November 2020

 After such a crazy year and staying home a lot more than we ever have, we decided to put our Christmas tree up early.  Usually I put it up right after Thanksgiving but this year we put it up about 2 weeks before Thanksgiving.  We just needed a little extra cheer in our house.  I didn't put up any other decorations but it was fun to have the tree up.

We did a STEAM activity and build some pilgrim boats out of styrofoam and foil and then had a contest as to whose could stay afloat with the most dimes on/in it.  It was a fun Saturday activity.

Sunday Snuggles

Siena sewed a little purse for herself.  She is turning into such a good little sewer.  She sews it all by hand and loves it.  One of these days I'd love to get her a sewing machine.

The girls are getting to the age where they want their own space.  We decided to take the loft we had upstairs and turn it into a bedroom so everyone could have their own room.  The kids were hardly ever really using it and it was almost always a mess.  So we cleaned out a lot of toys and hired someone to come frame a wall.  The house was designed to have a room here but when the builders built it they left it open as a loft.  So it wasn't hard to just build a wall and turn it into a bedroom. Shane did the electrical work and added some outlets and moved some switches around.  Then he drywalled it with the help of Shad and then he painted it.  It doesn't seem like a big project but it took quite a bit of time and was more time consuming then we thought.  We are so happy having it done.  The kids all fought over who got that room even though it's not the biggest room.  Siena ended up getting it and everyone loves having their own space to call their own.  They got some wall decals for their rooms and Siena used some of her money to buy a new bedspread.  We started right before Thanksgiving and didn't completely finish it until Christmas break but we're so super happy to have an extra room and the kids love their own space.

Jaron loves watching BYU Football with me and I love the company.  It's fun to watch him start to understand sports more and asks about rules and what is going on.

The Sunday before Thanksgiving we took a few family pictures.  I thought they turned out so cute so thought I'd share here.

Because of Covid, we weren't going to be all be able to go to my parents for Thanksgiving.  The few days before though Christy was in town so we decided that all the siblings and kids would meet at the mall and enjoy some time together without the fear of infecting our parents.  It was such a fun afternoon seeing everyone and it had been so long since we had all been together.  Even though we talk and text all the time (like all the time, hundreds of texts a week) it was still fun to see everyone in person.

The family decided we did not want my parents to spend Thanksgiving alone this year after not having any family dinners all year.  So we got designated to have Thanksgiving dinner with my parents.  So besides going to the mall and the kids to school where they wear masks, we stayed home the whole week before so as to hopefully not catch covid and infect my parents.  It was one of my favorite Thanksgivings in recent memories.  My family wore masks while we were there and socially distanced as much as we could at the dinner table.  All worth it to spend time together and not feel like we were infecting them.  I didn't realize just how much I missed hanging out with my parents at their house.  We still see them from time to time but we really haven't spent more than a soccer game outside together.  And it was so fun with just my family and them.  We ate, sat around a talked and then played some games.  We even played our annual Left, Right, Center.  It was such a fun day/night.  I even got my banana cream pie from Jennifer.  She made us a pie and in return I made her and her family pretzel jello.  I left there that night thinking, that is just what my heart and spirit needed tonight.

And then Christmas season was officially upon us.  The kids were super excited that Sparky our elf made an early appearance, with a mask of course, and had to quarantine at our house for a few days before he could officially fly back and forth to the North Pole.

October 2020

You would've thought the world was ending when I told the kids we were going to go get flu shots.  We went to Walgreens where cousin Ashlee works as a pharmacy tech so she could give us the shots.  She was bragging that no one had ever cried on her...well that all changed.  My kids are total crazy kids when they get the shot.  Actually Jaron is ok but Siena and Aria are possessed crying/screaming, pulling their arm away.  Ashlee had to clean their arm 3 times for Aria cuz she kept grabbing her arm.  Then afterwards they complained their arm was sore. I kept telling them it would hurt less if they would relax their arm, but apparently they didn't believe me.

I was proud of that all 3 kids entered the Reflections contest this year.  They did a great job.  Jaron created his own Piano piece, Siena entered a picture and wrote a story, and Aria drew a picture.  Jaron and Siena both won prizes and moved on to the next level and they all got some great prizes, coupons and candy just for entering.

We made our annual trip to Gardner Village Witchfest.  We've been going so many years now that the kids all have their favorite witches and we had to search them all out.

I love that my kids mostly participate in all the school activities and they're getting braver and braver about crazy hair day.  I thought they all turned out so cute this year.

Our normal Pumpkin Patch we've been going to every year closed down last year.  We weren't sure where to go to get some good pumpkins.  We found this one in Pleasant Grove, although small, they had huge pumpkins for a pretty decent price.  It was a quick trip but I felt better than last year when we had to get them from the grocery store last minute.

Siena got invited to a girl in her class's birthday party to go to Cornbelly's.  We've never taken our kids there so Siena went to the party and then afterwards Shane took the other 2 kids and met Siena there and they spent the afternoon there.  They had a lot of fun doing all the different activities, slides, corn maze, etc. that they have there.

We had our first snow in October.  The kids had to run out in their flip flops first thing in the morning and eat some snow, and run around.  They love the snow, me on the other hand, just took their picture quickly and went back inside.

The girls made guinea pig costumes for Chip and Ozzie.  They were a witch and a wizard side kick.  They sure have fun with these guinea pigs.

Highland City had their own Covid safe Halloween activity.  It was all decorated cute and they had different businesses set up handing out candy at each station we walked around. 

We had a break through this year with carving pumpkins...Siena and Jaron carved their own pumpkin with little or no help from us, and Shane helped Aria.  It is always fun to see little things like this change and see how they're growing up.  I was happy not to help but then observed from across the room and felt a little sad that the days of them needing us for everything slowly comes to an end.

Halloween was fun as always.  Siena was a witch, Aria a Veterinarian and Jaron was a Minecraft Creeper.  They trick or treated for a really long time and of course got a ton of candy.  Our next door neighbors the Robinson's got Covid that week and weren't able to trick or treat.  Lisbon and Leo were so sad so we took bags for them and at each door told the people we were trick or treating for our neighbors with Covid, everyone was so generous and it felt good to have a little meaning around trick of treating and of course it made Lisbon and Leo's day!