Winter break activities

As always we had a few activities over the two weeks of winter break.  The first was graham cracker houses.... I love hot glue, just saying.  We go to the store and load up on bulk candies and let the kids have at it.  Their favorite candy seems to be gummy bears because they make them do things, like sled down roofs and such. 

We also made sugar cookies, we've got it down now.  They're still figuring out the whole frosting thing so it'll be a while until they're pretty.  While we wait, they're still yummy!

We tried our hand at ice skating this year.  It didn't go how we'd thought.  Everyone ended up with sore ankles but the kids say they want to do it again next year.  Brian and Carson are skating basically in the middle of this picture.

It is really hard to take pictures when it's so dark!

Losing Hank

The day after Christmas Hank was acting a little strange.  He was struggling to get up on the couch and didn't want to eat.  He would put the food in his mouth, but wouldn't chew or swallow.  So Daddy took him to the vet.  They did an ultrasound and an x-ray and discovered he had a tumor on his spleen that was bleeding.  They gave us a few options: He be put down, he goes home with medicine that will either work or not, he stays over night to be monitored, or he has surgery.  After doing some reading and considering that he was 9 and a half.  We decided to bring him home.  We didn't want to put him to sleep.  He wasn't hurting, just very tired.  So he came home late Wednesday night.  We tried to give him medicine but he didn't want to eat so we had to force it, then he threw it back up.  We sat with him, pet him and talked to him throughout the day.  Nobody really left his side the whole day.  Later in the day he started to occasionally whine like he was hurting.  Then he would stop.  When he started the second time around that evening we decided we were going to take him in, let them put him to sleep.  We didn't want him to hurt.  As we were getting ready to go we noticed he started to start breathing differently.  We gathered around him a he stopped breathing.  It was terrible to watch and I seriously regret letting the kids watch the last minute.  It did not look easy.  We're so grateful that it was quick, that he wasn't miserable for long.  It happened quickly and while it was terrible it was so unexpected I'm glad it was a short time.  Of course, everyone was and is, devastated.  Kayda is having a particularly hard time, she is very sensitive.

He was a really good dog.  There is no way we could ever find another like him so I really don't think we'll ever get another one.  He was about as perfect a dog we could have for our family.  He only ever wanted to be with us, no matter where we were going.  There are plenty of regrets, for trips we took without him, or not taking him out a lot, but in general I think he had a good life with us.  He will be missed terribly.

Christmas

As usual, we spent Christmas Eve up at Grandma and Papa H's house with the extended family.  We cut it kind of short this year because it started snowing and I was worried about getting back down the hill to head home.  People around here freak out when they're driving in the snow.  We made it back home no problem thank goodness.  

Christmas morning, as always, the kids aren't allowed downstairs until we're all up and ready to go down.  Daddy likes to have the video camera ready for when they come in to see what Santa gave them.  This year they got tablets.  As you can see they were all excited.  They were spoiled by everyone, so thank you for their gifts!  

 We got a white Christmas!  It snowed through the night and we ended up with several inches for the kids to play in!  Kayda sat this one out but the boys had a blast.

Grandma and Papa H swung by later in the afternoon to exchange gifts and visit for a while.  I forgot to get a picture of them with the kids... again.  I feel like I forget every year! 

It was a fantastic Christmas season, we are very blessed.

As a side mini-story.  The boys got trick scooters from Grandma and Papa G.  So once the snow melted we went to the skate park in town.  They were nervous and didn't do much because it was still wet and slick.  I decided I'd give it a go.  It did not go well.  I went down a tiny ramp at at the bottom ended up swinging backwards, the scooter shot out from under me and I landed on my butt in the middle of a puddle.  I'll leave the tricks to them now!  The kids got a kick out of it, we all did, and we laughed about it most the way home.

Kayda's Volleyball

This was Kayda's second season playing volleyball.  I got to be her coach again which was fantastic.  Without the least bit of bias, she was the best player on the team.  She worked really hard and could serve more consistently and had much more control over her passes than the other girls.  She also has sets.... BEAUTIFUL sets.  The team was grades 3-5 which was a bummer because having the newbies on the team kept me from moving my second round players as far as I would've liked.  She and Kennedi ended up being my go to girls to play besides my third graders who needed the extra help.  She is able to serve consistently over hand (a bullet by the way) back to about 20ft, then she switches to underhand.  We'll keep working on that next year.  She was frequently my girl that would step in to "save the day" when another player couldn't get there.  She had a blast and is really excited to play again.  Next year she'll be the young one in the age bracket, 6th-8th.  We'll get to move into more of the three hits and such as the girls learn more control, we're all pretty excited. 

 This is her go to face for underhand serve.  Every single picture Daddy took of her serving underhand ends up in this pose.  Cracks me up!

 Beautiful, simply beautiful!

 See!  There is is again!

 The mom that takes these pictures has the kids get into quite the poses.  She does a good job and I'm grateful she was willing to do it.  Left to right back row: Kayda, Ariana, Jordan, Ghianna, Madi May, RaeLee.  Front: Payton, Madi, Kennedi.  Many of the girls it was our second year together.  Though next year a few of them will be in the league below which is a bummer.

 After the last game we went to Dairy Queen for blizzards with the team.

 Jordan, Kayda and Ariana

Kayda, Ariana and Payton.

Dillon's Bear

With how active Dillon is with sports he doesn't actually get to attend scouts much.  So he and I worked really hard, especially during the summer, to get all of the requirements met.  He had a pretty good attitude about it.  I'd give him a list of things he needed to do and he'd pick the one he wanted to work on that day.  He was really excited to earn this badge.  He was a little flustered, he was asked to share what he'd learned but he did many of them months ago so he wasn't sure what to say!

Pictures

Grandma G wanted updated pictures for Christmas, which was really good because I'm terrible about taking nice pictures of the kids.  So we headed out to the river to take some pictures.  While I took a ton, and there are others I like, these are my favorites and the ones I edited. 

I have some beautiful children!

Kayda's 11th birthday

11 years with this amazing girl!  She is such a blessing.  She is crazy smart, compassionate, and always ready to help.  I couldn't imagine what life would be like without this girl.  She loves volleyball, swimming, hiking, math, reading, and science.  She hates social studies, doesn't like watching basketball in the slightest, loves animals and likes to boss people around.  Sometimes it's "leading" and other times she is straight up telling you the way it's going to be.  Pretty much everything in that list is evidence that she is my daughter.  

 She's in leadership at school, the teacher in charge and the counselor love her.  Of course, all her teachers love her so that's no surprise.  One of the things she does for leadership is to read to a class before school. So Monday - Thursday (Friday is her "day off") she goes into a kindergarten class and reads to them for the ten minutes before class officially starts.  All of the kids put their stuff away and immediately go to listen to her.  We went out to eat and one of the kiddos was there.  She looks at Kayda and says "Hey you're that girl that reads to us" and gave her a hug.  For a while they called her "underwear girl" because the first books she brought were some of the pictures books we think are so funny.  "Dinosaurs Love Underpants", "Pirates Love Underpants" "Aliens Love Dinopants" and "Monsters Love Underpants".  

Her class at school only has homework if they don't finish something at school, which means Kayda never has homework.  She is known by her class as the "smartest girl in class" but none of them say it in a bad way.  She doesn't rub it in and is always willing to help.  There is a boy in her grade, I don't think he's in her class, but she can't stand him.  She tells me it's because he's smart but is always bragging about it, "This class doesn't challenge me", "I'm so bored" and so on.  It drives her nuts.  

For her birthday we went to dinner with Grandma and Papa H, as always.  On a different weekend she was able to have Ella come spend the night.  I always offer for her to invite someone else, but Ella is pretty much her favorite.