Back to our regularly scheduled program!

 We've had a busy week!  It's fun getting back to all the usual stuff, but it's also crazy!  Anna started club water polo this week - she is still doing swim team too, but some of the practices will overlap.  She is really enjoying both though!  Eileen didn't have school this week - her early college classes started on Friday, so she was home with us for most of the week.  

Evelyn had a big and adventurous week.  She got braces finally.  We knew this was happening and she needs them, but she's been in some pain, but she is also already seeing a difference.  Unfortunately one of her brackets popped off within an hour of getting them on (totally NOT her fault) so we are going to have to go back in next week to get the bracket back on.   Aaron also had an orthodontist appointment this week - but it was just a quick tightening.  

Thursday night, we had the sister missionaries over for dinner.  We ate and then we had a wonderful lesson about being charitable.  

Friday was crazy.  I had offered to host a pasta dinner night for the swim team, so before their first meet, we had a pasta dinner for the swim team.   We had a pretty good turn out and they downed tons of food, but thankfully not enough that we totally ran out.  Everyone seemed to have a good time and they were all polite and grateful and helpful!  David was especially excited to see his water polo friends and spent the whole night hanging out with the girls who were on the water polo team.  

Friday evening, after everyone had left, Eileen and I finished off her cloak! She also really seems to love it!!

Saturday was a bit busy, but the morning was at least pretty chill.  Evelyn had fun in the afternoon making donuts using the donut cutter I got her for Christmas.  They came out really yummy! 

Then in the afternoon, I took Anna to the first swim meet of the season.  I was helping time and it was so exciting to have a real meet again and get to swim with other teams!  Anna did a great job on her races - she even did the fly in the medley relay and did a great job!  She has cut off tons of time since last year, but that was expected with how hard she has worked since last year!  

In the evening, Aaron went and played D&D with some friends from church and Evelyn went to a friends house.  It's nice that they have good friends near by that they can spend time with! 

Church was great today.  Eileen and Anna and I all wore our cloaks!  Sacrament Meeting was great and primary was great, then at the end of church, Aaron and Evelyn and Anna were all set apart in their new callings.  

Family Time!

We started out Monday with a big gathering of the family!  We exchanged presents with my parents and Sandi's family, then we had a fun relaxed afternoon of chatting, eating and playing.  Sandi organized a fun "Family Feud" game for us to play and we had a great time!  My dad loved his gift which was a recording of Sandi and I singing.  We all had a fun time!  

We loved having Grandma and Grandpa here!  We had planned to go to OMSI one day - but it was closed because of weather, so we just ended up hanging out at home.  We made Chicken Pot Pie for dinner one night - my dad was finishing it off, and David decided he wanted to help, so he was trying to steal Grandpa's crust and Grandpa was not gonna let that happen!  It was cute to watch though!  

We took the kids out to spend their gift cards, but the toy aisles were picked pretty clean.  David was excited to get a hat and some new PJ's and some Yoda slippers, along with some toys (including more cars, of course.)  The rest of the kids mostly saved theirs for later.  

On Wednesday, the ladies all went for pedicures, then after we went to a late lunch at Olive Garden.  We had a great time together.  (Most of the sandals being worn in the foot photo are mine - lol) 

While Grandpa was here, I took him with me on my nightly walks with Koopa and we had a great time walking together.  It was nice to walk and talk and be together.  We tried to bring Wicket on the first one, but apparently he's not quite as used to walking as Koopa is and dad ended up carrying him most of the way.  

Grandma and Grandpa headed home on Thursday, and thankfully made it safely, if a bit later than anticipated.  The kids and I spent Thursday cleaning up some and running some errands.  I took Anna out to pick out her fabric for her cloak.  She found some that she loves!  Aaron and Evelyn were both gone hanging out with friends and Eileen had a Seminary movie afternoon with her seminary class. James went to hang out with Caleb, so David and I went with Anna.  

On Friday, Dan had the day off, so we got all the Christmas decorations down, we cleaned up the house - I wanted a clean-ish house to start off the new year.  After, I took Eileen to get her cloak fabric and to Hobby Lobby for a couple other things, then we headed home for a fun New Years Eve!  

James and David watched a movie, then we watched a countdown and did some poppers and sent the young ones to bed.  James had a hard time sleeping though because the whole neighborhood sounded like it was setting off fireworks until after midnight.  Aaron went to hang out with friends from the ward and did the countdown there, Anna had friends over to do make up and then they all went to the dance together.  Evie watched Encanto and I worked on my puzzle!   Dan watched a movie and we had a fun quiet (except for the fireworks next door) evening, then since Evelyn was playing Animal Crossing at midnight, and they had a countdown on Animal Crossing, we just watched the Animal Crossing countdown and then Evelyn headed to bed and Dan and I went to go get kids from their various places.  

Saturday was mostly a slow day, we all slept in some after a late night, and Anna and I started work on her cloak.  It was really a pretty simple pattern and we were able to get it finished today.  She hasn't taken it off since.  

David decided he wanted to start a new year off with a new hair cut, so he asked to get it cut.  Dan decided it was a good time to teach Aaron to do it, so Aaron cut David's hair.  He did a great job - no ears were cut off!  

We had a wonderful Sabbath - the early time slot is going to take some adjustment, but it was nice having the whole day after church.  We chatted with family, worked on Anna's cloak, I made a stuffed cat for Evie (for her coupon) and we played games with a family from the ward.  

Christmas Time Is Here!

We've had a busy week!  Monday morning, the younger kids went to Sister Shum's Christmas music camp and had a great time!  On Monday night, we had our annual Bagna Caulda party with carol singing.  The carol singing part was especially wonderful and the Bagna Caulda came out good!  One of my favorite moments was sitting at the piano surrounded by my kids and their friends and our friends all singing the 12 Days of Christmas at the top of our lungs!  It was wonderful!!   We had a great time with friend and family.  Sandi and Taz and Kai were also able to stop by for a bit after getting home from Texas.  

Tuesday was recovering from Monday.  The kids had been up late and we had worked hard cleaning the house and cooking food and getting everything ready, so we were all tired on Tuesday.  The kids had been a ton of help!  

Wednesday was spent getting things ready for Christmas and the kids decorated gingerbread houses.  Nothing fancy, just the ones from the store, but they had fun and made cute houses!  

Thursday morning, we met up with Sandi and the kids and Dan took a break from work to join us at the Ice Skating rink.  The kids all had a blast, but after an hour and a half, most of the kids were tired, sore or ready to do - except James who could have kept going all day.  He LOVED it - he had Taz had a blast falling on purpose and sliding on the ice and skating.  

While the older kids were still skating and David had gotten tired of it, Dan took David to see Santa who was right next to the rink.  David loved it!  He had such a great time chatting it up with Santa.  James and Evelyn wanted to see him too after we were done.   After, we got some lunch at the food court, then headed home. 

Friday was Christmas Eve.  We finished getting some things ready and doing some grocery shopping to get us through the weekend.  Then we had a wonderful evening reading the Christmas Story and the kids opened their Christmas Eve gifts.  The kids loved the pajamas that Dan picked out for them!  David was especially cute as a baby shark! 

Christmas morning came bright and not too early (thankfully) and we headed down the stairs to open presents.  We took our usual break for breakfast after opening the stockings and then we finished with the rest of the presents.  The kids had a great time and we had a fun little chat with Grandma and Grandpa Jones.  Then we spent the rest of the day playing with our gifts and having a fun time being together.  

Grandma and Grandpa Cox flew in that evening, but they got in late and went straight to Sandi and Jon's, but we are glad they are here safely and look forward to seeing them! 

We got a bit of snow in the evening, but it didn't seem like it would be enough to stick, but Sunday morning, we woke up to about an inch of snow on the ground.  The kids  took the sled and had a blast on the hill until the snow had mostly melted off the streets.  

Church was cancelled, so we did a church lesson at home today which was really nice and had a fun time singing songs together and learning about the Gifts that Christ has given to us.  

In the afternoon, Grandma and Grandpa and Sandi and Taz and Kai came over to hang out and chat.  We had a fun time and Sandi and I managed to sneak away to finish up Dad's present.  The kids always have a blast together and it was wonderful to see my parents and to get to our house to my Dad!  

No More School!

We've had a fun week full of music and fun.  The kids have mostly had a fun week at school.  Eileen has been working like crazy to get her school stuff done so that she is ready to start early college in January.  She did manage to get all her ceramics stuff done which is good and was the thing that was stressing her out the most because she had the least control over it.  She got them done and back home and we've been having fun using them around the house!  We put dip in her big bowl and used the smaller ones and dip bowls for a finger food night!  

David's preschool group has had a wonderful week full of donating food and giving gifts and making Christmas Crafts (including his new favorite jingle bell necklace) and singing Christmas songs.  Plus he used his Pajama Day coupon to wear his monkey pj's to preschool.  He loved it! 

On Tuesday, Dan and I went to watch Anna perform in the school Yuletide concert.  It was a lot of fun and the band sounded amazing!  She was a little hard to find since she was mostly behind people from where we were sitting.  But we had a great time! 

The kids had a great time at their youth activity.  The young women got to go watch Encanto in the theater and Eileen and Anna have been talking about it ever since.  (Anna was at her second night of concerts.) 

David was so proud of this domino building he made that he demanded that both Dan and I come and take pictures of it so everyone could see how awesome it was!  

 Saturday was busy, but fun!  Eileen and Anna and I went out for an outing.  Eileen and Anna wanted to find some primer for their makeup adventures, and we went to a sushi place for lunch, and did a bit of Christmas shopping.  Then we got home and Dan and I went out for a bit more shopping (mostly grocery though) and then we headed home for a fun evening!  

Today was a wonderful sabbath!  Our ward had our Christmas program today.  Evelyn was asked to help out with the primary song since the girl who was playing the flute was sick :(  She was happy to serve and did a wonderful job too - she also played with the choir.  Eileen and Anna and I also sang with the ward choir and it was a wonderful program of music and scripture!  Then we had the primary time - lots of fun Christmas songs and fun plus a wonderful Christmas video and story for the lesson.  After church, Dan was running around visiting people in the ward, and I stopped by a couple people's houses to drop off some stuff from the primary, and had a fun time chatting with them too.  :)  

Christmas Fun!

 We have had a fun and busy week with a lot of the usual.  Monday, I finally started working on getting our Christmas cards out, so Monday night for family home evening, we all got in our onesie pj's (well Dan is wearing some of mine...) and took our family picture for the Christmas card.  I think they came out cute!  

On Friday night, we went to Lightopia - it was a fun light show up in Hillsboro, we drove around in the van looking at tons of fun Christmas lights and listening to Christmas music!  The kids all seemed to have a fun time, so it was a great little evening activity!  

Saturday was a bit busy.  I took James to get his second Covid vaccine shot - his arm is a bit sore, but he is otherwise feeling good!  It went pretty quickly and then we headed home for lunch and then COOKIE MAKING!  We had our great cookie cook off and made and decorated tons of cookies!  We are looking forward to passing them out on Monday!  Some of the kids had friends over to decorate with us and we had a noisy and fun afternoon. 

In the evening was Dan's company party.  We had a fun evening and a fun time chatting and eating.  The party was over at 8:30, but after that Dan and I were both rather tired, so we headed home and to bed!  

Church today was wonderful - I helped out in Nursery since we didn't have enough leaders - it was fun, and a bit of an adventure.  :)  

Christmas is Coming!

 We started our week off with a Family Home Evening of decorating our Christmas Tree.  We had a fun evening putting up ornaments and drinking eggnog and listening to Christmas music!  David helped me during the day with putting up some of the other decorations, and Dan got lights up this week, so all in all, it's beginning to look like Christmas at our house! 

We have had a busy week with school and activities and friends.  Eileen is in the ensemble for the High School's latest production, so she had rehearsals.  Anna has swim practices and music stuff and leadership stuff.  James has a standing date to meet up with some friends from school at the park a few times a week when the days aren't rainy.  David and I spend our days playing and walking and running errands.  

On Saturday was the ward Christmas party.  It was a brunch and it was a lot of fun.  Eileen went and helped with the decorating on Friday night and it looked amazing in the gym.  The kids had a ton of fun - especially with all the balloons.  The primary kids got to sing, and I was asked to sing O Holy Night to close out the music program.  

We are Grateful!

What a week it's been!  Monday, we picked up Taz and Kai and took them down to Silver River / 10 Falls.  We only managed to make it to two of the falls before the kids were done, but it was a gorgeous day!  We had been worried that it would be rainy since that was what was on the forecast, but when we got there the sky was blue and free of any clouds.  It was still chilly, but it was still a beautiful day!  The kids did great considering that they were doing more walking than they were used to, but all in all, we had a fun time together!  I got us a cute little birdie statue family souvenir and some bird cards.  :)  

On Tuesday, we went to OMSI.  We had a great time checking out the exhibits, including the Nelson Mandela Exhibit and watching a show in the planetarium!  We also got to take Sandi and Taz and Kai with us!  We had a wonderful time together and still managed to get Anna to her Swim practice today.  

We had a great time with Julia visiting!  We had lots of fun together and David just adored her!  He wanted to spend every second with her - and it was really helpful when cooking dinner to have him wanting to play with her so I could cook!  

Julia had to head home Wednesday morning to be with the rest of her family for Thanksgiving, but we are so glad she could come visit us!  Evelyn, James and David went to one of Sister Shum's music camps and they had a blast making turkeys and singing and playing instruments.  

Anna was babysitting for Taz and Kai on Wednesday, but she still wanted to go to swim practice, so I picked them all up, took her to swim practice, then took all the kids back to our house to decorate cookies. 

 The kids had a blast and Sandi also stopped in to chat for a bit when she came to pick them up.  Dan's parents also got in Wednesday afternoon and we spent most of the evening with the kids playing games with Grandma and Grandpa and Dan and Eileen and I making food for Thanksgiving.

We had a special Family Home Evening Talent Show with Grandma and Grandpa here, so the kids demonstrated some of their many talents including David pretending to be a dragon in his Dragon PJ's and posing in funny ways, Evelyn playing the flute, Aaron playing the Euphonium, Anna playing the Viola (which she started trying to learn with some help from Julia this week) Eileen showing off her drawing skills, Dan doing a magic trick, Me singing and playing the piano, and James made slime, and Grandma and Grandpa Jones danced!  It was a wonderful evening together! 

Eileen has been helping Dan with the turkey this year.  She planned out when things needed to be done to get it ready, she helped with making the brine and prepping it for the smoker and with keeping the smoker going.  She was really helpful and it was fun for Dan to work with her on it!

Thursday was crazy.  The morning was spent cleaning up and setting up the house for a big group of people!  We had 30 people for Thanksgiving!  Dan's parents, Steve and Claire and their kids, John and Melissa and their kids, Johnny and Emmalee with baby Evelyn, and especially exciting for me, Annalisa and Steven drove down with their kids from Washington to join us for Thanksgiving dinner!  It's strange to think that I haven't seen her in person for over 20 years, but since I stalk her on Facebook, it doesn't really feel like it. We had a great evening chatting and catching up.  Her kids are adorable and I think they had fun being surrounded by all the other kids!  I hope that now we live close to each other that we can make this more regular!  I'm already hoping to get a camping trip in with them next summer. 

Friday morning, Dan's parent had to head out, but it was wonderful having them here for a couple days!  Then we met up with Sandi and Taz and Kai at a nearby tree farm.  We had fun looking around and roasting some marshmallows, hanging with the Grinch and of course picking a tree!  

Friday afternoon, we got together with some friends from the ward to play games and eat pie.  We had a great time together and had fun playing games.  The kids had friends there to play with and Eileen found a puzzle and it was a blast!  

Saturday was more of a "take it easy" day, kinda...  I took Evelyn out to the grocery store in the morning to get some food for the weekend and to have her pick out a birthday present for a friend's party that afternoon.  We dropped her off for her party and 1 and picked her up after 8.  

Christmas lights are officially going up in the neighborhood and Anna and Eileen and I went out on a Christmas Lights walk - rather than my usual route, we were walking to look for Christmas lights!  We had fun and the weather wasn't too bad.  

Church today was wonderful!  The talks and lessons were wonderful and after church, we had choir which was a lot of fun.  I've been subbing for our choir director who is out of town and it's been fun!  I love Christmas music! 

Pokies and Fun!

 It's been a fun and busy week.  It's been strange to have our nights to ourselves again.  Anna has started swimming - Eileen isn't doing it this year.  Anna is working hard to keep up with the varsity workouts and enjoying herself.  

Tuesday, we had the Water Polo end of season banquet.  It was great!  Almost everyone was there and we had a fun time eating great food and remembering our season.  It was sad to think that the seniors won't be back next year, but this has all been an amazing experience.  

This Saturday, I took James and Evelyn (and David) to a Covid vaccine clinic so Evelyn could get her second shot, James could get his first and I could get my booster.  It was well run and they even had crafts for the kids to do while they waited to make sure there were no adverse side effects.  All went well, and then we headed home!  

In the evening, Aaron went to go play D&D with some friends from the ward.  They get together once every couple weeks and he's been loving it!  

Julia is here visiting for a few days during the break, and she got in just in time Saturday to go out with Sandi and I to dinner and Karaoke!!  (Sandi had decided to take me out for my birthday... yes it was a bit late, but it was all my fault!)  We had a great time eating yummy food and singing together!  

While our family went to church and tithing settlement and ward choir, Julia went out to hike Multnomah Falls and a couple other beautiful hikes out that way.  We are also taking her tomorrow to do the 10 falls hike - I don't know how much the kids will be able to do, but it will be fun either way!  Then we had a fun evening playing Wingspan!  

Water Polo State Championships

 It's been a busy and stressful week!  The week was full of school and preschool and water polo and fun.  We've been enjoying having some time together as a family and look forward to having even more next week!  The kids had Thursday and Friday off of school (except David who still had preschool) so we had some fun with friends and got some errands run.  Things are finally starting to get finalized for our Thanksgiving week - we are so looking forward to time with family and friends!  

Water Polo practices this week were a bit rough - the girls are largely feeling burnt out and it was hard getting them to focus, even with the Championships and two very hard games coming up.  I think it was good for them to have Thursday to rest and recover before Friday night's game.  We went up against Lakeridge, who were ranked number 2 in the state, and were able to beat them in overtime.  It was a long hard game, but the girls did a great job!!  It was an exciting win, but with the game against the undefeated Sam Barlow the next day, there was little relief.  

Saturday morning, Dan took the older kids to the youth service project in the morning - they had fun working hard and serving people in the ward! 

Then I took the boys outside to do some yard work - they had fun playing in the leaves and helping me rake them into a pile, then once jumping in the pile got old, the deserted me :(  But they had fun, and we got some good work done.  

In the afternoon, the boys decided to pamper mom a bit - James and David did my hair and James set up the foot soaker and Evelyn painted my nails in Mountainside colors.  

In the evening, we headed back down to the State Championship game.  The team we played was and remains undefeated, but we played hard and had a good game.  It has been such a privilege to work with these girls - they are amazing and I am super proud of all the work they put in to become the second best team in the state and we are way excited to be able to say that we got 2nd in the State Championships!  

Today we had a wonderful Stake Conference.  After a stressful weekend, I was rather beat, but loved the talks and testimonies borne.  After Dan and I each needed naps, so we traded off with the kids and nap time.  Then we had a nice dinner and family time and game time and now (even with a nap) I'm beat!  

I'm excited because Julia is going to be coming out to stay with us for a few days during Thanksgiving week!  I am making plans for the week off with the kids and I'm looking forward to a bit of down time next week!