February

I loved this beautiful sunrise over our gross yard:

I thought Natalie's senior picture turned out so cute too:

I saved this BeReal of an outing the kids took:

I loved these preschool pics too:

For a while, Eve just loved sitting in this floatie we accidentally stole from Grandma and Grandpa's cabin:

We teamed up to take Eli and Maddy to the temple for the first time It was such a neat experience and I loved that we got to go together. Then we got dinner after.

Another classic Eve outfit:

Eve took these pictures from a night we had family over:

She also took a whole bunch of George:

And this cute one of Joe:

Joe and Natalie sang a cute duet of "We Are Gonna Be Friends" for her music account:

One weekend when Lizzie was in town we all took a trip up to Hailey to go sledding:

It was fun! It was a steep hill, though, so some of us didn't walk up very many times :).

We got lunch at a yummy burger place after:

I just loved soaking up time with us all together.

Snuggle time one night:

Eve loves going on hikes with me still:

I just loved this view of Eve reading books in the sunlight at the library:

We had a picnic too:

On February 21st, I was in my room working on my homework for my class when I suddenly got this text:

This was 20 months after I had made it to the next round of auditions where I took a test of 50 question on zoom with other people and then had a mock game on zoom. They had told me that if I didn't get called to be on the show in 18 months I should just try taking the test again so I was thinking I'd have to do that. I was shocked! Of course I said yes and they called right away to tell me I was going to be on the show on April 3rd! I was so pumped. I came out to the family room and told Joe, Natalie, Eli and Eve who were there and we just jumped up and down. It was so awesome and they were so excited for me. I loved that moment. Then the studying began...

At the end of the month, Joe and I drove down to Las Vegas for a builders conference that he and Ben were going to. I got to tag along for a fun getaway. The drive down was quite scary though with super low visibility:

We made it safely, thankfully.

Joe spent most of the trip helping me study all the countries and their capitals. He was so good at coming up with funny ways to remember them and he helped so much.

We got to go to some fun shows while we were there, including a Michael Jackson tribute one, a Beatles one, and a movie in the Sphere:

The sphere had this cool robot you could ask questions to:

We walked around the conference for a bit too:

We also had some AMAZING food. One night we had a multi-course meal that was paid for by a vendor that was so good:

Our last night there we splurged on a really fancy meal and at a Michelin star restaurant. I don't know if we'll spend that much on a meal again but the food was amazing!

That scallop was the best one I'd ever eaten.

It was a super fun trip and an awesome month!

January

 I loved this school picture of Eli and wanted to save it, even though it's blurry:

Over the break while Lizzie was in town, we went to get breakfast and then go to Skateland. It was frustrating for some of us but some of us enjoyed it. Lizzie was a champ to take Eve around a few times since it was exhausting.

She fell asleep on me one night:

One night, was having a weird abdominal pain that wouldn't go away. I stayed up all night dealing with it until around 5am I realized Joe would be going to work soon and I needed to see if it was anything so I woke him up and then went to the ER. I didn't even realize until I got there and they checked me out that the pain was more on my right side when they pushed on it. Luckily, they figured out pretty quickly with a CT scan that it was appendicitis. This is me waiting for the surgery:

Joe and Jameson were able to give me a blessing before since he was there visiting a patient. Here is one Joe took of me:

I really feel like I lucked out as far as appendix issues go since the pain was never really crazy severe and I had a pretty quick recovery although it definitely took a bit to feel like myself again. I felt horrible right after the surgery and did feel hustled out of there. I was so exhausted I could hardly keep my eyes open and they kept trying to talk to me and explain stuff. I went home and crashed and then felt so much better when I got to shower the next day. Regina was kind enough to take a day to watch Eve and Marsha helped a lot too. Eli apparently told his friends on the bus about it and two of their moms brought me meals which was so nice. 

Pretty soon after that, we had a crazy snowstorm. It was super windy too so a lot of thing were canceled because of the conditions. The kids had 2.5 snow days, church was canceled, and even Eli's musical performances were delayed. 

The kids had fun pulling each other around the block again, this time with Sam and Natalie driving:

I couldn't do anything to help with shoveling or anything but I did have fun watching them:

The kids also had fun one day walking on the ice in the pool very carefully while holding onto something since I insisted :):

Eli and Maddy were finally able to perform in Beauty and the Beast at the Orpheum and it was so fun to see Eli up there doing a great job with all his roles. He was a fishmonger and also a villager in the scene when they raid the castle which is when he had a singing solo:

More snow:

Had to show the crazy drifts:

This was our street before we got it plowed:

I made French onion soup one day:

We watched all of the Star Wars movies and Eve loved having lightsaber battles with Eli:

I just loved this view of Joe brushing Eve's hair after a bath so I had to take a picture:

I french-braided Eve's hair for the first time and I thought it was so cute:

Natalie did mine so we both had braids:

Eli got pink eye:

Some more snapshots I loved:

After working over the break and getting her paperwork and shots and stuff done, Lizzie got her mission call! She was kind enough to drive all the way up so we could watch her open it up. It was exhausting for her but we loved being there for it. She was called to the Lisbon, Portugal mission!

That sure surprised us but we were so excited for her and everyone that had been there before said how beautiful it was. We can't wait to go sometime. 

We're super proud of her decision to serve the people there.

Nate got to go to an honor band clinic. I got to go watch him and I was so glad I did. They played some amazing songs and they played super well, too. I was impressed.

I've decided I really love the power of band concerts.

Eve decorated this piece of cardboard like a sun mask and I thought it was cute:

She also started writing her name!

We drove down to Provo for Lizzie's birthday and to see a BYU game. Here she is getting her wiggles out at a Wendy's:

We walked around campus a bit to get some more BYU gear and then as we were getting ready for the game, Natalie decided she didn't really want to go to the game so she and Lizzie skipped it and went shopping and got food. The rest of us had fun at the very top of the Marriott center!

They pulled out the win. We even got to see Cosmo ringing the bell, which I thought Eve would love since she loves watching his videos on Instagram but she got nervous in person:

After that we killed some time at Provo Beach:

We finished the day at an Italian restaurant which was like Lizzie's 3rd choice but I forgot how busy Provo is on a weekend night.

It was a fun getaway.

Eve and I finally went into the little zoo they have at the mall in Twin and she loved it:

We even got to do this thing where you go in a room full of parakeets and then let you hold the feed. I wasn't sure I loved that (Eve either) but it was a cool experience.

Now she keeps begging to back.

We finished off the month going to watch Natalie's improv show. She took a class and we got to watch the show at the end. It was really funny and we were blown away by her willingness to do it, especially with mostly adults.