My baby is 4!

Every year starting in January with Soren's birthday we enter one of our "birthday seasons" where we have a couple or more birthdays within a few days of each other. We have two boys with birthdays in

February, the oldest (Jordan turned 26) and the youngest, James. This year James was hitting the big 4! It hardly seemed possible that my baby could be turning 4. Very soon we will hit the point where it will have been the longest time in my married life that I have not been pregnant or holding a new baby. I have been counting forward to that point and it's nearly here. Yikes, it makes me feel old. 

Anyway, James helped make his own cake since he really likes to cook with me. (And lick the beaters!)

Another low-key family birthday celebration. We lit candles, sang, and he blew them out. Then he got to open his gifts and then the eating(wasting) of cake began. I don't know why my kids like to take huge pieces of cake, take two bites, then throw the rest away, but that's how it almost always plays out. Oh, well. 

This year James got a super hero cape and mask, some transformer type toys and a new cool retro/vintage lunchbox with cowboys on it, also lots of money that he promptly spent on new Legos, Legos are the toys of choice around here and are well worth the cost. They entertain my little guys for hours and days on end, 

Happy Birthday James!! We are so blessed to have you in our family. You keep us hopping and add lots of excitement to our lives. Hopefully your dad and I will survive your growing up years. Whew!!

Thru the Month - January 2015

Random events and photos from January:

Charles loses his first tooth

Soren turns 9 

and has his first ever birthday party!

Hannah is very busy with cheering for both basketball and wrestling as well as getting ready for Region and State Drill Team Competitions

Hannah- 3rd from left

The sky continues to be beautiful whether it's sunrise or sunset

The long-discussed project begins....the painting of the kitchen cabinets

from brown to....

GRAY!

Charlie gets to celebrate 100 days of school! (cool hat!)

Lots of creating with Legos, of course. Watch out for the sharks that might be left lying on the floors!

Soren's 1st Ever, Super-duper, Spider-Man Birthday party

I was feeling quite bad about never throwing a birthday party for Soren. As his 9th birthday approached I decided there would be no more excuses. So we bit the bullet and gave out invitations and made plans. I remembered that we had gotten a Spider-Man birthday in a box from somewhere, so this seemed like a great time to make use of it. It had invitations, banner, streamers, plates, napkins, cups, goodie bags, decorations, and goodies for the bags. The only thing I had to purchase was the treats and make cupcakes.  I had more fun than I thought I would have trying to color coordinate things and set it up all fancy like. I'm sure all the 8 and 9 year olds at the party really appreciated my efforts. Haha!!

Only one of the invitees couldn't be there so we had a pretty full house of rowdy boys. We played a superhero race game where there were two teams and each team sent a person who had to put on the oversized clothing and proceed to stuff it with balloons to simulate superhero muscles, then they had to unstuff and run tag the next guy on their team til everyone had a turn. It was pretty humorous! Then they played pin/beat-the-villain game. Next was a quieter activity of a Lego building contest. I needed that respite. 

We then ate cake, donuts,  popcorn, licorice, cherry sours and drank blue Koolaid. After their sugar refill, Soren opened his gifts and they all played until it was time for them to be picked up. Whew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was a fast and furious 2 hours and I was exhausted when it was over. But Soren was happy and had a great time with his friends, so I'm glad I made the effort to celebrate his birthday with a party for him this year.

The goodie table

he voted for cupcakes and donuts this year

the party table

funny game! some of the kids were absolutely swamped in Curtis's clothes...

build those muscles!

lots of laughing in this game

pin the superhero….

way to help a friend out!

Lego building competition

sure kept them quiet for a few minutes

let the eating commence

then came the gift opening and Heavy, Heavy, Hang Over

It was a good 1st birthday party

A traumatic loss...

January started out with a bang for Charles. He has had a wiggly tooth for a while now and was excited at the thought of getting some moula when it finally came out.
A few days ago he was downstairs playing Legos and I head him crying. Turns out he had been using his teeth (big no-no) to separate some Legos and it was just too much for the tooth. It shot out of his mouth and disappeared. I'm still not exactly sure what he was crying about. Maybe he thought he was in trouble for using his teeth on Legos. Maybe it was the blood. Maybe it was the thought of not getting any money since the tooth could not be found.
After some reassurance that he was NOT in trouble, and that he was NOT going to bleed to death, he happily went on his way.
The tooth turned up as well, thanks to the detective skills of Sadie. All was well in Charlie's world!

Kind of sad to see those cute little teeth go….

His last single digit birthday!

Today was Soren's last single digit birthday. How did that happen? Argh, I'm getting old.
We had a low-key birth day for him since he is having his first ever birthday party on the weekend.
We gave him some gifts:

• slippers from family
• $$ from grandparents!

We didn't even have cake on his actual birthday because he wanted it for his party. Works for me!

Soren, you have grown from an adorable baby with bright icy blue eyes and tons of blonde hair, to an awesome young man. We love watching you learn and grow and develop new skills. We anticipate many fun times ahead with you and are thankful to be your parents! Love you, bud!

Oh, the suspense…..

getting closer….

Jr High Basketball (Winter 2014-15)

Sadie decided to play basketball this year. She played with a lot of heart and gave it her best. She isn't very confident in her basketball skills and that made her a bit more hesitant on the floor than some of the other girls. But when she was put in the game she gave it her all. It was kind of fun watching her get a little aggressive and committing some fouls. She actually became very good at setting screens for the other girls, which is a great skill to have. And she was pretty darn good on defense. I enjoyed watching her stretch herself a little bit, doing something that was a bit out of her comfort zone. Way to go, Sadie!!

Sadie is #21 in the orange and black :)

Winter Solstice in Bluff or how to burn up really cool sculptures!

Bluff is an interesting place. As I've shared before, it is the place where the pioneers of the San Juan Mission said, 'Enough!' and stopped. For many years the town consisted of this group of pioneers and their descendants. In the latter part of the 20th century, other people began to move to Bluff. It's an eclectic mix of river-runners, tour guides, artists, hippies and whatever else you can come up with. A couple of times in the last few years the people of town, I'm not sure who started or plans this, have had a large statue built of wood and wire and brush. The first time I saw it, they had built a mastodon. It was pretty amazing. Here's a link to an article about it.

http://durangoherald.com/article/20121208/NEWS01/121209593/Honoring-ancient-petroglyphs-in-Utah-to-be-mammoth-event#

This year we were in Bluff to have a family Pre-Christmas dinner and to celebrate Shiala's birthday on the 21st, which happens to be the winter solstice. This years sculpture was scheduled to be burned at dusk so Mom wondered if we'd like to go see it before it was burned. We walked over in the late afternoon to look at the bison. The sculptures are simply amazing and I'm sad they burn them at all! I was amazed at the size of the thing. We walked around it, looked at the construction of it, (it had coconut shells for eyes!) and snapped a few photos. Then we walked back home. Curtis and I both felt a bit uncomfortable with the idea of celebrating the winter solstice. Not a part of our religious beliefs. But a few of us went back at dusk in cars and parked across the street to see it go up in flames. We didn't hear what was said or anything, just watched the big bonfire! 

L-R: Shiala (behind Hannah), Hannah (in the white beanie), Cambria, Kassie in the back, James and Charles. Soren is behind the bison.

James, Charles and Soren. They look tiny!

How did they make this thing!?!

It's huge!

I love walking through the quiet streets of Bluff. It's like going back in time.

The ever changing face of the Abajos

My favorite part of living in Monticello, in this house, is the view of the mountains out my front windows. I love looking at them every day to see what's going on up there. I have always found it interesting how clouds seem to be drawn to mountains, as if to a magnet. Some days the mountain is readily visible, and keeps me grounded. Other days it's partially hidden behind wisps of clouds, and appears as if it's floating. Then there are the days when it's completely covered by clouds and if you didn't know it was there you'd think we lived on flat land. On those days I feel like I've lost my moorings, like I'm drifting.
At times in my life I've fantasized about living in the Midwest, with endless prairie and sky. (Probably comes from reading Little House on the Prairie countless times!) But I truly do love our little mountains here. I'm thankful they are there to provide a catch place for snow to supply our need for water in this desert land. How generous is our Heavenly Father for placing that little bunch of mountains right here where it could provide for the needs of a couple of small communities? I'm thankful for:

•  the visual variety they provide for me every day
• I love them in the spring when the green starts to creep up their sides
• I love them in the summer when they are full, deep green and we can go up into the cool air there
• I love them in the fall with their subtle fall colors. I've learned to appreciate the many shades an oak tree can turn
• I love them in the winter with their winter white coat on. That's when the Horsehead on the side is most easily seen

I love them just about any old time!

Christmas 2014

Christmas was a little low key this year. We had decided to put our money towards a family trip to be taken next summer, so the kids were not expecting to get anything. For most of the month the real estate under the tree was unused and available.  Eventually a few gifts from the kids friends made their way under the tree and things looked better.

I had helped a friend and her husband with funding their toy company and in return I was sent three of their awesome swords. The boys were so surprised to open the large gift bags to find these interchangeable, awesome toy swords. The girls got new pajama pants and some other assorted goodies. Montana got tools and a first aid kit to take with him back to BYUI, as he is now the proud owner of a little beater truck.

Other things that made the holidays special;

• Band/Choir Concert - I always enjoy listening to my kids perform. Our new music teacher did a good job. Sadie was in the 8th grade band, high school band and the choir. Cambria was in the choir.
• Christmas dinner in Bluff - We went to Grandma's, along with Ford and Shiala, and the Eberlings on the Sunday before Christmas to have a nice dinner and to spend an evening together at the holidays. We also watched a driftwood buffalo burn….more about that coming
• Pandora Christmas music stations - usually I pull out the trusty old CD's we've had for years. But there was so much music available on Pandora that i never did get them out.
• We planned to do the 12 days of Christmas for someone. But due to my overwhelm with the ward Choir Christmas program it never happened. I had to take something off my plate :(
• Grandma gave us a 12 days of Christmas from the Bluff Fort box. In the picture below you see the bags hanging over the window as a garland. In each bag was a treat that corresponded to a story in a little book. So we read the story, ate the treat and played with the contents of the bags.
• We have our own little Christ-Centered Advent. It's a bit like a Mormon Jesse Tree. Instead of a tree we hang our little ornaments on a wreath. Each night we read the scripture that corresponds with the ornament and try to explain/understand who the ornament represents and how it typifies of Christ or witnesses of Christ. We've done it for about 3 years now and I love it. It brings in scriptures from the Book of Mormon as well as the Bible. I'm in the process of making felt ornaments rather than the paper ones I hurriedly made 3 years ago.

Watch out Bad Guys!

My girls in their Christmas finery

Gotcha with a mouthful again!!

This was about the extent of our trash….pretty good for a family of this size

Ever since I made these cloth gift bags a few years ago we have had so much less trash after Christmas.
They have served us well!