New Years, First Youth Speaker Experience, Gross Lunch, Big Boy, 90 Years

 I haven't blogged since the New Year so here's a catch up post.  We haven't done too many exciting things the past few weeks.  Aaron and I have been enjoying the slower pace of life for a few weeks--the kids, however, not so much.  For New Years we had our friends, the Einzingers, over to celebrate.  We had pizza and played games while the kids entertained themselves.  When midnight hit the kids went outside and banged some pots and pans to celebrate.

Hopefully our neighbors didn't mind too much.

For Christmas all the kids got a family game.  We were trying out Uno.  You know it was a good game when one or more people end up in tears by the time it's over.  Those stupid draw four wilds....

 We got Christmas put away the next day.  Matthew has always been excited to decorate for the next holiday.  He would go and look at the calendar to figure out which one came next.  A few years ago he asked me where all my Martin Luther King Day decorations were.  Well as you can imagine those kind of decorations are hard to come by.  Luckily, my sister in law Jill made us a Martin Luther King Day decoration.  It is hanging up so now we can be festive.  It is a plate with the silhouette of Martin Luther King with his famous quote, "I have a dream..."

 For New Years we went as a family to the Kaysville Theater to see the movie Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  That was a pretty funny movie and I think the kids liked it, too.  Daniel has officially decided he LOVES movie popcorn since he can now eat it.  I have to agree with him :).  Here we are waiting for the movie to begin:

Also during the Christmas/New Years break we took the family swimming to the Aquatics Center.  The kids had won a free swimming pass way back in the summer and have been begging to use it ever since then.  The pass expired by the end of the year so we had to use it or lose it so we used it.  It was fun and wore the kids out which was great.  However, when it was time to leave the building and walk out to the car it was COLD especially since all of us were wet.  It was also only about 10 degrees and it was really windy  Brrrrr!  It was so cold that by the time we reached the car my wet hair was completely frozen.  When we got home everyone spent an extra long time during their showers just to get warm again.

January 5th the kids went back to school.  Wahoo!  To celebrate Aaron, Noah and I went to lunch.  I had some fun lunch companions.  I was just glad to survive the almost three week school break--phew!!

 With the kids being back at school that meant it was back to reality for me which meant I really needed to do laundry.  Noah being Mr. Helpful crawled up on the clean clothes pile (aka Mount Laundry) and watched me work.  Thanks for all the help, Buddy!

 The second day back Sarah got an award.  All the kids who had perfect attendance in the school for the week get put in a drawing.  Sarah's name got picked so she got to go to the office and pick out a prize.  She chose a necklace because she loves herself some bling :).

 This past weekend was my Grandpa Gee's 90th birthday.  He is my mom's dad.  He and my grandma are still doing well.  They have moved into a care center and are still getting used to it.  My grandma has had a bit of a harder time adjusting between the move and some dementia, but they are still doing ok.  Here's my family--my mom and dad, sister Johanna and her family, brother Bryan and his family and me and my family.  We are missing my other sister, Jennifer and her family, who live out in Ohio.  We got together with some aunts, uncles and cousins for pictures and some cake.

 Here's my mom (in pink) and her two sisters standing by my G&G Gee.

 Here's my family with G&G Gee:

 By the time it was over I think my G&G Gee were overwhelmed with all the noise so many grandkids can bring!  Oh well it was nice to celebrate and visit with them for a bit.

On the way home we stopped by the new Provo Temple they are building out of the old tabernacle that burned down a few years ago.  It is turning out very pretty:

When we got home Matthew wanted to watch football with Aaron, but after a few minutes he fell asleep.  Aaron didn't mind because it is very rare you get loves from Matthew nowadays.

A few weeks ago the bishopric asked Matthew to be a youth speaker for the first time.  Aaron and I were pretty nervous when it was his turn to speak on Sunday.  We had written him a talk on how prayer helps your testimony.  However, with Matthew you just never know what will come out of his mouth.  Luckily, he did great.  He wasn't nervous at all.  He first passed the sacrament and then went and sat up on the stand.  He gave his talk when it was his turn and then came down and sat with us.  We were glad he got to have that experience and that it went well!

Daniel is still doing basketball and loving it.  They mistakenly put him on a 4th grade team even though he really should be on a 3rd grade team.  Everyone is a good head taller than Daniel, but he doesn't let that bother him.  His coach is a pretty serious guy and for every basket or layup they miss he makes them do push ups which has been a pretty effective motivator for Daniel.

Aaron thinks that I spoil Noah.  I must admit I do spoil my baby sometimes.  However, he seems to think he should get his way at all times now.  The other day we ran out of string cheese and he cried/whined about it for over an hour until I was able to find a string cheese buried deep in the fridge.  Maybe I shouldn't spoil him so much because an hour was a really long time to listen to that and to have this sad face looking at me the whole time.....

Noah also has a hard time pronouncing oatmeal.  He calls it his ointmeal instead.  Here's the proof:

Speaking of Noah the other day I heard him in the bathroom.  He was sitting on the potty and he said, "I am a big boy!"  I told him I thought he was a big boy, too.  After I said that he said, "Mom I wasn't talking to you!"  Seeing as there was no one else in the house I figured he must have been talking to himself--giving himself a pep talk while sitting on the potty.  I had a hard time not bursting out in laughter because he was so serious about it.  So just to let everyone know Noah is a BIG BOY according to his solo pep talk--haha!

One last funny experience happened yesterday.  Now when I get up in the morning I give the kids their medicine and then I prepare their lunches on the counter.  It is their responsibility to get their own lunches from the counter into their lunchboxes.  Monday we were running a bit behind so we were all pretty rushed.  After everyone left for school I noticed there were two lunches still sitting on the counter.  DOH!!  After exercising I went over to the elementary school to try and figure out who forgot their lunch.  I was pretty sure one of them was Josh just because he forgets his lunch pretty often.  I went and dropped off Josh's lunch on his desk.  Josh's class wasn't in their classroom so I hoped Josh was one of the forgetters of their lunch.  I walked over to Sarah's class to see if she had forgotten her lunch. I walked in and she insisted she had her lunch and she showed me her packed lunch box.  So then I walked over to Daniel's class to see if he was missing his lunch.  He said he had his lunch.  Puzzled I left and went home with the extra lunch.  When school got out and the kids got home I asked them if they all had their lunches.  That's when it came out that Sarah ate school lunch on Friday without telling me.  She forgot to bring home her lunchbox over the weekend.  So when she got to school without bringing her freshly packed lunch she thought she was ok since she had her lunch from Friday still packed in her lunch box.  She went ahead and ate Friday's lunch on Monday.  Ewwwww!!  The bad thing is it had yogurt in it.  That yogurt sat in the warm classroom all throughout the weekend and she ate it Monday.  YUCK!!  Aaron and I are just waiting for her to get sick from it.....Bleck!!  I told her she couldn't do that, but I don't know if it sunk in.  Maybe if she gets sick from the bad yogurt it might sink in a little better.....