  When we tried to change our flights to fly out of Boise instead we learned it would be cheaper to just buy an additional flight out of Boise to catch our flight out of Seattle.  So we left from Boise, flew to Reno, flew to Seattle, flew to San Francisco, then flew to Honolulu.  After lay overs and "trying" to sleep in airports and on the plans we finally landed in Hawaii. Thankfully we didn't have any delays!   

Getting ready to fly out.

Where we "slept" while in the Seattle Airport.

Our view from the plane as we came into land!  Beautiful!

The first day in Hawaii was just checking out the Island, the beach and our Condo.  That night we crashed and it was wonderful to get a whole night of uninterrupted sleep!  No kids in my bed and no alarm to wake us up for work or getting kids ready for school.

Peace and Quiet!

Our ride for the week.  A free upgrade from the compact car we had reserved.  I did notice a lot of white Jeeps while driving around.  It must have been the go to vehicle for all the rental car places.

Of course we went to the Polynesian Cultural Center!  It was so neat!  Our guide was actually from Mongolia.  We did some fun activities, went to a Luau, and saw an awesome show!  We even went a second day to catch all the things we missed.

 

There were rain showers off and on the whole time we were there.  But it was never cold and it never lasted for very long. So we didn't really mind.

We hiked Diamond's Head and it was beautiful!  One of the only sunny days we had and had a great view of the Island.

Visiting the Honolulu Temple and Snorkeling at Sharks Cove.  Snorkeling was so much fun!  It made Tony a little nervous at first but once we got the hang of it we really loved exploring and seeing all the tropical fish.

 

Tony said that the one thing he wanted to do was drink out of a coconut on the Beach.  We made sure it happened so his Hawaii experience would be complete.

 

Visited Pearl Harbor Memorial.  A pretty humbling experience.  A bit surprised that the visitors weren't more respectful when we went out to see the Arizona.  Regardless it made me thankful for the sacrifice of those men.

The whole week was busy!  We packed in a lot of activities but loved spending so much time together.  We are already planning to go back in a few years.  We missed our kids and were ready to be back with them.  Our flights back were just as crazy and bouncing from one city or state to another.  But we'd do it all again in a heart beat!  Loved Hawaii and being together!

Moving and Stuff

It's kind of hard to wrap up everything that has happened with our family over the last 6 months.  Two days before Christmas we moved our family to Idaho.  The weeks leading up to the move were busy and stressful but we made it work.  Tony started his new job in Idaho just after Thanksgiving.  The kids and I stayed in Washington and got everything ready for the move.  Those few weeks were filled with Holiday concerts, parties, and getting everything packed for the move.  I look back on that time of handling it all on my own and think that even though it was difficult at times we made it through pretty well.  We had lots of help from friends and neighbors that made it all bearable.  We managed to make the trek across the mountain pass amidst snow and pulling trailers safely and without incident.  In which I'm grateful for.  We moved 95% of our things into Tony's parents' garage and storage under their house.  Just keeping out the bare necessities until we move into our own house. 

Christmas was different from years past.  Just because of our circumstances it made it difficult to do all the family traditions.  For Christmas each of the kids got a compound bow of their own.  Except Lincoln of course, he got a Nerf Bow.  I got a Bow a few weeks later and we as a family have really enjoyed our new family activity.  Tony and Carson are hoping to go hunting with theirs while the rest of us enjoy target shooting at this point.  We went to a 3D archery shoot in April which was a lot of fun!  Tony, his Dad, and Brothers are going to another one in Utah that they're all looking forward to.

The kids have been doing well in school and Lincoln has had a learning experience of his own.  Learning to share with 2 and 4 year old cousins when your used to being alone with Mom all day has been interesting.  In February he turned 3 and with it came the tantrums and a hitting phase that we try to work through each day.  Lincoln has recently become obsessed with Trains which is good because there are a lot of them in our area.  He gets so excited just when we cross the train tracks.  When we actually see a train chugging down the tracks he gets so excited!  It's pretty cute!

Charlie has loved living close to his cousins!  About 6 weeks ago he had a back injury that gave us a bit of a scare.  He was playing outside on a tree swing and landed on his upper back and neck.  After a visit to the Chiropractor and some x-rays we were told he had a mild fracture.  We opted to have some laser treatments to speed up the healing process and taking it easy for a few weeks.  The taking it easy part was hard for an active 6 year old.  Toward the end Charlie asked me, "Mom, can I please run and jump?"  Poor kid!  But he seems to be back to his normal self and we are so grateful that he wasn't injured more.

Alaina finished another season of soccer with the local club.  She did well but has decided that she's ready to try something else.  She's played for the last 4 years.  We don't know yet what the something else will be.  She wants to try dance but expense and her age make me a little apprehensive about trying that.  So we'll see what we come up with.

Carson joined the band and really enjoyed playing under the director at his new middle school.  Tony and I were pleasantly surprised at how good the band was when we attended Carson's last concert.  His band attended a local festival and they got the highest score on all three of their pieces!  Carson has also recently joined a local Robotics team.  He seems to really be enjoying it and excited to be involved in Robotics again.  Carson has also been working hard in scouts and will be awarded his Life Rank Advancement this week.  He should be able to earn his Eagle before the LDS Church/BSA split in 2020.

Tony and I celebrated our 15th anniversary by going to Hawaii in March.  We planned the trip before the new job offer.  So with some last minute finagling we made it all work.  The flights were long and we were exhausted by the time we got to Hawaii.  We visited the island of Ohau and loved it!  We will definitely go back someday! I'll have to do another post just about Hawaii to fill you in on all our fun!

Tony has really been loving his job.  He's learning a lot and really enjoys the people he works with.  He'll be going to Mexico in few weeks to install his first big project.  He's doing great and we are really excited for him!

We have haven been patiently and not so patiently watching to progress of our home in Middleton.  The actual construction of the house got started a little later than planned, but now progress is being made every week.  We're hoping to be closing/moving into our home the last week of June.  Every week we visit the house and love imagining what it'll look like when it's all finished. 

Our moved back to our home state of Idaho has been greeted with joy and trial.  But we still believe this where Heavenly Father wants us at this time.  Looking forward to the future and the things to come.