February 2024

 The Harry Potter obsession continues! Brooklyn and I took a trip to the dollar store and got supplies to make a ton of Harry Potter crafts from ideas we found in library books. We made wand pencils, Pensieve dishes, Mandrake pencil holders, potion bottles, and Marauder Map mugs just to name a few.

Brooklyn has been asking if we can renew our Conservatory pass and we finally did it. Her and Richard spent a day there one Saturday when I wasn't feeling great and the other girls had other things going on. 

That night Kaylee went to her second church dance. Richard stayed as a chaperone and tried not to embarrass her too bad but one of the boys in our ward also had a dad there who had no qualms about taking a picture of his son and Kaylee dancing together!

Brooklyn wanted to make a monster Valentine's box and for once I did hardly anything on it! I thought she did a great job. Kaylee got her first Valentine from a boy and we teased her endlessly about it. We did our traditional mixed up menu, which is loved by all of us. I tried to make it extra themed this time by buying heart shaped food or cutting things into hearts and roses. 

Kaylee got into the Junior National Honor Society! It is a big deal here and is not just based on grades. She had to get a minimum number of service hours, fill out a huge application, get signatures from teachers, church leaders, and community leaders for service projects she has done, and write an essay! We were proud of her for working so hard on it. 

Brooklyn loves planning parties and asked if she could have some friends over for a Valentine's party. She had 3 friends over and McKenna and her friend joined in too. We played MASH, unscrambled Valentine's words, did a version of musical chairs with hearts that had little things to do written on the back, did a version of Apples to Apples called "Hearts to Hearts", and she gave a little bag of candy to all of them. She had way more planned that we didn't have nearly enough time for!

Richard took the kids sledding with one of our neighbors. First they went to our favorite spot with little hills but then they decided to go to new hill. They said it was fun but was long and steep so by the time they had gone down the hill a couple of times, they were ready to go!

We did our annual President's Day debate but Kaylee decided not to participate this time. I'm pretty sure Brooklyn was Kamala Harris but I can't remember who McKenna was! We asked them a ton of questions about what they would do as president and were very impressed with their answers.

Kaylee got invited to go to a skating party that was put on by her friend's orthodontist. I think we have been going to the wrong orthodontist!! Our kids haven't been skating a ton but they are all actually pretty good at it.

January 2024

 Our whole family has been loving watching a YouTuber named who does squishy makeovers so we decided to try our own! We found a bunch of not so cute squishies at the dollar store and attempted to make them better. I thought we did pretty good for our first time! I only did one and decorated it with my favorite Moriah Elizabeth characters but McKenna did a lot! And Brooklyn did a few as well. It was fun to watch them be so creative.

Kaylee did an FHE lesson that I thought was so clever and really stuck with us. She had us all pick quotes from General Conference that meant a lot to us or stuck out as memorable sayings and then we wrote them on paper and cut them out in a creative way that symbolized what the quote was about. We put them on our wall and they are there to remind us constantly about what the prophets have taught us and keep them fresh in our minds. I thought it was such a great idea and we had a lot of fun trying to come up with ways to cut the paper. 

We wanted to go sledding but there wasn't much snow at all this winter. When we finally did get a dusting, it was freezing cold and we knew we wouldn't be out for long so we just went to our trusty spot by the dollar store instead of a huge hill. We always make it fun wherever we are!

Richard is always involved in our stake kickoff for the new youth theme and I think they do a good job in presenting the spiritual aspect but also having a fun activity for the kids to come to. This year, Richard was in charge of the devotional part at the beginning. He did a great job embarrassing his daughter's by trying to bring in teen slang and having the kids do an activity where they tried to mirror each other with and without having their hands connected (to try to show that even though you can follow either way, it is much easier when you are closely connected, just like following the Savior).

Brooklyn has been so obsessed with Harry Potter and has checked out every single book the library has to offer. She has gotten a few HP cookbooks and wanted to try out some ideas so we made a Harry Potter dinner with snake breadsticks, a Fluffy creation of baked potatoes and Hogwart letter quesadillas. She wanted to go full out and even had a Harry Potter sandwich for lunch!

She also asked Kristi to print out vinyl letters that say Lumos and Nox for her light switch and wants to eventually turn her whole room in to Harry Potter. 

December 2023

We had our ward Christmas party really early in December. They weren't planning on doing Santa at the party but there was a sweet woman with special needs who wrote a letter to Santa and had been so excited to give it to him. So at the last minute they were looking for someone who would be Santa. Richard normally would but he had lost his voice from being sick and could barely whisper so Ryan Martin stepped in. It was really cute to see how excited this woman got when she saw Santa and then she got nervous and it took her a few minutes to work up the courage to go over and read him the letter she wrote.

We also had our annual couples Christmas party where we eat yummy food, play a few games, and do a White Elephant gift exchange. We got a burrito blanket that came with taco socks and a super cute reindeer that has a removable heat pad in it's stomach. 

Kaylee had her Christmas orchestra concert and I think this music teacher does an amazing job making it fun for the kids and also for those watching the concert. She will let the kids wear Santa hats or other holiday themed things and then she gets creative with the lights or props for just about every song. One of the classes played "You're A Mean One, Mr Grinch" and they had a student dress up as the Grinch and go around and steal things throughout the song.

The girls will randomly ask if we can do a spa day and I try to oblige when I can. We cut up cucumbers for our eyes and soaked our feet in the tub with epsom salt and then Kaylee and Brooklyn got their nails painted. Even though spa-type things are my most favorite activity, I do love spending time with the girls!

We made our usual Oreo "gingerbread" houses and this time I think there was more eating than decorating... McKenna usually gives up on hers and just makes a big pile of goodies :) 

We have loved exploring uses for Brooklyn's paint markers, which have made projects so fun. Kaylee and I did a gingerbread house contest and I think both of them ended up looking very cool.

I talked the family into going to see Christmas lights with me, first at the Zoo. On the way home, we stopped off at the new Dublin park where they had a few lights set up and Kaylee, Brooklyn and I had fun taking pics and running around that area. 

I also talked them into going to the super cool house that puts on a light show that we found a few years ago. Something just seemed off about this whole holiday season. We tried to do all of our traditions but nobody seemed to really want to do them and there was a whole lot of complaining and fighting... I think it was partly because we had nothing to look forward to- we knew we were going to be spending Christmas alone and nobody was very excited about that. 

For Christmas, Kaylee got a cake decorating set and she wasted no time practicing with her new set. I thought she did an amazing job for her very first time decorating!

One super fun thing we did do over the break was another Murder Mystery over Zoom with my family. I was a worn out mom, Richard and Brooklyn were conspiracy theorists, and Kaylee was a teenager with a bad attitude. We all had a lot of fun playing our parts!

A not as fun thing we did over the break was to paint McKenna's room. I absolutely love the color of her accent wall and it feels like we kind of know what we're doing now and can get it done pretty quickly with minimal touchups. It has been so satisying to make this house our own!

On New Years Eve, Kaylee went to her first church dance! She was really excited about it and had a ton of fun. It was 80's themed and she went all out to be on theme. It's crazy to see how fast she's growing up!

Richard started a new tradition for New Years Eve that is one of the girl's favorite things. He goes to the store and buys a whole ton of things that we don't normally eat, usually a bunch of frozen appetizers, and then he makes a mystery menu so we don't know what we are ordering. He also buys one thing that is completely disgusting, just to see their reaction! We had some winners but a lot of this year's dinner was pretty disgusting- ha ha! But it is something that sticks out so much to our girls and they never seem to get tired of doing these mystery dinners!