saying good-bye to 2018

Last year over Christmas break, I planned nothing.  I was naive enough to think that the kids would have plenty to do all week with their new toys.  Wrong.  They got bored and argued and the messes made me crazy.  I was determined this year that we would take advantage of our week off and do some fun things.  We managed to have something to look forward to every day.  Plus we had a Harry Potter movie-thon which was fun and also slightly genius...the kids were so excited to watch the next movie that they had no problems being motivated to get the things done that I needed them to do.  We might do this every year!

Stockton and Brynn busted open their new Legos the morning after Christmas.  They were huge sets...like 700 and 800 pieces for the both of them.  Stockton lost steam a little bit but only for a short time and then was back at it.  They worked on them that day for several hours and still didn't finish.

Justin had the day after Christmas off (Wednesday), worked Thursday and Friday, had Saturday and Sunday (obviously) off, then worked Monday until they closed at 4-early for New Year's Eve.  He spent most of Wednesday in Molly's room setting up her desk.  He had to make a few modifications to fit the typewriter.  He was wishing that he had just built it himself by the end!  But it worked out and Molly's room is so, so cute.  Someday I'll take pictures of the whole thing but it is a room any tweenager would love.  It's been fun for Molly to make it her own.

We are so happy when the Phillip's come to town.  And even happier when they take time away from their families to spend time with us.  We went to the Wood's house and had dinner and caught up on life for a few hours.  As always, it was a great time with lifelong friends!

Corbin Phillips, Stockton, Alleah Wood, Molly

Peyton Phillips, Elsie Wood, Brynn

Mikki Wood, Ivy

Kelli Wood, me, Shauna Phillips

Brynn and Stockton got right back to work on their Lego's the next morning and were able to finish before lunch.  These were fun!  I was amazed at the detail that they had.  Stockton has done Lego's before but this was probably Brynn's first time starting and completing a Lego project by following directions.  I knew she would like it but was surprised at how diligent she was and how much she really enjoyed it.  She only left the table to go to the Wood's, go to bed, or eat a meal.  Both her and Stockton have their projects proudly displayed on their dressers.

My mom and dad came up to see what the kids got.  This is always fun for them to show off all their new things.  My dad was a microbiologist for his career and so he showed Stockton how to use his microscope and some neat tricks. (Side note: I always had the best science projects.)

Molly's best friend, Samantha Steiner, has her birthday on the day after Christmas so they always try to do something for her birthday over the break.  This year, they rented a suite from the Zermatt (their niece/cousin works there) and spent the day swimming, playing games in the room, playing pool, and other stuff around the resort.  She had a lot of fun!

Kenzie (I don't know her), Samantha, Carli Steiner, Molly, Kelsey Larsen

Sam and Molly

Kenzie, Kelsey, Sam, Molly

 The kids had been wanting to go swimming and I was going to take them to the Kamas pool but then Heidi wanted to get together so we met at the Provo pool instead.  It was busy!  But it wasn't too bad and the kids were happy to get out of the house, as was I.

Stockton begged his sisters constantly to go out and play in the snow with him.  Brynn humored him a couple of times and both times they lasted about 10 minutes.

When Justin was home on Saturday, he took down the tree.  It usually feels good to have the tree down and Christmas put away but I was kind of sad this year because we had such an enjoyable season.  Plus I was feeling nostalgic about another year being over which means my kids are getting older.  It took me a lot longer to get my house put back together-in fact, I'm still working on it.  It has been slow progress.  Brynn always helps Justin take the tree down.

I finished The Book of Mormon.  I was glad to participate in the challenge and, even though I can't say I had any major breakthroughs, I know that following the prophet always brings blessings.  My biggest takeaway was probably that I learned how to manage my time and prioritize a little better and that is one area I can always improve in.

On Saturday afternoon we took the kids to see Mary Poppins Returns.  I thought it was great and the kids enjoyed it.  I realized that my three younger kids have never seen the original Mary Poppins which felt a bit like a mom fail.  I need to change that so I will be checking to see if the library has it.

Justin has met a lot of different people through his job.  One of them is the man who controls the water that leaves Deer Creek and enters the Provo River.  He has been trying to get Justin to take the kids fishing over there for a couple of years.  It's apparently supposed to be really great fishing when the water is running through it at the right speed.  He invited Justin to go that Saturday night so he took Molly and Stockton with him.  It was literally freezing-I'm talking single digits-and I thought they were crazy but they bundled up nice and warm and headed out.  They didn't catch much (they were about an hour past prime time) but they had a good time.  He took them on a tour through the buildings underneath the dam and they thought that was pretty neat.  Not everyone gets that tour!

I kept Brynn and Ivy with me.  They had a bubble bath in their swim suits and watched a movie by the fire.  

New clothes for Sunday.  My mom loves picking out clothes and always does a great job!  Our last Sunday with 3 hour church!

Justin joined because I gave him a new church sweater.  Ivy is crying because she was worried she wouldn't get in the picture with Daddy.

Ivy fell asleep on Stockton while watching one of the Harry Potter movies.  I thought it was sweet, Stockton didn't so much.  He said it was uncomfortable because he couldn't adjust.

New Year's Eve!  We were actually invited to a friend's house for the night but none of the kids wanted to go because they wanted to stay home and have our traditional New Year's Eve.  That made me happy.  I took the kids to the store for them to pick out their dinner items-then back home to get it all ready.  Ivy chose little smokies, Brynn made bagel pizzas, Stockton chose orange chicken, Molly did a popcorn bar, I did chips with queso, and Justin made his cream cheese-cocktail sauce-shrimp with crackers concoction that only he likes.  The kids also wanted me to make shirley temple drinks like I did last year so I did that for them.

We took turns drawing names for who picked the games.  We played Rummikub, Beat the Parents, Twister, and the Harry Potter Lego game.  Justin is not a game person but he does join us once a year on New Year's Eve.  We played a little bit of Nintendo while Twister was being played.  We watched a couple of Harry Potter movies-I'm not sure where we were in the movie-thon but I think we got through two of them.  We watched the ball drop at midnight but only Molly and Stockton made it that long.  Brynn and Ivy had fallen asleep sometime while playing Harry Potter.  The last two pictures I took of 2018 were of my two sleeping angels.

I talked Justin into playing Twister with me.  It just reminded us how old we really are!

Stockton loved the Harry Potter movies so, so much that he had a hard time focusing on any sort of game and actually opted out of playing a few.