December 2018

Our first visit to Santa this year was at Highland City.  It must have been a little early in the season because they had no idea what to tell him they wanted for Christmas.  In fact they didn't have a lot of requests this year in general.


We got to attend the girls good friend, Sorena's baptism.  These 3 have so much fun and spend a lot of time together and it was a nice day to celebrate with her.


Sparky our elf made his return.  Wow, the kids love him so much.  He has notes almost daily to take back to the north pole.  This year they made him clothes and a sled to help him with his trek back to the north pole each night.


Our annual gingerbread house decorating took place again.  They sure love this tradition.  This year they were determined to eat it...I wasn't even sure it was edible but after Christmas I let them at it and they ate a lot of it and didn't seem to get sick afterwards!


We also had our annual trip to see the lights at temple square.  Always a fun and cold night.


I got to volunteer for Jaron's Polar Express Day at Kindergarten.  I got to do it for the girls last year as well so it was fun being able to be there this year as well.


We got 7 tickets to see the Tabernacle choir Christmas concert this year.  Kristen Chenoweth was the guest performer so we were so excited to get tickets.  I took my girls this year after a lot of my sisters/family couldn't go that night.  They loved being in the conference center for the first time (and were even excited we got to sit at the top looking down!)  My mom, Jennifer and Lori went with us as well.  President Nelson was there that night so it was cool for the girls to get to see him, even if it was really far away.


We got to see Santa at our ward Christmas party this year.


Gingerbread house decorating wasn't enough apparently and we had another night of decorating gingerbread men.


The kids had their annual Christmas sing at school.  Unfortunately Siena got sick the night before and wasn't able to go. (she also missed the dance festival last year, ugh.)  Jaron sang I want to be an Elf, and Aria sang Santa's using Zebra's now.  Both songs were so cute.


The kids were so excited when I told them one night that they could have a slumber party by the Christmas tree.  They got everything all set up and thought it was pretty fun getting to sleep by the lights of the tree.


The sad part of our Christmas was Jaron got sick on Christmas eve.  I was glad my parents didn't mind that we still came over on Christmas eve but it's always sad to be sick on a holiday, let alone Christmas.  Luckily Christmas day he felt ok and still enjoyed the day.


Christmas eve was fun though.  I love how low key Christmas eve is, it's always just a relaxing day at home, playing games, and spending time with each other.  The kids had all been making home made presents for each other this year through out the month, so we decided to open those on Christmas eve before we went to my parents.  They even made presents for our fish, Diamond.  I hope these home made gifts never stop because I love them and I especially love how excited they get to give these.  That evening we went to my parents and of course acted out the nativity.  This was the first year any of my kids had a request, Aria wanted to be the angel, so it was cute to see her get excited about this.


Christmas morning is always so fun but I'm not sure why I'm terrible at taking pictures.  We always take video but not many pictures.  The kids had a great year and always score big.  This year we bought the girls electric scooters and Jaron got a go-kart.  They got to ride it Christmas morning and since then it's been so snowy that they haven't rode them that much.  Santa gave them sleds that have been very well used this year.  We have a great sledding hill a few neighborhoods over and the kids have loved sledding this year.  And I like it because I can watch them from the warmth of my car.  Grandma and Grandpa Goold gave the girls a little sewing machine and Jaron a lego set.

November 2018

Thankful for November and a chance to slow down and focus on being grateful.

The Brian's came to town the few days before Thanksgiving.  It was a quick trip but always fun to see them.  While they were here we got to go over to my dad's friend's house and see his mules.  The kids loved feeding and petting them.


The Pace's came to town for Thanksgiving as well.  We got to spend a day with them.  We hung out at our house, went to the puppy barn and ate dinner.  The puppy barn was fun and of course the kids were in love with all the puppy's and wanted to take each of them home.  Although when I asked them if they would rather have a puppy or have Diamond (our fish) Aria said 'Diamond' without hesitation.  We're in the clear not to get a puppy for a while.  Keep living Diamond!


I got to help at the Kindergarten Thanksgiving feast this year.  I always crack up these kids eating habits.  I'm pretty sure one kid ate an entire can of olives while others wouldn't touch them.  It was a fun day.


Thanksgiving was fun and pretty low key.  It was just Jennifer, her kids and us and my parents.  Made for a relaxing day and lots of yummy turkey leftovers with my favorite banana cream pie that Jennifer makes.  I didn't do any black Friday shopping which made for a relaxing weekend.  So grateful for this cute family of mine.  I'm so thankful I get to raise these 3 kids with Shane and be their parents.  There are some long days but overall they are happy, growing, healthy and we have fun times together.  Thankful they are mine.


One day the kids decided they all wanted to have a slumber party in Jaron's room.  They got it all set up and I think Jaron loved it that they wanted to sleep in his room with him.  He still gets sad that everyone in the family gets to share a room with someone except him.  I was happy the girls made him feel included and special.


The week before Thanksgiving the kids started asking when we were decorating for Christmas.  They were so excited this year.  We decorated the day after Thanksgiving and we were in complete Christmas celebration starting then.  I love the excitement of Christmas through their eyes.

October 2018

Jaron had his Nursery Rhyme Olympics where he had to dress up and recite a nursery rhyme.  I was surprised when Jaron was so nervous leading up to this and all but refused to do it.  I finally talked him into it and he did great.  His nursery rhyme was Hickory Dickory Dock and I thought his clock shirt with a mouse on it was just perfect!



The girls and Jaron finished fall soccer.  They had a great season and had great coaches.  I'm so mad I didn't get a team picture of the girls team, their coach took one and never sent it.  Then Jaron started Jr Jazz.  He is by far the smallest player just from being young for Kindergarten and he's on the short side anyways.  But he had a great time and a great encouraging coach.  He was so excited he got to be #2, the same number as Joe Ingles on the Jazz.  I was so nervous he was never going to make a basket this season but he did a few times.  One time was when Grandma and Grandpa were there and they had brought cousin Landon.  Jaron was so excited he scored while they were there watching.



We had our annual trip to Gardner village to see the witches, always a fun day.  We actually completed the scavenger hunt this time and enjoyed a treat from the bakery afterwards.


We had crazy hair day at school.  Jaron was all about crazy hair day and pretty sure he had the brightest hair in all of kindergarten.  The girls are a bit more reserved but I was glad they at least wanted to participate.


I got to go with Jaron on his field trip to Hee Haw farms.  It was fun and he had a fun little group that we got to walk around with, go on slides, pet animals, corn maze, hay ride and picking a pumpkin.


I took the kids to Jakers pumpkin patch over fall break.  It was so fun and they had a blast.  We were there all afternoon and I had to drag them out of there because they didn't want to leave.  It helped that they ran into the girl's good friend Sorena.


We of course also had to go to our regular pumpkin patch per our tradition which is where we actually picked out our pumpkins.  It's always fun to do their maze, and hay ride.


Jaron has a sight word book full of different lists of sight words to pass off this year.  When he gets one list done, I sign my initials and he takes it to school to pass it off.  Well one day I was on the phone for work and he came in and asked me to sign it.  I told him to wait until I was done (I wanted to test him again before I signed it) and he kept asking and asking and I kept telling him to wait.  Next thing I knew he came in with the proudest smile on his face and proceeded to announce that he signed my initials for me!  So now I have a Kindergartner forger.  I can only imagine what this will be like when he's older.  And interestingly enough he did a really good job, even signing the G in cursive like I do.  He had to turn the page back one, memorize what it looked like and then do it from memory.  I was totally impressed and laughing so hard it made him mad and embarrassed.


This year for Halloween Jaron dressed up as Dash from Incredibles and Siena and Aria dressed up as Beanie Boo's.  I was happy Jaron picked out his own costume (sometimes he just goes along with what the girls like) and the girl's were cute as they were both different Beanie Boo's and had the matching stuffed animal Beanie Boo to carry around.  This year no one slowed them down and they came home with so much candy.  Shane took them around and I stayed home to pass out candy and it's so strange to me still that we have a full neighborhood of kids and we get about 30 trick or treaters.  No one comes down to our street and they all stay up in the streets that all connect further up the neighborhood.  Next year I think I'll just set candy out and go with them as it wasn't worth my time to answer the door for so few kids.