March 2026

 We were able to go to the high school award ceremony to watch Kaylee. She made Summa Cum Laude again and had a GPA above 4.0! She works super hard at school and seems to really know how to study and remember things well. 

Brooklyn wanted to watch a performance of Little Mermaid that her friend, Gracie, was in. Gracie's mom was so kind to Brooklyn and took her home from school and gave them both a fantastic day shopping and exploring. Unfortunately, the theater had a power outage and so the play had to be postponed but Brooklyn was able to go the next day. A teacher in Arrow, Mrs Roberts, was helping with the play so Brooklyn got a picture with both of them. 

The first RS activity I was in charge of was the RS Bday celebration. We combined with the Westland ward and someone in their ward put together the most amazing decorations for the tables. She had themed plates, decorations, treats and centerpieces for every table! We started with RS Bingo, had dinner catered by Olive Garden, watched a broadcast, and listened to some thoughts from both RS presidents. All in all it was a success!

Kaylee kept hesitating to make plans for her bday. She had a party a few years ago that wasn't super fun for her and she hasn't wanted to have one since. But the day before she decided to invite some people over. Unfortunately, some of them got sick and weren't able to come but she had Amelia, Lena, and Lauren come over for a little bit. Lena left early and we had planned on taking Kaylee out to dinner but she does so little with friends that we decided to just send them with money and let them go out to eat together. 

Brooklyn was able to have her party on her birthday since it was on a Friday this year. She had a bunch of friends come over and I got a little frustrated because she had a list of things planned that she wanted to do but none of her friends would listen to her and some of them were a little crazy and running all over our house. It got to the point where she was so frustrated, she started crying and then her friends felt bad and they were a little better but they still didn't do most of the things Brooklyn had planned. It wasn't the best party ever but by the end of it, Brooklyn said she had fun so I was glad it ended better than it started.

McKenna wanted to sing in the Lamb of God performance that our stake was putting on this year so Richard signed up to do it with her. They had to do it the week before Easter this year since General Conference was Easter weekend but that meant the performances were also the weekend of Stake Conference. Richard was pretty stressed but they did a fantastic job! We had a full orchestra this time, which definitely made it better. I can't believe how much talent we have in our stake!

Stake Conference was planned by our Stake Youth Council this year, with Richard overseeing it. It was very stressful at times and hard to trust the youth to do their assignments without micromanaging but it all came together so well! Many people have said that it was the best Stake Conference they have ever been to.

Kaylee got to go on a school trip with her orchestra class to Orlando! They left the Saturday before spring break and drove through the night. When they arrived in the morning, they went straight to breakfast at the Rainforest Cafe and then on to Disney World. We were really worried about her health and how she would be able to keep up and if she could find enough to eat while she is going gluten free but she did amazing! One of her favorite parts was on the first night where they watched an amazing light/water show. The other nights they saw fireworks and they got to go to Magic Kingdom, Epcot, and Hollywood Studios.

At Epcot, they went a little off-site to a building where they were taught new songs that went along to Disney cartoons and then were filmed playing along to the movie. Kaylee found out that they were recording a documentary about the schools that come down to do this process and that her school will be in the documentary! Pretty exciting. She thought this part would be really boring and wasn't excited about it but the conductor was entertaining and made the time fly by. 

The last day she got a park-to-park pass to go to the two Universal Studios and she was glad that we had just gone in October so it felt like she wasn't missing out on everything because one day wasn't nearly long enough to do everyrhing they wanted to do. They drove back home through the night again, although this time it took even longer since they had a few kids throw up and stopped extra times. She was exhausted but hung in there better than we thought she would and loved seeing all the different parks and being with friends. 

Feb 2026

 We continued with our snow adventures. The Christman's invited us and the Crossley's to go on a winter hike. Kaylee and McKenna went with Richard and enjoyed it, even though Kaylee was completely exhausted the next couple days. 

The week before Valentine's, a lady in our ward hosted a Galentine's party. We played Bunco and then had a favorite things gift exchange. I really love our ward so much- everyone is awesome and so fun to talk to!

Brooklyn had her last Valentine Day exchange. She wasn't sure she wanted to make a box but saw an idea to make a post office box that was simple enough so she gave it a try. It's crazy to think about how many "lasts" we are starting to have with her finishing elementary school!

McKenna got into National Junior Honor Society and we went to her ceremony. They talk about the qualities that represent the society, choose a teacher to be an honorary member, and then have each student come up and get their certificate. Afterwards, we can go up to the library to chat and have a few snacks. We were so proud of Kenna for the hard work she's put in to get this award!

Richard wanted to go to an activity on campus called the Taste of OSU, that is essentially a mutli-cultural event with food. I wasn't feeling up for it but the Christman's and the Crossley's joined our family on campus and then they all went back to the Crossley's to play games.

The Christman's wanted to go on another winter hike to train for a bigger hike they want to do in the summer and they took Kenna along. She is not one to be content to stay on the trails so she wanted along the frozen river for a lot of it and of course has to play with any wildlife that she finds!

Every year there is a multi-stake super seminary activity followed by a dance. Jason took Kaylee and McKenna along with a van full of kids to it and while the older ones were at the seminary activity, he took the younger ones to explore the city. Afterwards, they all went back for the dance. It was a really long day and they got home really late but they had a lot of fun!

Brooklyn's regular season basketball games finished for the year. Richard was an assistant coach this year and the entire team was so great. I was really impressed with the coach and he had a good balance of fun and hard work. She had an even better experience this year than last and wants to keep playing. 

McKenna has recently become obsessed with exploring in the metro parks and begged us to go let her explore on her own. Since we didn't feel that was safe, Richard took her to Battelle Darby Creek and went hiking around with her. 

Jan 2026

 Brooklyn's friend, April, hosted a party on New Year's Day. Richard took the other kids to the church to do an indoor snowball fight. I joined them later and brought pizza so we could stay at the church and play as long as we could. 

The next day Brenton had a birthday party that Kaylee and McKenna attended. Richard also took Brooklyn and McKenna to our favorite pet store to play with the animals for a bit. 

Richard even went the next day with all of the kids, plus a friend of Brooklyn's, to the Humane Society to play with even more pets!

For a year or so now, Kaylee has been making bracelets to donate to a woman Kristi found in Utah that makes baby dresses and suits out of old wedding dresses and gifts them in a packet with a blanket and matching mommy/baby bracelets to hospitals for parents who have an infant pass away. Kristi found out that this woman wanted to donate to a hospital in every state and was missing Ohio and Indiana! So she sent packets to both Holly and us. We went to deliver them to the same hospital where McKenna and Brooklyn were born. It was kind of an awkward experience because nobody seemed to know where to tell us to go or what to do. We finally made it up to the maternity ward and rang the bell to get in but nobody answered. We stood there for a minute and then a nurse came up behind us and asked what we were doing. When we explained what we were donating, she just took the box from us and went into the maternity ward and so we were just left standing there again. So it wasn't quite the transformative experience I was hoping it would be for our kids but I was still glad we did it and hope it helps some grieving families in their hard time. 

We had a game night planned with the McKay's over Christmas break but I got sick and was throwing up so we had to reschedule. We were able to do it the first weekend after school started and we had a blast and always wonder why we don't do this more!

Jill and Abby Christman share the same birthday and they invited a bunch of people over to celebrate. They even made dinner for everyone! It was delicious and so fun to celebrate these new friends of ours.

My friend, Nicole Anderson, moved to Utah last year and came back for a quick visit. I was able to go out to brunch with her and it was so good to catch up!

The Christman's started a social dance class that they do twice a month. The girls have had a lot of fun learning different types of dances!

Kaylee volunteered for a Martin Luther King Jr Day event at the rec center. We brought the Crossley's, the Christman's, and Brooklyn brought her friend Emma. Kaylee mainly helped with a service project to tie blankets and they also had a project to make birthday bags for the food pantry. There was also art projects, puzzles, and balloon animals that were some of the most impressive I've ever seen. 

I was recently called to join the RS Activity Committee and our ward had a puzzle night. (Although it was already scheduled before I was called). We had a puzzle competition where we had 4 of the same puzzle and broke into teams to see who could do it the fastest. A lot of the women beforehand were talking about how they had done puzzle competitions before and I got a little nervous but my team won! It was fun to be able to use my previously useless talent :)

We had already had a few snowstorms but we had a huge storm come dump about 2 feet of snow, which is probably the most snow we've had at once since we've lived here. Church and school was canceled and it was SO cold and the city actually issued an emergency level that made it so nobody could drive unless it was an emergency! The first night, we braved the cold to go walk out to the main roads to see if anything had been cleared away. 

I was nervous to drive the first day after the storm and so the Christman's came and picked up the kids and took them to play games and out in the snow at their house.

The next day the roads were much better so we ventured out to go sledding at our favorite hill. It was freezing cold and pretty windy when we got there so we weren't sure we would last long but luckily the wind stopped and we were able to stay for a couple of hours.