Winter Merriments

The last time I was on call.  I guess Carter decided being one parent down was time to strike.  He got into my lotion and plastered our dresser, bed posts, the carpet, everywhere.  I came home to find it and Derek didn't even know he had did it.  Well, he was so mad he pulled poor dead asleep Carter out of bed and made him clean it all up half asleep and charged him a whole dollar from his bank for the damages.  I must say, cross your fingers, he hasn't really pulled a Carter in a long while since.  Maybe we are finally on to something.

  It never gets old to see my two twins entwined together on the couch.

 

I found these 2018 goals of Olivia’s posted in the hallway at her school.  I got a kick out of the fact that she wants to get betting at "speling."

This was at my Mom and George’s house on our way back from our Disneyland trip.  Liv got poxed with stickers.

 

We traded in the basic adult sized violin Babi gave Liv for Christmas for a super nice ¼ size violin and Liv has started violin lessons.  It has been fun to watch her learn this new instrument and her instructor seems to be quite impressed with her thus far.  She can play twinkle twinkle little star, but that’s about it so far.

I gave a little FHE lesson the other day on how the restored church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that we belong to has temples and the priesthood, and baptism by immersion, and prophets, and revelation and scripture and such.  We talked about all the things that are part of our church and stacked cups for each one, then talked about apostasy and what happens was one or two or a few of those are lost (the church crumbles) then it was restored through Joseph Smith.  The kids learned all the important things that makes our church stand out from others and had so much fun doing it.  FHE win!

 

Carter my little sous chef picking up on all my little cooking tricks.  Goggles are a must if you are cutting a bunch of onions.

 

Super Bowl Sunday we spent at the Thorsteds eating smoked meat, watching the super bowl or in my case playing games with all the kids.  I made mozzarella sticks and baked beans for the occasion.  It was a fun little event and watching my kids spend hours on end playing game after game made my heart happy.

 

Liv’s school did a little reading competition where all the kids were supposed to log as many at home reading minutes as they could.  These are Liv’s two newest favorite books that she discovered through the process.  You could send in pics of your kids holding their favorite new books discovery and they posted the pictures on the TV in the hallway.  This is the pic we sent in.

Camden has been saving his pennies for all sorts of dollar store excitement, but one day we were at target and he found this umbrella for $3 and just had to have it, so I told him he could purchase it with his own money.  He did and from the way he carried it around for days I don’t think he has had buyers remorse at all.

 

The latest happy meal toy was actually these cute monster punch outs that you could color and decorate with stickers.  I took the kids there one night for dinner when Derek was at a jazz game and gone all night.  The kids left the monsters all over his bed to scare him when he got home.

Two school event for Olivia.  The 1st grade patriotic program where she got up and delivered a super lengthy address about Abraham Lincoln with a clear voice you could hear all the way to the back and sang a bunch of adorable song.  She also entered the 1st grade story telling competition.  She retold the story of the Berenstain Bears and the Missing Dinosaur.  Of course, our little performer won the 1st grade competition which won her the opportunity to present her story at a school assembly the next week.  She did awesome.  Seems to thrive on audiences.  In front of all those people, I swear she gave her best performance ever without seeming the least bit nervous.

Friday was so lovely (the calm before the storm apparently), so the boys and I (and Martha who is a permanent fixture in our hour it seems) walked to the bus with London to pick Liv up.  It was lovely and reminded me of walking to the bus every day when she was in kindergarten.

1st grade has been so busy!  By the time Liv walks home from the bus and does her homework, it's dinner time and almost bed time.  But, we finally had a lighter day and Liv had been wanting to have Leo over to play.  My favorite part of the play date was when Leo requested to read Dr. Seuss books, so Liv read him book after book.  Mr. Brown can Moo was adorable she would say "Mr. Brown can Buzz...Leo can you Buzz?" etc.

We are huge Greatest Showman Fans over here.  The kids ask Alexa to play the Greatest Showman Soundtrack all day long.  They have been wanting to go see it again for a second time.  Since, Aunt Kathy sent us out some movie gift certificate for Christmas, I deemed this the perfect opportunity and Friday night we all went to see it again.  Only problem was trying to keep the kids singing to a minimum so as not to be a distraction to the rest of the theater.  

Yesterday, Derek had a meeting in south Salt Lake, so the kids and I joined him for the drive up and hung out at Scheels while he was in his meeting.  I got each kid a littler treat.  Camden picked this huge rice krispie treat.