March 2017

March brought a disparate mix of events: a funeral (for Kressyda), a student of the month award, and wrestling. Lots of wrestling.
Parker, Rhece, and Corben were all signed up for wrestling and had practices three days a week, and tournaments on Saturdays. 
Rhece surprised us with how much he enjoyed wrestling.  He was intense and focused and learned some great maneuvers.  He brought home a number of wins and had a great season.

 Corben, on the other hand, may not be cut out for the wrestling life.  This is how he looked BEFORE his first match started, and things went downhill from there.  For as feisty as he is, we were surprised that he wasn't more aggressive and competitive out on the mat. He learned some good lessons about seeing a thing through, even when it's not your favorite, and he wasn't sad when the season ended!

 In March Rhece received the student of the month award for outstanding citizenship in his class at school.  He was so excited to be recognized in this way, although he tried to be nonchalant and hide his pleased smile.  We are so glad to have Rhece in our family and for the good example he is of being kind and looking out for others!

One final view of March is Declan as Cucumber Man, because isn't this what cucumber slices make you want to do too?!

February 25, 2017 A Very Difficult Goodbye . . .

The day started out like most other Saturdays this past winter: base layers, ski gear, and an early morning trip to Purgatory Ski Resort.  I had stayed home with Madelyn, Meredith and Declan as we were all recovering from illness.  Adam and the other boys headed up around 7 am.  The ski day went as it normally did, meeting up with friends from the ward with lots of runs and great skiing. Kressyda had taken her four oldest children up to ski while Cameron (who had been ill) and Poppy stayed home.

Towards the end of the ski day (around 3 pm) Adam called.  I assumed he was calling to tell me that he was heading home.  Instead he told me that Kressyda had hit a tree and was unresponsive.  I could hear urgency and seriousness in his voice.  Within the hour he called to tell me that she had passed away.  

The word "stunned"fails to convey the depth of emotion we all felt.  I had texted with her just the day before.  She had just been skiing with everyone, like every other Saturday.  How could she possibly be gone, in an instant?

What followed for all of us was sacred and painful as we tried our best to love and offer some sort of consolation to her family that she loved fiercely.  

Her life changed me, and honestly, it changed everyone she knew.  Although we know our goodbye is temporary, we still miss her and her friendship deeply.

February 2017

February began much the same as January ended: lots of snow and skiing and winter fun.

Adam took Meredith and Parker to the Roots Tech conference in Provo, UT this month too.  They spent two days learning more about family history and how to further this great work of seeking out our ancestors.  

They also stopped by to visit Granny in the Jamestown retirement facility where she currently lives.

 On the 14th, we also had our traditional family Valentine's Day fancy dinner.  We've done this for quite a while now and it's a tradition that we thoroughly enjoy. I pull out our fancy stem glasses and fill them with sparkling cider and we always have salmon, some type of potato and a steamed vegetable on the side and we eat by candlelight.  Of course, there is always a decadent dessert to round out the meal too.  Some years we dress up, some years we don't, but we always enjoy this dinner!

January 2017

January brought plenty of cold, snow, skiing, and a birthday. 

We received a storm int he early part of the month that brought a few inches of snow.  Of course, this is like a cloud-sneeze in Michigan where we lived for eight years, but is nevertheless quite exciting and makes for some fun snow play.

Declan was happy to play outside for the 20 minutes that it took them to build the snowman and then walked his frozen, soggy jeans back inside for some hot chocolate.

Yes, that's a Halloween mixing bowl they're using to scoop the snow.

The masterpiece is complete!

During this month we went to the Purgatory Ski Resort every Saturday.  Meredith, Rhece and Corben were in ski school every Saturday morning and we spent the day there skiing with friends from the ward, especially the Mings.  We kind of have our ski routine down so it doesn't seem quite so cumbersome as it did when we first started.  Between getting everyone in their snow gear and loading up the equipment as well as packing food, it is quite the process!  Now that we've got it figured out, we have come to enjoy this activity as a family quite a bit.  

It is so incredibly beautiful skiing through these mountains and seeing the beauty that surrounds us!

Here is Corben at ski school. He has done great!

Corben turned five on the 13th of January.  I always take the kids to lunch for their birthday, and Corben chose the illustrious Burger King joint here in town (primarily for the crown, I'm assuming).  Declan was clearly pleased about the event.

Our festivities at home that evening included Corben's choice of cake, which was a yellow cake with chocolate frosting.  The candles were especially fun because the flames were the color of the candles.

Parker had a Scout camp out in January also and his Scout leader sent us these pictures of the boys having a great time.

Parker flying off a homemade ski jump.

In a snow cave that they constructed.

Taking turns catching air off of the aforementioned jump.

It's a great start to 2017!

The Year in Review: 2017

Well, that was a bit of a break. Since I last posted we have moved twice (to a rental home in Farmington, NM, and subsequently to a home that we purchased here in town); Adam finished all of his medical training (!!!) and bought into a practice here in town; we've added two more kids to the family (Corben and Declan); we now have kids in high school, middle school, and elementary school.  We are happy and well and the kids have said on multiple occasions that they wish I were still writing the blog because they love seeing the pictures and reading about our family. I will try to devote a post or two to each month for 2017 and start fresh on 2018.  If I get really ambitious, I may try to fill in the other years too, but I'm not making any promises yet. In the meantime, welcome back!

Hiking in the foothills and an anniversary!

Yesterday we went on a hike in the foothills near our home.  It was just warm enough, and blessedly overcast.  The only annoyances were the gnats that were flying around, but other than that we had a great time.  As it turned out, we finished just in time.  As we were hiking back to the car, a thunderstorm rolled over the mountain and it started raining.  Thankfully the lightning didn't start until we were IN the car!

I would be remiss if I painted the picture as being too rosy though.  In the first half of the hike there was enthusiasm and excitement.  Mid-way through the hike, the excitement began to wane a bit as fatigue set in.  Adam and I had to supress our laughter as one of our children, fed up with the gnats and large ants yelled, "get me off of this stinkin' mountain!"  I told Adam I felt like we were on the set of the original "Parent Trap" when Vicki yells something like, "get me out of this stinkin' fresh air!"

The other big news of the week is that Adam and I celebrated our ten year anniversary.  Since it was a busy day during the middle of the week, we decided to stay home and celebrate our family's "birthday" with a nice dinner and tasty dessert.  The kids loved being able to take part in the celebration.  We've had a lot of fun and made some wonderful memories in the last ten years, and I can't wait to see what the future holds!

It appears we're back in business . . .

I'm not sure what the problem was with the last few posts not publishing very quickly, but I think it is fixed now.  I won't even try to go back and fill in the blanks in the family history, we'll just start fresh :)

We are now residents of Albuquerque, New Mexico.  It's kind of an interesting mix of Arizona, Utah, with a little California thrown in.  We live right up against the Sandia mountains, and while it doesn't replace my love for the Michigan treescape, it is quite beautiful nonetheless. 

For the last two weeks Madelyn, Parker and Meredith have been in swimming lessons.  All three of them LOVED the lessons.  This was Meredith's first time in lessons and she could not have been more pleased to join the club.  Rhece and I hung out poolside while they explored their inner fish :)

Other than swimming, we have been unpacking and trying to do so quickly since before we know it, it will be time to pack it all back up again!

Stay tuned . . . . more to come!

Jennie

testing . . .

I've written a post or two, but it hasn't been publishing, so I'm just seeing if this thing is on :)

Have a Holly Jolly Christmas!

Wishing you all a very merry Christmas!

Pops and Granna's visit

Pops and Granna came for Madelyn's baptism and we all enjoyed their visit. We took a hike at the Nature Center and loved seeing all the fall colors.


Pops packing Rhece.


This shot will not be featured on our Christmas cards this year :)



Parker insisted on having hiw walking stick.
While they were here there was a lot of reading (Granna brought lots of favorite books), and Adam and his dad installed a new kitchen faucet that looks great.

Happy Halloween!

I won't even offer an excuse as to why it's been FOUR months since I last posted here. But here are some cute Halloween pictures. It was a busy week and I think I can say that we celebrated Halloween thoroughly enough!


This was at our homeschool Halloween party on Thursday. The kids got dressed up, made a ghost, heard some cute Halloween stories and did some games. For lunch we had spider web pizza and candy corn pizza. With all the sugar the kids would be consuming in the next few days, Jessica was good enough to bring some veggies and Rachel made some bread sticks that were completely divine. Kendra made a darling Frankenstein pudding cup to top off the party. And, while we got pictures of the kids eating the food, we have no picture of the festive food before it was summarily ingested!


Here's the crew ready to trick-or-treat on Saturday night. Madelyn was Kirsten Larson the American Girl, Parker was a U of M football player and Meredith was his cheerleader. I made Madelyn and Meredith's costumes and borrowed Parker's, and I figured Rhece wouldn't care so he got a ghost sewed to a shirt. Maybe next year he'll get a real costume:)

We went to the ward Trunk-or-Treat on Friday night at the church. There were a lot of fun games and Parker in particular was a fan of the apple bobbing. Some of the other highlights included a cake walk (because the kids totally needed more sugar) and a game where you stuck your hand into a box and tried to guess, based on the texture/temperature, what was in the box. Parker was grossed out by the slime that stuck to his hand in the "brain" box.

Last night we hit up a town that was holding their trick-or-treat festivities Saturday instead of Sunday. Apparently the rest of western Michigan got the memo about that neighborhood too because we weren't the only ones there :) Adam kept waiting for someone to ask for some ID to prove we lived in the neighborhood before they handed over the candy. We met up with some other friends from our stake and took the kids around. The kids were pleased with the stash they amassed and went to sleep quickly once their heads hit the pillow.

June in Review

I’m out to right a wrong. While picture-taking and fun-making have continued, family journaling has fallen by the wayside of late.

The beginning of June found us on beautiful Hilton Head Island, but that deserves its own post. For now I will chronicle June’s strawberry picking and Rhece’s first birthday celebration.

While not nearly the hectic adventure that last year’s strawberry trip was, we had a great time this year. We got there about an hour before closing and the kids filled our large bucket quickly. Rhece got his first taste of fresh strawberries and that, to him, almost made up for the fact that he couldn’t get out of the backpack and crawl around in the bushes like he really wanted to do.

On June 23rd Rhece turned one! We decided a few weeks before his birthday that his big brown eyes and sweet cheeks were begging for a monkey-themed cake, so I did my best to create one. He liked the cake well enough, and when he was through eating it he let us know by throwing it off the tray.

A few of his one year stats:

Rhece has seven teeth; four on top, three on bottom.

He is a very proficient crawler, he cruises some, but has not really shown an interest in walking

(thankfully!)

Rhece goes to bed between 6:30 and 7pm, and wakes up at about the same time the next morning.

The kitchen vent provides him with endless fun, especially if it is on. He figured out how to get the cover off. When Parker was sweeping the other day he noticed and retrieved a measuring cup and a toy that Rhece apparently put in the vent for safe-keeping.

Until earlier this week Rhece almost always had a binky clipped to what he was wearing. He managed to pull it off while we were running errands. I didn’t have an extra of this favorite one. I noticed just before we were heading home and stopped to get one. The one I got was not acceptable to His Royal Highness and after giving it a few sucks he took it from his mouth and threw it across the floor. So for the cost of one new binky, Rhece is now binky-free.