Valentines love

This little boy that is missing his two front teeth recently started piano lessons with his grandma!

 

He is also quite the romantic and has been planning - since September - to see if his friend Charlotte would be his Valentine for Valentine's Day. He brought this to me about a week before Valentines:

 I am friends with Charlotte's mom and told her that Pace hoped she could be his Valentine and wondered what she thought about it?  She said that she was fine with it if it wasn't a "crush" thing, so I told that to Pace and suggested he get rid of the "do you like me?" question.  He made a whole new card that had a pop-up inside and everything and during school he gave it to her.  Sadly I don't have a picture of it. 

Meanwhile, Nolan also asked a girl to be his Valentine.  Where did all this romancing suddenly come from?

Abram wondered what was happening to his brothers and asked Anni to be HIS Valentine. She agreed:

I love when the three oldest kids are home because they invariably sing together and I LOVE it!!  Also they are showing my Valentines (behind them) with poetry on it to each of the kids, our annual Valentine tradition.

MY Valentine got me a new laptop computer!  I am so excited because blogging wasn't working from my phone.  I mentioned, one Sunday at the beginning of February that I needed a new computer.  Shawn said, "Well, lets hold off on that for just a little while."  I told him I thought I'd just go buy one.  Sadly, he had already bought me a computer, which he wanted to give to me in a HUGE box of chocolates... but he got worried that I would go buy one.  So after Sunday dinner, he walked out to his pick-up and I noticed him carrying a package in.  He gave my Valentine's present early.  I am so grateful to be able to catch up on our family history again!

Another questionable presidential election

 Abram came home from school at the beginning of February and told me that he was running for class president. My first question was, "do you have to make a speech?"  He said yes and then I was REALLY surprised!  Speaking in public is one of his biggest phobias! 

He unfolded a paper with all of the brain-storming that he had done for his speech:

He asked his best friend, Malachi, if he wanted to run as his Vice President.  Malachi said, "not really....I want to be your secret service agent!" 

So on the big election day, Malachi headed to school like this:

Complete with his go-pro that captured the entire day's events:

Malachi's mom, Ruth and I, are really good friends and exercise partners, so we got a good laugh out of this whole thing!  Malachi came over to the house after the elections on Friday and he and Abram were happy to report that they had won the election by ONE vote!  Fifth grade style, it was boys against girls, haha. Malachi and Abram's Vice President stood on either side of Abram while he gave his speech.  Quite a few of the other 5th graders thought the whole thing was so cool that they wanted to be  "secret service" for Abram, too. 

When Ruth came to pick up Malachi, I told her the good news about them winning.  Malachi was close at hand and said, "Luckily instead of voting for the Vice President, I voted TWICE for Abram or he wouldn't have come out one vote ahead!"  Oh my....😂

Abram has now experienced a week as president and has decided it's a "really hard job".

January happenings

 A couple of sleeping beauties!  Maddie moved over to campus at the beginning of the month and she and Kami are rooming together.  We always have them for Sunday dinner, and it's always so exciting to me when they come over then, or just drop in unexpectedly for a visit!  

Abram was ordained a Deacon on January 17, and Nolan was ordained to a Teacher on the same day! It was a special day for my boys and our family:

One Saturday in January Shawn and I took Pace and Anni on a "date" to the ice Palace.  They thought it was pretty magical:

There was even a guy there doing lots of things with torches - like eating fire!  Quite a show:

Inside the Palace.  There were all sorts of tunnels and chambers inside them:

Anni was excited to see Elsa and Olaf:

Abram started playing Cello at the beginning of the school year and seems to be enjoying the class and everything about it....except practicing.  Anni's help makes it a little better though!:

A patriotic girl!

 Maddie loves her country and really gets into politics! On January 3rd, we had just gotten back from Sunday visits at Grandma and Grandpa Gees house.  Shawn offered to go get Anni to bed, and while he was doing that, Maddie said, for the third time ( that I had heard) that she wished she could go to the Trump rally in Washington DC on the 6th.  I finally said, "why don't you go? It's something that you really want to do and you wouldn't regret it..."  She said her concern was that she would miss two or three days of the first week of college - her first college experience ever.  I mentioned my usual mantra to "never let school get in the way of your education."  Kami and I both reiterated that she wanted to be a high school government teacher and/or a lawyer (she wants to do both) and that this trip would fit right into all of that. She wasn't very hard to convince!  By the time Shawn had come upstairs Maddie was looking for plane tickets and trying to get Caden to come with her.  Caden couldn't go, and with the crazy state of our country, I didn't feel good about sending her off alone, so Shawn went with her.  This was something I knew they would BOTH enjoy!

Maddie had the time of her life seeing all the sights that mean so much to her with her dad.  They sent me lots of videos and I had to get these pictures by screenshooting one they sent:

They were AMAZED by the size of the crowd which was 200,000-300,000 people. 

The day that people got into the capitol, they were surprised because they were so close to the front doors and never saw any sort of disturbance.  The majority of the people were calm and happy and they feel that if the Trump supporters really wanted an "insurrection" they could have easily had one.  So crazy times with crazy things going on.  

Shawn and Maddie stayed in DC Monday-Friday and had a great time even though they shut the city down after the Capitol incident.  Maddie is so glad that she got to go and can't wait to get back!

We love our strong, opinionated, adventuresome girl!

Oh yeah - and this is a picture of her shooting the pistol she bought right after she turned 18:

She bought it and then paid for an hour long lesson from a professional and has now been known to stand in line before stores open early in the morning so that she can buy ammo before it's sold out. Luckily her Uncle Evan has also been keeping his eyes out for the ammo her gun uses and gets her some whenever he sees it!