Lucy's 9th Birthday!

 

Our spunky, full of life LuLu turned 9! 

Lucy is such a ray of sunshine. She lives for fun and friends and family and funny times! 

She loves to do tumbling and just passed off her back handsprings and is now working on her ariels. She is a hard worker and loves learning new tricks and showing them off. 

Lucy has been taking flute for over a year and is improving all the time. We just most recently switched teachers to Heidi-- someone older with more experience teaching as well as with kids. So far we really like her. 

Some things Lucy loves more is being tickled and tickled. I have no idea how she can handle it but one of her favorite games is ABC tickle. I pin her down on the ground and she says a letter of the alphabet. Then I have to tickle something on her that starts with that letter until she says a new letter. She also loves playing hide 'n go seek tickle (I'm seeing a theme here). Her new favorite game is "Fugitive". But its getting harder to play with neighbors who are not excited for kids to be running through their yards...I wonder why they don't like it? 😜😊

Lucy loves friends and so going to school is fun for her. She just finished off 3rd grade in Mrs. Adams class and there were quite a few naughty boys who made the class difficult for the rest of them. But Lucy handled it pretty well. 

She just started swim team this summer and she is absolutely loving it! Some activities are hard for her especially if she has to leave friends to go to them but every time I say "Lucy it's time for swim team" she immediately stops what she is doing and is excited to go! They had 4 swim meets this summer and she loved them all. 

For Lucy's 9th birthday I took her to a hotel to have a mommy-daughter overnighter. Unfortunately the pool was an outdoor pool and the winter wind was too cold for swimming so I took her to the Lehi indoor pool as part of our date. We watched a movie and stayed up late. We had a good time!!

Family Valentines Dinner!

 This year Reese and Nora helped me make Strawberry roses and meat roses and fancy kiwi to make our Valentines charcuterie board pretty!

Random Winter Fun!

 We did not get season ski passes this year so we FINALLY got up the canyon to hit the slopes. Emma decided she wanted to do snowboarding so we signed her up with an instructor. She did great and really loved it--minus her tail bone feeling like it was broken. The snow was not soft. The mountain had more ice than powder on it so it was pretty rough for falling down many times. We even took her to the Urgent Care thinking the tailbone was broken. Luckily just bruised. She is still excited though to keep trying next year! Trooper!

We went sledding ONE time. Literally one! We did not get much snow this year which was good for the driving, bad for the fun with the kiddos. 

Emma went to an Author's workshop at BYU and absolutely loved it. Her friend Sara from school went as well. She is writing her own series right now called "Draco Ragnum". Excited to see how it all comes together! She is very talented. 

Random little charcuterie workshop with Alyssa Folker. It was $5 to sign up and super fun to hang out with a friend!

Nora's 11th Birthday!

Sweet Nora turned 11 years old. She decided for her family activity to go to The Rush at the University Mall in Orem. It is a fun center with go-carts, mini golf, foam pit, climbing wall, bowling and laser tag. We had a babysitter for Benson and Jane and took the older 4 the night before her birthday. We had a great time! However, Nora decided she likes riding in a go-cart with Reese vs. driving herself. Laser tag was probably my favorite. 

On her birthday, we had crepes for breakfast and she opened her gifts before school. Nora got some LEGOS, a swing for her bedroom, a Calico Critter Hamburger stand and a few other things like clothing. In the evening, we had Gma/Gpa Close, Autumn and Ms. Bagley over for dinner. Nora chose taco salads. 

Some things about Nora:

-Nora is so good at making people feel loved and good about themselves. Some best friends at school are Amelia, Annabelle, Julianna and Ava. But when I go to school I can tell that she has lots of friends. 

-She has a new violin teacher and she is loving lessons and playing again! I'm glad she has found a love again. (Her first teacher, Karen, died suddenly in her sleep one night. She was older but had no health issues previously). 

-Nora is not afraid of trying new things and loves most things that she tries. She is awesome at skiing now and LOVES going. She is also awesome at trying new foods and loves most of my food I make. 

-She has a great love of the outdoors just like me and is up for a hike anytime I invite her to come! 

-She still has a knack for crafting and creating all sorts of things. Her giant green house craft has become so intricate and amazing. 

Nora and her cute school friends. 

Girls from the ward at activity days. Lucy Swan (her best friend), Nora, Maggie, and Scarlett. Nora was sad that she barely misses the cut-off for Young Women's and has to wait another year. But at least her best friend, Lucy, is right there with her!

We love our Nora Boo! We love the joy and sweetness and kindness she brings to our family. 

Cade and I Get-a-way to St. George

What a fun way to begin 2025! Cade needed a little get-a-way away from crazy, busy work. Well, I'd like to say I "needed" one too but I was just happy to go and spend some time with him! We had some fun adventures and enjoyed really yummy food, hiking, biking, hot tubbing and meeting up with friends. 

The first thing we did was drive to Pioneer Park and hike around a little until our Airbnb check-in time. Then we met up with the Williamson's (Cade used to work with Chris) at a Mexican restaurant. 

Of course after only being away from our kiddos for a few hours, Benson got quite the bad bonk! He was playing in the backyard on the trampoline and tripped over his own feet and his head bonked really hard on the metal ring of the tramp. It was really bad but luckily didn't split open. He's a trooper. 

We had fun meeting Scott and Amy Noorda at the St. George temple. The new renovations are absolutely beautiful! 

One of our favorite things we did was rent E-bikes and rode through beautiful Snow Canyon. It was really cool. I mean...it was a little TOO cool...cold. Other than that it was really fun. 

We also played some pickleball that day and that was really fun. 

We ate at a restaurant called The Painted Pony that Bryan and Jennie had recommended. It was probably my new favorite restaurant. We got ice cream after and found this cute random telephone pole that made us feel like we were in London again. 

We went on a hike to a place called Scout Cave. The first 2/3 of the hike was really just a walk through lava rock. It wasn't very pretty but I had good company! The last part was more adventurous and the cave was cool. 

We took a tour through the Brigham Young Home and also drove by James Godson Bleaks home (my Great Great Great Grandfather). I can't believe that with all the times we have been to St. George that we have never taken the time to do tours through the pioneer homes. I loved it and can't wait to go through more pioneer homes with my kiddos next month. 

Benson's eye was quite colorful the couple weeks after our trip. Lots of changing all the time. Poor kid. He's tough though.