New Year's Weekend

I just wanted to start out with this super cute picture of Milo after we gave him a bath on Thursday. I had been wanting to give him a bath before Christmas, but there just wasn't time. I finally did it with the help of Charlotte. He stayed really calm for this bath as Charlotte kept feeding him treats while I wet him down and scrubbed him. After we got him out to dry him off, Charlotte wrapped one of the towels around him and he looked so cute!

We decided this year that we wanted to invite some friends over to play games and eat snacks on New Year's Eve. We started asking around and several already had plans but we did have two families over that we have been wanting to hang out with for a long time, the Benedicts and the McShanes. Of course everyone went to church first and they had a linger longer for the 2nd hour. We brought a bunch of chocolate dipped pretzels that I made the night before while watching Encanto with Curtis and the girls. There were enough left over that we had some for our New Years' party as well. Our friends came over around 6pm. Curtis made 3 flavors of chicken wings and jalapeno poppers. I made Quiche Triangles and a veggie tray. I also cut up a pineapple and peeled some mandarin oranges. The Benedicts brought cake and the McShanes brought their veggie tray leftover from the linger longer plus some spring rolls. We had a lot of good food to eat! 

I didn't get a lot of pictures because I was so busy having fun but we played a few games that we haven't played in years, starting with Pig Spoons. That game was temporarily interrupted by some of the group going to watch fireworks over at the Carousel. Curtis and I stayed here with some of the boys and watched from the window of our house. There was fog but we could still see them from here. Our girls rode over with the McShanes because their girls were going. We played SkyJo while we waited for the group to come back. The fireworks went off at 9:00pm for about 10 minutes. I guess it lines up with the East Coast ringing in the new year. After they got back, we finished the Spoons game and then moved to our front room to play Signs. We haven't played this in years but it's always so fun. Everyone picks their own sign and they have to pass it around to different people without the person in the middle seeing. If they catch you, then you switch places. 

Playing "Signs".

The McShanes have 5 kids like us. Three are teenage boys (Garrett and Jack are friends with the oldest one, Dallin). The Benedicts brought their 3 younger kids. They have an older son who is not at home right now. I think he's serving in the military overseas right now. Anyway, between those two families and ours, we had a house full. It got a bit crazy sometimes but it was fun. Even Charlotte and her friend played Signs with us. The last game we played was Catch Phrase and they played that one also. Alice and her friend were busy playing downstairs.

Playing "Catch Phrase".

We had no idea how long we were going to go but we ended up having so much fun playing the games that we made it to midnight. I last minute found a count down on my phone but I made the BIG mistake of not telling Alice that we were counting down. The two girls (Alice and Laila) came up after we had counted down and shouted "Happy New Year!" and Alice was not happy that she missed out. We did another count down but she was still disappointed. I will make sure I do not make that mistake again next year. Poor girl. Other than that, everyone had a blast!

The only time we saw Garrett was when we started eating. He disappeared to his room most of the night. It may have been too many people for him. I think we could have gotten him out of his room if we had invited a family who had teenage girls. Maybe next time 😉

It was two late nights in a row since Jack had gone to the New Year's Eve dance Saturday night with Morgan and Eli. We were the drivers. So, we all slept in New Year's Day and didn't do a whole lot. Curtis did do a few small things around the house like hanging our vanity lights in the bathroom downstairs. The box has been sitting there for a couple of months. Curtis went back to work on Tuesday.

The kids are back to school today and so it was nice to get back on a schedule. We have been doing the Biggest Loser weight loss challenge with family members, but I haven't been exercising yet. I saw Curtis using an exercising app last week and so I downloaded the same app to do exercising at home. I just started that this morning. I don't want to just lose weight. I want to get in shape and have more energy. So far, the exercises are pretty short. After I warmed myself up by jogging up and down the stairs 10 times and doing some other cardio, the workout on the phone took about 3 minutes and was mostly push-ups. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet, but we'll see how it goes and if they change it up every day or what. 

I also sat down to read my scriptures this morning and look at the Come Follow Me book. We did not do very good with that as a family last year nor did I do very good personally. I have a goal to do better this year. I have been listening to the Book of Mormon this past year on my phone sometimes and only have a few chapters left to finish but I found I have a more difficult time paying attention and focusing, so I plan to read my paper scriptures this year, unless I'm out of town, then I'll use my phone.  Anyway, my main goals for this year are to get to my weight loss goal, I have 7 lbs to go. Then to get in shape and read my scriptures every day and do better at Come Follow Me Lessons with the kids. Happy New Year!!

Two Days After

The day after Christmas, Jack had a couple of friends come over to play games and Curtis went out to the garage to finish moving things around. He really wanted to be able to park the van in the garage and by the end of the day, he was able to do it! Yay! I haven't parked in the garage in about a year. I was also anxious to get a shelf for the game closet in Jack's room, so I finally went down to Walmart while Curtis worked in the garage and bought two 3 foot shelves to put side by side in the closet. It's so much better!

I wish I would have gotten a picture when he started this project earlier this month. It looks way different and so much better. He bought 4 new shelves to put things on.

The van is inside!

We need to figure out what we're going to do with the roll of carpet.

Our old fridge bit the dust so we moved this cabinet into it's spot. Not sure where we'll put it if we get a new fridge. Eventually we'd like a shed to put out mowers and other yard tools in, but this will do for now.

The game closet before shot. I took the closet doors off so it would be easier to work in.

And the after shot!

One of the other things we did that day was hanging up the two wall decorations that Curtis bought.

This is by our front door.

And in our living room. It says "gather".

Charlotte had a hard time sleeping that night because her gums were hurting her, and she had a headache. I had told her to floss to see if she had food stuck somewhere. She flossed but wasn't sure she got anything out other than some blood. By 6 am I told her she could watch TV quietly. We watched the 3rd episode of Percy Jackson together since it just released that morning. I went and laid in my bed after that while she watched the 2nd Percy Jackson movie. A little while later, I got up again because I had to let Milo out to go potty and feed him. Then I took a nap on the couch while the boys took a load to the dump and also dropped off our old fridge. We had that fridge since we got married, so it lasted over 20 years. 

Later that afternoon, Charlotte conked out on the couch from being so tired. Sage joined her. She slept for several hours. We finally woke her up so that we could all go do something as a family outside of the house since Curtis will be going back to work the next day. We started by driving over to Costco and buying some food items and then eating dinner at the food court. Hot dogs and pizza. We decided on the way home that we should go to the movie theater. The two movies that we were most interested in were Wonka and Migration. Originally Jack wanted to see Migration more than Wonka but changed his mind after watching the trailers. The girls wanted Migration because it was an animated movie but the rest of us chose Wonka, so that's what we watched. It was a good movie! They even made it into a musical like the original Willy Wonka. This movie was about how Willy Wonka got started in chocolate making and creating his factory. The girls will just have to watch Migration another time.

Comfy reclining chairs with cup holders and table. This is a great way to go see a movie! We just don't do it often because it's so expensive now.

The theater gave us plastic share bags and a small cup to scoop out popcorn from our bucket to the bags to make it easier to share popcorn. I had never seen that before so that was pretty cool. They only allowed us to refill our bucket once though.

It was a fun night with the kids and I'm glad we got out. Curtis is back to work today, so the kids and I are just hanging out at home. It was a great opportunity for me to catch up on blogging. Now that I'm done with that, I think I'll go cook some eggs in my egg bite maker. 

Christmas Day

Curtis made waffles for breakfast for everyone while we cleaned up and started enjoying the new gifts. I had gotten a new egg bite maker and so I tested it out. It was good except I think I put too many onions in it. I was just trying to use up the green onions. After breakfast, everyone went off and did their own things for awhile. Curtis got to work on getting the ham smoked. 

My egg bite maker has two sizes of pans. I can make one big one, which holds 2 large eggs, or 4 bite size ones with hold about 1/2 an egg each.

The girls had fun with the silly string but it was a bit messy and not as easy to clean up as we thought. Thankfully they did it in the basement and we were able to clean it all up. Some spots looked like they might stain.

Jack and Curtis working on building his new wooden puzzle, a ballista. 

He can actually shoot arrows with it and it has a little guy you can aim at, a Viking.

We all sat down to eat dinner around 5:00pm where we had smoked ham, mashed potatoes, green beans with bacon, stuffing, and either 7UP or sparkling cider to drink. I finally got to use my China dishes. I got them years ago from Michelle and her mom. They had been boxed up for months but I finally got them put into our hutch and then remembered to use them on Christmas day. They aren't complete sets but we had what we needed.

After dinner, the girls, Curtis and I went for a walk over to the school so they could ride the scooter. Curtis walked Milo and did some training and playing with him at the school. I even got a little ride on the scooter just so I could try it out. Don't worry, I am under the weight limit.

Later I played Ticket to Ride with Nikki, Cyrus, Jack and Curtis while the other kids played video games. We all had a good time and as I bonus, I won with a score of 119! I never win that game so I was pretty happy. We also played Throw Throw Burrito, which was a lot of fun too.

I was the yellow trains. Nikki was red, Cyrus was blue, Jack was black, and Curtis was green.

Milo got comfy under the Christmas tree while we were playing games.

He needed somewhere comfy to sleep and his bed was still downstairs. So cute!

A little while later, the boys put on the Robin Hood Prince of Thieves movie and I got going on a puzzle. I had actually started this puzzle while we were playing games. It was on a separate fold up table and I would go back and forth between the train game and the puzzle while waiting for my turn. I forgot to get a picture of the puzzle. I got most of it done that night and finished it the next morning. One piece ended up missing and I'm almost sure Milo might have eaten it off the floor because there was one piece found on the floor early on. There could have been another. I had just opened that puzzle also. Once again we didn't get to bed until around 1am because the movie didn't get started until after 10pm. 

Nikki was going to go home the next morning but she and Cyrus decided that they would leave Christmas night so they could drive in less traffic. She prefers driving at night. They decided to go another route though to avoid Snoqualmie Pass because it was calling for snow by the time they would be driving on it. They made it home safely. We were very glad to have both of them here. Cyrus is a very nice friend. It was a very good Christmas!

Christmas Morning

Curtis told the kids the day before Christmas that no one was allowed to come wake us up in the morning. They would know when to get up when we got up ourselves and that we didn't want anyone to even leave their rooms unless they needed to use the bathroom. Jack ended up sleeping on the couch by the tree so he was off the hook for that rule. I got up at 7:30 and got dressed before going out to see the kids. They had come upstairs by then because I had said I didn't want to hear them unless it was after 7:00am. I went in to wake up Curtis a little bit later. By the time Nikki and Cyrus came up, it was close to 8:30 and the kids were being very patient. We had Milo open his two gifts from Charlotte first so that he could play with his new toys while we did our gift opening. He loved his new toys. We brought his kennel over where he could still see us and put him in there with his toys. We started with everyone digging into their stockings at the same time. Then the rest of the gifts were handed out and then we started opening them one by one going youngest to oldest. Curtis cooked up some waffles for breakfast after we finished with gift opening. 

He got a spiky bone and a spiky ball toy. The bone had a squeaker in it but by the end of the day Milo had punctured it and it didn't squeak anymore.

He looked so cute in there with his toys.

Besides candy and peanuts, he got a Reese's mug with a cake mix in it and a mind puzzle.

Nikki got some tools after Curtis found out she didn't have pliers.

Alice got hair bows, silly string (because she wanted it), and an I Spy card game.

Jack got a razor and shaving cream and the card game Skipbo. Time to teach him how to shave those whiskers he's getting.

Charlotte got a Pokémon ornament, Charades game, and a yellow bath scrubby (she wanted a yellow one, her new favorite color). Everyone also got their own chapstick.

I got a phone holder to put in my van and The Sound of Freedom movie. I had never seen it before but heard by many how good it was. 

Curtis got a hand tool and the card game Rook. I failed to get a picture of him though. Here are lots of pictures of opening gifts.

Alice got a Bluey videogame from Santa. 

Nikki gave Jack some fun soda socks.

Getting some new clothes to wear. We wanted Charlotte to have some nice clothes because she's always wearing t-shirts with pictures and words. Thankfully she likes her new clothes!

Nikki asked the girls months ago about what type of animal they would like her to make for them. Alice got a horse and Charlotte got a dog. Alice's was supposed to be an alicorn but Nikki ran out of white felt and I didn't have any. She had finished making it while she was here. Alice still loves it and Nikki did a great job making them!

Curtis got me some new wall decorations.

Curtis with his cologne. He purposefully closed his eyes, ha ha.

A new bike helmet with alicorns on it.

The boys wanted robes this year, especially Garrett. He was disappointed to not open it the night before with his pajamas but was excited that he still got one on Christmas day.

I got one for the girls also.

Curtis opened the gift from Dad and Laverne. New kitchen towels are always good to get. Although, a couple of them say Ho Ho Ho on them. I should have opened them earlier to use throughout December. Oh well!

Alice and her new alicorn toy that Charlotte and I picked out.

Nikki got a t-shirt with a cat on it that says "Nope. Not today."

I got Curtis a couple of new shirts and a sweater.

Alice in her new robe.

Garrett wanted a Camp Half-Blood t-shirt because he loves the Percy Jackson books. He's also super excited to watch the new series on Disney Plus. They are making it a series and have 3 episodes out now. So far we like them much better than the original movie.

Just a fun t-shirt.

Garrett's Santa gift was a Zelda guide book. He loves it!

Just when we thought we were done with gifts. Charlotte had one more waiting in the garage from Santa. It is a moped scooter that she really wanted. 

Charlotte with her gifts.

Alice with her gifts.

Wearing a new outfit, including the boots. She likes it and both the girls says she looks like DJ from Full House.

Alice in her new outfit. She says she looks like Stephanie from Full House. 

Jack with his gifts including a bagpipe practice chanter and book so he can learn how to play the bagpipes.

Wearing his new Hawaiian shirt.

Garrett with his loot. 

Getting ready for her first ride.

She was very careful to wait until no cars were coming and then drove over to the school parking lot to ride around. She's one happy girl!

I will have to break this post up into two since there are so many pictures I want to share. I'll end this one for now and put more in the next.