February starts

Our school had a Peter Piper Pizza night and Ryan and I chose to go on the roller coster. It even went backwards.

                                                     We are a blur!!!!!!!!

   Ryan playing Hoopz.

I had gymnastics team try outs. This is me on the beam. Oh and I made it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am in pink.

I was invited to join Level 2, but we decided to try out the in-house competitive Sapphire Team which only practices 4 hours a week instead of 9 hours a week. I might do Level 2 next year and compete in Phoenix if I like it this year.

 Rachel had a spirit day at school and dressed up as Draco Malfoy and is look'n hot.

         Wow! She really is Malfoy.

 Blogged by Megan.

Bye Bye January

 Annie played basket ball on her school team. Here is the evidence:

                                                                    more evidence:

                                  Mom made an Alien out of a 3D pen for stem day at Desert Willow.

                           We went on a hike with some of Mom's old friends. Ryan climbing the trail.

                        A picture with Mom's friend, Char, some of her other friends, and us :

This is a river we all got wet at. There was no bridge so we had to go through the water and we all got wet. Annie got over first said she had a way to get over. Then we all had to use a wet foot. We got over so wet. How dare you Annie!

 Blogged by Megan.

Still January fun

                                                    This is mom's Birthday pie. (delicious)!

  Annie and Mom went to Carl's Jr because Annie had a birthday pass for it. Mm yummy for their tummy     

     Mom made art kits for a show your voice Reflections art competition (that neither me nor Ryan did).

A music store came to the Reflections night to let kids try instruments. I tried the flute and clarinet(which were both really cool instruments). Ryan tried the trumpet and maybe something else.

Ryan and I filled in for an act that could not come. It was scary! That was fun.

Blogged by Megan.

Fun in January

Hey y'all, it's Megan. It was my half birthday and mom came to lunch and brought me Subway. I was doing it now because my birthday is in the summer.

For Christmas Annie got me a stem kit. The stem kit was for a crystal tree. It had crystal growing liquid to grow on paper.

                      Ryan got a brass-stache for Christmas and it looks hilarious. (He even wore it to band)!

Blogged by Megan

Christmas Break-week 2

 Christmas morning came with all the anticipated excitement. Santa had made his deliveries.

Megan got her spinny chair she's been wanting for so long. The kids all got something musical: some music stands for all to share, a harmonica for Megan, a brasstache for Ryan (mustache that attaches to his french horn mustache), a tuner for Annie and a guitar neck strap for Rachel. They all liked what they got from Santa. 

Everyone got a blanket with their name on it and everyone got a shirt I made for them. Cricut to the rescue! :) Rachel's shirt may have been my favorite: a grid for a graph with the words "I see you have graph paper. You must be plotting something."

After: 

Sharon had our family for the sibling Christmas names and she got us a game the kids love (Moose Master) and a finger puppet squirrel. The squirrel may have been the biggest hit of Christmas. Especially when combined with Rachel's art mannequin.

We were able to go to church, then came home and did more presents with Grandma and ate dinner and hung out with family and video chatted with the Campbells.

Monday we decided to make use of the gift cards Jacob won two years in a row from his work Christmas party at the Bisbee Breakfast Club and treated everyone to lunch. It was very busy so we had a very long wait, but the food was good. 

After lunch we headed to the mall to make use of the money the kids had earned making ornaments for the Giving Machines. Each of them picked 2 items they thought would be a good purchase, then we filled in with a few more purchases to round out the remaining money. 

We bought a goat and some chickens from a vending machine! We've never done that before. We also bought vegetable seedlings and 2 months of meals at the food bank, a hygeine kit, a chance for a kid to participate in a sports program for a season, a comfort backpack for refugee a child, a shower with a change of clothes and breakfast, a baby bundle, clothing and underwear, and socks and gloves. Lots of good was done.

After using the Giving Machines we ran around the mall for a half hour on a scavenger hunt. We did boys vs. girls and each team chose a color then went all around trying to find items from the list in the color that was chosen. Rachel helped the girls choose black, which was a stroke of genius and helped us find a lot of things more easily. The boys chose blue and did pretty well, though the girls won in the end. :) 

Tuesday we got tickets to go ice skating downtown. Since a trek prep item on the Trail of Faith was visiting the Mormon Batallion Statue that is also downtown we decided to kill two birds with one stone. We visited the monument first and read all about the Mormon Battalion coming through the Tucson area and blazing a trail on the longest march in US military history.

Then we were off to the ice skating rink. No major injuries were reported, and everyone seemed to have fun. It was a little warm for skating and some of the kids were mad that I made them put on pants instead of shorts, and I had to admit that shorts would have been more appropriate for the weather that day. 

Wednesday night there was a special end of the year primary activity that Brother Carroll arranged. He got a game truck to come out and the boys got to spend 2 hours playing games. Not surprisingly it was a big hit. B and Sammy joined in the fun, too, as a bonus.

And while the boys played video games, the girls played Just Dance on the Wii. It's a good workout.

Thursday we went bowling. It was lots of fun despite playing up some drama sometimes. ;) 

Since the rain seemed to be gone, at least for a few days, we chalk bombed Joanne and Eileen, and Shannon to wish them a happy new year. They're great neighbors.

Friday the Knights left to head back to Seattle. It was a tearful good-bye. We're so glad they came, though. It's good to have cousin time and we've been desperately missing that since they left. 

Saturday we took down the Christmas decorations, then settled in to celebrate the new year. Sparkling grape juice and lots of junk food made the evening complete. 

2022 was a pretty good year. Here's to an awesome 2023!

Christmas Break-week 1

Family time was fun. The kids seemed to enjoy having time to just hang out together without school. They loved the laughing game, laying on each other's tummies and saying "ha," "ha ha," "ha ha ha" until someone ended up laughing. 

Of course the highlight of Christmas break was having the Knights come visit. B and Ryan were so excited to see each other again after months apart.  

The mud brothers got right to work in Grandma's back yard. Even though it was NOT warm, they stripped down, playing with water and mud for quite a while.

The traditional Ugly Christmas Sweater contest was epic. Great cookies were made.

We hiked Tumamoc hill together. It is a steep hike, and some kids had a hard time, but the view at the top was beautiful. And it was good practice for trek.

I got to cover another volunteer's shift at the Giving Machine. It was fun to be there with people who just wanted to help others.

We visited the Rocking K park with the cousins. It was a lot of fun until it deteriorated into fighting and we knew it was time to head home.

Savannah made Santa pancakes for everyone for Christmas Eve breakfast. 

It's just regular pancakes, but with strawberries and blueberries and whipped cream to make the pancakes look like Santa. 

Later on Christmas Eve we got together to start the festivities. Grandma had found a nativity escape room online, so she and Jared ran it for us. We all managed to escape! It was a good review of the things that happened around the time of Christ's birth.

And, of course, we had to keep with tradition and act out the nativity. Rachel was the angel and the star, with a big bow in the middle of her forehead.

After acting out the nativity was the cousin gift exchange. Annie gave B a box of lots of dream catchers and other things she had made, including a coupon for a free hug, which he immediately redeemed. He is a hugger.

Other items of note from the cousin gift exchange: Rachel got socks with Jared's face all over them. It was hilarious. Rachel made Eloise a shirt that said "Whale whale whale, what have we here" with pictures of whales all over. Megan made Jared a shirt that said "I tooted" with a trumpet on it. He took it in good humor, but it was too small for him so we made him another shirt that he will actually wear that says "I destroy silence" with the trumpet on it. And of course Ryan had to pass the Bros' toilet seat back over to B and Sammy. 

After the Christmas Eve festivities we came home and opened new pajamas, then watched The Christmas Chronicles and headed to bed to let Santa come.