Happy Birthday

When I was a young girl and thought about being grown and married and having a family of my own I pictured myself as the mother of 7 boys.  I don't really know why.

Then when I was actually a mom I had 5 daughters and just one boy.  I love having daughters.  I am delighted to have a son.  I always wanted him to have brothers and I have been blessed with every desire of my heart.  I now have almost 4 sons.  (as I'm gaining another soon).  Those boys, born to other mothers, raised by them and loved by them, taught by them and endured by them ;) are truly sons of my heart.  I love them and feel so luck they married my girls. 

Clayton is Jenna's husband.  He is the perfect guy for her.  He is adventurous, smart, a planner, fun, helpful, righteous, easy going, hard working, athletic and goal oriented.  

Jenna is a lucky girl. And those baby girls that are joining their family are in for an awesome surprise:  They scored a man who I know will be the best daddy.

I love many things about Clayton.  One is how much he adores Jenna.  He does everything he can to make her happy.  They are great partners for each other.

Another is how he quickly and whole heartedly he jumped into our crazy, sometimes grouchy, sometimes quiet, sometimes in your business family, and embraced us all.  

I love how he plans for the future.  

I love his generous heart.  He gives of his time and his resources freely and happily. 

He is always helpful.  I know he's helpful at home and works hard to keep everything nice and running smoothly but he is also helpful when he comes to our home, or to Dani's, or anywhere I've ever been with him.  He reminds me of my own dad.

He has a strong testimony and is easy to  get along with.

The only problem with Clayton is he lives in Ohio.  And that is too far away!

Happy Birthday Son-in-love.

Knott’s Berry Farm

Sierra and a giant California Bear

I wanted to do something fun over the holiday break and decided on Knotts Berry Farm.  I really like it there at Christmas time.  It's such a cute park and far less busy than the others and a lot less expensive.

waiting for the ghost rider

Ethan didn't want to go.  He hates amusement, but he was a really good sport and barely complained.  I appriciate that. Sometimes going along pleasantly is a wonderful gift.

on the ghost rider

We didn't ride a ton of rides but we did get on a few.  We watched the ice skating show and ate at Mrs. Knotts Chicken Kitchen (skip it, not worth the time it takes).  We played some games and walked around and looked at shops.

cute siblings

selfie

I had a really fun day and would totally go again another Christmas time.

winning stuff

short lines

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.