Thursday, January 21, 2016

New Years Nuttiness!

I have a couple of stories I need to share about a couple of my kids and how totally awesome they are. The first story is about this cute raccoon girl (who is totally obsessed with raccoons).

A couple weeks ago she came into my bedroom in the morning and told me this story:
"Mom, when I was in the bathroom I heard a noise. I thought it might be a robber or a kidnapper so I decided that I was going to go teach him the gospel so he would know not to do that stuff anymore."
Me: "Oh yeah? What were you going to teach him?"
Kate: "I can't remember everything I was going to say but I was going to sing this song: 
Jesus said love everyone
Treat them kindly too.
When your heart is full of love, 
Others will love you.
Then he would know not to do bad stuff anymore!"
Okay....if you can't be converted by this sweet girls singing that song to you then you have no heart at all! I was so proud of her!
(and just for the record...there were no robbers or kidnappers in our house at that time....or any other time, for that matter.)
 She wanted a picture of Raccoony by himself. (Yes, that's his name)
 The next story is about this little boy that is obsessed with his burpy. We were eating dinner and after everything anyone said, Will would pipe in and say "I know!"
Me: "Will how come you're so smart?
Will: Because I go to nursery.
Me: What do you learn about in nursery?
Will: Jesus loves me!!

For anyone that's ever been in a nursery calling, you know the lessons last about 2 minutes if you're lucky and you never actually believe that the kids are listening. I'm here to tell you right now that they are!!! Will didn't even hesitate when he said it. To me, that is the most important lesson you can ever learn is that Jesus loves you. If he can remember this for the rest of his life...he will be set! Thank you nursery leaders. You're doing a great job!

 
He also wanted a solo picture of his burpy. What would we do without burpy?
 Kate's trying to make the same face as the hat...
 Someone thinks he's too big for naps and refuses to "officially" take them.
 On New Year's Eve we had our best buddies, the Maynes, come over to party. I was horrible and didn't take ANY pictures!! What  schmuck I am! (but Jesus still loves me). We had SO much food, the kids played games all night, we had a glowstick dance party, had lots of balloons, and chatted the night away. It was SO much fun and the best way to ring in the new year (in my opinion). Everyone (except Jack) stayed awake until midnight!

I finally did pull out the camera after midnight and snapped this picture of the party crowd. Nobody even looks tired yet! Thanks Maynes.....that was a fun night!

 Once the kids were back in school Rach had to get her science fair project done. She wanted to see if vinegar causes fizz with any other powders like it does with baking soda. I think she had a good time doing the project...and I was thankful Trav was willing to help.

And the answer is  no....vinegar doesn't cause fizz to any other powders. But to our surprise....crushed up chalk produced the most bubbles out of anything else. Bet you didn't know that! Happy New Year!!

Sledding!!

The perk to having some crazy snowstorms this winter is that there were some awesome sledding opportunities. The kids went sledding a lot! (And it's nice to have a little hill in the backyard so we don't actually have to go anywhere)

 We got SO much snow during this storm!! It was gorgeous.


 Will and Kate seemed to end up in a heap at the bottom of the hill when they'd ride together.
 Daddy helped them make a tall and skinny snowman.
 (William helped too)

 Unfortunately with all that heavy snow we lost a lot of branches. This was one a tragedy for us....it was one of the "shaders" for our deck.
 On Christmas Eve we decided to do a little bit bigger sledding so we went up to hidden hollow in Kaysville. It was a great place to sled and we had a lot of fun!

 Kate preferred "penguin style."

 "Eat some powder, Will"
 We got a little snowboard that we've never tried out before so this was the maiden voyage to see how they liked it. They all did really well! I was so impressed by their mad snowboarding skills. (Now we just need to get them to try the wakeboard)
 Will learned his lesson from last time and is now taking precautions against daddy's dust.


 Josh attempted to go off a jump on the snowboard.....
 Kate even tried it!







 She even got the hang of it!
 Rach was the first one to try it and she also did awesome!

 I really love this picture for some reason. Even though you can't see either of their faces I just love those little hands reaching for daddy. My kids totally lucked out to have this dad of theirs.
 And one last one for the road......nice jump Trav!
 
Since we weren't able to go to the cabin after Christmas like we always do (because it flooded) we decided we still needed to go sledding. So, we brought all the Schick's to happy hollow. It was fun being there with cousins.

 There is a small stream at the bottom of the hill and if you don't bail out...you end up in the stream. We hadn't had an incident until the whole family was there. Breydon was the first victim.
 Trav was a very close second...
 Somebody wasn't having the time of his life....
 At least he knows how to travel in style!



Not quite the same as cabin sledding....but we still had a good time.