January

I felt like January was calm compared to December, but it was still active for our family.

For breakfast on New Year's Day the kids wanted breakfast pizza.  I didn't even know there was such a thing until a few months ago when Kimball had a breakfast pizza at a Scout camp out.  Anyway, the kids loved my first attempt at breakfast pizza and they begged me to make it for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  I have a feeling it will be a frequent request for holiday breakfasts!

Kimball decided to try his hand at hydro-dipping.  For those who don't know, hydro dipping is where you spray paint water and then dip an item into the water/spray paint.  The paint apparently doesn't stick or mix in with the water and sticks to whatever you dip in the water.  Anyway, Kimball decided to dip some cheap shoes from Walmart that were mostly white.  He spray painted the non-white surfaces white and then dipped them in pink, blue and yellow paint.  He learned all of this from watching YouTube videos.  I was impressed with his first attempt.  He taped a Nike swoosh symbol on the shoe to make them look less like a shoe from Walmart. 

Rebecah has been asking for a few months to get her ears pierced.  I have been holding back because I remember how badly it hurt when I got my ears pierced.  I hated the thought of subjecting her to that pain.  Anyway, we decided that she could get her ears pierced for her birthday.  Some friends offered to come with us to offer moral support for Rebecah (and me)!  We had to wait about 30 minutes and we both got more and more nervous the longer we waited.  Thankfully, Rebecah could get both ears pierced at the same time.  Rebecah can be a little dramatic, but she did great.  She didn't want to cry in front of her friend, so she was extra brave.  No tears, just smiles. 

Rebecah and Melanie

1...2...3...

I was so proud of Rebecah.  She said it hurt.  I tried to tell her it would hurt without scaring her so I said it was like a hard pinch.  She looked at me afterwards and said:  "That was more than a pinch!"  We ended our outing by celebrating with lunch at Panera with our friends. 

Eden is getting to be such a big girl.  She loves to help and be included.  When the kids turn three in our family they are eligible to start earning a small allowance and have the responsibility of a daily chore.  She doesn't seem to care about the money, but is usually good about doing her chore. Eden also transitioned out of the church nursery to Primary.  Her first day in Primary she was assigned the talk and she did a great job.  I thought she might be too nervous to say her talk, but we practiced and it went really well.

Rebecah's friend gave her the game Googly Eyes for her birthday.  It's a fun drawing game where you have to wear glasses that alter your vision.  The kids had a great time playing and trying to draw.  The glasses left Joseph and me with headaches!

When preschool started up after Christmas break, Eden join the 3 year old class.  She was SO excited to be going to school.  She did great and walked right in to her class and she fits right in.  

In this picture Annika wanted to be taller than Lincoln so she is standing on tip toe. 

 She is a funny girl!

Rebecah turned 10 on January 7th!  For the 7th year in a row she had cheese danish for breakfast.  At least she is predictable in her requests.

It was Rebecah's second year having Chocolate Brownie Bombe for dessert.  It is a frozen dome of chocolate-y goodness. 

We love Rebecah and we are so glad she is in our family.  She is a great big sister and plays so well with her siblings.  She loves to hang out with friends and try new things.

I hosted a birthday lunch for a friend so we lined up all of the kids on the couch and turned on a movie.  The kids were so good while the adults had lunch.  

My wonderful friend Bev turned 80, and I wanted to throw a little birthday party for her.  It was a surprise that I coordinated with her daughters.  Bev was so surprised that she told us it wasn't fair to surprise people at her age!  This sweet woman is our special New York Grandma.  She always remembers the kids on their birthdays, for Christmas and Easter.  She spoils us so I wanted to spoil her.

Birthday group.

Lincoln and Annika finally decided that they were ready to sleep in different rooms.  Really, Annika decided that she was tired of cleaning up after Lincoln.  Eden and Annika now share a room together and Lincoln has his own room.  Lincoln is now responsible for the mess in his room, and so far he is doing fairly well cleaning up after himself.

Joseph has a habit of giving the kids options for meals and activities and one food item or activity is always something really off the wall that shouldn't even be a real consideration.  For example, he might offer the kids cereal, pancakes or bacon for breakfast and we don't have any bacon in the fridge.  So, he gave the kids the option to play, run through the sprinkler or "do something else" one day after lunch and Eden chose the sprinkler option.  We asked her if she really wanted to run through the sprinkler when it was so cold outside and she said she did.  She changed into her swimming clothes all by herself and then Lincoln and Annika followed suit.  Annika never made it outside, but Eden and Lincoln actually went outside and Joseph sprayed some water from the hose that he had to hook up.  Lincoln danced and screamed with excitement as he ran through the water.  It lasted just a few minutes and then I welcomed the kids back inside with warm towels.  They all agreed that the sprinkler is a better activity for summer!

The little girls love to cut things.  They spread out the grocery advertisements one day and went to town cutting out the food they liked.  It was an easy thing to say "yes" to, and they did a pretty good job cleaning up all of their paper scraps.

Annika continues to melt our hearts with her art work.  Here she took the Church program and wrote our initials and then drew our family at the temple.  I love how she tries to be very specific giving Joseph and Kimball brown eyes, while the rest of us have blue eyes.  She is always very good about giving herself bright red hair.  

Rebecah went with her friend Melanie to the school luau.  I offered to take her to the party, but she said she would have more fun with Melanie, and I can understand that!

We decided to take the kids to The Strong Museum in Rochester.  I had heard a lot of good things about it so we decided to check it out.  It was huge and the kids had a lot of fun.  It was similar to the Science Center in St. Louis, but more fun and entertaining.  (I find the Science Center a little boring).  

There was an entire section devoted to the Berestein Bear family and I loved it!  There was Sister Bear's club house, a dentist section, Farmer Ben's vegetables to gather and a quilting area for Mama Bear's quilts.

A wall displaying all of the Berenstein Bear books.

Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?!

Kimball's favorite parts of the museum were the arcade games.

Joseph took the kids skiing when they had the day off for Martin Luther King, Jr. day.  Both kids are doing really well skiing and they had a great time.

Probably the biggest event of the month was that I donated blood!  I haven't given blood for roughly 20 years and I don't like to do it.  My brain doesn't like having needles in my body for long periods of time.  After a while my body just shuts down and I faint if I'm not careful.  One of my very good friends organized a blood drive at our church building and I volunteered to help out with snacks and checking people in.  The day of the drive, Mari had eight people who had signed up unable to give blood cancel for various reasons.  I felt so bad for her because she wanted the blood drive to be a success and she had all of these people turned away from giving.  I knew I was eligible to give, so I finally got up my courage and told her I would donate.  She was shocked and so was I.  My body immediately starting over-reacting and I was sweating, my heart was racing, my blood pressure was much higher than normal, and adrenaline was coursing through my body.  I did it though!  I braved my fear of fainting and needles and I was able to donate a full pint.  Toward the end of my pint I felt myself getting hot, which is my first indicator I'm shutting down, so I quickly asked to be reclined and I was fine.  Since my heart rate was so fast I filled the bag in record time and I was finished quickly.  A huge blessing!  I can't say I will give blood again any time soon, but I did feel empowered that I could do a hard thing and help others.

December

As always our December was full of fun and festive activities.  I took the girls to see Frozen II.  They were all really excited to see the movie.  The boys were very disappointed that it was a "girls only" outing.  Everyone enjoyed the movie, although the plot was way over the heads of Annika and Eden.  

We are trying to have more family games on Sundays so Monopoly made an appearance a few times in December.  The little ones provide great supporting roles as the banker, realtor and dice roller.

Kimball continues with braces.  I sure wish he would be more diligent about wearing his rubber bands, but they keep saying he is on target to get his braces off in 8 months.  

Eden had her first trip to the dentist.  She did great and felt so grown up.  Lincoln and Annika also went and all had perfect teeth!

I'm not a hair mom and I don't enjoy doing hair, but Rebecah did convince me to search up hair styles on Pinterest so we tried out a few.  For once in her life she was the envy of all the girls at school with one of her styles.  

Santa visited Home Depot during the monthly craft.  Lincoln was excited to visit with Santa.  Annika and Eden were too shy to visit with him.  Joseph said they actually ran to the next aisle to hide so they wouldn't have to see him or walk by him.  One of Santa's helpers brought them candy canes.

We had 3 school music concerts.  Kimball had his Orchestra concert.  He is the only bass player in the 7th grade orchestra, but he makes himself heard!  He also had a Chorus concert.  Both concerts were good.

Rebecah also had a chorus concert.  She is wearing a pink dress standing below the boy with the raised hand.  It was nice of that boy to raise his hand so we could pick out Rebecah in the crowd!

We had a little snow and Kimball went out to shovel the walk for Rebecah.  This is how we shovel snow in NY.  If you own slides and are in middle school, you're qualified to shovel!  The rest of us use boots.

Lincoln and Annika had a special Preschool Christmas Craft day.  I was busy hosting a luncheon so I was glad Joseph was home so he could participate with the kids.  They had fun making crafts and eating cookies.

Eden giving Jude a ride.  We watched this sweet boy so his mom 

could be at the preschool craft with another child.

Helping Joseph with a project.

We aren't exactly sure how it happened, but this huge splinter ended up in Annika's foot.  She just starting crying and grabbing at her foot/sock on afternoon.  She ended up breaking the splinter off before we could help her get it all out.  She didn't want us messing with her splinter so it festered in her foot for over a week.  After a week it was getting bigger and filling with pus and I just told Annika that we had to get it out.  I had to bribe her with two Lindt truffles and then I held her down while Joseph squeezed it out.  It was a little traumatic for Annika, but we got it out and the next day Annika said that it no longer hurt when she would go up and down the stairs!  

Lincoln and Annika were hobbling around with their stick dinosaur and horse and I had to snap a quick pictures.  I call them Tiny Tim and Tiny Tammy!  They are pretty tiny!

Annika loves to draw, color, cut, etc.  Ever since Thanksgiving she would go through the recycling paper and pull out pieces and make them into treasures for Christmas.  She cut a football shape and colored it brown so she could give it to Kimball and she would just comment that she was getting ready for Christmas.  She is very sweet and thoughtful.  Some of my favorite drawings of hers though were nativities.  She drew or painted at least three that I have pictures of and probably did even more than that.  Here are some of her depictions of the Nativity scene:

Crayon

Marker

Water Color

Christmas Eve

Joseph was home on Christmas Eve and the kids were VERY excited for the holiday.  Of course, being the mom I was in full kitchen mode trying to get our Christmas pies made and construct gingerbread houses.  

Joseph and Eden taking a little Christmas Eve nap.

We decorated gingerbread houses a little differently this year.  Last year the kids got so frustrated trying to build their houses that I decided to build the houses on my own, let them dry and then have the kids decorate them a few hours later.  I actually watched a "masterclass" on making gingerbread houses and you are actually supposed to decorate the houses first and then after the decorating is dry put the houses together.  Who knew?

With the houses pre-assembled I could just give each child a bag of frosting and let them "have at it".  It worked and they were all happy with their houses.  Some were heavily decorated and others minimally.  I added extra cloves to the dough and the gingerbread houses made our dining room smell so good for the week they were around.

Christmas Eve evening we had the sister missionaries over for dinner and they helped us with our re-enactment of the Christmas story.  The kids get so excited about their parts. 

The yellow bag is the star for those who might be wondering.  

After the missionaries left the kids each opened a present.  One of our adopted grandmas always gives the kids presents and she fills the bags with lots of treasures.  Kimball got some games, a word search and candy.  The other kids all received a stuffed animal, book that went with the animal, a coloring book and candy.  These bags kept the kids busy for a long time which was a blessing to help pass the time.

Grandma Bev gave Lincoln the Charlie Brown doll for his birthday and Joseph and I had talked about getting Lincoln a Snoopy to accompany Charlie Brown, but then we didn't so Grandma Bev came through for us.  Now Gerald, (Lincoln's name for Charlie Brown) has a friend.  Bev also gave Annika an Elsa doll to match the Anna that Bev gave Annika for her birthday.

Christmas morning!

Santa brought the three little ones tents this year.  I thought the tents might be too big and would make our house feel messy, but I love them.  They fold flat in a storage bag.  The picture of Annika in her tent shows her matching Anna and Elsa.

Lego set from Santa.

Once again Annika's big heart shines through.  She used her own money to buy a small toy for each sibling's stocking.  Lincoln and Kimball got hot wheels, Eden got a can of play doh and Rebecah got some gum.  She put a lot of thought into her gifts.

Most of Kimball's gifts were either clothing/footwear or books.  He is definitely getting out of the toys phase.

Lincoln really wanted a Kylo Ren light saber for Christmas so we made sure that happened.  It lights up and makes sounds and he loves it!!  Eden is in new jammies with a princess doll.

The day after Christmas we all went to Palmyra so Kimball and I could attend the temple together.  While we were in the temple Joseph took the other kids to the Church sites.  The kids enjoyed looking at the various nativities on display.

Our family has gotten really into archery.  Joseph got a bigger bow for Christmas that he has already outgrown.  I should have known!  Anyway, Joseph and Kimball set up targets in the basement and shoot.  Lincoln and Annika are getting pretty good, too, and always want their fair share of shooting time.  

I took the big kids ice skating for the second year in a row.  We had a great time.  We all skated better than last year.  It didn't take me very long to get my ice legs and after 30 minutes Rebecah was even off the wall.  I was so proud of her!  The only downside is that our public skating is usually on a Sunday so we don't have too many opportunities to skate.

Selfie with the kids!

I made my second annual donation to the Children's hospital.  This year I made 6 quilts and I dropped them off on New Year's Eve.  Eden really liked the top quilt, which is a sparkly purple butterfly fabric.  I told her it was a quilt for a little girl who is sick in the hospital.  She responded with her 3 year old logic that she would go to the doctor so she could have the quilt. 

I also helped our church congregation make 2 other quilts so my friend and I took the blanket donations to the hospital together.  It was a great way to end 2019.