Trip to ID and UT

We had a pretty smooth drive to Idaho except for one small hiccup--we left one of our children at a gas station in Lovelock. Parents of the year! :) At least it was, Lizzie, our oldest and probably most cool-under-pressure child right now. So Joe had been driving but he was getting tired so we decided to stop and switch. The boys all got out to go to the bathroom and somehow when I was switching places or something, I missed the fact that Lizzie got out to go, too. She and Natalie had been silent on their kindles in the backseat. Joe and the boys got back and we just took off. Apparently Lizzie saw us driving away but she didn't quite believe it was us at first so she walked around to look. She said she had a moment of panic and then realized there was a family there that she could ask to borrow a phone from. Meanwhile, we are a few miles down the freeway when Natalie shouts, "Lizzie!!" I had a moment of my heart dropping, thinking somehow she was hurt or falling out of the car or something crazy. Then we realized what had happened, and only a few seconds later we get a call from her. We flip around, not even waiting for an exit, and drive back. The family who lent their phone drove off when we pulled up. They were waiting to make sure, I think. We were laughing but feeling so terrible. I guess Lizzie had even defending us, saying, "We have a lot of kids." We got back on the freeway and then realized we were about to pass the family. We weren't sure if we should try to talk to them--motion or roll down the window--but we felt so mortified that we just drove past. It was a funny moment. We did end up texting later to thank them and she was super cool about it, even saying that her little brother had been left at a gas station. We heard lots more stories like that from everyone we told about it--I guess it's pretty common. Luckily, the rest of the drive was fine and we all made it to Chris and Regina's house were we slept that night.

The kids were so excited to see their cousins. They had a blast playing with new Christmas presents, playing in the snow, and shooting BB guns.

Natalie made these funny little snowmen that they shot:

We did puzzles and had dinner with Tom and Shari and kids. It was so fun to spend time in their beautiful new house, too.

We also got to drop by Benji and Laura Lee's to have a quick celebration for Laura Lee's birthday. The kids loved playing with their blocks:

After a few days, Chris and Regina were leaving to go see Regina's family, and we left to go to Jon and Jaime's. Unfortunately, the first night we were there, Elizabeth woke up throwing up. That always seems to happen when we got to Utah. We thought about driving home but really didn't want to get back in the car again. Jon and Jaime talked us into sticking around and thankfully it ended up being OK. Nate did get sick the next morning but it was short-lived and they were both feeling better in a day or so. We kept them quarantined watching movies in a room. 

I went with Jaime and the rest of the kids to go sledding. We went to church with Jon and Jaime on Sunday. They had a fun sacrament meeting where everyone could get up and say their favorite hymn and then we'd sing it. By Monday--New Year's Eve--the sick kids were doing better. Chris and Regina and kids arrived, along with Marsha, and then Rich and Toni and kids. Richard, Jaime and I took the kids back out to go sledding just in the backyard of one of their neighbor's houses. 

The kids all had a blast! It was fun watching them team up to go down. Eli went down with me a few times, too. 

The kids eating lunch:

We had a really delicious fondue dinner and dessert and then had so much fun playing games together. We played the name game as a group, then broke up into kids and adults and play a kind of speed pictionary, guys vs. girls. We won, of course, if you don't count the guys cheating. :) Midnight came fast, we were having so much fun, and we did sparklers and poppers and drank martinelli's. It was a super fun New Year's Eve! Definitely one we'll remember for a long time.

We slept in a bit but then we had to get ready to leave for home the next day so that Joe could be home to start his new job. More on that next year. Goodbye 2018!

Christmas with Grandpa & Grandma

We invited Tom and Lorna to come visit us in CA after they got home from their mission since we didn't get to see them at Thanksgiving like everyone else. They said they could come for a few days for Christmas! It was fun having them here. They even brought their new bulldog puppies! The kids were so excited about that--except for Eli. He's still pretty terrified of dogs. Nate is getting past it, luckily. 

Meet Abby and Toby:

They were pretty funny. Pretty helpless most of the time but occasionally a little rowdy. Since we had the puppies, we stayed pretty close to home. We did take them out to our favorite Indian restaurant one night. We also got to watch the BYU bowl game together. They were here for our Christmas program at church, too, so they got to hear Elizabeth give a talk, Natalie and Elizabeth play a piano duet and sing a duet, and some choir numbers. I might be biased, but I thought it was a great Christmas program.

We took some neighbor gifts around on Christmas Eve and then had our nice dinner of brisket that evening with Mary & Andrew and kids. That was fun and delicious. They left before it was too late to get their kids home and we opened up the Christmas jammies:

Grandma and Grandpa put on their Christmas sweaters, too!

We read the Christmas story and had a short program before bed. 

The scene:

We got sleep in a little bit this Christmas--until 7:30. I was sleeping on the fold out couch in the front room and it was quite festive being close to the Christmas lights. We finally let them come down.

Look at these faces:

That's my favorite part of Christmas.

Nate got this awesome Mario hat from a cousin and the earmuffs from Natalie so he put them on together:

We also got some great video of Eli using his new hula hoops and Lizzie riding on her new long board. We got some fun new games from Tom and Lorna. We got some new puzzles and started one that day. We took it easy snacking, enjoying the beautiful weather and playing with new gifts. It was a pretty successful Christmas. We also got packed up to leave because the day after Christmas we all left--Tom and Lorna for home, and us for Idaho.

Culture Night: Italy & Czech Republic

I need to do a quick Culture Night catch-up. First, we did Italy. We ended up inviting our friends the Karolys over for dinner so they joined us. Since they were here, I didn't get any pictures of dinner. I made homemade ravioli with a red sauce and stuffed artichokes. We did presentations after dinner and everyone loved Natalie's kahoot about Roman mythology:

It was a fun night.

Then, a few months later we did the Czech Republic which was Lizzie's pick. She had read a book about the Prague Astronomical Clock so she did her presentation on that:

I did language:

Natalie did food:

We had a Czech potato and pickle soup, and some sweet and savory buns--kielbasa and jam buns. Everyone liked those but the soup--not so much:

Photobomber:

Next up--the Philippines!

Eli is 6!

We had another birthday amidst all the Christmas celebrating. Our littlest one turned 6! It was a pretty calm birthday after the big party last year when he turned 5. They don't let you bring treats to school anymore here and he didn't want to bring little gifts or anything so we skipped it. I didn't mind. He did love getting to wear the birthday hat. I like this series of smiles--fake to real:

Eli had a specific idea in mind for his cake--Zane from Ninjago fighting Yellow Toad. This was the best I could do:

He wrote his name and added the sprinkles.

He had his birthday breakfast of donuts in the morning before school. After school he let me snuggle up and read some Christmas books with him, which made my day. We don't do enough of that. He requested chicken and stuffing for his dinner and then he opened presents. I let him get an early present when we were at IKEA earlier in the week. He saw a tent he wanted and I caved and bought it for him, remembering how much the girls loved an IKEA tent they had when they were younger. He's growing up too fast and I guess I just wanted him to make believe in a little tent for a little bit longer.

He also got some legos and a Wii game:

Lizzie got him this stuffed yellow toad he really wanted:

He also got a monthly subscription to do Brain Chase which he has been dying to do for years. Of course the novelty has already worn off... Another gift was ninja lessons! He was so excited for that. There is a gym here we've been wanting to try that does a mix of parkour and martial arts so he got an intro class there.

He loved it:

He got to climb and jump off stuff and practice rolls. He and Nate both want to join but now we have to figure out if we have time since baseball starts soon. 

It's been an important year for Eli with starting kindergarten. He has been doing really well, for the most part. He went through a stretch where he didn't want to go and started saying he threw up in the bathroom at school when he didn't. But, he's doing fine now. He loves that his teacher lets him pick from a treasure box if he "tutors" other kids so he does it every day and has quite a collection of stamps and trinkets. He doesn't put much effort into coloring, writing or craft things usually, but his writing is improving quickly. He's still a whiz at math. He loves to get Elephant and Piggie books from the school library, even if we already have them at home. He has made some friends at school and seems to get along pretty well with the other kids, but he doesn't have any best friends yet. He loves to hula hoop and calls himself a master at it. He is really good! 

Eli still loves legos, Ninjago, Star Wars, and Avatar: the Last Airbender. He loves a computer game called Prodigy. He loves the color teal, blueberries, and marshmallows. He enjoys running around the neighborhood playing with his friends. He's gotten into Wings of Fire along with Nate and wanted me to read chapters of it to him. He's even started writing his own Wings of Fire story.

Eli's still really good at playing independently by himself, especially with his legos, when he gets home from kindergarten. I love listening to him act out all sorts of things with them. He has the best smile that lights up his face. He loves music and learns it quickly. He even wanted me to make him a playlist on my Amazon music. He loves the song "Smooth Criminal", all Imagine Dragons songs, "Goodbye Earl" and others. He brings so much laughter and fun to our family and we don't know what we'd do without him. We love you, Eli!

December Fun

We got to do some fun Christmas-y things in December. We went to the Palo Alto Creche display on night. It had been years since we'd gone and they've made it even cooler. They had an awesome marionette show program:

Dress-up area in the kids' room:

They had art from one of my favorite LDS artists--Brian Kershisnik:

That one was called Nice Words and I loved it.

They had a cool station where three different artists were painting a model dressed as Mary and you could sketch yourself or watch them. Elizabeth spent a long time sketching there:

Eli made this cute picture of our family:

They had an instagram room, too: :)

After being bribed to read the first book by his sisters, Nate recently discovered that he loves the Wings of Fire book series. Now he can often be found like this:

Who would have thought? He's almost finished the whole thing.

Joe and I got some authentic Chinese food one night. We were actually supposed to meet the Allreds but they got the dates mixed up so it was just us:

We had our ward Christmas breakfast and I only had one child that wanted to sit on Santa's lap! How did my kids get this old...

I went into Eli's class to help out with their holiday party:

I finally pulled the trigger on an idea I'd wanted to do for a while--a children raising money for children Christmas concert. I texted some friends and got a good response! The only challenge was fitting people in our house. I didn't want to make anyone else host and I really wanted to invite our neighbors and make it easy for them to come so we hosted. We ended up moving our furniture around and setting up as many chairs as we could. I still couldn't fit too many so we just invited a few neighbors and the people who were performing of our friends. I hope no one was offended. The Allreds asked if we could fundraise for their charity, which raises money for school fees for kids in Guatemala and I thought that was a great idea.

Here was our program:

We were missing the Ogden kids who performed and also Larissa Allred. It was great! The kids all did so well. The girls had played their Carol of the Bells duet at their piano recital and made some mistakes but they conquered it at this!

I was so glad we did it. We might have to make it an annual thing.