It's the Holiday Season

This picture really captures all of their personalities well!

We celebrated Thanksgiving a few weeks ago and had a grand old time and have been in full Christmas mode ever since.

We sure missed seeing our families this year for Thanksgiving.  It was definitely different.  It was also nice just celebrating with the 6 of us.  I am so Thankful for Jake and our 4 kiddos.  They are my world and we have a great time spending time together and making memories.  We have a lot to be thankful for.  This was the first year I have ever cooked the full Thanksgiving meal.  We usually just take a side and pie to our gatherings.  It wasn't too bad.  We made sure to get all the favorites even down to the cheese whiz on celery sticks😉

The kids did really well in school this semester and are learning a lot.  They have all been doing well with virtual school and enjoy extra projects and fun at home.  

The house is all decked out for Christmas.  It was fun to find new places for everything this year.  More space = more to decorate.  Pierce and Wes are so into Christmas this year.  I love it!  Anytime it snows Wes exclaims, "It's Christmas Eve!"  They both wrote letters to Santa.  It is so fun to see their excitement.    We put together a gingerbread house one night and decorated sugar cookies.  I love the Spirit of Christmas and all it entails!  

We have already watched a handful of Christmas movies and plan to watch many more in the next couple weeks.  "It Happened on Fifth Avenue" is a new favorite to add to our list.  You should check it out if you have never seen it.  We also started a new Laurel and Hardy Collection and have been watching it for the past few nights.  Another classic!  The kids are really enjoying them, which is fun for me and Jake as they are already one of our favorites.

I finished my classes and ended with a bang!  Two big group projects and a couple of finals.  My third class had no projects or finals, it was fabulous!  It is nice to be done for just over a month.  The U is starting a week later Spring semester to give all the returning students time to get a Covid test before school starts.  I am down to 6 classes!  YES!  I will spread them out over the next few semesters and probably even take summer off this coming year. 

The kids just have this coming week left before they get 2 weeks off.  They are doing a lot of fun holiday things so it should be a pretty good week.

I hope everyone is staying safe and well!  

💚💜💛

New Digs and Halloween Fun!

So it has been a few weeks....

So much going on and nothing going on at the same time 😉

With Covid we have missed a lot of our usual October Activities and have been having a great time with just the 6 of us.

Then again, there are 3 kids to keep track of on online schooling, regular mom duties and my 3 classes which have involved midterms and 2 very lengthy projects.  And last but not least.......

WE BOUGHT A HOUSE AND MOVED!

It all happened at the end of September.  It is great to have more space.  We love the new place and are glad to be able to stay in the neighborhood and close to family.  It is an old house with a lot of projects, but we will have some great adventures fixing it up over the next few years.  Jake didn't waste anytime starting on projects.  We have been chipping in where we can as well.  

All of us are doing something, even the kids.

Other happenings:

Pierce lost his first tooth and is great with numbers

The kids had picture day at school

We have been watching some fun old movies

Vertigo

The Man who knew to Much

Swiss Family Robinson

The Shaggy Dog

Holiday Inn 

and more

Had our first snowfall (not much)

Wes is telling the funniest stories lately, totally made up and they go on and on.  It is great!

Lawson has been helping with a lot of the muscle work around here...he is growing up fast.

Ava is so organized with her schooling, it is awesome!  She has also been enjoying making crafts and cards for people.

The kids are doing well in school and enjoyed a fun Halloween Zoom party

We had our last campfire of the season, roasted hot dogs and had a little picnic

We had some good times as a family on Halloween.  The kiddos went to just a few select houses on our block and we gave them a bag of candy.  Then we made homemade pizza and Wassail.  Had Cheetos bones and pumpkin pastries and watched a scary movie, "Rear Window".  

It was a pretty fun night.

We raked and mowed up a bunch of leaves in prep for the storm. Then it blew a bunch more down (gotta love it).  After that we got a pretty decent  snowfall and I think there is more to come.  The kids loved it!  Wes saw the snow and insisted it was Christmas Eve.  It took a lot of explaining to convince him that it was not.

Had an idea to do Halloween Silhouettes.  

Julie helped me with the witch.  

Turned out pretty good.

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Boys enjoying the first snow

Ava enjoying staying warm inside (just like her momma)

 

Windstorm and Back to School Take 1, 2, 3 and 4

Wow!  What a month it has been.  Summer is coming to an end, hikes, Ava's Baptism (covid style), windstorms andthe start of school for the kids and I.Jake has been busy with a lot of projects at home and work pretty much every day.  He is so great!  He wears me out just watching all his hard work.  He was able to sneak in a little fun with us here and there and is always great to keep the kids entertained while I do school stuff.So I started out with 6 classes this term for the first week.  I wasn't planning on taking all of them, but wanted to read through all the syllabi and figure out which ones would work best with my schedule.  I stuck with three classes, which I think is still somewhat ambitious while trying to keep up with the house and all that comes with that.  Oh and not to mention helping my kids with virtual learning.  I spent my 3 weeks off organizing the house and trying to have a little fun with my familyThe kids have been enjoying being outside and taking advantage of the last few days before school starts, which they ended up getting a few extra with windstorm (which they thought was the coolest thing ever). Class was supposed to start Tuesday and we were already to go, and then the windstorm Monday night through Wednesday morning knocking out the power of over 160,000 people.  It is kind of hard to do virtual learning without power.  We lucked out and had our power a few hours longer than all of our neighbors.  We were out of power for about 10 hours on Tuesday.  We enjoyed a camp stove cookout for dinner and ate it to candlelight around the coffee table.  Many people were out of power much longer and some are still waiting for power.  There were so many branches thrown around and trees uprooted.  We got a few crazy pictures of Liberty park before the cop kicked us out. So every evening this past week we would get another message that school was cancelled the next day so the kids ended up with the whole week off. The kids were up and running this morning and are off to a good start.  They all enjoy their teachers and we are all feeling pretty good about things.  The older 2 sat through a full day of virtual zoom and did great keeping on track.  Pierce only has about an hour on zoom and then some assignments to work on, but I had to keep him on track pretty much the entire time.  It is hard to focus when you are five.  Each of them had to go to a short assessment at the school and get supplies before school started.Lawson enjoyed a virtual stem camp for 2 days a few weeks ago.  He learned a lot and designed a prototype of a backpack.  It was pretty cool.  He has been a good helper to Jake with projects as well.Ava was baptized a couple weeks ago.  It was a lot different than we expected.  We just had her grandparents come, the Bishop and his wife.  We would have loved to have everyone there, but we weren't sure how long the group restrictions would still be in place.  We have such a big family and figured this would be the best way.  It was still a special day with each one of us there taking part.  Wes and Pierce gave the prayers, Jake conducted and performed the baptism and confirmation, which was so sweet.  I gave a talk on baptism.  Grandpa and Lawson were witnesses. Grandma Julie and Carol gave a quick thought on the Holy Ghost.   Then the Bishop welcomed her to the ward and Jake read a message from the primary.  She missed having more people there, but it was still nice.  Pierce is really excited about Kindergarten and I love to see how proud he looks when he knows the answer or learns something new.  I can already tell it is going to be a lot of work to keep him on track, but we will do our best.  He is so passionate about everything which can be so sweet and wonderful  yet infuriating at times. He is our little firecraker for sure.Weston loves to tell stories of lately and they usually involve his favorite little cousins.  He always asks me if I am happy, which makes it easier to stay positive.  He wants to be big and do school like his siblings.  He likes to "work" in his paw patrol ABC workbook.  I am not sure he comprehends all of it, but he is sure cute!  He and Pierce were champs at the dentist (we all have had dentist appointments this past month, those two are the only ones with a pic)