April 2024

 We love visitors!! We were lucky enough to have the DuVall family come to visit us for their spring break. The first day we headed out to the Franklin Park Conservatory. Unfortunately, Scott missed a turn and tried to head into a small parking lot to turn around and found the most dangerous curb in all of Ohio! It put a huge gash in the tire of his rental car and he and Richard ended up waiting for a couple of hours for the rental agency to bring them a new car and missed a lot of the fun in the morning.

In the morning we stayed outside in the children's garden for hours, mostly over by the pond where Kai and McKenna sat watching and catching little frogs. They probably would have been fine to stay there all day! Then after lunch, we headed inside with everyone to check out the rest of the conservatory, including glass blowing which is one of my favorite things to watch.

The next day we went hyperbowling and to Petland. No matter what other cool things we take visitors to, the pet store ends up being everyone's favorite! 

The plan for the next day was to go to the zoo in the morning and then they would head out to drive to Holly's house but our zoo is so big and Kai had been dreaming of going here for so long that we ended up staying the entire day! Everyone else was exhausted, so Richard took most of the kids back to the pet store to recharge while the rest of us explored the entire zoo with Kai. We then took them to try Melt, which is where every main dish is cooked inside a grilled cheese sandwich! It is very delicious but definitely not food you can have all the time. Brooklyn and I split a chicken and waffles meal but it was hilarious to see the waiter put down this enormous meal in front of Brooklyn!

And lastly, even though our temple wasn't open yet, the building was all the way finished so we had to drive them to the temple to check it out. It was a BLAST to have them here and we managed to fit in a lot of good food, fun games, and exploring the city while they were here.

We were in the path for a solar eclipse and there was so much excitement about it that the schools decided to give the kids the day off to be able to enjoy it. We weren't quite in the path of totality and Richard wanted to drive 40 mins or so to get there. I wasn't super excited about it but knew it was a once in a lifetime opportunity so I went along. We left early and packed both a lunch and a dinner because we had heard that traffic would be insane. We even had the girls pack a bag with some activities because we thought we would be sitting in the car for hours. Richard took the back roads and we ended up getting there with no traffic whatsoever and had hours with nowhere to go and nothing to do! We parked at the LDS church in that tiny city and ended up going to Walmart to walk around for a bit and played soccer in the field next to the church. We also brought some card games to play but it was really hot sitting out in the sun! The time finally came for the solar eclipse. It wasn't that exciting as it got closer- we would look through our fun glasses and see a dark circle half covering a bright circle.... but when it went into the full eclipse, it was actually pretty cool! I was surprised at how dark it got, even the church streetlights came on! It got quiet, even the birds quit singing for a minute, and the temperature dropped quite a bit. It was one of the craziest things I've ever seen! So I was glad after all that Richard talked us into it, especially when we also got home super fast with no traffic!

We have a girl in our ward who is in a wheelchair and this was going to be her first year at girl's camp. The stake leaders found a wheelchair accessible camp but it was a lot more expensive so our ward did a fundraiser to make up the difference. McKenna and Reagan decided they wanted to help out as well and did a lemonade/cookie stand and told everyone that came by they were doing it to raise money for their friend to go to a church camp. I thought it was very sweet of them!

Kenna's last soccer season is over! I have loved watching her play (and helping coach twice) and am very sad she isn't going to keep playing. She seemed to really enjoy it though and made good friends on every team she played on.

I got to attend my very first work conference! Scott did a phenomenal job putting everything together and I actually had way more fun than I thought I would. We had some really interesting speakers the first two days (including a vet who was like the 3rd person in the world to get a new kind of prosthetic leg!) and got to do an escape room game and a scavenger hunt in the Museum of Natural History. By the 3rd day, I was pretty wrecked mentally and physically so it was a lot harder for me but overall it was great. And I loved being able to hang out with Kristi the whole time! (And Scott a little bit!)

While I was gone, Kaylee had her awards ceremony and got a certificate for her grades and also got a special award for being a "purposeful learner". We are so proud of her!

McKenna went to her first dance with two of her friends. I was surprised she wanted to go since normally the thought of a dance with boys strikes terror in her, but she seemed to have fun!

Branching out to new crafts keeps it fun for me. I tried painting my own puzzle. I was hoping it would turn out cuter... but it was a fun experiment and one I might try again in the future. I also made a new picture for Brooklyn to go with her new Harry Potter obsession. I had drawn a princess themed one for her when she was around 4 or so and decided to do another one with the girls from Harry Potter (plus Brooklyn). I thought it turned out really good and was so happy with it, until I colored it... I am sad that it doesn't look as good colored but still proud of what I drew!

March 2024

 Richard took Brooklyn to another OSU gymnastics meet. I'm not sure if watching is her favorite thing, but it does get her excited about some of the things she can look forward to learning in her gymnastics class. 

Brooklyn wanted another Harry Potter party and I was happy to oblige! We still kept the theme of doing different classes but did all new activities from her party last year. I made another platform 9 3/4 that will hopefully last longer this time since I did it on fabric and Brooklyn wanted some photo booth props that her friends could take pictures with, although most of her friends were being kind of weird about it and we didn't get many pictures. 

We had transfiguration class and had the girls transform Play-Doh into different HP themed things and everyone else had to guess what it was. It was way harder than I thought it would be! Especially with some of the girls not knowing much about HP to begin with. 

Then we did Defense Against the Dark Arts. Each girl had a black balloon tied to their ankle and they tried to pop each other's balloons while saying "Expecto Patronum". They had a lot of fun with that game and wanted to keep playing.

We also did Charms class where each girl had a feather and they had to try to keep it up in the air as long as they could after saying "Wingardium Leviosa". 

We also let the girls all make potions! We found cute little potion bottles at Hobby Lobby and let them put whatever colors, glitter, etc that they wanted in it.

We did have a main dessert (two mini brownies with frosting around the edges to look like Harry's glasses) but we also had Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Pretzel Wands, and Dragon Eggs. McKenna made signs for the last two and so Brooklyn wanted to make one too so she made the beans one. I love doing everything themed!

McKenna's turn for braces! Luckily she just has a slight overbite so she won't have to have them on as long as Kaylee did. She started with a Carriere but won't have to have it on super long and then straight to Invisalign! She is so lucky to have that option.

Kaylee turned 14! She had a bunch of kids over for her birthday (and a mix of boys and girls for the first time!) but unfortunately it ended up being pretty frustrating for her. Nobody seemed to listen to her and everyone was really loud and just doing their own thing. It was still fun to see her with all those crazy kids though! 

Brooklyn's actual birthday was a little subdued since she had her big party the week before. And having your birthday in the middle of the week in a busy family makes it hard. In fact, we had to have Kaylee open her presents a day early because she was going to get home late on her birthday and Richard taught a class that night so there was no time when we could be all together!

Brooklyn and McKenna had their piano recital. McKenna has really hated going to piano lately and Kelsey has been so good at working with her and trying to find things that would interest her, including writing her own songs! But I think Kenna just needed less things in her life so after the recital was over, we finally let her quit, even though she only had a little over a month left until we would break for summer anyway.

The day before Easter we did our usual egg dyeing. I'm glad all of the kids still seem to enjoy doing those fun holiday traditions. We had a quiet Easter but were getting ready for fun visitors coming our way!

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.