Trip to AZ and Great Grandpa's Funeral

We love going down to Prescott, Arizona to see the Close cousins! I mean, the 10 hour drive with Jane is not my favorite but all the other girls did awesome. They have so much fun exploring and getting dirty and enjoying their awesome property. One of the funniest things was seeing Reese and Taft "herding" chickens for hours. They would get long sticks and make the chickens go where they wanted them to. Emma and Ashur's favorite memory was making a well near the stream. They dug and dug and used stones and rocks to make the wall of it. Great times on a great property!

We are glad we got to go down because Tara is expecting a baby the end of March and I am expecting the middle of July so we didn't know when the next time would be that we could visit them again. 

Grandpa Edward Jones passed away just a few days before we were planning on heading down to AZ to visit the family. Timing wise everything worked out better than planned. But the Sunday before he passed, we had a family fast that he could return home to God. He has suffered for a few years with dimensia but the last 3 months or so were becoming pretty rough. They think he maybe had a stroke that ultimately made him immobile for the last week and a half of life. 

Tammy and Dale took care of him until the end. They did everything they could to give him a comfortable home and life and we will forever be grateful for that. 

Grandpa Jones was a wonderful man. Pretty quiet, but still loved to tease and pinch and poke :). He was a hard worker and loved to garden and earlier on in life built homes and worked on construction. He ultimately was the person who really encouraged Cade to get a college degree and go into accounting and know how to deal with money and learn about businesses. We will miss him but are grateful he is in a better place with our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Cousin Casey and her two daughters Morgan and Cali. 

Lucy's 5th Birthday!

Out of Lucy's mouth...."Mom! Now that I am 5 I can do everything by myself! Like set the table, start the bath, make my own sandwich and play by myself!" She is growing up and doing so much by herself. We are so proud of the strides she has made in just the last year. 

Lucy has been making goals of things she wants to learn to do and is doing awesome! She is becoming a great swimmer and just this last week learned to swim the whole length of the pool without the assistance of her teacher. She gets so excited when I tell her she can make her own lunch. She usually makes a PB and jelly sandwich, veggies and hummus and fruit. Lucy is also learning to not need someone next to her playing with her every second which is definitely new for her. She also looks very much forward to preschool every single time. She is so social and loves being around people. Some of her friends right now are Sophie Bleak (of course), Sadie Swan, Alice Stonebreaker, Evie Folker and Olive Kingsford. 

We love our spunky, fun-loving, energetic Lucy! She adds so much excitement and patience learning in our home and we would't have it any other way. Lucy is growing into a beautiful, sweet girl. 

Lucy got her beloved play date with Sophie on her birthday. Nothing is better than playing with her best friend on her special day. They wore swimsuits and played in the bathtub, had a tea party for lunch and ended with ice cream cones. Fun day!

Our Close Baby #6!

 Announcing baby #6! I finally had my 13 weeks appointment with my doctor and everything looked good so we could start telling everyone. We had told Emma and Reese at 6-7 weeks along because I was SO sick and didn't feel like I could fake it 24/7 around them. From the day I found our I was pregnant at 4 weeks I was SO sick until about 8 weeks and then things got tons better. Then I was just normal nauseous until 13 weeks. This baby is due July 15th- right after Daddy's birthday. We are not going to find out the gender until the baby is born. It was way too much fun last time to not find out. 

I am now in my 2nd trimester and 16 1/2 weeks along. I have my second doctor appointment this Thursday and keeping praying for our little baby to grow and develop properly. We are excited to have this little one join us in July!

Nora Boo Turns 7

 

Our Sweet Nora is 7 years old and becoming such a fun little lady! For birthdays we revolve all the food around the birthday girl. So for breakfast we had pancakes, lunch was a taco picnic at the park (tacos from Taco Amigo), and dinner was meatball soup and rolls. She loved having ice cream Sundaes for dessert and then inviting Lucy Swan over for movie night. 

We love our sweet girl. She loves coloring and making notes for other people. Nora does this all the time for our family, her teachers and friends- one way she shows other people she loves them. 

She started violin lessons last September and still loves it. She is getting better and better all the time. Nora also LOVES skiing and has gotten really into it now that she had 2 lessons. She can even ski backwards and told Daddy and her sisters that she can teach them how :). Nora loves to learn Spanish and has a goal of counting to 100 in Spanish and she loves to do hair. She even got a mannequin for her birthday so she can practice. 

We love our Nora Lee!!!

Starting off 2021 Right

We kept with our tradition for the last few years of having our friends the Kingsford's over for New Years Eve. Before New Years Eve I woke up one mooning and had the vision of making paper mâché pinatas that look like viruses so we could beat the tar out of the virus and start 2021 out right :). We had fun making them and we had fun breaking them open. There were bandaids, lafty tafty, kisses with poop emojis, vaccine pens and more! 

Other fun Christmas Break stuff included sledding at Tibble Fork and William joined us, playing at parks, making slime, Midway Ice Castles and of course lots of skiing. We had a great time even though we didn't go very far!