NYE

Sierra and Bub

We went to church all together this morning.  No ward council for me.  

It was a good day.  On 5th Sunday's we combine our 3rd hour with the YM and it was my turn to teach.  It is always fun to teach the teens.  Sierra and Hannah both came to my lesson, which was very nice.

sneak peek

We got a sneak peek of two of the engagement pictures.  This is my favorite of the two.  I love it!

After church we came home and had lunch.  Baked treats for Rob and Ethan to take home teaching (last day of the month) and baked for us.  We had some quiet TV/reading time and then had dinner.  After dinner we played games and made more treats.  Pirate mad libs was surprisingly entertaining! We also played Dicecapades and Qwelf. 

Now it's 11pm and I'm calling it! Happy NEW Year!! It's going to be an exciting one!!

Family Fun

We had big plans for a fun family day. First on the agenda was a trip to Devils Punchbowl. 

The weather was nice and Ziva especially loved the outing. Grace and I struggled to do the whole hike. Everyone else had an easy time brain walking. 

My favorite part of visiting the punchbowl is seeing the cute owls that live there.

When we were done we drove back and stopped at a cool shop that sells fountains and yard ornaments and furniture and stuff. The artist was there and we enjoyed browsing. He had really neat things.

Next we met Rob and Tori for a quick lunch. They were on their way to Pasadena and we were very happy to meet up and have a burger and spend a little time together.

At lunch Hannah and Sawyer decided to go with some friends to the NYE dance in Anaheim so we put off our bowling/dinner plans.


They went to the dance. Ethan went to the stake dance here and can you guess what the rest of us did? A puzzle. 

I also worked on my lesson for tomorrow and Rob has been reading Skousen so he did that as well. 

surprise

Yesterday morning we woke up to a phone call from Sierra saying "how'd you like a visitor!?"  Of course we immediately said yes and plans were made for me to pick her up at the airport that night.

Meanwhile, Ethan was still sick.  I am delighted to report that today he seems much better and I expect he'll be 100% next week.  This is a lingering gunk.

Zoo day

Hannah has been spending a lot of time with the Crawley's.  She's having a great time getting to know her new family and they have welcomed her with open arms.  It's an exciting time, being engaged and planning a wedding, being with your sweetheart, getting to know your new sisters and brothers.  One fun thing about them is all the kids are pretty close in age and are all newly married (within the last few years) so they are in the same stage of life.  All of their kids were here this year for Christmas (they do an every other year thing) and then Grandpa Crawley died so they ended up staying longer than planned (his funeral is Tuesday) so they've had lots of fun family plans.

Grace and Dad and I are working on our 4th puzzle, which is kind of strange to me because I have not been a fan of doing puzzles but I am enjoying them very much and my skills are improving.

sisters

Sierra and I had a nice drive home from the airport and then we all stayed up until 1am talking and catching up.  She is a lot of fun to have around and has been cheerful and talkative and has swept in and made our kind of quiet holiday house much more lively.  Which is a nice thing:)  With the boys being sick, and our Hannahkin busy being engaged, it's been much more quiet than normal.  Which isn't bad but it's nice to change it up.  We are all excited to have her here and to spend some fun days together.

Today we went to the gym together.  Then to lunch at panera bread.  A couple of movies are on the agenda and the weather is sunny and bright and lovely!

Monster in the air

Ethan has been sick for going on 2 weeks now. He’s been missing practice and everything:(

Besides the germs running rampant we are enjoying our break.

 

Christmas Day

Our day didn’t start too early. I think everyone was up by 8 though. The kids opened their stockings first, as usual. Then we moved into the library to open the rest of our gifts. Everyone was spoiled and were happy with their gifts. 

I was super happy to get fiestaware! I’ve been wanting to change my dishes to them for some time. 

After we opened gifts I made breakfast and served it on my beautiful new plates!

Grace got a surprise “secret Santa” gift from a man in our ward. She had talked to him about wood burning some time ago and he asked if he could get her a kit. Everyone tried their hand at it!

Sawyer came over later in the morning. He and Hannah exchanged gifts. We gave him presents and he brought a gift for Han from his parents.  I thought they were going to spend the day at the Crawley’s but was happy to learn that they were spending it with us. 

Unfortunately Rob was still sick. He and I drove to Santa Clarita to pick up a Z pack from the nearest open pharmacy. This took a couple hours and we left the kids playing games. 

When we got home he went to bed. The rest of us commenced with the festivities. We played more games. Ate lunch. Walked at the desert preserve and went to the movies to see Jumanji, which we loved. 

After the movies we came home and ate pizza and played monopoly. 

Rob had started to feel a bit better and was able to join us.

It was a good day.  

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was on a Sunday this year. We only had sacrament meeting and we combined with the Leona Valley Ward, which was fun. It was very Christmasy with lots of beautiful musical numbers and a narrator tellling the story of the Saviors birth. 

Ethan and Rob were both sick and stayed home. After church Hannah spent the day at the Crawley’s so it was just Grace and I. We worked on a puzzle and made dinner. The boys did get up to eat with us. I made Beef Wellington and we all thought it was yummy. We also had fried fingerling potatoes and green beans and apple sauce and sparkling cider and four layer dessert. It was quiet with the sickies sleeping but it was still good. We are so blessed with good health, a lovely home, wonderful & bright children, 3 + 2 on the way grandchildren, awesome sons in law, cars, pets, books, technology, a fire burning stove, food to eat, callings that allow us to serve, scriptures, a temple nearby, sunny weather, and a Savior. Wow. Really there should never be a bad day because our blessings are too great to even count!  And today was a good day besides. Some years the holidays are crazy and chaotic with lots of family and activity and those are my favorite. But the occasional small and quiet is still sweet and precious. 

After dinner we read Luke 2, watched a movie, and when Hannah got home we locked up the house and went to sleep in our snug beds. (Except Rob who spent the night coughing and not breathing in our snug bed)

One more shopping day

This morning I got up and went to the grocery store. So did everyone else in town. It took awhile but I got everything we needed so I am glad about that.

Ethan is still sick. So is Rob. I stocked up.

After cleaning up Rob, Grace and I went to the movies. We saw the Greatest Showman, which we all liked. We had a couple things to do after that and while we were out we got a call from Julie asking if Rob could meet Emmett at the ER to give a blessing. We went over and waited for him to do that then went to Cafe Rio (Gracie’s choice)

The evening was spent working on puzzle #3 of the break until Hannah got home and needed to make an emergaency Walmart run. Grace and I went with her....mostly because it’s not safe to go there alone but also because she’s super busy so we have to see her when we can. 

Hannah and Sawyer spent the day with his family.

San Diego

hair doing

Hannah, Sawyer and I went to San Diego today.  Rachel Nichols (Buxton) is our wedding photographer and she took their engagement pictures today.  

First we went to Anna's.  I stayed there when they left but we had a little time for lunch and hair doing before that.

Joneaux loves games

When they finished their pictures they came back.  Amadeo made dinner.  Anna and I helped.  We played lots of games and had dinner, which was delicious.  Amadeo took the boys to do some errands while S&H were gone so Anna and I had some time to visit just the two of us.

hover craft works

While we were gone Rob and Grace finished the hover craft. Took Matilda to the vet and Grace had Brynn over.

Space x

So this was cool.  Ama was in the backyard and called out "hey come look at this cool lighting or something."  Anna went out and my phone rang, I picked it up and it was Rob telling me a rocket just launched.  I was able to go out and watch and he was able to tell us what we were seeing.  It was super cool and so crazy how well we could see it.  Space x launched taking with it 10 satellites to put into orbit.

Tilly is doing well.  She got some antibiotics for something, some weight gaining supplements, a b12 shot and we are hoping all is well.  She was more playful today and has had 100% success with the liter box (so far)

vacation days

science olympiad

Our days are full of Christmas movies, family dinners, soccer practice, last minute shopping and sleeping in.

So they're about perfect.  Grace is preparing for the science olympiad.  She is assigned several tasks including building a hover craft that can carry a roll of pennies some distance.  Rob is her tech advisor.

3rd times a charm...we hope

 We miss having a cat.  We have had horrible luck.  Percy was awesome, then died.  Steve had a horrible bladder.  We decided to try one more time. Rob and Grace went today and picked up a little cutie from the shelter.  Lets hope hope hope she will be healthy and litter trained and friendly. I'm worried.

Tonight the kids went to Curtis' surprise birthday party.  His mom went all out.  She had two bands, a nacho bar, hot chocolate bar, cake and ice cream, a skate board ramp and lots of friends.

Ethan is a good reporter.
When he got back I said "how was the party?"
He said "good."
"were there lots of people there?"
"15-20"
"were you cold?"
"I had good gear"
"how was the music"
"loud and lively"
"how was the cake"
"chocolate"
 "sounds like we are done here, goodnight"
"good night"

We are going to work on this before his mission :)

Shopping

Ethan is still sick. Rob is sick.
The rest of us went shopping. Hannah and Sawyer are getting their engagement photos done on Friday and she needed something to wear. It was a busy day. First we took Gwen to the guinea pig hospital. She has a respiratory infection. Hopefully she’ll survive.

Then we went to Lowe’s to get paint sample strips for the wedding colors so the need to know people would know exactly what shades we need. People like the cake lady, the flower lady, etc. Then we went to Target.  Lastly we went to the mall. Eventually we found what we were looking for! Grace is normally a horrible shopper but she was a trooper. She even tried on some clothes and found a dress she liked. Also we fed her mall food every couple hours and that helped :)

Holiday Music Party

It was our 2nd year going to the Chronis’ music party and once again we had a wonderful time. 
There was tons of delicious foods. Lots of friends to visit with and beautiful music. 

Not having a musical bone in my body I really appriciate and enjoy other people’s talents in the music dept. 

It was a lovely FHE night for us.