New Year's Eve

Well, first we will cover Christmas. A delightful time was had by all. First of all, Ashley got her Christmas presents early: Contact lenses and a haircut!! She is feeling all fancy now and has gone from two hours to put them in,  to only 10 minutes!
Christmas was great- so nice to just spend time together.
Jules and  Ian bought the kids Kindles for Christmas. Moo has already read four books and Ellie will as soon as she gets her homework done and earns it back.
Josh got me a karaoke machine for Christmas!!! So here are some pics of Christmas and then of our New Year's party. We had the Blacks and Maryanne and Rosalee and the Korth's. There was singing by all and was quite delightful.

Stuff of the year....

Here is a whole bunch of stuff that has happened. At least I got a picture to remember!

Josh's Christmas present -  it weighed like 275 pounds. Good thing the neighbor was here to help him lift it up. Thanks to brother in law Jeremy now he also had drill bits and stuff. It is a drill/mill.

Here is a musical recital by my family!

Me sleeping with the dog. He likes to cuddle.

Piano recital and Grandma looking at scrapbooks.

Moo with a random snake at the pet store. (He did NOT get a snake for Christmas - FYI).

Ellie the dancer at her recitals. She was lovely.

At the Bluemlein family party, Michael got one of those dog pooh's that sticks to things. Well it got stuck on the ceiling and Josh tried to shoot it off with one of the  dart guns. It was HILARIOUS.

Christmas 2018

According to tradition we were putting up the tree right after the turkeys. Here is the only picture I managed to get. There were chocolates and fun times. This year I am determined the kids will do  a chore and earn money to buy gifts for the rest of the family.

Shooting date

Josh and I went out and went shooting for one of our Friday dates. It was pretty fun. The gun did a lot of push back (there is some word for that). Anyway it was pretty good AND I got a bullet RIGHT in the hole!

Library

Guess how many books you can check out from the SLC city library? Yep, 100!!!
Guess how many we went and got the day before Thanksgiving? Yep, 66!!
BOOOOKKKKKSSSSSSS - goooooood

Hamster Mirracle

About 10 days ago, Ashley noticed that Link was missing (and she admitted he had probably been gone for a few days before that).
Anyway, give the girl credit - she looked everywhere and even set up a few traps around the house.
So...….Then Tuesday night, Josh was just sitting on the couch taking it easy and he heard a little nibbling sound. He called Ash up and they looked through the couch and found the hamster IN the couch. He has been secured and the dog is off the hook!

Gardening

Yep, it might be November, but you can still garden!
Look what I found on the rosebush last week! And they smelled GORGEOUS.
And here is the poor lime tree, which had a very very bad trip inside this year. Here is the last leaf. Josh bought it a special light and hopes it will revive.

My girls

Ashley went to the temple for the first time with the Young Women last last week. Aren't they cute in their new dresses? Here they are cutting out family names to take with them. Go my spiritual girls!

Michael

Michael is getting quite handsome. Here is his new Sunday outfit and, just to show his silly side, him all wrapped up in some bedding while we were moving bedrooms.

Manly men

The men in the household have been doing a variety of manly chores lately: changing  oil, replacing antifreeze, cleaning the guns. And I got pictures!

Ugh

Ladies: The INSTANT you realize your engagement ring is missing - CHECK the GARBAGE disposal.
Oh well, the diamond was fake anyway....

Ellie in student council

Ellie is in the student council class this year and for the October assembly they worked on a skit about empathy. Ellie was the narrator and did a great job.
And when I was in Michael's classroom, his instructor asked if she was ours. And I said, yes. Well, we talk during car pool, Mrs. Tripp said, about how kind and polite she is. What a compliment Ellie!

Welcome Link

Since the unfortunate passing of Rex the hamster a few months ago, we have been hamster free. But Ashley wanted one for her birthday so she got a coupon! This week we went over and picked up Link, a male normal sized (apparently) hamster. (This means we will need a new ball for him to roll around in.)
Welcome to the homestead!

Welcome Romeo

We went up to Uncle Jack's 85th birthday party in Idaho. It was pretty cool and only on the way home did I start kicking myself for not recording more on my Memories app! Anyway, it turns out that Josh's cousin's family bought a dog because it was super hypo-allergenic and it turned out he was allergic to it anyway, but they kept hoping it would go away. When she heard we might be looking for a dog, she was eager to talk.
She wants a good home for Romeo, and not have to interview tons of people, etc. So to make a long story short, we are trying out Romeo for two weeks to see if we like each other. He is pretty cute, small, not drool-y, comes when he is called. Apparently won't smell at all once washed and combed. Do not jump up on people and has barked like a total of 7 minutes since he came yesterday. So basically what I was looking for in a dog. Very cuddly and wants to be with people.
This Michael when we told him.

Happy birthday Ashley!

Beautiful Ashley turned 12 on Thursday, during fall break. She enjoyed French toast in bed. A long bath, a dance dance party with friends, a lunch date with Dad and a store-bought cake. We love you Ash!
She also wanted to go work on Miss Francie's house for a service project on her birthday, so we went out and Michael worked on tractor. Ellie just wanted to sleep in.

Orem

Also I went to see Heather on Wednesday, because we have not seen each other in like 97 years! I got stuck in 2.25 hours of traffic and missed Ben's class presentation, but did manage to
bring home the Arby's and then it was like straight talking. Heather also took me to the defunct Sears/Lands End return place and waited like 97 more hours for me to exchange a lipstick.
Go Seesters!

The Big Game

Josh got invited by his fancy boss to go to the Homecoming game at USU! We motored on up and left the kiddos with Danell (thank you!) and headed up. Those suites are SWEET! You get to go right on up to the top floor (well the media floor is above that, so of course I had to go take a look), There is this whole little room for your 16 people. There is a little buffet all laid out with snacks and drinks. There are big comfy seats in front of huge windows you can see all the way up and down the field. I took a little nappie during the third quarter. I did not learn a ton about football, but it was certainly interesting and we totally won like 48-21. Also it hailed a bit on the "poor people."

The kids tried sushi, which apparently everyone ate(!?) and Michael carved some pumpkins. Ashley took more sunset pictures.

Conference tent

We watched General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ (emphasis on new name) and the kids built a tent. A good time was had by all. Also Ashley likes taking pictures and wants one for her birthday!