Tuesday, February 26, 2019

The Hardest Night to Sleep

Christmas Eve is always a fun day. Kids are excited and a little hyper waiting for the day to end and the next to begin. We don't have a lot of traditions nailed down to Christmas Eve. We do have jammies and cookies for Santa, but other than that...we wing it.


This last Christmas, we brought out some bottles to saber. There were a couple of the young'uns who hadn't had their shot. We only had two bottles, and Ivory and Pearl spoke first, so they got the honor of breaking in Christmas Eve.




They both did a great job!




The hours tick down until it is finally time to open Christmas Eve gifts. Is everyone ready?


What a surprise...pajamas. How come these girls are so cute?



We forgot to get a gift for Pip. She seemed upset and proceeded to walk all over Pearl. What a diva.




Robyn made cookies and Santa is lucky because she makes the best cookies ever. Except I think these may have been the ones she put cinnamon in. (Don't do it, chocolate chips cookies should NEVER have cinnamon.) Daisy was so cute to leave an apple for Rudolph.




Amazingly, these kiddos fell asleep, and not even that late. We have them all sleep upstairs on Christmas Eve. Little did we know this was foreshadowing, since J.R. was coming to live with us just two weeks later and all the girls would be upstairs semi-permanently.




I was busy putting stockings together and Tyler was busy camouflaging a gift. I told him to hide it somewhere. I didn't realize he would try to hide it in plain sight. Not too bad, babe.




You could still kind of see it, but I still think that is the most clever wrapping I have seen yet.




The last thing to go up is the forcefield, or ribbon of death. Anyone crossing this barrier too early will suffer. The sign actually says: No pianists, violinists, or percussionists admitted. Punishment: Ignominious death. p.s. Also no tumblers




We are such good parents.


Stay tuned for Christmas morning, although I plan to put some other posts in between, so don't hold your breath.

Monday, February 25, 2019

Here We Come A Caroling

Caroling is one of our favorite holiday traditions. The Hulse's came with us last year and they seemed pretty interested to come again. And that sounded fantastic to us. June made our gift tags to go on the plates again. These are adorable.




I'm so sorry I didn't get a picture of the plates. They were stacked with goodness. Toffee, fudge, chex mix, kiss cookies, and something else I can't remember. So delicious.


As usual, we each chose some families. I cheated and warned one of my families in advance, but they live so far away that I didn't want to risk driving out there and not finding them home. Plus, they are in a new house and I wasn't even sure how to get there. Without instructions, we probably wouldn't have found it.


But we did find it and the Taylor's were waiting for us with cookies and hot chocolate. (Maybe I should warn everyone?) She thought it was so fun that we came out to sing to her. (She has Ivory, Robyn, and Jane in her class so she knows all of us to a degree.) They are such a cute little family.




Many of the families were not home. That is just how it goes. We even sang to a random family. The one we picked wasn't there, so we went next door where the lights were one. Hopefully they needed some extra Christmas cheer and some goodies.


Here we are singing at a house that wasn't home. We still sing the whole song...it's good practice.




One of the best houses was the Underwood's. While I was in my Girls Camp calling, he would tell me all the time about his Christmas village, so I had to go see for myself. But it seems only right to bring treats. It was truly amazing. He had a train that went around the tree, and all the buildings he helped build with his father or his children. It was really cool. But my favorite part was the Christmas tree. Brother Underwood is a fireman and paramedic and his whole tree was covered in fireman ornaments. I'm sad this picture doesn't do it justice. I could have looked at his tree for a long while seeing all the fun fireman themed decorations. Super cool.




We stopped by Ember's house towards the end. I'm so happy we caught them at home. And they were even kind enough to take a picture for us so we had a group photo. (I often forget those.)




What can I say? Caroling is dear to my heart. It makes me excited for December all over again. Although I am more than excited for the cold weather to be over for a while. December...I love you, but I'll take my time getting there.

Tuesday, February 19, 2019

We Are a Three-Headed Person

This is possibly my favorite video of all time. It always makes me laugh and it is only 15 seconds long. Back when we were learning how to use Marco Polo, we would send messages back and forth to Danja. We liked using the helium voice and drawing things on the screen. Thus was born this video...




June's response was so random, it makes me laugh every time. Who would think to say St. Patrick's day?? Love my silly Junebug.

January Chatbook 2019

Another month to put into the books. I am slowly catching up to equilibrium in the blog. I feel like it will happen this year. (A girl can dream, can't she?) My goal is to get there by summer time. I am in a much better position than last year, so why not? Maybe even earlier...


But today, let's look back at January, which to be fair, was not the best month for us with back issues and kidney stones. But as you will see, we still manage to have fun and enjoy the small moments.


The hardest part is that now I have four people taking pictures around here. That is a blessing, but also a curse because I have to look through four sets of pictures to chose what will go on the blog. But I always find some treasure on June, Robyn, and Dad's phones. I will try to compile them the best I can. Here goes:


Let's start with Pip shall we. Our time with Pip is growing short. Granny V should be back in April sometime. Some days this makes me sad and other days I'm very excited. (Like the day I sat in a pee spot and had to change my dress for church. Less happy with Pip that day.) Here is Pip sleeping on Dad, sleeping on Mom. I think we are all pretty happy doing our thing in this picture.




Pip finds the weirdest spots to sleep. On the armrest, next to someone's bum (Robyn's) or in her own princess corner.







Robyn is constantly in art mode whether she means to be or not. I'm so happy to capture her doodles and bigger pieces to put on here. Check out some of her latest creations. We have been watching the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, so naturally you need a picture of Fili and Kili.




This one was a drawing of a friend, named Cherry.



And Robyn's favorite place to doodle is the copy room. She likes to draw on the paper rolls, stinker. Here is a little guy running across and falling onto the lower roll. Funny.




In Robyn's English class, they did a contest to see which design would win the cover of the "This I Believe" books. (Last year, June's class chose the lamest design. I hope Robyn's class will do better.) Robyn's design was so clever. She used little people. I would never have thought of this.




Early in the month, I was asked to take pictures at a funeral. My back was out at the time and I was super worried about doing a good job. I took Robyn along and we had two cameras going and it seemed to work out okay. Robyn actually got some amazing shots. And then we celebrated and took ourselves out to lunch. It was a very long morning, probably longer for the family members, but I'm glad we could help in a small way.





We filled up the bird feeder and the greedy birds picked it clean in two days. Guess food is a little more scarce in the winter.




The kids broke a bed (an old one) and while Tyler was taking it apart he found that many years ago, Daisy had written her name on one of the slats. So cute.




Pearl did A.L.L. testing this month. She is a smart kid, but I don't know how well she tests so I really have no idea how she will do. But it can't hurt to test her.




This month brought J.R. to come live with us. He currently is employed in Utah and traveling back on the weekends to see his family. Giving him a place to stay is the least we can do. He is super helpful and I love having him around. The kids painted the window in welcome and then Robyn started to clean it off before she remembered to take a picture, so it just says, "lcome, R."




The night that we did Zumba, the girls both happened to wear their girls' camp shirts and then Eva did too. Guess they make good work out shirts.




Check out this awesome sunset. Even winter can be beautiful.




Our resident Vodoo doll is looking really good for the holiday of love. She makes a great bride. I really adore the tissue veil Robyn gave her.




For some reason, June has had a picture of Princess Di as her avatar on my phone forever. We're not even sure why it is there. So one day, Robyn decided to fix it. She took a picture of June and replaced it and now this is what I see. I love it. (Not that I didn't like Princess Di, she just wasn't my Junica.)




Daisy is getting pretty good at piano. Apparently, she can play without even looking.




Here are some touching photos. I was helping Dad up the stairs after his procedure and Robyn took a picture of her sad parents. It is true, we have been a little feeble this month.




And look how sweet Robyn is watching and taking care of Tyler. She was unfortunate enough to witness some of his serious pain and she was honest to goodness concerned he would die. Out of all the kids, she checked in on him the most.




Daisy requested Jello worms for FHE treat one day. I didn't have time to put them together and I actually wasn't sure how I was going to do it anyway. I gave the assignment to June and I'm pretty sure I would never have come up with this.




They weren't too bad. They didn't come out and look like worms, but you could slurp out the jello and that was fun.


Ah, did you see the lunar eclipse? If not, check out this tiny moon with a shadow across it. Almost like the real thing...




We rearranged some stuff in Midguard. Robyn caught us moving the bookcase. We sure have a lot of books. Many of them are blog books. Can you believe I have 24??




When Tyler and I left the hospital after Kidney pulverization, he was super hungry. (He hadn't really eaten all day.) So we went over to Cubby's for some chow. Guess who we saw there? I really wanted to take a picture, but I didn't want to disturb her, so I took a sneaky selfie. See if you can recognize her?*




Ivory and I did a Valentine craft at church. I think they turned out really cute. We both gave ours away to friends.




June, Hannah, and Christina worked on a Science Fair project for months. They grew plants with different chemicals in the soil to see which would still grow. I actually did not follow everything they studied, but they did a good job and got an honorable mention.




Tyler was in an accident. Luckily, it was low collision. A dump truck ran him over while he was in the turn lane. The car didn't fare so well. June is bummed because her truck became Dad's vehicle, and we are bummed because the dump truck's insurance can't be bothered to pay anything because they don't claim liability even though the other drive was sited and given a ticket. What the?? So frustrating.




This picture makes me laugh. Two gals on laptops.




Finally, we did an upgrade to Ironman. When I drove out early one morning to save Tyler in kidney distress, I took the truck and it was so hard to turn the lights on. There is no knob and my sad little nails could hardly turn it.



But Tyler finally found the right part and now the lights are a snap. I told June something was different and it took her a while to figure it out. But she was so excited. I bet her fingers didn't like turning on the light either.



Did you make it through. So many little things happening in a month. Maybe we'll have less in February. After all, it is a shorter month...






*Did you recognize Mallory from Studio C? I love her.

Saturday, February 16, 2019

Keeping Up With Tradition

I'm staying current, but I'm also still trying to squeeze some December posts in here and there. (So many of those blasted things.)


We had our ward Christmas party at the very beginning of December. It was really nice to get it out of the way. Especially since Tyler was in charge of it. For the program he planned on having someone read Luke 2, and then the congregation would sing a couple hymns and that was it. Shortest program ever. And somehow in the end, there was a problem with who we wanted to read, so June and I ended up doing it. It was a bit weird, but a good experience overall. Here we are up on stage reading Luke 2.





The girls remembered that we took a selfie last year and I made it into a gif. (Amazing what they remember.) So they wanted to do it again. However, looking back at the blog book, you can't see the pictures, so I'm putting those on first and then the gif.


You need a smile, surprised face, and tongue. That is how it goes.






Then put them all together.




I'm hoping I remember to do this at the party this year, but that is a long way off, so no promises.