Happy New Year

We've been able to see my family a lot since we have moved to Utah which has been a real blessing. On New Years Eve we went to my parent's house to ring in the New Year.

Reah got a selfie stick for Christmas so we took a bunch of selfies.

We played a new game that Michael gave to Robert for Christmas, it took a long time for us to set it up and figure out how to play. I was surprised that I actually made it to midnight, but it was because I was focused on the getting through the game. We finished just before midnight. Guess who won? Actually, it wasn't Robert, it was Michael. So of course we had to play again the next week.

Julia Gymnastics

After I started Micah in gymnastics Julia said she also wanted to do it. She doesn't love it quite like Micah does. She is intimidated with how well the other kids do, even though I tell her those other kids have been doing it for a while and she can't expect to be as good as them right away. She has slowly been gaining more confidence and I'm going to make her see it through to the end of the school year, but I'm not sure if she will continue much past that. But who knows, maybe she get more confident and decide she does like it.

Post Christmas Presents

The kids got to have double Christmas because we left all our presents from under our tree at home and got to open them all they morning after we got back from Park City.

A Very Wheat Christmas

Christmas this year was in Park City with the Wheat family, which is always a blast. This is the first year we have been there that the kids except for Tyler and Julia have been able to enjoy it. We played games, played in the snow, and the kids just played together,

Robert has more pictures and videos from his GoPro, but these are a few that I had on my phone. We forgot to bring our nice camera up this year. Even though this snowmobile wasn't running I couldn't convince Camden to get off of it. I wanted to take him sledding, but he kept telling me he was driving the snwmobile.

The kids loved being driven around on the snowmobiles. This is Micah with Robert.

They also had a little blue snowmobile that Tyler and Julia drove around on their own. This is Robert taking Micah on it.

On the day we left the cabin we stopped at Cafe Rio as we left the canyon. Julia and Tyler with their missing teeth smiles. 

Snow Snow Snow!

We've had a good amount of snow this winter, and it's been cold enough that it takes a long time to melt. Unfortunately, I haven't been feeling all that well since December (more on that later) so 

 

I haven't had much energy to get the kids outside to take full advantage of the all the snow. After the first big snowstorm Micah said he just wanted to stay inside in (my) bed all day, and that sounded great to me. Above, Micah hides under the covers from me and Camden thinks he's hiding too if he hides his face.

One day that we did get out was when Draper city had a candy cane hunt. It was the day of a big snowstorm and the kids all came dressed in their snow clothes ready to find candy canes in the snow. There was about 1/3 the amount of kids they usually had, so it was great! There were plenty of candy canes and prizes for everyone.

Playing in the snow before they got started.

 Lined up ready to go.

This is them collecting candy canes. The organizers put most of the candy canes near the sidewalks but my kids thought it was best to jump into the snow anyway to get them.

Playing outside in our backyard after the snowstorm. Julia told me after Christmas that she had had enough playing in the snow and was ready for spring, so we really haven't been out much because I don't have the energy to try to convince them they actually want to go play in the snow, plus having to get them dressed and go out to play with them,

Some More December Christmas Activities

We've done a ton of stuff that I haven't blogged about, so I'm going to try to fit in some of the things in a couple posts today. 

Way back in December, we went to the Festival of Trees for the first time. We had a friend from Virginia (who has also since moved to Utah) whose young son, Boston, died this year and the family did a tree in his memory. Since he had been to many countries in his short life the theme for the tree was Angels Around the World. They asked everyone who wanted to participate to donate angel ornaments from different countries around the world. My mother-in-law, two aunts, and I donated some ornaments. It was a really neat tree to see in person and I'm glad we were able to make it to see the tree. 

Julia wanted her three front teeth for Christmas this year. Actually she asked Santa for a hamster, which we are still working on...Santa brought her a gift card and she was able to go to the pet store and pick out her own hamster. Unfortunately that one got sick and died a week later even after we had gotten medicine for it. Now we are on hamster #2, but that one also just got sick...so we took it back to the pet store and they bought it back so they could medicate it and they are going to call us if it gets better (they can't medicate it unless they own it, so they have to buy them back).

I took Julia to see a production of The Nutcracker put on by a collaboration of dance studios in the area. One of my primary girls was even in it and I didn't know until after I had bought the tickets.

One evening we had a Christmas get together at our house in Draper with some of my Mom's family and my grandparents. The kids decorated/ate cookies and the adults ate dinner and sang Christmas carols.

My Nativity collection

Micah Starts Gymnastics

Micah had started getting a little stir crazy at home with me and Camden in the winter, and he was showing it by being super destructive around the house. So I signed him up for gymnastics beginning in January to get some energy out during the day. It is right up his alley and he loves all the climbing and running, but he also is pretty timid and is uncomfortable being away from me in an unfamiliar place. So he's been slowly learning to love his classes ;).

I'm also doing a home pre-school with him twice a week with another Mom in the neighborhood where we rotate doing the lessons. So far he has been really excited about that too since it is with a friend.

Lights at Temple Square

I keep thinking I will find time to put up our pictures from Christmas, but it's become apparent that it won't happen unless I make time. 

In December we visited Temple Square to see the lights. Despite looking super bundled up it actually wasn't too cold, I just tend to dress my children so there is no possible way they could be cold.  

Julia at the reflecting pool

Happy children

 Grandpa and Micah

 Grandpa gives Micah a shoulder ride while Uncle Richard gives Camden a shoulder ride. We had a double stroller, but this was more fun.

Four Twins

Julia  decided she wanted to enter the Reflection's contest this year. A couple weeks before the deadline for the contestants I asked her what she wanted to do that would go with this year's theme, "Let Your Imagination Fly." She said she wanted to write a "chapter book" about fairies, "because you have to use your imagination to think about fairies and fairies can fly." 

I figured she would be able to write a small story, but the first day she sat down and started writing she surprised me by writing a full page and showed no sign of wrapping up any time soon. She worked on her story almost everyday for two weeks. 

On the night before the the deadline Julia sat at the kitchen table writing and writing to finish her story. When it started getting late I told her to start wrapping up the story. But Julia knew what she wanted to happen in the story and could not cut it short. She finally finished at midnight! But not before she told me that she was disappointed it wasn't long enough to be a chapter book. I told her she could make this the first chapter of her book.

This week they had the awards ceremony at her school and she was one of the two winners in the literature category! Everyone who participated got called up to get a certificate of participation. They called Julia last in her category as a winner, even though she didn't realize it until they handed her the trophy on stage. Here she is being surprised by her trophy.

With her principal.

She has been carrying that trophy around all weekend, she is very proud of it. And as hard as she worked on her story she should be!

Her 7 page story is below (I typed it up and added some punctuation so it would be easier for the judges to read and she submitted both her original handwritten story and the typed version- which was completely within the contest rules for her age group. They are more interested in content than spelling and punctuation) You can click on the top right hand corner and it will open in a new page that is easier to read.