January

After getting home from Utah and recovering from sickness, we did manage to get out to do something fun before the kids were back to school. We met our friends the Karolys at Golfland. we'd never been, for some reason, and the kids all loved it. We even let the ones who were tall enough ride the bumper cars (sadly, Eli wasn't quite tall enough). We had fun catching up while golfing with them, while the kids ran around the course. Then we had fun playing in the arcade.

Then it was back to school and back to the grind. We had a really warm early part of the winter so the kids spent a lot of time playing outside in shorts. Gotta love the bay area!

Lightsaber battle:

One day, I managed to check Nate's lunch that he'd packed before he left and found this:

Just a container of chocolate syrup. There wasn't even a spoon!

Apparently, he needs a bit more supervision in that area. :)

We got the girls hooked on Settlers of Catan and have had fun playing that as a family. Nate doesn't love it but he's coming around.

I planned a yoga night Relief Society activity thinking one of the two instructors in our ward could do it but they weren't able to so I recruited Ann to help me and we led the class (mostly her). We just quickly ran through the hot yoga poses. We had a great turnout! I was not expecting that. 

That actually ended up being the last activity I planned since I was later released and called as YW secretary. That was a big change since I've never been in YW but I've been loving it.

Eli has gotten into actually building the lego sets he has. Before he would mostly just play with the characters and build things on his own. I have to help him with this but I actually don't mind building lego sets. In fact, it inspired me to organize the legos by color and that has made it much easier.

The Oakland temple closed for renovations in February and will stay closed for over a year. I decided to make a trip on Saturday morning in January. I threw it up on our Relief Society's facebook page and got a great response so we carpooled up there. It was a really beautiful morning associating with these great women and spending time in the temple. I was so glad I went.

 I snuck these pictures at a park day gathering with friends. Eli and his little friends were all putting their hands in together for some kind of cheer:

Christmas in Utah

Since we weren't able to get together with the whole Atkin family over the summer, we planned a reunion over Christmas. So, we took the kids out of school a little bit early and headed for Jon and Jaime's house. We left after school on Thursday and hit some delays so were behind schedule. We ended up driving through the night. Luckily, it was a great drive with no bad weather and Joe and I were both able to stay awake the whole time talking and having fun. We tried giving the kids Dramamine for the first time since they sometimes get carsick and they all slept well. We made it at about 5:45am and got a little bit of sleep that morning. We had fun playing that day and shopping to get ready for Christmas. Regina and her kids were there that day. Marsha and Rich and Toni and kids came later. Unfortunately, Tom and Shari and kids couldn't make it this time but Chris drove up after work on Saturday.

Grandma reading the Grinch to all the kids:

Playing in the snow:

I snapped this picture of Joelle taking care of her animals:

We fun making gingerbread houses (until my kids starting fighting :):

We loved seeing how much cute baby Ross had grown!

I brought our handbells and we had a lot of fun playing some Christmas songs. I was super impressed with how well the kids did:

The group that stayed for Christmas Eve:

Some scenes from our nativity play:

It even snowed Christmas Eve night a little bit!

Santa came!

We had a great, relaxing Christmas day doing puzzles, watching movies and playing with new toys. The day after Christmas, we met Brad & Kelli, Matt & Melissa and kids at Cafe Rio for lunch since we were all in town. Then we went hiking around Salt Lake with Matt & Melissa and kids. Unfortunately, Elizabeth and Eli both started coming down with something so we didn't get much time with them. When Eli's fever got worse that night, we decided to just go home in the morning. We'd planned on staying a few more days but it was probably best we left because a bunch more of us got it, too. The drive home was a little rougher but we made it safely (a big relief after our last winter drive when we had our crash!). We spent the rest of our Christmas break recovering from sickness so we had a Harry Potter movie marathon and that was basically all we did. We were so glad we got some time with family, though! It was a Christmas to remember!

We had a low-key New Years's Eve. Only us girls managed to stay awake for midnight. The boys were exhausted!

Goodbye 2017! It was a good year.

Family Pictures

We decided it was time for some new family pictures so we could send out a Christmas card this year and we got it done just in the nick of time in December. A woman in our ward did it and she did a fantastic job! I love how they turned out.

(Nate was struggling a bit again so that's why he wasn't in that one)

Eli was the only one who didn't mind posing alone:

Joe and I even got some just the two of us! We're not the best at acting natural for those but these turned out pretty cute: