February Happenings

Friday Night Pizza night...we started smoking our homemade pizza's. Jeff is obsessed with the smoker, and I won't complain! Smoked pizza is pretty darn good. We introduced the kids to Star Wars. We all look forward to Friday nights! 

Ellie LOVES to cook. I can't start making anything without her pushing up a chair next to me to help. I can't say I'm upset about it, we've had lots of fun trying new things! Here she is making her specialty: Cheesy Eggs haha.

Playing at Grandma's

We took Ellie to the Dr. for her well check appointment. Rylee loved this old man sitting in the waiting room and kept invading his personal space haha. 

Poor Boston got a nasty stomach bug at the beginning of the month. He woke up screaming in the middle of the night that his head hurt, and then promptly threw up all the medicine I gave him 30 minutes later. It just so happened that we had a power outage during all this. Call me terrible, but a sick kid with no TV is the worst. I can only do so much to entertain him before he is completely bored with me. Also, all the barfed on clothes and sheets? Yikes. I really take a lot of things for granted! 

Rylee doesn't like to miss out on the baking! She mostly just likes taste testing and will sneak the beaters or spatula's while my back is turned ha!

 SNOW DAY! 

I don't feel like the pictures do it justice...

 Lots of snowmobiling adventures this month...

 Celebrating February birthdays! And Rylee, because she is all about the FOOD

I tell ya...this kid takes good care of his sisters. He pulled both of them around on the sled around the front yard for a pretty long time!

Fun at Squeeze-It Grandma's!

Daddy daughter date with Ellie. When I asked him how it went, Jeff responded: She did not stop talking the ENTIRE. TIME. Haha!

Its not unusual to find all sorts of Disney characters roaming through the house. The force is especially strong with Princess Anna. Also, I got Rylee the Anna wig as a joke, but she actually loves it and freaks out if it moves even a little bit off her head.

Boston found a huge icicle on the side of our house! 

Fun with friends

More snowmobiling! I actually got to go this time while Ellie and Rylee had fun at Uncle Brady's and Aunt Marissa's house (thank you!)  It was actually REALLY fun despite getting stuck multiple times and almost having a heart attack when they tried to get me to drive up a huge hill afterwards. (I mean, I'm talking MT EVEREST ;)) Thanks Grandpa, for taking us all snowmobiling!

Its just so clean and so pretty, and I took too many pictures that don't do the view justice...

So nice that "Fishy" Grandma and Papa are close and can help us out on mutual/basketball game nights! Story time is always a blast!

Making meatballs!

End of February/Early March Birthday! So fun to have all of these girls with close birthdays :)

This girl....haha

And ON to March we go!

Valentine's Day

Annual giant sugar cookies from Grandma and Grandpa Tree, and cute cards and stickers from Grandpa and Grandma Roberts which I failed to get a picture of :( The kids look forward to both from our awesome grandparents!

Mysterious sugar cookie kits were dropped on our porch that morning! Cookies for breakfast!

Our favorite Valentine treat - dipped strawberries

We recreated some photos from last year :-)

Time is going so fast! Look at Rylee's chubby little face. Happy Valentine's Day!

Sunday Thoughts

**Found this post from August/September 2018 :-)**

The house is quiet and the kids are sleepy and I'm feeling really grateful for a lazy Sunday today. I've had a lot of things going through my mind the last few weeks, and just thought I'd write them down...

We had Stake Conference back at the end of August. We were originally going to be at my brothers mission homecoming talk, but it ended up getting moved due to a crazy power outage that affected our stake as well as my parents. So we trekked it with the kids to Stake Conference and proceeded to wrestle with Rylee to hold still and be quiet. I don't ever remember the other kids being THIS difficult in church. I chased her and took her out probably 5 different times in the first hour and at one point mouthed to Jeff, "Why are we here?!" I'm not paying attention to the speakers, the kids are playing with toys, which they could easily do at home, and Rylee is just making life miserable. As soon as I had that thought, Rylee pushed the chairs in front of us away and escaped me, running straight up to the pulpit. For being so chunky, she sure is fast. She got super close and I pulled her out again, this time fighting tears while Rylee giggled in my arms. Why is church so hard? I'm literally doing everything I can to do the right thing, and this child is determined to make the right thing the HARDEST thing. I took her to the empty primary room, turned on the speaker to the sacrament room, let Rylee roam free and started to sob. Seriously, why am I here? I just want to go home. Immediately, the thought came to my mind: If you leave right now, what message will you be teaching your kids? That its ok to give up when things get hard? 

Yeah. I knew I needed to stay. Even if it was a sad attempt like sitting in the primary room with the speaker on. Eventually Jeff found me and brought the other kids and our things in the primary room. I'm sure he thought I was just nuts. Life is hard.  

A few weeks later we had a family fast for a family member who was having surgery. We sat the kids down and talked to them about what was happening and that Mom and Dad were going to help by fasting. Not expecting much from them, Boston and Ellie both said they wanted to help and we decided they would skip breakfast to participate in the fast. 

The next morning was probably the longest morning of my life. Ha! They both were in my room at 7 asking if it was time for lunch yet. I distracted them with a long walk outside (pulling all three in the wagon, because they were too famished and weak at 9 in the morning with no breakfast to walk themselves) with games, and other things. Every time they mentioned being hungry (which was literally every 15 minutes) I would remind them of the person they were fasting for, and how important it was. At around 10 I had the same thought as a few weeks prior. Why the heck am I doing this? They are getting nothing out of it, and are only thinking of how hungry they are. Just like before, the same thought came to my mind: Do you really want to teach your kids that its ok to give up when things get hard? I knew we needed to finish. So we powered through, and ended up eating lunch only a tinsy winsy bit early haha. 

Life is not easy....We have to be kind when its not easy. We have to forgive when we don't feel its fair. We have to pray for those who hurt or offend us. We have to step out of our comfort zones and try to be like Jesus. We have to keep all the commandments and be happy about it. We are faced with trials daily, and have to keep moving forward with smiles painted on our faces. I'm grateful for a Savior who we can turn to when we feel like giving up. I'm grateful he is here to help us do hard things!

**August/September 2018**