February

Winter is ticking on...here are some pictures from February

 

We made some Groundhog Day cupcakes

We made a king cake for Mardi Gras - I started celebrating this holiday after living in the Florida panhandle where it is more of a thing.  This king cake is just a big cinnamon roll before being cut into individual pieces.  It turned out very tasty!

John is a deacon now (he passes the sacrament at church) so I've been trying hard to get him a more grown up church outfit - here he is trying on an outfit

Scott recently was called to be our Ward Clerk (at church) so he has meetings before church every Sunday.  So I have to help John tie his ties now and I'm not very good at it.  On this day I think Scott helped with the tie and it looks a little crazy here but was nicely tied.

Anna made this Taylor Swift cake for her friend's birthday and left this note to keep everyone away

Enough dry days to play outside a bit - sidewalk chalk is a favorite activity

John had an assignment to make a Valentine box that included a simple machine.  John used a lever to make the dog's mouth open and close.

Nice job, John

A lot of people had really complicated boxes with axles and pulleys and things.

We did the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) design method this year

Emma decorated this pink shirt to be festive for Valentine's Day

Matthew won an award at school for chemistry.  My science loving heart is so proud.

Emma has been busy selling lots of girl scout cookies - mostly at booths this year.

Kind of exhausting

She also played a season of basketball - they've been learning more and more about the game.

Grant - the builder - is making a lot of house creations.  He's also been using TinkerCad (a simplified version of Cad for kids) to make some house creations for school.

Scott has made all the birds in the area happy by keeping our bird feeder full.

Also one large squirrel is happy about it too.

Emma making creations - she loves making crafts to celebrate holidays and to give to friends.

John has been making good progress on his trumpet lessons.  He can play the main theme from Legend of Zelda and Star Wars now.  Good work John!!

The youngest two have been doing some outdoor hiking in the evenings.

Anna made this clay ballerina for a school project - she made it in a really short time too - it looked so cute.

We celebrated Matthew's birthday - he is 17 this year!

Next year he will be a legal adult!

He got a large gaming monitor for his birthday

He is about 6'1" now - so tall!!  Happy Birthday Matthew!!

January

January found us and then sped on by

We un-Christmas-ed our house

On the same day we did this a winter storm came

It was a Saturday and we ended up losing power for 4 hours.  We ate dinner in the dark/dusk and played some board games by candle light.  We were happy when the power came back on

We enjoyed the winter weather - but school ended up canceled for the whole week

The snow was pretty icy but the kids still had fun sledding

Grant said he even took a few "naps" in the snow at the sledding hill - we did see him from the house laying in the snow for a while.  Here he is "napping" in the yard.  He reminds me of Randy from A Christmas Story who can't get up off the ground in his puffy winter snowsuit - "I can't get up!"

Several days our back gate iced shut - so getting to the sledding hill involved some work.  I had to hack the ice away with a shovel one morning.

Matthew made some nice loaves of multigrain bread for a friend's birthday because we couldn't get out to the store in time with all the ice to get a proper gift.  The birthday party still happened and the friend loved the homemade bread.  This is the recipe Matthew made - Multigrain Bread. And here is a new basic white bread recipe I've been loving lately.

I scheduled a final for the week of the snow and ice thinking my kids would be in school that day - but they were not.  The final was take home, so not proctored, and I had 24 hours to complete it - it took me 10 hours!!! So it was a rough day for me, mentally, emotionally, visually (my eyes!!!) and a rough day for Scott trying to work and keep everyone else quiet while we were stuck in the house.  I got 100% on the final - it was a programming final so if you get the code to run and it runs in a short enough time you get full credit.  But the whole thing was very traumatic.  This latest class I finished was on searching and sorting algorithms - a computer science class for my data science program.  I feel like I'm quick on the uptake of the theory and math of my classes but slower than average at the coding - since I have less experience with that, although I'm getting faster.  I do feel like I am picking up a little momentum with my classes so I hope it lasts.  After that final, I still have a 4.0 so trying not to be too hard on myself.  Here's me reviewing some notes.

I've started taking most of my school notes on my computer. rather than on paper.  It's great but getting math equations typed in correctly is painful sometimes on my word processing app.  Subscripts, superscripts, Greek letters!!  But I still like doing it this way for now.

Grant made some cool things while we were stuck in the house - this is a tiny arcade game.  He even made a little cord and plug coming out of the back of the machine.

His Lego gameboy creation

These were his own designs

We measured all the kids - Matthew is 6'1" ...and Anna is mad she is not 6'1"

Earlier in the month we got to hang out with my brother-in-law's family.  They are really fun and always so nice to us.  And great food!!  And fun cousin times.  They have what they call "cracker feast" (or was it cracker fest?) as a New Year's Eve thing and I love the name and the concept and all of it.  Glad we got to get together.

And John was ordained a deacon - both sets of grandparents were able to be there.

We have 4 kids in the YM/YW program now

Scott and I went on a quick trip to San Jose - he had a work party and I got to be his plus one.  I always feel really anxious and guilty leaving the kids so that's hard but thanks Ma2 and Pa2 for watching our gang while we were gone.  The party was nice - held at a fancy country club in Palo Alto - much fancier place than I normally visit.  And I got to meet lots of Scott's co-workers so that was cool.  Social skills are not my forte - so I usually just struggle/suffer through all social events but somehow we survived it.  While in CA we also got to have In&Out Burger and Dish Dash - a Mediterranean/Middle Eastern restaurant in San Jose that Scott and I like.  And I had a quiet day alone to work on class work and read Lord of the Rings.  Here we are on the flight there.

And Emma greeted us at the airport on the way back.  She saved up all the things she wanted to say to us over the two days and told them to us (firehose style) on the 30 minute ride home.

We also got to go to a comedy show.  Scott and I saw Nate Bargatze (a comedian) in Portland.  It was great!  And after the Blazer game last month we now have a better handle on parking at the Moda Center. 

John has been doing a lot of swimming - he's trying to pass off the level he's in so he can (maybe) do swim team.  He has to get butterfly down and we're not quite there yet, but he's doing great!

Waterslide day at swimming

Anna working on a craft creation

Emma started piano lessons - the 3 younger kids all do music lessons right now.  Not sure if we can afford to continue with that but they are all doing great right now!

John made a pamphlet for school on the tundra biome

Grant making some kind of contraption from his bed to the door

Matthew dressed up as a nerd for a school spirit day - it was jocks vs. nerds and most people dressed up as jocks - Matthew was representing for nerds!!

2023 Picture A Day Video

 

Here is a video - one picture every day - for 2023.

It was another busy year!  

December - Part 2

Christmas Eve we had a lovely feast at John's house (Scott's brother), cookies, food and fun

Later we stopped by Pa2 and Ma2's house to see their tree

and their new couch!

And even later we had our own family nativity

It was fun

And we had our first ever family Christmas concert

Matthew played Good King Wenceslas

And supported John on Jingle Bells

Grant played Greensleeves / What Child is This?

I played The First Noel on the piano and Emma recited a Christmas essay she wrote

Anna declined to perform on her violin - maybe next year

And we opened Christmas jammies from Ma2

So fun

We left cookies for Santa

And everyone did a good job sleeping all night, although morning seemed to come early!

We had made-from-scratch cinnamon rolls, orange rolls and a double batch of German pancakes

And it was too much food!  But still good.

Emma got brave and tried some German pancakes.  She is a very picky eater and I sometimes put a taste on a tiny plate for her, to help her give things a try.

Merry Christmas!!

We opened presents and got a family photo

The kids enjoyed relaxing, playing video games and building Legos that day.  I was so happy we weren't sick around Christmas like last year.  Emma made this Lego birdhouse

John built this Lego piranha plant

We had both sets of grandparents over for a lovely Christmas dinner...and I didn't get any pictures. I often forget to take pictures when we have guests.  But it was all nice.  Here's the table after dinner.

Two of my brothers came into town - one from New Jersey and one from Hermiston, OR.  We had fun getting together but I didn't get pictures.  My older brother, Matt, got us all tickets to the Blazers game.  It was very nice!  I haven't been to a Blazers game before but love basketball!  It was so fun!

Woohoo!!  The Blazers lost but we still had a great time!

And I need to do better at taking pictures next year!

A little bit of outside play time

New haircuts - John is not happy about his

I am several months into my new church calling as Relief Society secretary.  I was quite shocked that any human person who knows me would want me to do this job but I am trying my best - here is a snippet of the monthly newsletter I'm working on for January.

More Christmas break puzzling

New Year's Eve we had cheese fondue and Italian sodas

And later chocolate fondue, board games and movies

One of the cards from one of the board games was very apropos

We easily made it to midnight this year...and beyond!

We couldn't see fireworks from our house this year, as we usually can, because it was so foggy, but we had our own kind of fun

Happy New Year everyone!!

See you in 2024!!