Valentines

I love our tradition of writing valentines to each other and hanging them up every February:

We were actually pretty sad poets this year... except for Shawn - he was having an "on" night.  I loved this poem he wrote to me:

"Amy's my friend, the best that I've got.  If I didn't have her, I 'd lie down and rot.  Her beauty and friendship bring spice to my life! I'm one lucky guy to call her my wife!" ....Awwwww


Caden was asked to the Valentine's dance and I was excited to make his date's corsage again.  I was so happy with how it turned out!:

I also made his bow tie and cummerbund and he and his date looked so sharp!:

This and that

I remember sitting down to the table for dinner and feeling like this side of the table had an excess of energy, but it looks relatively calm in the pic - either way, I don't want to forget these crazy days and great time of my life:

Two buddies:

My cute niece, Hazel, at Sunday visits at Grandma Gee's house, wearing a pair of her clip-on earrings:

An incredible lesson that Isabelle gave on choices and consequences in Family Home Evening.  She is the best teacher!

Pace insisted on wearing this fireman hat to go shopping at Walmart. I don't like drawing attention to myself, but ended up being happy he brought it, as 15 minutes into the shopping trip he started feeling like he would throw up.  I turned it up-side-down in his lap just in case while we hurriedly got out of the store!

Shawn and I went for a job interview over in Pendleton Oregon in early January.  The roads were just awful the first day and by the time we got to Boise, we found out that the road from Ontario to Baker had been closed.  My parents were also stuck in Boise after their temple shift.  They had a hotel room and got one with an extra bed and invited us to share it with them that night.  It was pretty fun- like a grown-up slumber party, all lying there talking in the dark:)  The next morning the roads opened up and were clear, and I got this picture that I thought was so lovely with pink and purple in the morning sky against the white snow:

I'm all Pace has when all the kids are at school during the day, so every now and then we head out to play.  On this particular day we played in some snow forts that Caden built with the little boys, down on the pond.  The forts are pretty big!:

Sometimes i take a picture while I'm exercising and send it to shawn:)

I never get tired of watching him sleep:

Some honey we harvested recently:

Pace woke up one morning telling me that he wanted a "bat".  I finally figured out that he was talking about a cape, but just didn't know the word for it:)  We went to the store and I pointed out the red satin to him, but he saw the yellow, so yellow we got because he "yuffs lellow"  I sewed it up for him and he has been using it quite a bit!

Kami came home to watch Ellie in Distinguished Young Women - It was so fun to be there with all of my favorite gals:

Our school has a "start with hello" week at school.  On Friday all the kids were supposed to wear green.  Caden had his own take on that.  He wore a name tag with "Hello my name is Jill Stein" on it.  ( She is a leader of the Green party)...

It's all about hair

Isabelle went through a time this year where she wanted me to do her hair, but would cry and be upset with whatever I did, so I stopped doing her hair.  Lately she has decided that I do an okay job, and it's sure been fun to do fancy hairdos on her again!:

It's also always fun when Maddie has straight hair because she keeps it straight for a full week after she straightens it and I usually get to do it at least once during that time:

She has the BEST hair no matter what she does with it!!

I thought this was cute:

Ballroom Belle

Isabelle loves ballroom dance, and I love watching her!  She has such a natural grace and is so good at it!

These pictures are from a performance at a half time basket ball game, and also a ballroom showcase at the civic auditorium in Idaho Falls:

With my friend Susan Tietjen's daughter Julissa:

Caden Choir

One night this month, Shawn and I went on a date to hear Caden sing at a music festival.  This is him with his vocal spectrum group ( he's the tall one and I think he is so handsome:)

At Christmas time the Madison Choirs went to Salt lake for a couple of days.  I thought it was really neat that Kami was able to go watch Caden sing!  They were so excited to see each other; Kami said that when Caden saw her he picked her up and spun her around until he realized that people were watching:)

Kami with her roommates and Caden (above)

Kami at college

It's pretty gratifying to raise a kid and know that they are surviving and taking care of and being responsible for themselves all on their own.  Kami has had some great learning experiences at college!

She's had great roommates - this is a few of them, dressed as unicorns for Halloween:

l-r: Shayla (not a roommate yet), Suze, Kami and Brooke

Before Christmas, Kami tried out for a spot in the Women's Choir at BYU.  Then she had to wait until she got back to school to find out if she had a spot.   It was very competitive and she was so excited to get in! Also, the girl to her left in the picture is Shayla Babcock and the girl below and between them is Brynn Piper, all of them from Madison.  Go Bobcats!!:

Also when Kami went back to school, she got a new roommate, who is actually her good friend from our ward, Caroline Bressler.  It's great that they are rooming together because they can ride home together and we see Kami more often!

Yesterday Kami sent me this picture.  She had just visited the salon and got a new haircut:

So cute!:

Last tithing settlement with Bishop Gee

This year when we went to tithing settlement, I realized that this would be the last year that we would have tithing settlement with Bishop Gee!  So I documented it with pictures.  The little boys know where his candy drawer is:

A picture with all of the kids, sans Kami.  It's hard to believe that five years brings so much change.  Pace wasn't even born when yet when he was called.  Kami was 14; Maddie's age.  Caden was 12, Maddie was 9, Isabelle was 6, Nolan was 4 and Abram was 2.  No wonder there were a lot of people worried about how he would do it with such a young family!  I guess we didn't feel like our family was as young as it was, and we have been just fine. 

It's pretty great when he finally gets home after a long Sunday!:

Christmas Eve 2016

We started our Christmas Eve the traditional way, by having breakfast at the Wade's.  The Wades are a wonderful couple in our ward who invite all of their friends and neighbors to come on Christmas Eve morning, anywhere from 8-10 to have a breakfast of pancakes, ham, eggs and orange juice.  It is so much fun, and one of our favorite traditions!

We went from the breakfast to go sledding at the golf course.  Then we went out to lunch at Pizza Pie Cafe - another tradition!

After our late lunch, it was time to go to our annual Christmas Caroling in Sugar City. This is a picture of a few of us before.  Shawn and I were grateful for our Viking hats, as it was a VERRRRY cold night and those beards kept our faces warm:

Me, Shawn, Nolan and Abram (above)

There was a HUGE turn out this year with at least 80 people and two loaded trailers!  We went to Ann and Bill Moss's house afterwards for a dinner and short program.

The last couple of weeks before Christmas I was feeling the regular Christmas rush, but also felt really overwhelmed because i had been asked to speak on Christmas day and needed some time to get my thoughts together for that talk!  I finally finished it up late Christmas Eve.  Santa really delivered this year and boy were we grateful!:

I think of it as the technological Christmas because Shawn got a tablet/computer from me, Caden got a lap top, Maddie got a tablet, I got a fitbit from Shawn,  Isabelle got an Ipod, Nolan got an air hockey table and Abram got a robot.

Pre- Christmas events

Before Christmas the boys got their traditional letters to Santa written:

(Dear Santa,  Thank you for all the presents you gave me last year.  For the things I need, I need some extra shoes and socks, and hopefully some toothpaste.  For the things I want, are some good fantasy books.  Also some Legos and some toy action figures, and maybe an alarm clock.  I'd like to thank you for all of the things you've done for all the kids in the world.  From:  Nolan (boy)).

Abrams letter: "Pleas give me a toy bat and a toy rain deer and a bike and a toy sword and a toy tooth and a toys shark.  And legos and gum and a robot."


Then I heard that Santa was going to be at the library, so I grabbed the little boys and waited in a reaaaalllly long line just so that the boys could make sure Santa knew just what to get for them:)

This year the church asked all of the members to "light the world".  For every day in December, leading up to Christmas, they had postings on their website of something that Christ did to light the world, followed by suggestions that we could do, as well.  Every morning before we began family scripture study, I read the suggestions for that day, so that we could all do it.  There were a handful of times that we did something all together as a family.  The pictures below were of the day that said, "Jesus healed the sick and so can you":

We bought this stuffed animal and then brought it up to the hospital to give to a sick child.  The kids loved it, and we all felt good!

Oregon times

My brother Adam always seems to be working at "favorite uncle" status.  He comes over for the especial purpose of giving the boys rides on- or let them drive- his equipment every time we visit.  This time it happened to be a tractor:

A day or so before we left, I went with Kami and Eli up into the mountains to help them pick out some Christmas trees.  They wanted one for their apartments at college and Eli also wanted to get one for mom and dad before it snowed: