Pictures of a Boy's Birthday

 Well good morning you 11-year old!

 Lucy giving Jonas a birthday-hug because she is so like that.

 Ivan and his mom Patty came over to drop off a present for Jonas.  Then we all walked to school  It was a spirit day - Holiday Hat Day.  :)

 Jonas' civil-war cake I managed to make in between visiting teacher and a whole bunch of other stuff!

 Cool soldiers.  Awesome "trees" from our grape vine.

Jonas had a good day at school and came home and opened one gift:  the best of Queen in 2 CDs.  Haha, fun.  He also opened up Ivan's present, which was a lego set.  So he worked on that while I took Lucy to her music class.

We came home and the kids watched  a movie while I got Jonas' birthday dinner ready:  homemade spaghetti and meatballs.  YUM.  After dinner, Jonas got to open the rest of his gifts.

 Jonas reading what his book from Aune-e and Co. is all about.

 Jonas checking out his "big" gift - an "expert" level lego set.  A detective's office.  (Jonas finished it up today and it is awesome.  I'll have to take some fun pics of it later.).  Jonas is also sporting his second-hand store coat - which he'll probably grow out of in a month!  Also, he is wearing his cool New York hat - we had tried to find one while in New York over the summer, but never did.  Thanks to Amazon, we found a really cool one and he was super excited.

 Sweetest picture of the day:  Lucy totally excited as Jonas opened the gift she had given him (some random toys).

 Jonas lighting his birthday cake (which he absolutely LOVED - he also LOVES that he can play with the toy soldiers.  Cake AND present in one!).

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you . . .

What a fun birthday celebrating a fun boy!

Dear Birthday Boy,

Happy 11th birthday Jonas!  You must have been so excited for your birthday that you had a stomach ache the day before and came home from school in the morning.  By lunchtime you had eaten your whole lunch; by afternoon you were playing basketball with Ivan when we went to pick up the girls.  Hmmmm, interesting . . .

We've had quite another year with you Jonas.  Some of it good, and some of it not-so-good . . . 

You've grown more bothered by your sister's chewing - yes, chewing.  You get furious at Emmy when she eats, chews gum, etc.  Yet you can talk in this most ridiculous (and annoying) baby-talk, but Emmy is not allowed to chew.  I looked up this disease once about people who are annoyed by those types of noises (chewing, etc.) - it's called misophonia.  I mistakenly told you about it and now you are convinced you have this disease.  

You began your last year at Northside - 5th grade.  It hasn't been your best year.  I've had occasional emails from your teacher.  Mainly it's due to you being lazy and not doing quality work.  You're a smart kid, but you're just less interested in doing smart work.  Hopefully you'll grow out of this by the time you get to middle school!  You're still a pretty good student, overall.  :)

You made the swim team this year and that was pretty huge.  We should thank your swimming lesson teacher who saw something that I certainly did not and told me that swimming just might be your "thing."  I'm not sure you'll ever go to the olympics or anything, but it's a great sport for you.  You practice twice a week and are always happy and positive after each practice.  You had your first meet and it was so hard for me to watch!  But you did well for your first time.  You took one 1st place - in the heat, but it was still super exciting for you.  :)

You got glasses this year - your dream come true.  Although I went to school the very next day you got them, and you kept taking them on and off and on and off - and told me that you had a headache.  You still like them, though, and I think you have gotten more used to them.

You went on a one-week camp with Coach Kirk this past summer and that was a big deal.  You mowed lots of lawns and weeded some to earn half the money.  You paid the most tithing you've every paid this year!  :)

You really are a good and sweet boy and we hope you know that no matter what (emails from teachers, getting caught in a lie, etc.) I, and your dad, will always and forever love you.

Love,

mom

Sunday

A few pictures from today, Sunday:

 Aw, he's so pretty!

 She's got the Miles-look nailed!

 I like this picture a whole lot for some reason.

 Oh Emmy girl.

This is what Lucy was doing while the other kids were cross-dressing.  Sleeping, finally!  She, and thus I, had been up since 2am - due to barfing.  Lucy pretty much barfed every 15-20 minutes up until about 8am.  Then she could maybe hold off for an hour or so - unless she drank water, then it would come back up pretty quickly.  Luckily her barfing has subsided, but now she has a fever (which she totally didn't have last night).  Poor gal.  The worst thing about this whole sickness, per Lucy: she won't get to go to school tomorrow.  She's sooooo bummed.

We did end our Sunday on a high note by attending our Stake's Christmas Music program which, just like last year, was fantastic.  I left about 10 minutes early because Lucy was just too tired.

Happy Jonas' Birthday week!  :)

Our Christmas Skit for the Ward Party

The Middles

Just a short post on The Middles, i.e., Jonas and Emmy.

I got a call from the nurse at school one day saying Jonas didn't pass his eye test perfectly.  But, seeing as Jonas has been so wanting glasses for a while, I was a little doubtful.  But I did make an eye appointment and, short story, Jonas is far-sighted.  He has pretty horrible depth-perception, supposedly (can you tell I still sort-of doubt the whole thing?!).  In fact, the eye doctor asked if Jonas trips a lot, etc.  Nope!  So much to Jonas' delight, we ordered him a pair of glasses.  And if loses or breaks them - sorry, that's it for a while!  They are costly!  Anyways, he got them yesterday and was beyond thrilled:

 Four-eyes and all, he's still incredibly handsome!

Yep, he's weird - happy to get glasses!  We'll see how long the novelty lasts . . .

Now on to Emmy.  She was in the newspaper the day after Thanksgiving.  It's a bit embarrassing to read as her parents . . . 

That Emmy girl!  Oh, and it was PJ day - hence the awesome attire.

I do love My Middles.

Winter Sun 10k, 2016

Well this is my fourth year running the Winter Sun in Moab, UT.  It's such a great run and I get to go with friends and stay in Moab for the night and so it's definitely a winning tradition.  Plus, if I keep this up for another 30 years, I might finally be able to place in my age-group.  :)

There were about 6 of us friends running from Montrose, but 3 were part of a couples-group and so we just had 3 in our group - which was totally fine and still totally fun.  We headed out early on Friday morning and were able to go to the Monticello temple for initiatories.  It was a great time there at the temple and our temple-workers/helpers were so sweet - especially when they asked what college we all went to.  HA!

After the temple we drove to Moab and had a great place to stay.  We visited, ate our traditional homemade chicken noodle soup, played Skip-Bo, went and visited our friends that came up as couples, and then went to bed.

On Saturday, we got up and ran our race!  :)  I met up with my neighbor friend, Heather, and she wanted to run with me and so we ran it together.  I was a little bit slower than I've been running this race, but that's okay.  There's always next year.  :)  Here are my stats that the race sent me:

FINISHER DETAILS
Finish Time 55:17
Overall 157 of 501
Female Rank 72 of 266
Division Rank 25 of 102
Female 30 to 39
Average Pace 8:54

And I finally won a raffle-prize!  I never have!  Kandace won last year and this year it was me.  Yay!  I won a $50 gift-card to a bookstore.  Suh-weeeet.

Here are a few pictures of our short and sweet and super-great weekend:

 Some cool pictures Sarah took on her phone as we drove from Monticello to Moab.

 Sarah, myself, and Kandace!

 Here is our group at the finish of our run.  Back row:  Clark and Heather Oman, Jeremy Dixon (he was going to run, but couldn't due to a broken foot), and Rick McBee (his wife was there but didn't run and didn't get in the picture!).  Front row:  Kandace Booth, me, Sarah Bugarin, and Jen Dixon.  Everyone did so great - Kandace like shaved off 10+ minutes from her previous runs.  She rocked it this year.  This was Jen's first 10K and she did super great, too.  Go us!  :)

Sarah, Kandace, and Emily - on our way out.

I love my family, but it's nice to get away with friends every once in a while (which comes out to about once or twice a year . . . :).

Auf Wiedersehen November and O Tannebaum

(The German references are in honor of my parents who just got back from their 18-month mission in Germany!  Too bad they don't have phone or internet services yet, but I'm assuming they are home and well.  :)

 Another fun and busy month!

 The kids' Christmas tree upstairs.  (Sorry, I'm no good at capturing a good picture of a Christmas tree!)

The family's Christmas tree in the living room.  It looks a little wonky in the picture, but it's really a pretty tree!

Happy December!

Our Annual Christmas Tree Hunt

On Friday we had planned to go and cut down our Christmas tree.  We haven't been around for the past few Thanksgivings and so the family has gone the first week of December.  However, I haven't been able to go the past couple of years because I have been in Moab running my annual Winter Sun 10K with friends.  So I was happy to make it this year!

Brigham loved getting out and playing in the snow!  I didn't think we'd have snow, but as we got up higher, the snow showed up!  Yeah!

Lucy melts my heart.

Seeing as tree-cutting permits are only $8, we ended up getting two permits so we could cut down 2 trees - one for the kids upstairs and one for the family in the living room.  This was the kids' tree.  :)

Brigham and I love being in the great outdoors.

Miles spends most of his time outside eating snow.  At least he knows to stay away from the yellow snow.

Jonas sawed the kids' tree.  Go Jonas!

Here was our family tree - it was pretty tall!  It gave us a lot of extra boughs that we made in to a wreath and some other decor for the outside of our home - pretty, pretty.

Here's the gang lugging our trees back to the car.

Whoops, Miles fell down the slope because of the momentum from the tree.  :)  Hehe.

The group enjoying some hot chocolate.  Yum.

Emmy was not excited about Brigham having to join them in the backseat (the bed of the truck was full of trees!), but she survived.  :)

It was another good tree hunt!  

Thanksgiving 2016

Since Ben had to work through Wednesday and I was scheduled to work Tuesday and Wednesday nights, we decided we should just stay home for Thanksgiving.  It turned out that I worked Tuesday night and then more than half of the patients went home on Wednesday, so I was called off late afternoon on Wednesday.  I was not disappointed - even though the holiday pay would have been great.  I still prefer my family and home to making money - ha.  :)

As life is so busy, it was nice to have a low-key Thanksgiving with just our crew.  Of course we missed our extended family, but it was relaxing to just stay at our home.

The kids were all assigned a part of our Thanksgiving feast.  Of course I still had to help each child - with the exception of Miles.  Miles was on his own for the pumpkin pie.  Anyways, I'll just let the pictures show our Thanksgiving:

 Wednesday evening I helped Jonas out with his assignment - sweet potato casserole.  I knew that Brigham loves sweet potatoes - but I didn't know he loved the skins as well.  Silly pup.

 Wednesday night found these two boys getting the pies ready!

 Ben made the crust and then divided it in two. UPDATE:  I just found out that Miles made his crust "from memory."  So Miles made the entire thing himself; I didn't even "oversee" it!  :)  When Ben and Miles were rolling out their crusts, Ben told Miles that he needs to think about how he was going to get the crust in his pie plate - as Miles was just rolling out the crust on the table.  Miles' reply went something like this:  "Dad, we have discussed this very thing in detail [in his Home Ec. class at school] and have watched a lot of videos.  I'm going to roll the crust up on the roller and then unroll it over the dish."  And guess what?!  It totally worked.  Go Miles.

 Miles and his first real-sized pie made by him!

We had a pretty chill morning - I went for a run.  Ben, myself, Miles, and Brigham went for a walk.  We watched the Macy's parade on and off.  Then it was time to play some Kubb.

 It turns out that I was the deciding factor on which team won . . . whatever team I was on . . . won.  :)

 Go Lucy!

 Go Emmy!

 Go Ben!

 Go Jonas!

 Go Miles!

Team Brigham succeeded in beating Team Wilson multiple times.  :)  It was good to get out on a nice Thanksgiving day.  Then it was back in to the kitchen to finish up all the food . . .

 Lucy was in charge of the green-bean casserole.  Cute.  I didn't get a picture of Emmy and her cranberry salad (which we made on Tuesday).  But she did great and it was yummy, too.

 Our kids at our Thanksgiving feast.  Fun, fun.

How our kids usually behave . . .

The rest of the day was spent watching Jack Frost (tradition), playing Harry Potter Clue (Jonas won!), playing Spoons, eating pie, etc.

It was a good day and we all have much to be thankful for . . . especially our family, friends, and faith!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like . . . Thanksgiving and Christmas . . .

So while Ben and I are not fans of putting up Christmas decor before Thanksgiving, that didn't stop us from letting the kids (mainly Miles) decorate their bedroom doors.  However, Emmy is really opposed to Christmasy things right now because it just makes her too excited - she doesn't want to even start thinking about Christmas until December.  :)  So the girls' bedroom door is a nice compromise.

I actually think it looks lovely!  The kids have gone crazy with making gifts for each other - I think a lot might be colored pictures . . . or sewn things by Miles.

We got some cupcake things from our elderly friend and the kids made their turkey cupcakes:

Cute, cute!  (P.S.  Yes, that's some chocolate frosting above her lips.  :)

Here is Emmy's haircut, even though it's really hard to capture it in a picture:

Love her.  Love her hair.  (P.S.  Yes, that's some chocolate frosting on her neck.  :)

Let the Holiday Season begin!  Yay!