Bree and Cole's Wedding

Cole and Bree were married December 17, 2016 in the Brigham City Temple.  It was bitterly cold, but such a happy day! We are so delighted to have Cole in our family. 

Some Comet Christmas Fun!

For Family Home Evening we made Gingerbread houses. Happy day!

Kinsey decorated her first gingerbread house...it didn't have many decorations by the end of the evening.  

As always, Chandra was so careful and detail oriented.   

Our Annual Christmas Pancake Breakfast.  The kids love this tradition!

Girl's night making Christmas cookies.  The boys were at YM's.  Chandra is holding her beloved doggy Jewelry.  

Each of the kids got to decorate their very own "real Christmas tree" centerpieces this year.  They were kindly made by the man at the Christmas tree lot when I went to buy loose branches to decorate for the ward party.  He made them each their own "tree" out of a cut stump and evergreen branches and even provided the candy canes. They were delighted!

Interview Season and the Butterfly Museum

It's interview season!  In November Brian had 9 of his 10 interviews at Residency Programs.  He interviewed at Family Residency programs in Provo, 2 in Salth Lake, Ogden, Grand Junction Colorado, 4 in Phoenix area, and one in Pocatello Idaho.  He had a lot of full days interviewing, I went to a lot of fun dinners with him to meet the different residents and get a feel for their programs, and the kids enjoyed trips to visit both of their grandparents.  We all went to Phoenix, AZ, for two weeks, and the kids spent a couple of weekends in Richfield so my mom could watch them while we visited the Utah programs. Now that Brian has finished all his interviews, we get to rank the programs in order of what we liked the most to least.  The programs will do the same for us, and on the infamous Match Day (March 17, 2017), we'll find out where the match will take us for the next three years.

While we were in Phoenix the kids played outside every day, played with cousins each chance they got, went to the Butterfly Museum one day, the AZ Science center several times (we got in free because of our Thanksgiving Point Pass) where they especially enjoyed the live presentations about fire and liquid nitrogen and the Extreme weather show where you feel heat, cold, high winds, and are rained on while watching the program. We went trick or treating with cousins, went to karate with cousins, and just thoroughly   our time there.

The Butterfly Museum was magical.  Especially for Chandra.  She could have stayed there all day. 

They had little pamphlets listing all the butterflies inside.  The kids tried to spot every one. Bracken's favorite was definitely the Atlas or "Cobra" moth.  The biggest moth in the world!

 It was so hard for Kinsey...and Chandra...and Bracken...to look but not touch.

 The butterflies were drawn to Chandra.  They were often landing on her back or shoulders or the yellow strip on her dress.

 They loved the 3D movie about butterflies.  Several times throughout the show I'd see them stand up and try to reach out and grab a butterfly that appeared to be flying just out of arms reach.

Below: The kids played in the canal behind Grandma Sue's house for hours!  

 They pretended that they in the Amazon River hunting for crocodiles with their machetes.  

 Bracken, Stetson, Kinsey and Tuff

Happy Halloween!

 Happy Halloween!  The kids were so excited to dress up this year.  They went through lots of different ideas, but when Kinsey matter-of-factly told the kids "I be Lucy" when they asked her what she wanted to be for Halloween, they jumped on board and made big plans to be Peter (or Edmund, depending on the day), Susan and Lucy from the Chronicles of Narnia. They all love the story of the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, so it was perfect.

They were very involved in making their costumes.  They wanted Brian to be Aslan and me to be the White Witch (or as Kinsey says, the "Mean, Naughty Lady") but my creative juices ran out after finishing the kids' costumes.

Halloween Night was spent with cousins in Phoenix! We went to their neighborhood block part and dinner, game carnival, and then trick or treating where the neighbors go all out for Halloween. Haunted house, green fog, and tons of decorations. Bracken spent most of the night calculating how much money he'd get by selling his candy to the dentist.  

Chandra as Susan, complete with a bow, arrows and a horn (not pictured).

Bracken helped me with each part of his costume.  Imagining, shopping, sewing, and painting the shield and the shirt.

Kinsey as Lucy.  She dressed up her favorite bear as Aslan and carried around her little medicine bottle. 

Neighborhood Block party.  Hot dogs, chili, treats, and a game carnival for the kids. 

Ella and Chandra were inseparable...as usual. 

Kinsey loved being pushed around in her cousins car to go trick-or-treating. 

Kids' Cooking Class

I felt silly when I actually purchased a cooking class to do with my kids.  After all, I know how to cook and they are in the kitchen with me all the time.  But this has quickly become one of our favorite things to do together!  We have an official cooking class every Monday, and the kids practice their new skills throughout the week.  We've learned how to spread, peel, and measure, and have also learned how to cut with sharp knives, read a recipe, cook on a stove and flip pancakes.  Bracken and Chandra love becoming more independent in the kitchen! 

 Although it takes more time to cook with them, the investment is already paying off as Chandra cuts her own apples or cooks her own scrambled eggs when she's hungry (with a little supervision), and Bracken has made pancakes from start to finish for breakfast several times.  They are both great choppers and Chandra is always especially willing to help me cut vegetables for salad or soup.  

Bracken was so proud of himself the first time he made pancakes from start to finish on his own!  I'm proud of him too!

Trip to Uganda (from home)

I try to make learning fun for my kids, but they often add a level of enthusiasm and creativity that go far beyond my original plans. Like today.  I prepared books, as well as my scrapbook and a few YouTube videos to teach them about Uganda.  

Whenever we learn about a new country though, the kids have to make an airplane out of couch cushions, write out tickets, hang up the map, and track our journey as we "fly" to our destination. As of this week, we get stamps on our paper passports. We made rolex for lunch (flat eggs with veggies rolled inside a chapati), wrapped in newspaper just like the street vendors of Mukono when Brian and I lived there.  The kids liked the new food so much that they decided to set up a rolex stand for dinner and surprise Brian with his almost forgotten favorite meal from Uganda. 

When they finally let Brian see the surprise, they told him his veggie add-in options and mixed and cooked his eggs, then rolled and wrapped his rolex in newspaper all by themselves.  Then they got hungry and I took over the cooking station. Yum! Every school day has its own struggles and successes, but this one felt pretty close to perfect.  It was a full, but very happy day.