The first of February

Neil, Isaac and I were grocery shopping and Neil really wanted to get some popsicles.  I told him that we would go home and make some chocolate pudding pops for FHE treats instead.  He was so excited to put the sticks in that he accidentally put the first one in upside down.They were a hit with everyone.With yesterday being Sunday Neil found his tie that he had left down stairs.  And since he had on a button up shirt, just like on Sunday, he thought it would be the perfect accessory.

Pictures for Jessie’s photography class.

At dinner Jessie grabbed a straw for her milk and then started blowing bubbles.  Neil thought this was the most amazing thing ever and talked someone into finding him a straw too.  It took him a few tries to blow into the straw instead of suck.  Voila…bubbles.  A couple of other kids joined in trying to make the biggest pile of bubbles without them spilling over the sides of their cups.  Ahhh…family dinners – thank you Jessie for being so inspiring. :-)

Jessie also had a band concert.  She’s near the middle of this picture  -- the one with the white coat on.  (not because she’s cold, because she didn’t get her bow tied and she didn’t want the ribbons hanging down her dress.)  Her band sounded great!Neil got these puzzles for Christmas and we’ve done them a couple of times.  They are a bit tricky because you just set the pieces on top of the colors.  Neil was so excited to show me the train he did all by himself while I was feeding Isaac.  He did an amazing job.  (And yes, he doesn’t have pants on because we are working on the whole potty training thing.  It’s funny….he insists on calling it the “bathroom” and not the “potty.”)

Another fun Friday night marshmallow roast.  And don’t ask me why Neil is in a dress, because I can’t remember.

I got a cool new diecut of some flowers for my bigshot.  It is so awesome because the die is heavy duty and so we even cut out felt with it.  It also cuts 5 sheets of cardstock at a time…..so amazing.  Anyway, Abbie and I made this fun hair thing together and it matches one of her dresses perfectly.

Rachel brought the kids down a little Valentine treat.  Some mice she had made from Hershey kisses.  She also brought down a bunch of jewelry and hair stuff she wasn’t using anymore.  Neil had fun with that.But the best thing that she brought down was strawberries. And so the jam making party commenced.  Soon everyone was helping with jam.  Ta-da! 

Mark is loving getting to go to the temple.  And so far he’s gone every weekend that it has fit into the schedule.  Sometimes he brings along a friend too.

Lucky us…more snow.  It’s so pretty to see everything all white and glittery. 

Neil and I were having block building contest.  Isaac was on my team and Neil wanted to be sure that his towers were bigger than Isaacs.  When Isaac lost interest we tried taking some pictures of them falling.  That was fun.Jessie, Mark and Ken did cross country skiing for one of the mutual activities.  Everyone had a blast!

For Valentines Day I made some strings of hearts to hang in the doorway to the living room.  Isaac was in awe, but it took him a day or two not to grab them and yank them down.  Neil thought they were way fun to run through.  I put the extra colored noodles from nursery in between the hearts to give the strings a little weight and it worked perfectly! Yeah.

That night we had a delicious dinner with the Albertsons.  She made some soup and we brought biscuits and cupcakes.  We also had ice cubes made from red fruit punch (I think).  They were so fun!!

After dinner we played some games.  For the first one you passed around two dice.  When you got doubles you would grab the bowl of M&M’s and suck up on a straw to grab one and move it to your cup.  You got to keep adding M&M’s to your cup until someone else rolled doubles and snatched away the bowl.  Abbie was amazing at this game and it seemed that she got doubles most of her rolls.We did a little conversation heart stacking to see whose could build the tallest tower.  One of the kids got fancy and built more than just a one line stack.  They, of course, won and the rest of us copied them for the next round.Lastly we played Don’t Eat Cupid.  The dads were also great sports and played with the babies. When we left each of the kids got  a balloon with chocolates.  Thanks for such a fun night! Isaac in his bib from Grandma Woodward.

Saturday was warm enough that Jessie put on shorts (at least for part of the day).  The kids made us some mud pies at their mud café.

Mark brought home a 1st place ribbon for his science fair project.  Now it’s on to districts.

He also had his birthday shooting time with Brother Albertson and lunch afterwards.  It was a great Saturday.And it got even better with a BBQ at Grandpa’s house for dinner.Neil got to take a nap on Grandma’s bed and went down surprisingly well.  Such a cute sleeper.After that it was time for reading with Grandma.Ken and Mark stacked me a huge pile of wood to burn in the stove.  It was taller than me.Isaac was enthralled with the helium balloons, a couple of which lasted at least a week.  In fact balloon was his first real word, only it sounds more like bbbbnnnn, kind of like a car starting.Trevor came over to help Ken trouble shoot some computer issues we’ve had and they had lots of help!

We joined Quinn for his 3rd birthday at Kangaroo Zoo on another snowy Saturday morning.  The kids had a blast.

Addie got a super picture of them all coming out of this dragon.  They were pulling on the teeth pretending to be dragon food.

We finished the day with pizza and cake.  Even the big kids had fun with Quinn’s new toys.  And on our pizza we had toasted almonds.  Sounds weird, but it was so good!  Next time we make homemade pizza I’m going to toast some slivered almonds to add to the top.  What a great day.

January is long gone.

Mark’s birthday was so fun.  We had a crowd of family here…good friends….pie…presents…smiles…what more could you want?  Getting his birthday banner done was a bit of an adventure on account of my color printer wigging out on his 7th year.  Ken saved the day…I’m so lucky.

Mark got a trip to the shooting range and lunch with Brother Albertson.  Some Sherlock Holmes books from my family, which both he and Jessie have enjoyed already, a cool robot bug from Heather’s family which entertained all the kids, a power drill from Ken’s family wrapped in manly paper (paper grocery sack) sealed with ducktape.  He also got patterns for cutting out animals on the scroll saw, fancy thermals (which he got early to wear to the Klondike), and a date with mom and dad – a volleyball game at BYU.  Mark was one happy guy!  Thank you everyone for coming to celebrate with us!!

After pie and chatting Jessie played the Hokey Pokey for all the kids.  Harper, Neil and Spencer danced while we clapped along.  Fun with a capital F.

Here is Neil’s bruise healing.

We discovered the most heavenly muffins.  Orange Poppy Seed.  We made them 3 Sundays in a row and once during the week.  They are Mark’s new favorite.  Jessie used them for a photography assignment.And then took some pictures of Neil too.  She was practicing some lighting techniques.

Neil and I have been way into trains after Isaac goes down for his morning nap.  Some times we play with trains until lunch time.  I build while he plays on the completed parts; then we race and chase with the trains.  I love to make hills and watch the trains go down on their own seeing how far they can make it.  But usually he likes to hold on to his train the whole time.Just because flowers.  Ahhhhhhh….so sweet and beautiful.Mark has been dying to go to the temple now that he’s 12.  Mark, Jessie and Ken got to go together for his first trip.  Thank you mom for sending him some names to do.  That made his day.

Abbie was working on her multiplication facts and Isaac found her flash cards and thought they made an amazing toy, despite the fact that I kept trying to entice him away with his own toys.Spencer’s amazing spinning football.  Sometimes winter starts to seem a little too long….

Neil is our bed hopper.  We are never quite sure where he will end up in the morning.  This is where I found him sleeping one night when I came up to get into bed. He loves to wear his pajama pants over the top of his footed sleepers.

On Saturdays Rachel comes down to do laundry and hang out.  This was a movie time…don’t they look cozy?

Mark using his new birthday drill.  He was helping Ken take down the hooks we hung up for backpacks and coats.  Even with dry wall anchors the kids backpacks pulled them out of the wall.  They have since been put into boards and rehung and a decree was issued that stated backpacks can only be hung on the small lower hook.

The Albertson’s came over for a Nerf gun war.  It was just too much fun.  We did discover however that we need to build a few more places to hide behind.   The tent and the love seat where not big enough to house everyone.  Here are some of my favorite pictures that Ken took of the battle.  There weren't really teams or anything.

The little boys played for a bit then looked at books and played with a remote control car.  They were smart enough to do so in the tent so they would be protected from the darts flying every which way.Isaac learning to stand on his own.  Man that kids loves the dishwasher.He joined Ken, Jessie and Mark to visit Grandma Jennie one Sunday afternoon.  Which was really fun until he discovered the controls on the wheelchair.  That was a little too much fun for Grandma and he went back to sit with Ken.Rachel invited us over for dinner.  We took up some soup and she made us breadsticks.  Yummy!Moving into February we celebrated Ken’s dad’s birthday.

For our gift we decided to make him an apple pie, because Grandpa only likes two kinds of pie….hot and cold.  :-)  Of course we added a bag of sliced cheddar cheese to go with it, because an apple pie without the cheese is like a kiss without the squeeze.  Spencer was our photographer for the evening and he did a great job.

Jessie made a Sunday relay game for Abbie and Spencer.  They raced to get dressed in Sunday clothes, found some scriptures and counted out tithing.