Malia

Malia turned 11 months in December. She got 4 teeth, two on top and two on bottom during that time as well. She finally started to crawl too toward the end of the month. Though not very well, she was finally getting around a bit. That made things a little crazy with the Christmas tree. She was an expert roller, she'd roll to where ever she wanted to go then sit up. She'd lay back down and roll to where she wanted to go next. Nothing in the house is safe from her. The big kids have forgotten all about having a little baby in the house who puts everything in their mouth. I am constantly on them to pick up their little pieces of garbage, coins, legos...It's a never ending battle!

She has the sweetest little smile, I snapped this picture as we were headed up to the bus stop to get Andrew. It's my favorite!!

Here are a few pictures that we took of Malia this month:

These pictures were taken at about the exact same time; happy as can be one second, and screaming the next. It's how she rolls. I don't know what I've done, but I have the grumpiest babies and she is no exception! Good thing she so cute!

Christmas

I suppose that since Trent has finally gotten the Christmas lights taken down, it's been too cold and snowy to do it since January,  it's about time I wrap up 2018 blog posts and post about Christmas so I can get on with 2019 posts.

We spent Christmas Eve with our good friends the Torgesens. We weren't sure we were going to be able to go over to their house because the day before Andrew had a fever and wasn't feeling too good. But by Christmas Eve he was feeling better with no fever, just a little cold.

We ate dinner, chatted, and did a nativity reenactment. That was a first for us. It is tradition in their house to act out the nativity and Nya has bins and bins of costumes for it. There was sheep, shepherds, angels, wise men, Mary, Joseph, and even a little cradle for the baby.

Hanna chose to be the angel, Andrew made an adorable little lamb, Carter was a shepherd, Trent a wise man, and I can't remember what I dressed up as...but I was something. Hunter, well, he decided he didn't want to have anything to do with it and sat on the couch and watched.

We face timed with Grandma and Grandpa Hunter before we went over to the Torgesens. The kids opened their gifts so they could watch them. We knew that it might be a little late by the time we left our friends house and we wanted kids to just go straight to bed.

I love the peace that comes with Christmas all done, kids in bed waiting for Santa, the lights on the tree on and the lights in the room off. Thankfully most of the gifts were all wrapped so all we needed to do was get them under the tree.

We told the kids that they weren't to come get us or make any noise until Malia woke up, usually around 7 or 7:30. We could hear them up just after 6. We made them wait till 7 then we woke Malia up. They were all so excited! Carter and Hanna may have fought over who got to hold Malia...Carter won.

I love seeing their faces as they make their way down the stairs to see the gifts under the tree!

We always start with stockings first. Everyone opens their stockings at the same time. The big kids had to help Malia with hers, they were more than happy to do so.

Malia had more trouble opening her gifts, she just wasn't too interested in them at all. Once again the big kids were happy to help her out. She got some toys, clothes, and a pair of shoes.

Andrew got a big bag of waffle blocks, clothes, boots, and a magazine subscription to a Nick Jr magazine with all his favorite characters in it.

Hunter scored big with a remote control car, clothes, boots, and a National Geographic Jr subscription. He was pretty happy with his gifts!

Hanna got a digital camera, clothes, and a Young Riders magazine subscription. She was pretty stoked by the horse calendar as well.

Carter was thrilled with his new bait caster rod and reel. That boy thinks of fishing 24/7. It's all he wants to do and we live in the most amazing place where he can walk out our door and be down at the lake in less than 10 minutes to start fishing. So he was super excited to get the rod he's been eyeing for a very long time. He also got clothes...they all needed some new clothes....as well as a subscription to Sports Illustrated Jr. He's pretty excited to get those each month.

Trent got a pressure washer...it's quite possible that I wanted that more than him, though he used it for the first time on Saturday and loved it. It' so satisfying to clean dirty things...He also got a Fitbit smart watch. Not only does it track fitness and sleep he can receive and reply to texts on it.

I got a pretty necklace, a stock pot, and a rotating cake decorating plate.

We got a few new games and movies for the family to enjoy as well.

We enjoyed a relaxing Christmas day lounging in our pajamas and eating yummy food!

A couple days after Christmas we loaded up the suburban and went to UT for a week. We didn't really do much in UT other than visit with family. Trent took the three oldest kids to Brighton for a day, they had a blast with that! We brought a nasty cold bug with us and Hanna got sick as did Malia and I. It was pretty miserable. We ended up leaving two days earlier than planned because of that darn cold. It is always fun to visit, but I felt bad for bringing a cold with us.

Santa's Workshop

One of the things I love about living in such a small town is the small community. There are so many fun little community events here. Every year the building supply store puts on a little Santa's Workshop. It is free, Santa and Mrs Clause was there, and there were cookies.

This year they built a little bench. Andrew and Hunter had so much fun building it! After Hanna's basketball practice she went and built one too. Once they got them home Hanna and Hunter painted theirs.

Basketball

November and December brought basketball season for Carter. The day after football ended basketball practices started. I was hoping for a few weeks break between the two...nope, didn't happen.

The middle school has two teams, A team and B team. A team being the better of the two teams. Carter made the A team. Only 7th and 8th graders can play and A team is usually made up of 8th graders so he was pretty excited to have made A team as a 7th grader.

Games started just before Thanksgiving and went until just before Christmas break. We went to all his home games and the away games that were close enough, some of the games were 3 hours away.

As I was sitting at the first game I realized that I was the only one making a lot of noise. No other parents were cheering as loudly as I was...then I decided I didn't care. Those kids would know that someone was in the stand rooting for them, even if they weren't my kid. I thought at one time that maybe I was embarrassing Carter. That my being so loud was annoying to him. So I asked him. He loves it! He says his teammates love it. So I carried on. One night I was chatting with a friend next to me and I see Carter from across the court signaling to me that I'm not being loud enough, he wanted me to cheer more. Other parents eventually caught on too and we all enjoyed watching our boys and cheering for their successes.

 A team won only 1 game. B team won all their games, some by a landslide.

On the night of the last game Carter called me at 3:45 to let me know they wanted him to play both A & B team that night. B team plays before A team. The game starts at 4. Oh my, we rushed to get everyone ready and out the door. Hanna was still at afters over at the elementary school and Hunter would have basketball practice as soon as Hanna was done at afters.

We got to the middle school before the game started and I ran back and forth between the elementary school and the middle school getting Hanna from afters and leaving Hunter for basketball, then going back for Hunter an hour later.

I didn't take any pictures during other games, so I made sure to bring my nice camera so I could get some good shots. Guess what wasn't charged...I had a dead battery in my camera. I didn't even think to check it before we left. So I had to settle for cell phone pictures, and I don't even have a very good cell phone.

Lucky for me my friend, who's son plays on B team, was there taking pictures with her nice camera and she got a few awesome shots of Carter. So glad for good friends who save my bacon more times than I can count!

Over all I think Carter had a great time playing, even if they lost. His coach was awesome! He did a great job giving all kids playing time. He had endless amounts of patience with the boys.

Tubby Time!

Malia LOVES taking baths. She gets so excited when we tell her it's tubby time. Once in the tub the screeching and squeals come. She laughs as she splashes and dunks her head in the water. I realized the other day that I had exactly 0 pictures of her playing in the tub and loads of the other kids and babies playing in the tub. So I pulled out my phone and snapped a few pictures of her enjoying her tub. Babies in the tub are just the cutest!

Andrew's 5!

Andrew celebrated his 5th birthday in December. He is such a fun little guy! He loves to build things; train tracks, forts, magnet blocks...He spends hours each day building train tracks. His favorite foods are mac & cheese, pasta, most fruits, green beans, pho, and cereal. While he's not exactly a picky eater, he just doesn't choose to eat many things even though he likes them. He goes to preschool 4 days a week at the elementary school and LOVES it! He's a good helper with Malia, though Malia doesn't always love the help he is giving. He is kind and thoughtful, always helping when he can even without being asked to. He loves to buy things with his own money. He is goofy and silly. He loves to sit with Laurie and Ginger during church on Sunday. I think they like it just as much as he does. He still loves to snuggle when he's tired. We sure love this little guy and are so blessed to watch him grow up!

Drewy doesn't sit still long enough to take very good pictures...

He requested Pho for his birthday dinner. No surprises there, all the kids love Pho. It seems to be the most requested meal in our house. He used his birthday money to buy a sweet paw patrol boat. He was so excited to pay for it himself.

He really wanted to have a friend birthday party this year, but we had a tummy bug a week or so before his birthday and I didn't know if it was going to go through all the kids or just two of them so I opted not to invite kids over for that fun. The Sunday after his birthday we were in charge of family dinner, so we celebrated with our Washington family with loads of cake and ice cream. He chose his cake from Costco but had been eyeing the paw patrol cupcake kit at Walmart for months. He asked for strawberry cupcakes...which I don't actually think he liked very much.

And then there was November...

Well, we've survived the first two weeks with a new puppy. Tucker adjusted so well to being with us. I thought for sure we'd have a few rough nights as he adjusted to being away from his litter. Then I thought for sure we'd have a few weeks of getting up with him in the night to take him potty. He did so well! We only had him sleep in our room, in his crate, two nights. He only needed to go out one of those two nights. He's not allowed much freedom yet in the house, he's usually tied to the door knob in the kitchen, but he is a smart puppy who is learning fast.

November brought the fall colors that I love so much! This picture just doesn't do justice to the beauty that I see out my windows. The mountain sides are just all different colors of red, yellow, and orange as the leaves change. I love it!

Malia has perfected the game 'Where's Malia?' She also thinks it's hilarious and will quickly cover her eyes if you say 'where's Malia.' Such a fun age!

We got to have family here with us for Thanksgiving. It was so fun hosting!! I really love cooking for people who enjoy food, sometimes my kids don't really enjoy food...Trent's dad and step-mom came. They brought Kimberlee and Avery, Trent's step-sister and her daughter. Then Josh and Todd flew in from Orlando. Todd recently got a job working for Universal down there.

We stayed up much too late each night playing games. Josh played games with the kids all day long. They all stayed over at Wapato Point so we went swimming one afternoon.

One evening Josh gave the boys hair cuts. It was desperately needed.

They all came in Wednesday evening and left Saturday morning. We loved having them visit!!

Halloween

We didn't really do much for Halloween. We didn't even go into Chelan to trick-or-treat or go to dinner like we've done in years past. It seemed to be really cold, much colder than the other two years we'd been here.

We just went to North Shore Bible Church, they have a trunk-or-treat in their parking lot. Dale England flew in with his helicopter and dropped candy. Then we went home and made a box of mac and cheese for the kids for dinner. Pretty low key. I win lame mom award and didn't even dress Malia up.

The kids went around and around and around and made out with a load of candy. We saw and visited with lots of friends there and were back home with in an hour. The kids visited the few houses on the street that were home and then it was off to bed at a normal hour.

October Adventures

October brought soccer and football. Hanna and Hunter both played soccer and Carter played football for the middle school.

We'd go to the high school football games as often as we could. One night I had Malia all bundled up and all the other kids were in t-shirts and shorts.

After a game one night we came home to a black widow spider in our kitchen. Trent and Carter both had to get a look at it, neither one would squish it, it got drowned in bug killer.

Hunter did so well in soccer! He rocked at goalie. He made most of the teams goals too. He really has talent there. He had a lot of fun playing, but thinks next year he'll want to play football instead.

Trent coached Hanna's soccer team. The kids loved him! Well, except when he made them run. Hanna did really well this year too. Trent had her play goalie and she did really well. Though I don't think she loves soccer as much as she likes softball.

Blair and Rhonda come up one weekend. We love having them here. We went to soccer games and then out to eat at Blueberry Hills. Blair fed Malia cherry pie for breakfast one morning. Silly grandpa! Maybe that's why Malia took a liking to him.

One day on our way out of town I spotted a bear. Trent didn't believe me, so he turned around. Then turned around again so that we could stop on the side of the road. Sure enough, there was a black bear trying to get into the orchard. There is a fence up around the orchard and the bear was in the tree trying to get into eat apples.

Malia is obsessed with taking selfies. She loves to take pictures of herself! Here was my attempt at taking a cute selfie with her:

She loves cell phones. So whenever one comes out she wants it. Makes it hard to get cute pictures of her with the phone. We tired.

Baby girl is obsessed with berries. She loves blueberries, strawberries, and. well, raspberries.

We may have had a small lapse in judgement this month. We got a puppy. His mom is a white golden retriever and dad is a short haired border collie. He's plenty cute...but we may regret this decision. We named him Tucker. The kids were thrilled when we told them we were going to get a puppy. The cat hasn't forgiven us yet.

September Adventures

Instead of doing a separate post for all the pictures I have for September I decided to lump them all together. We had a lot going on in September!

For Trent's drill in September he had a military ball he had to go to. He told me about said ball just a few days before. It is a formal event. I own nothing formal. So it was a race to find something that would work. I also had to find a babysitter for the kids here and one for Malia in the Fort Lewis area since she is still nursing and I couldn't leave her.

Finding a babysitter was the easiest part of the whole thing. I asked my good friend, Laurie, if she'd like to come stay with the kids again. She stayed with them while we were in Maui so I wasn't sure if she'd want to spend anymore time with them or not. The county fair was also that weekend. I had planned to take the kids to it and I knew Laurie was going to go to it. So I asked her if she'd be willing to take the kids, I'd give her money and let her use our suburban. She was more than happy to do it! The kids love her. They had so much fun at the fair! She took lots of pictures, though I don't have them yet...that may be a post all on it's own. They rode rides, saw animals, saw a couple animal shows, and went fishing. They brought home like 5 good sized trout. Carter was in heaven! Andrew still asks if Trent and I can go away so Laurie can come back and take them to the fair.

I asked my friend, Erin, if they'd be able to watch Malia. Her daughter, Maija, was more than happy to watch her! 

With that taken care of all I needed to do was find something to wear. Sigh...much easier said than done. I looked on Thursday, but found nothing. We don't really have many options around here, not even in Wenatchee, which is an hour away. Saturday morning, the day of the ball, we went to the (tiny) mall in Wenatchee to the formal shop. We found a dress that would kinda work. It would need something to cover the not existing sleeves, but we found something at Ross (which is in the mall) that worked. It was way more expensive that I would have like to spend on a dress for one evening. Then again, this isn't the first military ball I've needed a gown for and I'm sure it won't be the last, so we bought it. It needs to be altered still, it WAY too long and way too low cut. I had to pin the shrug to keep things covered.

We made it to the ball, only to find it was a RETENTION ball. All the speeches were on rejoining the guard, not at all like the other military balls I've been to. Usually there is just a dinner, socializing, and dancing. Not a big to do about reenlisting. There was lots of socializing, with people neither of us knew and a whole lot of drinking. One of the guys giving a speech was almost too drunk to get through it, he stumbled through the whole thing.  Trent's unit had a keg out in the parking lot, we did go out to visit with them for a little bit. People were pretty drunk by the time dinner started. We took off before the dancing even started. We needed to go get Malia, who was 45 mins away at Erin's house.

September in our little town means harvest time. I LOVE being surrounded by apple orchards (cherries and pears, as well as grape vineyards). We are lucky enough to know people who have orchards who let us come pick the most coveted apples right off their trees, honeycrisp. They are so delicious!

Kitty sure is glad that Malia can't crawl yet. She LOVES Bagheera and he loves to tease her. He'll come just close enough to her that she can touch her, then take off.

Speaking of kitty...here's some funny pictures of him this month.

Have I mentioned how much I love working with the youth in our ward...I LOVE it! They are such good kids and I love being with them. For the combined Young Men/Young Women activity this month we had a color war. We filled old socks with colored chalk then essentially threw them at each other. I tried to make an organized game of steal the flag mixed with dodge ball out of it. Didn't work, it turned into pure chaos. I had no intentions of getting in the middle of that mess...my kids had other ideas...and I admit, it was totally fun! When we got home Carter jumped in the shower and then started to scream 'the water's red!' Totally freaked him out.

At the end of September Trent's brother-in-law died. Tim was married to Trent's oldest sister, Karina. Though they supposedly got a divorce 2 years ago. They told everyone they did, but they didn't. It was too expensive is what I hear...Anyway, Tim went out of a ride on his motorcycle, stopped to take a rest. He fell asleep and never woke up. He had a heart attach of some sort. So we ended up taking a trip to UT for the funeral. 

While at my parents house my sisters thought it would be fun to feed Malia strawberries and whipped cream. Well, she loved it and made a huge mess with it!

The first few days after Andrew started school I'd often find him like this:

Here's some other pictures of Malia I found on my phone. 

My brother, Jason, sent Hanna and Malia these dresses last year for Christmas. Before Malia was even born. Hanna was so excited when Malia finally fit in the dress. Though by that time Hanna had just about outgrown hers.

Carter turns 13!

The most exciting thing that happened in September was Carter's birthday. He was so excited for his birthday! He chose to have smoked fish and twice baked potatoes for his birthday dinner. For his cake he wanted me to make white chocolate raspberry truffle cheesecake. Yes, it is as delicious as it sounds. 

Trent got off early on the Friday after his birthday so we decided to check him out of school at lunch time and take him out to lunch. There really aren't many choices to choose from around here, but the favorite by far is Blueberry Hills. Yummy food and beautiful views. Then I let him skip the rest of school and we took him in to Trent's clinic to have his finger x-rayed. He hurt it really bad at football practice and was certain it was broken. It wasn't. Then went and shopped for his birthday party that was going to be the next night.

I haven't really done 'friend' birthday parties for a really long time. So I decided we'd let him do a friend birthday party this year. We bought a projector and a big screen so that he could do an outdoor movie. We got pizza, 11 boys devoured 5 pizzas in less than 5 minutes. There wasn't a single slice left. I had Carter choose a movie theater box of candy for each of his friends. I wrapped them all up and we played a left-right game with them. After the left-right story was read we went around the circle once so they could unwrap their candy, keep it or trade it. I think there was enough candy that all were happy with their choices. They had sherbet floats, popcorn, licorice, and candy. Then we started the movie. We picked Remember the Titans. I think they all really loved it. Well, except Carter...we turned on the outside lights when the movie was over, started picking up blankets and noticed Carter was fast asleep. He fell asleep at his own party! That's totally something I would do. I think he had a great time even if he fell asleep at his party. 

His friends know him well and spoiled him with fishing gear, treats, a BYU helmet, and cash. He was one spoiled kid! I think all had a great time.  

That is until the next morning when I got a message from one of the parents letting me know that her son and gotten hurt at our house the night before. I guess he and one other boy were messing around on a skateboard and he fell on his wrist and hurt it really bad. He didn't break it, but he sprained it pretty good. I felt SO bad! Mostly because we had no idea that he had hurt it, and had we known Trent could have taken a look at it then and they wouldn't have had to go to the ER at midnight. She was really laid back about it acknowledged that her son was messing around and then didn't say anything. She just wanted to know if I had seen it happen and to let us know that it did happen since her son didn't say anything about it. We had Carter make him cookies and go for a quick visit the next day to check on him and so I could once again apologize to his mom for now knowing about it.

First day of school

School started on the last Wednesday of August this year. In years past it has always started on the Tuesday after Labor Day. Though we don't get out any earlier this year, still the second week of June, they went back 3 days earlier to give them extra time off at Christmas.

Carter started 7th grade this year. He does really well in school and LOVES being over at the middle school. He plays clarinet in the band. He will be in an 8th grade math course to give him a little bit of a challenge.

Hanna is starting 5th grade. She loves school and enjoys learning so much. She decided to be a peer leader this year so every Monday she has a class after school, we call them afters, where they plan all the assemblies for the other students.

Hunter is going into 2nd grade. He is such a good student. Learning comes easy for him. He excels at math and reading. We are so excited to see how he grows this year.

Andrew started preschool a few weeks after the big kids went back to school. Our school has a free preschool for those who qualify and then a few spots for other kids as well. It was on a first come first served basis so I made sure I was there very first to sign him up as I knew we didn't qualify for the other spots. He was so excited to go to school! It is 4 days a week from 8:30-11. He can ride the bus to and from preschool. Everyday for weeks he'd ask if he got to go to school. We had to tell him each day how many more days it was till he got to ride the bus to school. He insisted that he ride the bus for his first day of school. So I put him on the bus and didn't even go to the school. I'm sure I was the only parent that didn't show up for their kids first day of preschool. I may have choked up just a bit as the bus drove off. This kid has been by my side for the last (almost) 5 years. It was strange to not have him with me all the time.

With the start of school came the start of football season. Trent volunteers for the schools as a concision specialist but also just to help with other injuries. I love it when were sitting in the stands and someone yells from the field 'hey doc, we need you down here.' Though he's pretty good and getting down to the field if he sees something that needs his help. Every Friday we'd either be at a Manson game or a Chelan game. I love going to the games! There's not much else to do around here on a Friday night and I just enjoy watching the kids play. I'd usually go with all the kids till half time then go home as Malia was ready for bed and the other kids were tired too. If it was a Manson game I'd go back after getting Malia to bed. Hanna would stay up and babysit. It was the perfect solution. She is old enough to babysit and we were only 5 mins away if she needed anything. I couldn't do that for the Chelan games though, it was just too far to drop off and go back...you know like 10 mins away.

This a kid from church, Euan, he'd come hang out with us when we were at Chelan games. He loves to hold Malia and tease Andrew.