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Welcome to 2019

The new year brought some firsts for us. We loved going up to Loveland Laser Tag together before the children started back at school.  We couldn't take pictures while we were have a blast (he he) but here are a couple pictures from the arcade we would play at while we were waiting for the next round of laser tag to begin.


M began her horse riding lessons and absolutely loves them. Hubby says he can see her being a stable girl and be willing to work her way to more time riding when she is older. She has wanted lessons for a long time and I am glad she is thrilled with them.  She seems to be a natural.


Getting K’s volleyball uniform was pretty exciting but watching them win their very first set was even better. Club volleyball is so much more fun to watch. There were some incredible back and forth moments. Even though they had a hard loss the next game they came back to almost beat the last team they played. When I found out some of the girls on other teams have been playing club for three years already and other teams practice 2x/week instead of once a week I felt like K and her brand new team did really well in their very first tournament. I look forward to watching her play again next month.

Also in January we decided to move D back to the public school. We are grateful for the time he had at the Waldorf school to begin playing the cello & to explore Spanish & Mandarin classes, but we felt it was time for him to return to where his heart was. Funny story: Hubby and I had decided we wouldn’t tell him until the day before his last day at the Waldorf school that he was going back to the public school. Within 3 hours of me setting it up at the public school, he knew! His new teacher announced it to her students the same day and when he was scootering around the neighborhood one of his friends was all excited because they would be in the same class. It’s pretty fun to see how excited people get when they hear the news. So far D is so happy to be back!  He will continue his private cello lessons and honestly I feel like we have learned a lot from all this so hopefully it was all worth it. Fingers crossed!

N is patiently waiting for more children in her age group to sign up for soccer class so she can begin playing soccer regularly. It was much harder for her to wait for Daddy to come home from his business trip to California. We are fortunate he doesn’t need to leave us often but when he does he comes home feeling very missed and wanted. We watched an episode of Tidying Up with Marie Kondo on Netflix while my mom was staying with us and cleaned out and reorganized the area of the kitchen that bothered him most so I teased him he needs to leave town more often. I am grateful for the help my parents provided while he was gone, especially my mom spending nights so that I could get the children to their schools on time.

In Girl Scouts and Activity Days we did a lot of planning for the year and got ready for GS cookie sales. I hope I didn’t order too many cases!  K began attending Young Women’s and really likes it.  We have such great leaders in our ward. K also celebrated her half birthday this month with a red velvet cake and having her best friend spend the night. A few days later we got to celebrate Hubby’s birthday. We are so glad this good looking, intelligent, hard working, generous, loving, talented, wonderful man was born!  He got to have his own chocolate pie from Whole Foods, received some cologne M helped pick out and my parents babysat the children at The Wild Game while we finally watched the “Ant Man and Wasp” movie.  Hubby also took K on a date to see Aquaman in the theater. She says it’s her new favorite movie!  (Hubby says he preferred Ant Man and Wasp.)    P.S.  While K & Hubby were watching Aquaman Meigo proved she's still young enough to cause trouble when she broke a drinking glass while trying to get to the leftovers from dinner.  I had wanted to play a board game D, M & N but I ended up cleaning the kitchen until bedtime because of the dog.  Naughty!
We’ve enjoyed having the missionaries over for dinner every month. Elder Spence and Elder Michelson have been great. Elder M just got transferred but we look forward to meeting the next one. Great news too — the G family from LHC ward moved into our ward because they bought a horse ranch. M was very happy to help Hubby help them move their barn stuff after horse riding lessons one Saturday.  Brother G is also filling Hubby’s spot in the YM presidency. Kind of odd timing because it is the first month we have a YW to take.  I liked that my oldest could have one on one time in the car on the way up but Hubby says he still wants to give her rides even though most people car pool that far.  It will be interesting to see what they come up with for him to do next.  I’m still the Activity Days leader and got to sub primary twice this month. I looove the new 2 hour schedule!  A 20 minute lesson is so much better for the primary children. I felt like it went by so fast. My children aren’t hopping in the car excited or anything but I feel like it’s making a big difference in my Sunday. We aren’t as rushed in the morning and are home in plenty of time to make lunch.  We are now in the habit of watching a movie together and of course there have been tears deciding what to watch but we saw Bolt on Netflix for the first time and that was a hit. It must be the coldest month of the year of my post contains this many references to screen time!  Luckily not all play dates include screen time -- this one for M included dressing Z's cat & this one for N included shoveling snow.  But I'm pretty sure all of D's play dates include screen time, especially Fortnight lately!  Uggg!
The last Sunday in January we had the T family over for dinner to prove to them the Midwest way of eating cinnamon rolls with chili is the way to go. I think we have them convinced!  The dads also got out the saw and the first step to making pinewood derby cars is complete. D, M and N are all making cars this year — stay tuned!

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