Winter

I don't take a lot of pictures during the winter. I don't know why, but it happens every year. 

Here are some things we did that I can remember. 

Chase's birthday dinner was at a Chinese restaurant this year.  Super Yummy.

Jaxon has been working Mondays, Wednesdays, Friday and Saturday nights. Did I mention that he got a job?  Jaxon got a job. It is a sushi/ramon Japanese food restaurant. I like it because he can come home from school and do his homework and eat dinner with us and then go to work. He is home by 10 on school nights and 11 on weekends. We know when he is going  to work- it is not random. Much better. Plus he brings home yummy chicken often. 

Chase finished up Jr Jazz basketball. He had a lot of fun. One of the games, he had all the points for his team in the whole half! (score was 14 to 2)

Alex got his part in Up with Kids. He is Chief Tui! That is Moana's dad. Alex lives for Up with Kids.

Tanner got to go snowboarding with people in the ward. He loves it so much! 

Jaxon has been going to play Magic The Gathering every Thursday night. And a lot of Saturdays he has a group over to play D and D.   He is in heaven.

We took our turn and cleaned the church one Saturday. It was exciting as always. 

Jaxon has been going to Mission Prep class on Sunday mornings at 8:00. (most of the time). This is a sacrifice since we have lame 1:00 church. 

Have I mentioned that we have 1:00 church? I hate it! I have meetings all morning on Sunday and then usually a bit of follow up stuff after church. Then I make dinner and the day is over. Where is the relaxing? My family relaxes. I wish I could have some family time with them.  This is why I usually don't accomplish much on a Monday. One Sunday we had a fireside in the evening and poof- I was in meetings all day. I think it is a bigger deal when it is dark when you walk out of church. It might be better in the summer. 

Have I talked about our windshield breaking? We were driving down the road one day and we heard a loud crack and the windshield just broke right in front of us. It was crazy and a little scary. So I got to get a new windshield. And, we might get a new car soon. We have had ours for 11 years. We want to sell it before something happens. 

We have lots of young women activities and young men activities. When they combine, I can take pictures of my boys. 

It has not snowed much this year. Here is a picture of the boys playing in the golf course. I think that is the only snow storm this year until today.

It has been an unusually warm and dry winter. I know we need snow. But really, I am fine with warm winters. 

My mom had a birthday. We went to her favorite! Mexican food! 

Andre's plate was so huge!

Then my mom went down to Arizona to hang out with Jeff and Jill and their families. We have been hanging out and it is weird that she was not home. I'm used to her being home. 

The Super Bowl! otherwise known as the day we eat good food and we force our kids to watch a football game. 

We had fondue

Chase has an Eagles shirt! His cousin Josh loves the Eagles and years ago passed that shirt down. Finally they were in the super bowl so Chase could support the winning team! 

You can tell they were super thrilled. It was actually an exciting game. 

But the chips were more exciting. 

Andre has been teaching a lot with the missionaries because they are teaching the new convert lessons. Which makes it hard to get all of our kids to all of their things. When I am at Young Womens and he is with the missionaries and 3 of our kids need to be taken somewhere. I wish Alex and Chase's scout leaders would just do scouts in walking distance of our house. Or they would drive them home. But that is just wishful thinking. 

I got to hang out with my friend Regina. We were starting to remove fabric from her chairs so that she can reupholster them. It was fun to visit while we took out millions of staples. 

Andre and I have been getting our vacation planned and reservations made. It will be an EPIC trip. We are flying to New Jersey and getting an RV and traveling to tons of places on the way home. We are focusing on Church History sites like Palmyra, and Nauvoo. So there was lots of researching to get an RV and plane tickets and then lots more researching on where to stay in an RV. 

We have been having Church History Family Home Evenings all school year. We are up to the Kirtland Temple Dedication. It has been really interesting for me because I am doing tons and tons of reading to learn so that I can teach my family about the events. It has been great. 

 Chase had a pack meeting. It was a Magic show. He got to be the one that picked a card. 

My brother John came to visit me! Well, actually he came to work. But he did come visit us at night. He was here on the Olympics opening ceremony. So we had Joanna and John over and watched them together. Later I realized that I took no pictures.  So after he got home, Laura took this picture for me. Pretend he is sitting at my house and there are Olympics on in the background. It was fun having them over here. 

The next day I got to go to the new Hale Center Theatre. I took my boys to see the Hunchback of Notre Dame. It was fabulous. And I love the new theatre. 

I've been working on a new project. It is typing up my dad's mission journal and making it a letter for my nephew who is on a mission. I have made a blog to keep it in. This is a fun project that I can spend a lot of time or a little time doing. 

Valentines day. The boys made boxes. Chase made a new sign on his box from last year and Alex just put a not on his box to put candy in it. I am so done with wanting to do Valentine boxes. This is what they wanted to do, so I guess I don't have to feel guilt. 

I helped in Chase's class party. We did Tic Tac Toe Toss

And Corn hole. They did a lot of other things in the class, this was just what I brought. They older kids get, The harder it is to think of something they would like to do. 

The most exciting thing happened on Valentines day for Alex and Tanner. They finally got to go to Snowblitz. This is their adventure that they got for Christmas. A bus comes and picks them up at their school. They take them up to Brighton and rent snowboards to them. Then they have a lesson that teaches them how to snowboard and then there is free time. Tanner loves this sooo much. This was Alex's first time and I was worried. He did great and loved it. Like, really loved it. But he is still sore a few days later. 

The boys went to literacy night at the school so Tanner could get 2% extra credit for English class. I hate going to the after school things. And the kids are kind of done. But Extra credit! we are there. I went to a girls night dinner and it was fun. I have not done anything with neighbors for a long time. 

We have been watching a lot of the Olympics. Andre is obsessed with curling. Friday night I just sat under a blanket and watched hours of the Olympics.  I was so burned out with trying to get someone to tell me information about Eagle scout forms. I wish I could be done with scouting but I am only half done. Scouting is great, I love what it does for my boys. It is just little details that I will not get into here that make me crazy.

But the next day I got to go to the temple with 4 cute Beehive girls. They are cute and sweet and the temple helped all the bad feels go away. 

Alex went to a scout pow wow to earn a badge. 

Jaxon had a friend over for a movie and games and she was not of the male variety that usually comes to our house. So, that is a new development. 

And my mom came home from her trip! Yea for moms. Alex and I went over to visit. Alex is so obsessed with our trip this summer I thought it would be fun to look at her journal of her around the United States trip when she was about 17. It was fascinating. They went all over the country for about 6 weeks. They did so many things. Amazing. So Alex and I loved that. 

Then church was yesterday. Church is good. The church is true! I should probably talk about that on my blog more. 

Today is presidents day. It is a great day. It is a catch up day for me. We woke up to about 4-5 inches of snow and the boys went sledding to death hill (my boys call it that). I don't know if Andre took pictures but here are some from last year. They look about the same.