December 2024

 We had Orchestra and Band Christmas concerts at the beginning of December.  Nice to get them done early in the season.  Siena and Aria both did a great job practicing and knowing their pieces.  Aria's teacher gave them each a tiny Santa hat to put on their bows, it was quite festive.  And apparently I only got videos of Aria's orchestra and no pictures....darn it.

Our Young Women's class had a gift exchange Christmas party.  It's been a fun year with 14 in our class and now the oldest 8 will be moving up to the middle aged class.  All the YM and YW also went bowling for a fun activity night.

Jaron's indoor soccer season finished up.  Jaron loves indoor soccer and often says if he could he would do indoor year round.  He had a great season and scored a ton of goals.

Jaron had his last Christmas sing.  The 6th grade go to sing 12 days of Christmas and Jaron was one of the 12 drummers.  It was a pretty fun performance.

With the Salt Lake Temple under construction, we don't go downtown every year to look at the lights but we decided to go this year.  We went to dinner in Draper, took Trax downtown (yes the kids still love riding the train) and then walked around for a bit.  Temple Square isn't as decorated as it used to be and I'm hoping once it's completed that it returns to how great it used to be.

We always love getting our Grandpa South's train and playing with it or a couple days.

And we still love decorating sugar cookies (I mostly love to eat them, Aria mostly loves to just decorate them)

The kids love to sleep under the Christmas tree the night before Christmas Even and watch Polar Express.

Shane and the kids took 2 ski trips over Christmas break.  The snow isn't that great yet this year but they still had fun.

Christmas Eve day we went and saw Mufasa and then went to Jennifer's along with my parents and had dinner there and played some fun games.

Christmas morning.  I'm always terrible at taking pictures Christmas day but here are a few I got of the kids looking at their presents.  

The rest of Christmas break was spent hanging out.  The girls did some sewing projects (bunting for their room and new pajama pants).  We went to Classic with the Pace's and had a very low key Christmas break.  I think everyone was ready to get back into school and routines.  And I didn't take any other pictures but we had a great New Year's Eve eating lots of snacks, playing games and watching a movie.

November 2024

 Lots of November was spent doing Science Projects.  All 3 kids had to do a science project this year.  Jaron did his on reaction time vs. age.  Siena did hers on the liquefaction of different types of soils in earthquakes and Aria did hers on the strength of magnets with different types of materials.  Fun times...

The kids opened up their own bank accounts.  The kids had lots of cash from babysitting, animal sitting, etc.  So they were excited to get their own debit cards and savings account.

We got some really nice seats to a pre-season basketball game.  The girls didn't' want to go so Jaron invited his friend JJ.  It was a fun game and I always love going to BYU games.

Matthew came home from his mission in New Hampshire.  It was such a fun time being at the airport and watching him come home. He had a great mission and changed so much.

I got to help at Jaron's class Thanksgiving Feast.  He's basically had the same classmates for 3 years now and so it's fun because I know most the kids and they all know each other really well.

We spent Thanksgiving at my parents.  We went and saw Moana 2 that morning and then went to my parents for dinner.  And I took zero pictures.  The best part of the week was seeing Wicked part 1 in the theatres.  I am a little obsessed with it and ended up seeing it twice.  The movie was so good, the singing, the choreography and the sets were amazing.  I can't wait for part 2 and I've been listening to the soundtrack non-stop.

October 2024

 October brought a big change for Siena.  Over the summer when Siena went and saw the pediatrician for her Jr. High shots, they noticed one of her shoulder blades stuck out more than the other, a sign of scoliosis.  So after xrays, seeing an Orthopedic doctor, Siena has a 25% curvature and needs to wear a Scoliosis brace.  The brace is worn 18 hours a day and does not correct the curve but prevents it from getting worse.  If it gets around 40% then she has to have spinal fusion surgery which is just awful.  So she is wearing the brace to prevent that from happening.  So October was the month she got the brace.  It was rough at first, as we knew it would be.  Lots of tears, lots of shopping for new clothes that are loose fitting, getting a new mattress topper to help her sleep in it, etc.  Lots of family was so nice sending her cookies, bringing over ice cream.  I ordered her this cute scoliosis brace teddy bear.  It took about 2 weeks to get up to the 18 hours a day but she is now sleeping in it, wearing it to school and except for the occasional venting session she is more than entitled to she is doing great with it.  Wears it without me having to bug her about it.  The other hard part of this is she has to do 24 sessions of Physical Therapy, which has proven not only hard physically but a pain to fit it in our busy schedules.  She'll have to wear it until she stops growing which they think will be in about 2 years.

We went to Frightmares at Lagoon a few times in September and October.  The kids love the haunted houses and how decorated it is for Halloween.

Our big event for October is we went to the Imagine Dragons concert.  Jaron is a huge fan and we all really like their music and it's probably the most played music in our car.  So we were so excited to get tickets.  The Taylors came with us and it was such a fun concert.  They put on a great show and one that is clean and appropriate for kids which I really appreciated.

We took our annual trip to Gardner Village to see the Witches there.

We had free tickets to the zoo and only Aria wanted to go this year.  So we had such a fun time looking at the animals and no one was rushing us to leave.  We got to go see some animals a few different times.  It was a fun day spending some one on one time with her. Our favorite parts were the wild horses, the leopard and the red panda.

Jaron's school had a come eat lunch with your child day.  So I got him McDonald's and had lunch with him.  It was fun sitting with him and all his friends.  I was mostly glad he even let me come and didn't seem embarrassed to be with me.

Siena and Aria had a great soccer season.  They won most their games and both girls improved a lot.  Aria mostly played defense and it really good at stopping the ball.  My favorite thing she does is when she does a pull back.  Siena mostly played forward and was great at getting the ball down the field.  She even scored a few goals.

Carving pumpkins is always a fun night.  I love how they each do their own and how cute they all turn out.  My job is to cook the pumpkin seeds and help clean up.  Shane helps clean them out but the rest they mostly do on their own.

Jaron had his last Halloween parade.  He dressed up as Messi, which means he wore his Messi jersey that he wears just about every week as it is.  Still fun to see everyone dressed up.  He trick or treated with the neighborhood kids and also a couple of school friends.

The girls coordinated with their friends and all dressed up as prisoners (and one cop)  They wore the costumes to school, stayed after for a Halloween dance and then went to their friend Alexis' house for dinner and then trick or treated over there.  So I hardly saw them at all that day but they had so much fun hanging with their cute group of friends.

The saddest part of the day was Aria's fish she got for Christmas died sometime during the day of Halloween.  Aria of course was so sad.  She really loved that fish and took such good care of him.  She got extra stuff for his tank and would always analyze how happy he was.  I remember when I bought him he was swimming around so active and happy and that is how he was for a long time in Aria's room, always coming over when you would walk in the room.

September 2024

Birthday month for the girls in our family.  My birthday was great.  It was on a Saturday and so we got to wake up early and go to Jaron's soccer game.  He won so that was good!  We got doughnuts and had them when we got home.  That afternoon we went and saw the movie Twisters.  It had been out for a while so we were all so excited when we had the entire movie theatre to ourselves.  The kids went and sat in the luxury seats, after doing cartwheels in front of the screen and Shane and I sat in the back doing shadow puppets.  That night we went to dinner.

Grandma and Grandpa always coming to support the kids at their games

Jaron was one of the narrators for his last ever Primary Program.  He did a great job reading everything clearly and he is more than ready to be done with Primary and is excited to become a Deacon.

The rest of the month was busy with school.  2 girls in junior high has been quite an adjustment.  They each manage 8 classes and it has felt so busy, along with soocer, doctors appts and other stuff going on.