First Week of School 2016

Our first week of school was pretty simple, 

just working out the kinks in the schedule and getting
"back in the swing of things."

 Brenna started a gymnastics class!
She loved it and did a good job listening to her teacher.
Something fun for an active, energetic girl!

Ellie made a sock snowman at Young Women's....why you ask?

Sterling made a
Leaning Tower of Hexagons!

He also was excited to find he was a head taller than the grocery cart and that he could push it by himself!

One of the things the kids are memorizing for Classical Conversations this week are the liquid equivalents. 

We watched a short movie called the "Gallon Man" on youtube and Ryan made posters on his own for us to do the song for Dad. "What makes a gallon man? I think 4 quarts can, quart man."

Ryan and Trevor learned about comets in Astronomy and made these cool art creations of comets.

Brenna and Sterling worked on staying in their beds at night for two weeks and earned a Mom and Dad date to Menchies!

We enjoyed a unique temple date on Saturday, we did initiatory but they didn't need us for very long so we had extra long time to sit in the Celestial room together. 

Precious moments.

Another Week of Winter Break...Project time!

The week after New Years our School schedules accommodated 

another week of Winter Break 

which provided some extra time to clean up from the holidays, do some projects, and get ready for the new semester. 

Ryan started taking private voice lessons at ONEEleven studio with Briane Prestwich, his director from the Charlie Brown Christmas Choir.

He's excited about it!

 We were able to do some clothes shopping for the kids which included finding this shirt for Brenna that says,

"Totes Adorbs."

She's learned to pull funny faces from her brothers. Goof ball. 

 Rob always teases Ellie about using these teenage lingo words. ;)

 She is totally adorable, very fitting!

 Brenna had a fun play date with her friend, Nora.

 Ryan put all his bases together to make an ultimate base. 

Ryan Soulier, MLCDB

(Master of Lego Collecting, Designing, and Building)

We had our Quarterly 

PORTFOLIO DAY

were the kids take down all their art work from the art wall from the previous quarter and pick their favorites to keep in their school portfolio. 

It clears the art wall for creations for the new quarter too.

Always fun to look at what they have created and learned.

 The kids and I drove down to Ikea to get a new bed for Brenna and Sterling.

 We also picked out a new desk for Ellie's Birthday.

 It was a fun outing!

 The same day we went on a beautiful hike with the Duforts. 

It was wonderful to be outside after a long stretch of cold, wet days.

 Another project we knocked of the list was shopping in bulk for food storage items at Winco for the first time.

Great deal, plus an added discount for ordering online!

 Good thing I had good helpers!

 Sterling made this flag for his room out of the boxes for the new bed.

 Trevor enjoyed helping Dad put together Brenna and Sterling's new bunk beds. 

 They have been so great!! They are sleeping better already.

 It has worked out really well to have them in the same room since there sleep needs are more similar than Sterling and the older boys. Evenings are much calmer, we put Sterling and Brenna to bed an hour before the big kids and they read for that hour. 

Peace and quiet for Mom and Dad. :)

It was sad to part with Brenna's crib that converted into a toddler bed. :( She's growing up too fast!

 I sewed the curtains this last week so they fit. They were Ellie's old curtains since she is redecorating her room for her birthday...they worked out perfect for Brenna's bed. Sweet.

We also did a kid swap day with the Thomas family, got the old Iphones reset at Apple for Ellie and Ryan to use, and Ellie had another babysitting job for the Mickelsons (and took allergy medicine before hand so she didn't have another reaction to their cats).

It was great to have time to get some things done and have some fun with our kids before another hard working semester of school!

Happy New Year!!

The week of New Year began with finishing reading the Book of Mormon as a family.

Trevor has been keeping diligent track of our progress this year on this Scripture Power Chart.

For family night we enjoyed the light show at Sunsplash Miniature Golf Course.

Brenna is pretending to be an old Grandma with a cane!

She is hilarious.

We only lost a few balls and hunted down others in nearby bushes a few times. 

Trevor said he wanted to buy balls and leave them around the course for people to find when they lost theirs.

Fun times!

Brenna was shaking the bear's hand goodbye.

Tuesday Rob worked and the kids and I  drove an hour and half to tour a 

Medieval Castle 

with friends from our neighborhood.

Ryan and Trevor are studying Medieval History this year and it was cool to have a hands on experience for them.

What a truly amazing place!

The man who built this toured Italy and chose all his favorite things about the castles to build into his.

Napa valley is beautiful!

All of the metal work was shipped from Italy and most of it are true vintage heirlooms.

The great hall paintings took two brothers from Italy 18 months to paint.

The fireplace was built in the 1500's and shipped over.

King Sterling and Queen Brenna, at your service.

It had a cool armory

And a torture chamber!

Four levels of cellars for the wine.

We tasted their grape juice at the end of the tour. Yummy!

This is the chapel and a wine press they found in rural Italy.

It had a drawbridge and a mote. Super cool, gorgeous place.

Sterling built a snowball launcher, watch out!!

XBOX Dance off!

Rob and I enjoyed a wonderful date to Outback Steakhouse, ever tried their carrot cake with pecans and coconut? You should!

New Year's Eve we were invited to the Braatz Grandparent's house for sledding!

Gratefully we kept some of our gear from Michigan, that's' why Brenna looks like a boy in Trevor's old snowsuit.

We lucked out! Great snow, great people, and good weather.

Their grandpa built a ropes course through the trees behind the barn. They have youth groups come use it all the time. 

Snow angels!

Such an awesome swing!

My wonderful friend, Tamara. Love this woman.

It's a blast until one of the kids takes off their gloves and starts to freeze and then it's time to head for home.

Beautiful sunset of the year we're leaving behind.

We cheat on New Year. When the ball drops in New York it is only 9pm in California. We counted down to the ball drop, popped our poppers and put our tired kids to bed after a day of sledding.

I love watching the sunrise on New Year's day.

I read a wonderful talk by Elder Holland about the New Year:

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/jeffrey-r-holland_remember-lots-wife/

I love the fresh start of a New Year.

We welcome the New Year with a crepe breakfast.

This year I tried making Jumbo crepes. They were delicious!

Nutella, Fresh Whipped Cream, fruit, maple syrup...

We are foodies.

After crepes we headed out for bowling to find out the bowling alley didn't open at the usual time on New Year, so we played catch in the parking lot with a football and frisbee we keep in the trunk. I think the boys liked that better than bowling, maybe we should have saved money and headed home.

They had fun bowling too, and Rob schooled us all with this power ball, the destroyer.

We learned a painful lesson to never get pizza at a bowling alley. Due to the late start to our game, the kids got hungry so I ordered a pizza. Rob and I got severe food poisoning and spent the last two days in bed trying to keep water down. :( That's the first and last time we eat at a bowling alley.

We ended up hosting an adult game night at our house for four couples New Year's night, and it was a lot of fun. Finger foods, chocolate fondue bar, Telestrasions, Like Minds, XBOX Wipe Out and Minute to Win it, and Rook. Great times with even better people. 

If you can believe it...I forgot to take a picture. 

Happy New Year 2016!!