Natalie is 15!

Natalie's birthday fell in the middle of a lot of craziness since Joe broke his ankle but hopefully it was a good one for her. We made some crepes for breakfast for her. I had to take Joe in for his surgery consult that day and Becca was nice enough to watch Eve for us. She sent me this picture of her enjoying lunch at their house:

Natalie was in the middle of a crazy time for her with rehearsals after school for the high school play, plus water polo practice (which she later dropped in order to do drivers ed), plus practicing for the state drama competition which she performed in. We waited for her to get home before having the kale salad she requested and ice cream sandwiches made from our favorite Haagen-Dazs flavors. She got some gifts, including an iphone so she was thrilled about that. We changed the rule slightly from when Lizzie got a smart phone--she was 16 and it was the middle of her sophomore year--to just middle of sophomore year since Natalie is so young for her grade. She also got some other little things like The Office merch:

She got these balloons and then entertained us all by singing "Sound of Silence" in a helium-chipmunk voice:

We also were able to get the tree up and decorated like we normally do on her birthday:

Natalie grew and experienced a lot during the past year. Moving, starting at a new school, trying all sorts of new activities and meeting new people will do that. I love that about her--she is always willing to try new things and not just half-heartedly; she throws herself into them. She is such a hard worker and her hard work pays off. She started voice lessons in Clovis and then continued them with Becca when we came to Idaho and her singing has improved so much. She also has improved a lot in her acting skills since joining the drama team and working hard at that. I love to watch her face light up when she talks about an upcoming performance. She comes across so fearless, although I know she does get scared. She's so good at doing in anyway even when she's scared and doing it well. 

She worked so hard physically on the swim team, too. She got really fast at freestyle and had some opportunities to race in relays because of that. She improved her times a lot. She didn't finish the season as strong as she'd hoped she would but again, she had a lot going on. I was impressed when she joined the water polo team, too, since that is so physically grueling and I think she was sad to have to quite to take drivers ed. She's not afraid of a challenge. 

She still excelled in school all year, even with the challenge of Covid and at-home learning for basically a year. She was so eager to make friends when we moved to Idaho and is the kind of person that goes out of her way to be nice to people and put herself out there even though it's scary. She has made friends and has such a kind heart that people naturally gravitate towards. 

She developed a strong love of NBC comedies over the past year and watched quite a few of them during Covid. She loves introducing us to the best episodes to get us hooked and wanting more :). She loves studying up on the behind the scenes of the shows. She also became an even better baker and chef over the past year. She can make basically anything she wants to these days and she does it well. She loves food like me and I love appreciating good food with her. She is a wonderful big sister and makes us all laugh frequently. I love her empathy and care for others and her family.

We love our Natalie!

November

It was quite the fall season for me since I got to go on another girls trip, this time with the Atkin ladies. We went to Lava Hot Springs and had a blast. We ate good food, spent some time in the hot pools, and hung out talking in our room. I'm so thankful for them!

We went to an event at the school and Eve was so excited to see Regina's picture on the wall:

Eli's grade put on a really cute Veteran's Day program:

School pictures came out and some turned out really cute!

Natalie's swim picture:

Natalie asked a friend to a dance:

Eve and I had some adventures at home:

All bundled up for a walk:

It snowed for the first time:

We drove down to Erda for Thanksgiving with Jon & Jaime and Tom & Lorna. We stayed at Tom & Lorna's house and Eve had fun trying on my sunglasses:

It was a great weekend with delicious food and fun times:

The girls had fun braiding Eve's hair:

We even took some family pictures Thanksgiving night:

The day after Thanksgiving, we were all hanging out at the house and some of us decided it would be good to get the kids out of the house and go to a park. We went and starting playing some pickleball and throwing a football around. Joe, Natalie, Nate and I were playing when Joe and Natalie started messing around fighting for the ball. Joe tried to kick it away from her and stepped on the ball and broke his ankle. He was in a lot of pain and we could tell pretty quickly that it was broken. Thankfully we had lots of family around to help our kids and help get Joe to the car and I stayed with him at the ER in Tooele. It was one of our best ER experiences ever! He was treated really quickly and given pain meds and they brought the x-ray machine to him and had answers right away. He was told he'd most likely need surgery in a week when the swelling went down. His poor crooked leg:

Tom was nice enough to drive Joe back to our house in his car so Joe could keep it elevated and be comfortable and I drove the kids home in the van. Not only that, he stayed long enough to help install our basketball hoop with Joe's brothers who were here. We were so grateful for the help.

It was a rough few days until they got him in for surgery here in Idaho and quite a painful and long recovery afterward. It was definitely not what we were hoping for but what can you do? Thankfully, the surgery was successful and they were able to fix his fractures (3 sides on his ankle) with a lot of hardware in his ankle. We're definitely grateful for modern medicine!

October

On to October...I took this picture of Joe and Eve playing soccer in the backyard while I was doing dishes one day:

Nate had his very first season of football. It was rough since he started a little bit late and then missed a bunch because he got Covid. He didn't get a lot of playing time but I think it was good for him and he enjoyed it overall. His team was pretty good and won a lot of games. I took this picture after a game:

I finally took Eli in for an eye test after I noticed that he seemed to be having some trouble seeing. He'd been talking about it for awhile but he also wanted glasses so I wasn't sure if he needed it. It was definitely overdue and he got a pretty strong prescription. One eye is much weaker so he was told to wear an eye patch for short stints of time to try and strengthen the weak eye. He was excited to get glasses, luckily, and I took this montage of pictures of him posing: :)

Eve learned how to move a diaper box over to her crib and climb in:

She still loves books:

Posing for cute pictures:

And gives great hugs:

I got to get away for a few days for an Allen girls trip to visit my Mom for her 70th birthday. We missed having Melissa with us but it was a really nice few days away. Since we knew my Mom couldn't handle too much of all of us we went to Seascape for the weekend. Check out these amazing snacks:

We got some good long walks in on the beach:

I got to swim a little bit too:

More good food:

I sure love those ladies. They are such good examples and supports to me.

I got these pictures sent to me while I was gone with Eve wearing a big sweatshirt. :)

I'm so thankful for people to help hold down the fort and take care of Eve while I'm gone.

We loved going back to Stockton and having some good time with my Mom:

She has such a way of making me feel amazing every time I talk to her and I'm so thankful for her.

The best Mom:

The girls had a great swim season, including racing each other at districts in a heat of 100m breaststroke. Lizzie got second in the heat and Natalie was less than half a second behind her. I tried to take a picture of the scoreboard:

They both improved a lot and had a great season. 

We all loved soaking up Fall leaves. Climbing trees:

Having some Fall photo shoots:

And going to a fun little pumpkin patch here in Jerome with family:

We got to spend some time with Mary and Andrew and their kids:

A crazy thing happened at that pumpkin patch. The wind picked up really fast and a bounce house that Eli had been bouncing in all of the sudden flew into the air. Thankfully, he fell out the door right away but he was still quite shaken up as you might imagine. The older kids ended up chasing it across a field and finally jumped on it to stop it. Craziness!

Joe went hunting one weekend with his brothers and was having a great time until he cut a chunk of his finger off while whittling. It was pretty nasty looking:

We found out later that the urgent care that handled it really tortured him in a way they shouldn't have. He'd held a bandage on it for hours coming down the mountain and they pulled that off and cleaned it all without numbing. Then they injected the lidocaine right in the wound instead of doing a nerve block at the base of his finger. He was in so much pain! It was hard to watch. It hurt for quite a while after but did heal up well.

Then came Halloween. We had a fun ward party at our neighbor's house:

This year we had Grindelwald and Katniss again, Red Riding Hood, a ninja and a dog.

She was so excited about her costume.

On the actual day of Halloween, Nate and Lizzie went with the boys to a BYU game.

Meeting Cosmo:

We caught them on the postgame show:

Eli, Eve and I went to Chris and Regina's trunk or treat and Eve figured out the concept of getting candy. :)

She loved it. 

We did get to carve a couple of pumpkins:

It was a pretty quiet but fun Halloween.

I'll finish this post with another gorgeous sunrise post: