fun at home

Sunny Winter Days

It has been great weather lately.  On the way home from school Sam said he wanted to have a picnic.  I thought that was a great idea.  Next thing I know he is calling Lula and Chloë to sit on the grass in front of our house.  OH the joys of living on a busy road!

Most Fridays I take the two younger girls to the park with from friends from church. 

Great to be 8

The ward we attend has over 130 kids!  There are 18 kids Olivia's age that will be getting baptized this year.  Here are some of the girls.  They decided to sing at each other's baptisms.  Here they are practicing their songs.  Far left: Lilly Burt, Bethany Liddycoat, Kelly Smith, Taylor Picket, Lucy Alebest, ? Budge, Olivia Ledesma, Vivian Reed, Samantha Fairnanks, and upper right, Sarah Bettinger. 

Beehives

I have been teaching the Beehives at church for about a year (there are about 13 girls).  Beehives are the girls ages 12 and 13.  I love working with them.  Every Sunday I get to talk with about important gospel principles such as faith, family, modesty, work, the Holy Ghost, God, and especially Jesus Christ.  I share with them every week my loves for Jesus and his restored gospel.  I made each girl a journal like the ones above.    Each week I give the girls an important quote and I ask them to take notes from the lesson and write their feelings down.  I hope the girls will love to re-read their journals when they are older.

no second thought

I am so proud of Olivia.  Today she received a birthday invitation from a girl she has wanted to have over to play.  Olivia was very excited, she opened the card, read all the details out loud and then said, "Sunday! It's on Sunday."

Then she picked out some stationary and started writing a letter.  When I asked her what she was doing, she said she had to tell Francesca she couldn't go to her party.  I asked her why she couldn't go, and very matter of factly she whispered, "It's on Sunday." and then she smiled.

Olivia may or may not have a complete understanding of keeping the Sabbath day, but she has wonderful faith and obedience in the principle!

Chloë started Preschool

After much research and money, we have decided to start Chloë in a small (6 kids) preschool at a larger private school.  She has been seeing a speech therapist for a little over 3 months.  She has some auditory processing issues, which is a broad term, but basically she has trouble processing what others are telling her for several reasons.  The most common ways in which Chloë has a hard time processing what we are saying are: (1) if she has something she wants to tell us she won't "hear" our question until she gets her point across (so she gives us any answer to appease us) and (2) if there is just too much outside stimulation, so she just turns off and drops into the background.   

Chloë made great progress with Dawn, the speech therapist, and I learned better ways to cue Chloë into to listening to us.  For example, I have learned to ask her questions with visual cues as well as speaking. In addition to her speaking skills I was concerned that Chloë was always complaining about her tummy hurting, which could also contribute to her lack of energy and interest in interacting with others. 

I am beginning to figure out Chloë has some food allergies.  It seems she might be allergic to milk...which could be a big problem!!  She is definitely lactose intolerant, and the blood test indicates that she is allergic to milk.  So we are having allergy tests given to Chloë at the end of the month to be sure. 

I will get back to you when we have solutions!

SKI jump!

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The first time they went over this LITTLE hump everyone got a little more air, except Daniel.   We all had to stop so I could sent up my photo shoot, which made everyone very slow for their jump.  Oh well they are all so cute, even Daniel.  Olivia and Daniel are in the first clip and then Sam is in the second.

Ski Utah!

After Christmas at Ann's house, we drove up to Salt Lake where we met all the Girand sisters and their families for another ski trip.  This was the first ski trip that I was really able to enjoy.  Other ski trips I was either pregnant or had a little baby to watch.  Ann was a saint and volunteered to watch Lu in St. George while we skied for the week.  The weather was crazy the first few days with TONS of snow.   But we enjoyed it.  Most of us skied at Solitude.

Apparently Olivia was loving the snow

Olivia, my dad, Sam and Daniel enjoyed the slopes the first day.  My dad was so great to come ski with us. 

I did make it up on the mountain.  All these pictures were taken with my phone camera.  It was FREEZING cold and very snowy as you can see.

At some points it was so snowy is was hard to ski.  Sam would get stuck very easily.

After a quick mid morning or mid afternoon break Olivia was always ready for more.  Grandpa Mike said Olivia was a natural skier and had the same look Valerie had when she was little. 

There is Sam in the yellow coat.  One day the resort hired horn blowers to come play to the skiers.  It was pretty remarkable how far they could be heard up the mountain.  I felt like I was skiing in the Alps.  Can you say, "Ricola"

These are some great pictures from our lunch break.  The lunch crew (Barb, Andrea and Valerie) did a great job making lunch for the tired skiers.  Thanks!

Everyone was so happy and full of energy even when exhausted.  What a great memory.  Thanks Mom and Dad.

Christmas with the Rosas

Look at Sam, I don't think he knew what to do with all these boy cousins his age!  What fun!!!!

Olivia and Jennifer spent the afternoon playing with Jenn's glitter Barbie.  It was a creative way to get Barbie lovers to buy another Barbie.  I will be honest here.  I am not a Barbie fan.

Our chefs are getting ready for la cena.

Here is Olivia holding Olivia Rosas.

Christian, Aaron and Sam ready with their ligthsabers

Christmas in St. George

For Christmas Eve we had a yummy ham dinner.  The evening was perfect.  After a nice dinner with Great Grandpa Jack we had dessert.  Olivia and Grandma Ann like to make lemon meringue pie, so that was one of our desserts.

After dinner we read and acted out Luke 2.  It went pretty well even though there were only 7 of us to act out all the parts, read and video record the show.  Olivia and Ann had to be the angels, shepherds and wise men.  The reading ended with a fight over who would hold baby Jesus.  Our wonderful night ended with a reading of 'Twas the night before Christmas. 

YEAH!!!  Christmas morning was here!  This picture is going to be a classic!  Everyone was ready for the fun to begin, yet they were very patient as we began opening gifts.

Everyone is holding their favorite present.  Lu loves her ballet dress (which she wore everyday for almost 2 months and still wears almost daily), Olivia is holding her umbrella, Chloë is holding her princess outfit, Daniel loves his nerf football, Sam loves his nerf guns, and I guess my favorite present was Daniel.  I am grateful for him and our parents.  This Christmas was especially nice for the kids.

A few hours after we opened presents the girls were all huddled around their girl toys.  While the girls were in their room playing you can watch the clip below to see what the boys were doing!

Elizabeth and Ricardo and their 6 kids drove down from Salt Lake for Christmas dinner and time to play with their cousins.  Ricardo made an authentic Mexican dinner for us.  What a treat.

Luke 2 at the Tuacan

Ann and I stayed home for a few day after school was out for Christmas vacations to get things organized.  Then Ann drove with the kids and I to St. Geroge.  Before we arrived in St. George we stopped in Las Vegas to pick Daniel up.  We decided it is better for Daniel to work all day while we drove the kids to Southern Utah and meet him at the Vegas airport.  Our first day in St. Geroge was wonderful.  That evening we went to the Tuacan outdoor theater for a viewing of their Live nativity.  It was a beautiful show.  I love it every year. 

It was VERY cold and the seats were a little wet for a rain shower that late afternoon. 

Mother and Son...

Most of the pictures taken between these two were so goofy.  I am glad they did take a few cute ones.  After the show we sat by a fire for our traditional hot cocoa.  We needed it, it was so cold.  Thanks Grandma!

See... here is one of these goofy pictures!  I am not sure what look he was going for??  And yes he knows he has chocolate all over his face.

Olivia really wanted her picture with Santa!  Chloë just went along for the ride.  Sam and Lauren were not interested!

Just a normal day...

...Or maybe not.  Sam and I went in for his normal 3 shots.  We are finally on the highest level of medicine.  About 15 minutes after the shot Sam started getting short of breath and coughing.  So I said something to the nurse, Trish.  They quickly took him back read his oxygen levels and heart rate.  Trish quickly gave him some medicine and Chris (the other nurse) gave Sam an epi pin (epinefrin)  It all happened so quickly. 

Needless to say, Sam was wired for the next few hours.  I think they might have over reacted a little, but he has been fine ever since.

Bubb gingerbread houses

I took the three older kids to a friend's house (from Bubb school) for a fun party.  The kids loved running around in the backyard playing.  After a while it was time to decorate their houses.  Here is the smile Chloë gives when she is shy.

 At first it was a little hard for me because it was apparent that most of the mom's already do things together, but as the party continued I warmed up.  It was nice to be invited to this party so my kids and I could develop our relationship with the people we see at school.

Nutcracker

We heard the church was sponsoring a Nutcracker event that was top quality, but children friendly.  The event happened to be when Ann was in town, so we got to take her with us.  It really was a great performance.  I hope they do it in the future.  The kids enjoyed it as well.

This was the best picture of our "family" outside by the temple.  The lights outside were amazing and so calming.

This was the only picture with Sam it in.  He followed the story of the ballet more than I expected, but after sitting for so long (and it being fairly late) Sam was a little coo-coo!  p.s. Lauren stayed at the Miners

Olivia's Christmas party

Olivia's teacher, Mr. franklin, goes crazy for Christmas.  He starts a few days before the last day of school.  The first part of the celebration is embroidering their initials on a scarf he gave them. That was fun!  I was able to teach the kids how to use the needle and thread.  Then we made about 500 sugar cookies.  Really we made that many!!!  The kids just kept rolling and cutting.  Everyone had a great time.  Here is Olivia with Bryan.

On the day of the actual Christmas party we had stations for the kids to make 6 different items.  We had a bell station which is what Chloë is doing, there was a snowman station (which is sitting on top of all the cookies), a game station, a chocolate sled... well you get the idea.  It was a crazy, wonderful, happy day.  I am glad I could stay for the fun.

Yummy, yummy

Here is Sam's tongue after his Christmas party!

Olivia had a gift exchange with her classmates.  Her secret Snowman was Matthew.  He is a great kid.

Sam's winter Party

Today Sam had his winter sing and Christmas party.  He was such a good singer and loved every minute of the show.  Every time he saw me he had to wave. 

After the sing, we met the kids back in Mrs. Sherman's room for an art project and more singing.   

For some reason the girls started washing cups??