Jan 25 - 31

 

Monday, January 25 - I took Grandma Howard to a new Internal Medicine Dr. today. It is so much closer to home (Jordan Valley Hospital) and I like the doctor SOOO much better than the one she was seeing! My sweet mom knew my day was busy (work, volunteering at the school, then actually two different doctor's appointments with Grandma) so she cooked my family one of my very favorite dinners - stew! She's the best!

Tuesday, January 26 - Marisa and I got together today to make some bunco cookies. This was her first time doing royal icing cookies so it was like a mini class with the goal of having dessert done for bunco next week. I think they turned out cute and we had lots of fun. We will freeze them tomorrow so they are still fresh for next Thursday.

Wednesday, January 27 - Mom and Grandma Howard came over today to get nails done. Grandma always does the same thing, light pink. Mom is much more adventurous though and it pays off. Her nails turned out super cute! I was so frustrated when I got up. Some little tiny person, won't name names, stuck her fingers in four of the smooth cookies! Grrrr! I don't know what we'll do because we only made enough cookies for bunco, not really any extras. :(

Thursday, January 28 - This is kind of a silly picture but I get very few days alone in my house, even though all four kids are in school now. Simon had to go into the office this morning and I didn't have to work so I soaked up my alone time for all it was worth! :) I love a quiet house but I'm sure glad it is not like this all of the time. The chaos gets tiring sometimes but I wouldn't trade my family and the noise for anything.

Friday, January 29 - I left the house to go to work and spotted a pink box on the front porch. When I went up to get it, I found that it was a party box of Crumbl cookies. That is a dozen of the most delicious cookies and they are huge! We froze half of them and enjoyed the other half. :) Yum!

Saturday, January 30 - Liz did an impromptu photo shoot today and I offered to go help her. I asked if it would be okay if Kendra came with us because she would like to see an adult photo shoot and of course, Liz said sure. We had lots of fun being there together. While we were there, Simon sent me a picture of Nick with his Coke haul. They actually went to Smith's to get Diet Coke but they were sold out so Nick took advantage of an empty cart.

Sunday, January 31 - In an effort to do better with "Come Follow Me" this year, our family has been watching Emily Freeman and David Butler's YouTube videos called "Don't Miss This". We love them! They have so many great insights and we all learn so much from them! It's been awesome!

Jan 18 - 24

 

Monday, January 18 - Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day and the kids have school tomorrow off for the end of the quarter so we decided to go on a little getaway. We went up to Midway to stay at the Zermatt Hotel. The kids had a blast swimming and playing in the hotel room. (The adjoining room door got left open so we kept sneaking over into that room and messing around. They thought it was the best thing ever!) We took a break from swimming and went into Heber to eat at The Dairy Keen. It was super yummy!

Tuesday, January 19 - We got up at the hotel and went swimming again for another hour or so. Then we showered and blew hair dry (because we were going to be outside in the cold and couldn't have wet hair) and got ready to check out. We went to Soldier Hollow to go tubing. It was super fun! We were the first group to go for the day so it was really icy and therefore really slick and fast. I felt terrible when I forced Ricki to go down the hill and it was crazy insane and scary! She screamed in terror all the way down the hill and then would not go again no matter what I did! I felt so bad!! It really was scary though! The other kids had fun and Simon and I just took turns going down with them. Ricki found a fun activity by running and jumping in the tube and sliding across a flat surface. Haha, glad she found something to pass the two hours! :) What a fun getaway!

Wednesday, January 20 - We have another brace-face in the family! Kendra got her braces on first thing this morning! She's in for a few days of soreness but we're excited for her to get going and get a new beautiful smile. :)

Thursday, January 21 - Yesterday was our new president, Joe Biden's, Inauguration Address. It was fine. Not great, not bad. Just...fine. However, the great unifier in all of the day was Bernie Sanders. He sat amongst giants of the country in a puffy coat, mittens, disposable mask, all by himself, and basically didn't talk to anyone. In 24-hours, he has created the very best memes I've ever seen! So funny they have reduced me to tears!! I just wanted to put ole Bernie on here because I have a feeling this image is going to circulate around for a while!

Friday, January 22 - Brielle wanted to have a sleepover with Kendra and Halle wanted one with Zack so we did a little swap-a-roo for tonight. We also had Kayla for a couple of hours too so we had a fun evening! We love these kiddos!!

Saturday, January 23 - Ricki's bestie dropped off a Christmas gift today. She's the best!! It's a fun light box that you can draw on. She was so excited! It was perfect because I was busy all day at our semi-annual warehouse sale. The morning hours were SO busy! There were people in and out all morning! Tonight was much slower, which was good because my girls came with Kendra's friend Adrianna and shopped their little hearts out. After we closed up shop, Liz wanted to go get some ice cream so we headed out to Leatherby's. I shouldn't have but I got a big brownie ice cream and ate it all. Yum!

Sunday, January 24 - I told you Bernie would show up again! This is Simon on his Elder's Quorum Zoom call this morning! Haha! Tonight after dinner, the girls wanted to make cake pops (or cake bombs as Nick called them). Luckily, I had some frozen cake tops from the last cake I made in the freezer so we pulled them out and made them. They had a blast and it was actually really easy to do! Hooray for fun Sundays in!

Jan 11 - 17

 

Monday, January 11 - Ricki keeps asking me to come snuggle with her so I did. I can't handle how much I love to cuddle with this little sweetheart! I'm soaking it in because I know it will eventually come to and end and then I will be sad. 

Tuesday, January 12 - Ricki and Bridget have a friend at school named Jazzy and they have been wanting to get together to play. Leave it to Marisa to make it happen! They had a blast together and were already making plans to do it again before we even left this play date! Cute girls!

Wednesday, January 13 - This was a sad sad day. Our friend, Josh Spilker, lost his battle with Metastatic Melanoma. The four of us went together to Farmington to attend his viewing. On the way down, we stopped to pick up our new Christ picture and got a wonderful surprise. The artist refunded our whole picture fee! So she just replaced it for us without charge which was so kind! Then we headed to dinner and the viewing. It was great to be able to see Jenny, Josh's wife, and support her, her family, and Josh's parents but so hard to see him in his casket surrounded by his young children. He was only two months older than Simon so it really hits home how fragile life is and how it can just be taken away so suddenly. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Spilker family and we hope that they can find hope and peace even through this very difficult time in their lives. 

Thursday, January 14 - Every once in a while this girl's energy level just catches up to her and she crashes hard. She got up early with Simon to go pick Nick and Colton up from early morning workout (at 6:40 am). When she got home from school, I was cleaning my bathroom and when I came out, this is how I found her. She slept for about an hour and a half and shockingly, she went to bed just fine when that time came too.

Friday, January 15 - This was an interesting day. Grandma Howard had an appointment to check up on her pacemaker so I took her to that. The appointment went well and everything was great with her. It ended up being a blessing though that I took her because I was able to help Jenni and Brielle out. Jenni had purchased Brielle a baptism dress back in August or September and they decided to go do baptism pictures today. Brielle went to put her new dress on and it was too small! The tag on the sleeve with the price on it said 7/8 but the tag in the dress said 5/6. Poor Jenni was so upset because it ruined their plans and she thought she wasn't going to be able to find the dress anywhere. However, I was driving right past Costco when I called her so I told her I would quick stop and see what they had. Luckily, they had a TON of dresses! I grabbed a couple of them and was able to drop them off at Jenni's house. They were able to run out and make it in time to get baptism pictures before dark. I was glad to be in the right place at the right time to help them out today!

Saturday, January 16 - I hate when I forget to get a picture of fun things that we do but alas, I am human. So...Simon and I went to dinner at La Hacienda with Jeremy and Marisa and then came back to our house to watch The Guardian. It was an older movie but so good! We enjoyed the movie and enjoyed the time with our friends!

Sunday, January 17 - Are you ready for some football? If you need Simon on a Sunday afternoon/evening, this is where you can find him! He is loving the new theater room for football. The playoff games this year are super intense and good too so it makes the dark theater room and huge TV even that much better. I can't lie, I'm enjoying it too!!

Jan 1 - 10

 

Friday, January 1 - Zack and Ricki got in a fight over a cereal box. Ricki won...poor Zacky!

Saturday, January 2 - I have been needing some new Norwex rags for a while now so I finally gave in and placed an order. I found a local consultant so that my order helped someone in Herriman and I ordered two sets for upstairs (a set for the house and a set for the bathrooms) and one set for downstairs. They are expensive but when I realize how long I have had my old ones, they are definitely worth it!

Sunday, January 3 - I wanted my family to taste how yummy the broth fondue is from Melting Pot so I brought the taste of it home. We had chicken fondue in their Mojo Broth recipe. It was super yummy and everyone liked it but I made it a little too spicy! I followed the recipe but I don't think I realized how spicy jerk seasoning is. Haha, we had some pretty cleared out sinuses by the end of the night. It was good and fun experience.

Monday, January 4 - Happy birthday to my dad! Instead of overeating at Golden Corral this year, we had a fun Zoom call instead (dang it!). We all thought of memories or something that reminds us of dad/grandpa and shared it on our Zoom call tonight. It was really fun to be "together" and hear what everyone else came up with. My memory of dad was going out on the lake early in the morning. I didn't care about fishing with him but I liked to be out on the water when it was early because it was so calm and peaceful. I liked to read my book or just look out over the water and be out there with him and a lot of times Grandpa Lind. Those were good memories of my childhood and early teen years.

Tuesday, January 5 - I love that Nick can and likes to cook! We had mini potatoes leftover from our dinner on Sunday so he wanted to make ham and potato soup with them tonight. Sounded good to me - especially since that meant that I didn't have to cook!! He just takes over in the kitchen and is so confident, I no longer even have to be in the same room with him! What a great guy!

Wednesday, January 6 - My mom gave me a little heart attack when she told me that card exchange is next week and I haven't done anything to get ready for it! Luckily, I looked on my calendar and I actually have another full week beyond that (Jan 21) so I have plenty of time to get my cards done. But since it was on my mind, I started looking for ideas. I just think all things Covid and 2020-related are funny so I liked the looks of this card. I sat down to start working on this card and it is much more difficult and painful to put together than it looks! Haha! Oh well, it turned out cute so I can't complain!

Thursday, January 7 - I always dread taking down Christmas but some things more than others. I don't like taking down the Christmas tree because it's a giant pain! I don't like taking down my Merry Mail because it makes me happy. I like seeing everyone's faces as I pass by it throughout my days. I like seeing what everyone is up to and how their year has been. I like knowing that these are the people in my life that I am thinking of and that are thinking of me. So it makes me sad to take them down each year but on the flip side, it gets me excited each year to put it up as a blank slate and to know that this is what it will look like by the end of the season. 

Friday, January 8 - Our sweet little friend Nora comes over on Friday mornings and plays with Kendra and Ricki. She is so sweet and they do fun activities together like drawing or playing games. They were just laughing and having fun at the counter this morning so I snapped this picture of them. While they were in the kitchen, I took the opportunity to get down my light fixtures and wash them. They were so so gross! I don't know the last time this was done! It's funny the difference between the dirty one on the left and the clean one on the right. It's been on my to-do list for a while so I'm happy to have it done! 

Saturday, January 9 - Only 9 months late, we took Kendra out to her birthday dinner! Yay! She chose Olive Garden and it was so good! We haven't been there since Covid (I don't think) and it was just so yummy! It was fun to get to celebrate our sweet girl. She's such a great kid and a joy to have in our family. I'm glad we were able to spend this time with her.

Sunday, January 10 - Sweet Brielle is so happy! She got her scriptures and new case for her upcoming baptism next month. I just love this girl and her sweet spirit. I love how enthusiastic she is to become a member of the church and to share the gospel with others. She is the best!