Missed it

 I missed last Thursday, the kids were on spring break and I was out of my groove so it just slipped my mind. In case you are wondering we're still here, a little worse for the wear but we are making it so far. Spring break was good. We did a lot of sleeping in (just kidding, only I was sleeping in) watching TV, playing the guitar, doing tablets. You know the usual useless time wasters. We did go to Lava Hot Springs to go swimming so that was fun and it was good to get out of the house. 

William was so tired he even napped with his hat on. 

William scored big in the hand-me-down selection from Wilson and Simeon which he was pumped about.  He has a brand new wardrobe to wear around school for the last couple months. 

Just a Jack shot. Turns out he is getting so big. He is still pretty sweet and the kids love to pet and snuggle him. I only hate him a little but we are working on it. 

When we were loading up the duffle back to go to rugby we found an old outfit of Anchor's, complete with a spit-up covered bib. I can't believe how much he has grown! *and how long it has been sitting in the bag.*

The most exciting news was that William got his braces off! It has been a long two years in the making but his smile looks dashing. I am happy for him that he gets to move forward into the retainer life.

In other news we spent the weekend in Rexburg celebrating Simeon's wedding. It was so good to be together with family and we are so excited to see our extended family growing. The kids had fun playing with cousins and hanging out with aunts and uncles that they haven't seen in ages! The weather was terrible but that is what we expected so we just rolled with it. 

We had fun jumping at Geronimos with Fletcher yesterday and it sure helped the kids go to sleep good last night. Although Anchor must have had a bad dream or something because he showed up at my bedside at 0400 and said "I ready to snuggle". I was like alright but we will be snuggling in your bed. Thankfully he fell back to sleep and I was able to go back to sleep for a little while before having to get up for the day. 

Last but not least, just for documentation, Ben lost his job on Friday. We were glad he was able to spend more time with us over the weekend but now we are really feeling the heaviness of our situation. He was able to pick up some work as an independent contractor for his old company doing taxes until the end of tax season but after that we will be on our own. We have some applications out of course and hopefully something comes up. Which it will. It always does, it's just hard in the meantime.  

Words

"We got going and realized we forgot which house was their's... 

Luckily we got it first try."

That was the report after asking the kids to go take a pan to our neighbor's house. Then Charley nearly slid down their driveway.  It was a rough 5 minute trip.

Anchor gesturing all cool like to Ben "this is my boy. His name is dad."

On our way to preschool on Tuesday we were chatting and Anchor slipped in a new word that he had learned it went to the tune of F@$%#!*&. He just popped it right in there like it was nothing "those  F@$%#!*& cars go fast".  So that was shocking to say the least. I did not see it coming. He must have learned it from youtube or something because we do NOT say that in our house. I'd be lying though if I said I haven't been giggling about it ever since.

Emmerlyn and Charley had a pinewood derby for their youth activity last night. Emmerlyn was dubbed the best loser so it didn't go to well. Emmerlyn's was a cheese wedge with her rat Oreo painted on the top and Charley's well I should have taken a picture, his was one of those things that you use to like pound open a door, the word has totally escaped me. Charley isn't here to ask because he is on the 8th grade ski day that got canceled last week because of bad winds. He is super excited though to be going and I hope he has fun. Battering Ram, that's the word. 

This is Anchor hiding in the pantry to avoid doing his job.

This is William playing in his rugby scrimmage that I watched from the car because it was 40* and raining. It was a mud bath and he came home covered. He had fun though and he is excited to start at Hook on his game on Saturday. In Boise. So that'll be a long drive. 

The kids got bit by the baking bug. 

Emmerlyn made Bundts

William made pudding and ate the entire things himself

Brevick made milk chocolate cookie cups. He did great and did it all by himself with only a few tips from me. He even used the mixer. 

Anchor made cookies. With a lot of help from me. He was confident in his skills though, I had a lot of quick catches before all crazy went into those cookies. Silly kid, he just wants to be part of the action. Charley didn't make anything because he was still at school. He did benefit from all their hard work though, except the pudding.

This week we have been working on being busy every night. So that is always crazy. We are looking forward to spring break which is coming up next week so that will be super nice. We also cut the boys' hair, it was definitely time for a trim, they were looking a little scraggly. Charley broke his glasses, thankfully they are under warranty. Pollee bit the UPS man and in the scuffle Jack got out and started running away. Naturally. Can you just picture us all pouring out of the house after our insane dogs? You know how they say that people look like their pets. Yeah, we looked the part. It took a string cheese and a lot of chasing and threatening to get him and Pollee both back in the house. Now we hate them both and need a whole new life plan. I said I was going to put them on KSL which caused tears from everybody so instead we are going to work on our dog training ability. 

We didn't do any adventures this week but we should have because we had all day Saturday with nothing to do. Oh well, hindsight's 20/20.

Sowing

I seem to be drawing a blank on what we have been up to this week. It has just been a blur.  We did some school. We are working on William and Charley's schedules for next year. Emmerlyn had gymnastics and is doing good with her back-handspring. Brevick had his last basketball. He did great and made his goal for steals. He is celebrating his season with his friends today at Geronimo's. Anchor has been busy doing his job and going to school today when everybody else has the day off. 

The biggest part was celebrating Ben's birthday. We are so grateful he is part of our family. He supports us all and works so hard. He is busy with Tax Season but having a work from home set up he can pop out for things like dinner or family prayer which is super nice. I think we see a little more of him this year then we have in years past.

Anchor did some painting. He is working on painting the whole world so "Jesus can be happy".

Anchor also created this masterpiece in the basement. Can you see him in his stuffy pit? 

Emmerlyn has been sowing seeds. Her last batch she was proud to announce they share a birthday since their planting date is apparently their birth date.  She is planting an herb garden and a little box of mushrooms. She also did some sewing and fixed up her torn stuffed animal. 

 

Yo, I got it in a cone!!

 

William and Charley went snow cave camping so we went and got ice cream. Anchor was thrilled that I didn't put the cone in a cup (I hate the drippy mess of ice cream so usually I put his cone into a cup and let him eat most of it with a spoon. *I actually HAD gotten it in a cup, I just dumped most of it in the cup and then gave him the half empty cone.) We came home and watched a movie and then the kids slept in the living room. 

William and Charley spent the night in snow caves that they dug themselves. Yes I stressed all night that they were freezing or that the cave would collapse and they would suffocate. They made it back. Charley had fun but William said that next time they went snow cave camping he was not going. He slept terrible and was cold most of the time. Shortly after getting home he had to go to rugby practice outside, in the cold. He came home covered in mud and ready for a warm shower and a nap.

Pollee was so proud of herself for waking him up. He was not amused. 

William also had a band concert. He said they did a terrible job but it was hard to hear that so I think they did ok. I was totally uncultured and we left after William's portion of the concert because I didn't want to be there all night (don't worry they had an intermission while they re-set the stage so it wasn't noticeable.)

What's going on out there you are wondering. Oh just Charley snowblowing the drive-way. It was his first time doing it so everyone was waiting for him to come inside spitting mad because it was too hard for him. He stuck in out though and didn't come back in until it was done. He was LIVID. I think the snowblower is still a little bit too big for him so it just didn't work quite right and it was hard for him to turn. We will have to give him another year to grow into it. 

Emmerlyn has her wax museum coming up and they have to go in costume. So here I am trying to figure out how to sew using a pattern to make a colonial dress for her to wear. So far I have the pieces all cut out and are ready to be sewn together but the directions use hard words like 'placket' and 'whipstitch' which I don't comprehend at all so from this point I will just be makin' it up as I go. It'll be good enough for the 5th grade so that's good enough for me.

Brevick played good in his game on Saturday really getting into it with the other team. He is bummed that his last game is coming up. (So am I a little because this has been good for him, he needs the outlet.)

Ben enjoyed his first Tax Season that didn't include the March 1st farmer deadline. That is a first for him. The lower stress was kind of nice.