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. I can't believe she is 19!

It's hard to do a birthday post now that Lizzie moved out so I'll just talk a little bit here about her past year. She has handled the stress of moving and starting college so well. She works in the Music building helping manage and set up for concerts and she loves it. She did amazingly her first semester at BYU. I've been so impressed with her grit and determination to work hard. I've also been impressed with how she's handled living with a roommate. I think she lucked out in having Margot and they get a long really well. She's also made some other good friends: Dottie and Mariah. I love hearing about her adventures at BYU. I've also been so impressed by how she went about getting an answer to the question of whether she should serve a mission or not. She is trusting in the revelation she received and moving forward and I know God will bless her for it. I'm just so thankful for her and we all miss her when she's gone. Not seeing her for 18 months is going to be really hard!

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.

Natalie is 17!

 We celebrated Natalie's birthday a day early this year since she had a big weekend ahead of her--state drama! I talked about that in December. She requested butternut squash soup this year. We were hoping to recreate the delicious soup we had in Seattle. It turned out pretty good! Unfortunately everyone else in the family hates squash and hated it. She and I enjoyed it at least. We also made a raspberry sorbet for her dessert that was yummy. I can't remember now what we gave her except that I think she got some airpods and we gave her my old macbook. We watched The Office and had fun relaxing that night. Then we got some snow on her birthday which was fun too.

It was a big year for Natalie and she grew a ton. She became a better actor and singer. She got more leading roles--Katherine in Newsies and Macbeth. She worked concessions at the school and then she got her first real job working at Texas Roadhouse (and learned that customer service isn't always the best). She did great, though, and is really skilled at talking to people and being friendly so it suited her well. She had her first boyfriend and then got through her first breakup. She grew closer to her friends and they were a big support. I love that she has them:

She struggled a bit with school in her senior year but only because she had a lot on her plate with plays and drama competitions and she procrastinated. She realized the thing that most seniors do--grades don't really matter that year so it didn't affect her much. She is still super smart and I love having deep conversations with her about a character, psychology, politics, or just human behavior in general. She's a deep thinker and a deep feeler and I love that about her. She is still cooking and making amazing food that she frequently shares with all of us. She is always coming up with beautiful arrangements of songs that she sometimes shares on Instagram and I just love hearing her sing and play. I'll sure miss that when she moves out.  She is so funny and still makes us all laugh. She loves people and has a ton of empathy. She just glows and people want to be around her. We don't know what we'd do without Natalie.