Feb 2019

The polar vortex brought lots of snow and even more cold!  Luckily our fireplace helped us keep things nice and warm inside.  School was canceled for three days in a row and that was after the kids had already been sick for days (in fact, Brooklyn had thrown up for the first time in her life the same weekend we were supposed to have dinner with two different families. Bad timing!).  I hadn't even left the house for a week at that point and was going a little crazy!  But the girls didn't seem to mind and came up with a lot of fun things to do.  They had seen a challenge on YouTube where they stay in one room for 24 hours and don't leave except to go to the bathroom.  They wanted to try it and the first day they did a 5 hour challenge up in our room and the next day they were thrilled to hear that school had been canceled again so they did a 12 hour challenge and stayed in the living room all day long!  We also ventured out into the cold to play in the snow a few times and ate lots of snow with flavoring.

 We did a babysitting swap with a family in our ward and the girls could not get enough of the little baby boy.  I felt bad for the other two kids who had to play by themselves because I couldn't tear these kids away from the baby!  Too bad they don't have any younger cousins around to spoil!

Sometimes I feel guilty that I don't do as many Pinterest type stuff with Brooklyn as I did with my older kids. But I finally did one of our favorites with her- baking soda and vinegar painting.  She loved it!  We'll have to do it more often. 

We found a new van we liked and took the plunge.  It was hard to say goodbye to a van that felt like it was still working great but hopefully this van will be a good blessing to us and last a lot longer. 

I love finding the kids sleeping in crazy positions.  Brooklyn hasn't been too crazy of a sleeper but I loved finding her sprawled out like this one night. Hopefully she doesn't take up this much of the bed as she gets older and needs to share it with a spouse!  Ha ha

I love how much our girls love the library and reading.  I guess it was destined to happen with two parents who both love reading.  As soon as we get home from the library, this is the view I always see and I love it so much!  They both devour any amount of books we get and they go off in a whole new world, usually not even responding when we call their name.  Ha ha!  Hopefully this will bless them their whole lives.  

Richard and Brooklyn sat down to read some books and this is what I found a few minutes later.  Apparently they were not as enthralled as Kaylee and Kenna were ;)

Jan 2019

After our fun minute to win it games on New Years Eve, the girls had a lot of fun practicing on the cup towers.  They got pretty creative! 

Winter seemed to start earlier this year and was super cold but then the end of Dec and the beginning of January was all of the sudden so nice!  We even went to a library during winter break and it was so warm we decided to stay and play at the park.  The girls all got on this swing and I probably pushed them for almost 30 mins! It felt wonderful to be out in the sunshine.  And it's good that we took advantage of it when we did because a few weeks later we had another terrible polar vortex that was FREEZING!

The girls all got earmuffs for Kings Day and I could not get over how adorable Brooklyn looked in her chubby penguin earmuffs with braided pigtails!

Usually when we get enough snow to play in, it's way too cold to stay out and enjoy it.  But this year we actually had a decent temperature after a snowstorm and so we took the girls sledding.  It was a blast!  We had the Solano's join us for a little bit but they didn't last long.  Sledding is one of the few activities that make winter worth it because it's so fun!

Richard's coworker had some extra tote bags and fabric markers and asked Richard if we would want them.  We had a fun day decorating them and now they all have their own personalized tote bags.  

Brooklyn discovered Cosmic Yoga on YouTube and we have been having a lot of fun with it.  She always starts the yoga sessions the same way- by having the kids sit with their legs crossed, putting their hands at their heart, and then bowing while saying Namaste.  Brooklyn has been doing that constantly and it is so adorable!

The polar vortex brought lots of ice and freezing rain (and even canceled school).  The Columbus streets never get plowed like Hilliard does and I was driving the girls to their piano lessons in a neighborhood that was literally just a solid sheet of ice.  I slid on the ice and crashed into a street sign pole. We had lots of people that came and helped us get our van off the pole and we were very lucky that I was going so slow that we didn't get hurt.  We thought we had gotten lucky and only damaged some of the bumper and headlight and it wouldn't be too big of a fix.  However, apparently I hit in a bad spot that had shoved a bunch of things loose in the engine and had cracked the fuse box which couldn't be fixed without replacing a bunch of other parts as well.  So our insurance officially declared it totaled, which was mind blowing!, and we had to start searching for another van.  Definitely not what we were hoping for right now!

December 2018

At the beginning of December, Brooklyn had her preschool program.  The girls had both stayed home sick from school and Richard worked from home so we all got to attend.  She hadn't been at this preschool for very long so I knew she might not know all the words but what I didn't expect was for her to get up on top of the bleachers and not move or sing one word at all!  Ha ha.  I do think she was pretty scared of being on top of the bleachers because she had mentioned it a few times but at least we got to see the other kids do their cute songs and actions...

This year we bought a gingerbread kit that had 4 little houses in it so we each picked one (and Richard helped Brooklyn) and started off the Christmas season with a fun tradition. 

Kaylee has been talking about her blurry vision for a little while but we thought we had to wait until the new year to get her an eye exam for our insurance. One night, she scratched her eye on the Christmas tree and the next day she said it was still blurry so I was worried about it.  I asked Danny to take a look at her and when she mentioned her vision had been blurry, he gave her an eye exam for free. He was so sweet to help and now our little cutie has joined the glasses club! I think she has actually really liked having them.

I was feeling pretty Grinchy and we hadn't done as many Christmas activities as we usually do so I dragged the family out to the Conservatory one night to see the lights.  There are few things that can make me happy like seeing lots of pretty Christmas lights!  It was just the thing I needed and the girls had so much fun running around the new children's garden all decorated, we had to drag them home at the end of the night. 

We also went a week later to the lights at Columbus Commons and to see the holiday train at the downtown library.  Brooklyn has recently discovered the art of the selfie and insists we take selfies constantly.  Cant' have too many pictures of this cute face!

Our friends invited us for dinner on Christmas Adam and we had a great time eating and playing games. Then we raced home to let the girls do our new tradition of sleeping under the Christmas tree. I was worried about letting Brooklyn try it and she was up until after 10:00 but had so much fun!  I love this tradition we've started.

After lunch on Christmas Eve, we went to a nursing home and sang songs for the sister I minister to. The girls also played a few songs on handbells. A family in our ward lent them to us and the girls have gotten really good!  I was mad I forgot to take a video of them playing.  Our old neighbor, Aiko, also came with us and played her cello. Coming home from the nursing home, we all had such a good feeling and it was the happiest I had been all season.  I would love to make a tradition of doing something similar every year!  When we got home we made sugar cookies and invited the Solano's over to decorate them with us. 

Another tradition we've tried to do is having the girls make homemade gifts for each other.  So far, this has not gone over super well...but I love seeing what they come up with!  We did it earlier in the day than we normally do because a family in our new ward invited us over for Christmas Eve dinner.

They do a middle eastern type dinner to try to eat what Jesus would have eaten and I was worried the girls wouldn't have anything to eat but luckily they had enough kid friendly food to get by.  Then we had a mini talent show and the girls played the handbells again for our family's talent. Then she had a fun game for the kids where she had wrapped a bunch of dollar store toys and candy and a few dollar bills in a huge ball of streamers and they got to keep unwrapping until they got to a prize and then they would pass it on to the next kid.  They all got 4 or 5 things and I thought it was a cute way to do it, instead of trying to wrap things in tape. 

Christmas morning was great, of course, and we had much less contention and greediness than last year which I was very proud of our girls for!  We got to talk to all the grandparents and I even got to see a video of my parents getting my present.  Since they didn't want physical presents this year, I wrote them a poem parodied off "Twas the Night Before Christmas" and Scott read it aloud to them at the family Christmas party.  It was a lot of fun to write and it seemed to mean a lot to them as well. 

Two days after Christmas was a special day.  Alex has been waiting for so long to be able to seal Tati to her and Danny and they finally got permission to go ahead. The spirit was so strong in the sealing and we were so glad we got to be there to celebrate this special day with them!

Kaylee and I had been working so hard to finish the Book of Mormon since Pres Nelson gave us the challenge in the October conference and we finished it with a few days to spare.  We went on a special date to celebrate and I took her to a place where you paint a project and then come back to pick it up after they fire it up and then finished with ice cream.  I could definitely tell Kaylee lost enthusiasm for it by the end but I was proud of her for sticking with it!

We had no plans for New Years Eve but didn't want to just sit around and do nothing. So we planned a whole night of fun activities and put each idea into a balloon.  Then when we were ready for a new activity, they would pop a balloon and we would do what it said. We had lots of minute to win it games and a mixed up dessert menu and sparklers.  It ended up being a really fun night!