And January is almost gone.

The kids were in bed but still awake so I took them out to see the lunar eclipse on Sunday night.  Not as cool as the solar eclipse we saw, but still neat.



Nicolas had his Kindergarten concert on Tuesday night, but we were late and so he only sung in two or three songs, and I saw one of them.  We have gymnastics, Taekwondo, Activity Days and then the concert going on that night and they all overlapped and then when I was picking up Lando from Taekwondo to go to his concert, the poor boy hadn't known where the bathroom was and he was almost in tears when I saw him--he had managed to hold it mostly, but needless to say we had to go home to change his pants and thus late.


I love his drawings though! And he's so cute singing.  He's a great singer.

Monday we picked up Ana who had flown in to Ogden and we went up to Grandma and Grandpa's to visit them since the kids had a holiday from school.  The next day Ana just chilled as I ran everyone everywhere.  And then on Wednesday we went to Rawlins and loaded up Ana's things for her to take back to Arizona.  The roads were awful.  And I was super stressed because Ana needed to leave Thursday to be back for National Guard on Friday, and we hadn't been able to get her car started on Tuesday, so then we were hurrying as fast as possible in Rawlins to get back to try to fix her car before it got dark and cold.  We didn't make it but they managed to get it open and jumped the battery.  I cleaned up throw up because Jubal threw up on Ana on the way home.  Our van still stinks but I can't find where it's coming from--I did scrub everywhere I did see vomit extremely well.  Sigh.  Anyway, Ana went to leave the next morning and her car battery had died again. So we called Leo and he came and they replaced her battery and she got home safe to Arizona.


These are pictures she gave me from her graduation from Combat Medic training.

This is Efraim annoyed because he wants to ride his trike down the stairs and I wouldn't let him.  Yup, helicopter parent, that's me.  (As my brother pointed out).




I saw these paintings that I love.  IF only I had a spare $100,000 lying around I might be tempted to buy them.  Also, we made an offer on a house on Monday and they accepted it.  And then on Tuesday they got another offer and took that instead.  :(

Sunday was awesome though.  Myles, my nephew had his farewell and he gave a great talk (wrote his own poem even) and they had a beautiful musical number and then a waffle buffet because he loves waffles.  It's so fun seeing everyone.  I love my family.

Busy, Busy

1. Monday we played Sardines for our FHE activity.  It was fun!!  The kids loved it.

2. Tuesday the kids skipped their lessons and went to the PTA literacy activity--they had given every family a copy of the book Because of Wnn-Dixie and asked us to read it to our kids.  Which we did during the Christmas break.  So then they went and watched the movie and had popcorn.  Leo took the kids there while I took Elena to her first violin concert.

3. Elena's concert was really good!  It was fun to watch her and she's learned so much already. Yay!






4.  Elena started Voice class on Wednesday.  I'm super excited for her to develop that talent because she has a beautiful voice.

5.  Efraim is so funny when I take Jubal to swim lessons.  He always starts stripping off his clothes too.  That kid thinks that he should get to do everything everyone else does.  Ha. Ha.

6. We have been filling out a chart during scripture study and one night it was late and so Leo said we weren't going to fill it out that night.  Jubal and Lando were mad so they both ran over to attack Leo.  But then Jubal pulled back and started climbing up the shelf to get the chart and yelled to Lando "You keep him busy!" Oh my heck, we all burst out laughing so hard.  We let them fill out the chart.

7.  Elena went to do baptisms for the dead on Friday afternoon with the YW and YM.  Only the roads were bad so by the time they got there the wait was so long that they didn't get to do baptisms.  They did get Farr's ice-cream though and she saw Lynnaea and Kiersten and Anders and Devaney there.

8. I worked on Isabel's 18th century stays this week.  I'm kind of disappointed in them.  Really she should have a child's stays pattern, but I used a much more shapely women's pattern and it didn't work out that well.  I wanted to try out the pattern and practice fitting it because I'm hoping I can use the pattern to make stays for Elena that will last for 7 or 8 years even if she grows more.  But I didn't get the fit in Isabel's right, so now I'm worried about Elena's. Almost all of the material is from my stash but time--I don't want to waste time. But I already cut out Elena's.  I really ought to make muslins.  Sigh.    I also tea-dyed the trim for Elena's 18th century dress.

9. I got stuck in the snow on Friday.  Luckily our neighbor gave Elena a ride to school.



Leo's coworker pulled me out.

10. We cleaned the house top to bottom on Saturday.  It's always so nice to have a clean house. And then Saturday night we went to The BYU Folkdance Ensemble.  But right before we were leaving (literally five minutes before) Efraim threw up all over Leo.  So Leo stayed home with Jubal and Efraim.  Luckily no one else seems sick and he's already feeling better.  The show was much better than the last one I went to of them.  I loved the Ukrainian dancing the best, but the Bollywood disco dance was awesome too--just funny to me to see them doing the John Travolta disco move with the Hindu dancing.  And then there was a Slovakian (I think, not sure, maybe Hungarian?) hat stealing dance, and that was super funny too.  All the kids loved it although Lando only lasts about 2 minutes before asking me random questions.
   

11.  I love Lando's drawings.  And he got a drawing from a girl in his class too.  When I asked him about it he said "It's not my fault I have a girlfriend!" AND he didn't know her name.

The is Native Americans hunting.
  
And then eating the heart of his kill.  😂😂😂

This was from the unnamed girlfriend.

New goal

1. I was going to try writing seven things down each week on my blog instead of just posting the pictures I've taken in big huge dumps of photos.  I like the journalling and I keep a better record that way.

2.  This week Isabel started gymnastics, Lando and Sebastian started Taekwondo, and we tried having  Jubal go to Taekwondo too.  That was hilarious to watch but I signed him up for swim lessons twice a week instead.  Elena is going to do voice lessons in a class.  That was their Christmas gifts from me and Leo.

3.  Way back in the beginning of January--I finished (almost) sewing Jubal and Sebastian some cloaks.  All my kids have been wanting new ones since I made some for Andrea's kids 2 or 3 years ago and I found a bunch of fabric at Savers this fall and thus I decided to make them.  Apparently they're good for fighting.


4.  Leo and I went to the temple and did sealings on Friday, I really love how they changed the wording in the sealing.  Not that I had an issue with how it was before, it's just better now. One sealer was there with another trying to practice in English (he was from Mexico and been in a temple presidency down there) and anyway, since we had Spanish names and Leo spoke Spanish he did ours in Spanish.  He was visibly relieved to have a break from English.  It was nice.

5.  After the temple Leo and I went with Andrea and Tim to an escape room.  And we FAILED!!! So sad.  Leo was really tired though and not contributing much.  We were so close too--I was working on the last puzzle when our time ran out.  I almost had it!!!  

6. On Saturday, I took Elena to the temple to do baptisms for the dead.   We waited for two hours to get in.  I read all my class lessons for Come Follow Me, and my scriptures, and tried to contact FamilySearch.  Elena read the New Era.  We met a family walking in, the Wilsons from Kaysville, and it was the first time going for their daughter and so we followed them and ended up doing baptisms and confirmations with them.  They did some of my names for us, since the temple was so crowded we were only allowed to do two (and then three by the time we got in) names each instead of the usual five.  After Elena and I went to Farr's for an ice-cream cone and I got her some desperately needed new pants at the Children's Place.  It was a great day with Elena!!


7.  Leo took the kids sledding once I got home with Elena.  They were so cold by the time they got home!  It was a chilly day. No concussions this time though, thankfully.

8.  I finished contacting FamilySearch while they were gone and started binding Jubal's quilt which I finished that night.  Only two years after his brothers' were finished--that's not so bad right?



9. And some Sunday selfies because I like my hair and makeup.  

10. OH, and I almost completely forgot my two awesome pieces of news for the week!!!  I was able to volunteer to Roots Tech so now I can go to the rest of it for free!!! YAY!!!!

11.  (It deserves its own number.)  MY COSTUMES WERE PUBLISHED!!!!!!!!  It was because I won a scholarship to go to Costume College so my costumes were published in Squeals, the Costumer's Guild West newsletter.  So super exciting to me!!!