Maddie's 5th Birthday

I can't believe Maddie is 5!  For her birthday we went to Build-a-Bear and made bears to add feeding tubes to and give to Primary Children's Hospital.  She had lots of fun doing that.  In the evening we went and saw Joe at work at Liberty Tax.  We ate dinner, opened presents and had cupcakes while we were there because they were really slow.  Maddie is such a sweetheart.  I am glad that she is in our family.  

Joe's 34th Birthday

 Joe's birthday was on the 12th.  We had a fun day celebrating as a family and then had cake and he opened presents after dinner.

Joe listening to us sing the birthday song.

This was Asher's first time eating cake.  He LOVED it!

Julie's Visit

Joe's sister Julie came to visit us during her spring break in March.  It was so much fun having her here and we are so happy she came.  We tried to do lots of fun stuff while she was here.  We went to the aquarium, toured a candy factory, went to a sculpture garden and enjoyed time talking. 

At the aquarium.

Joe and Julie at the aquarium

Emily, Maddie and JJ in front of a sculpture at the sculpture garden.

Julie at the sculpture garden.

Hand Foot and Mouth Disease

JJ and Asher with spots on their faces

 The last couple weeks we have been quarantined with Hand, Foot, and Mouth.  JJ and Asher were the first ones to get it.  They both got fevers and then a couple of days later the spots showed up.  At first we weren't sure if it was HFM or Chicken Pox because they had it covering their whole body and not just the areas that are normally affected.  JJ had already been vaccinated for chicken pox so when they both didn't get any spots after the first day we knew that it was HFM.  Maddie and Emily got it the next week.  It was a good thing the boys got it first because neither of them ever got any spots.  We wouldn't have known what it was if we hadn't seen the boys with it first.

JJ's spots on his arm

Asher's spots on his arm.

JJ's spots on his face.

Asher's spots on his face.

Luckily they were both in really good moods after their fevers broke.  I don't think they had very many in their mouths and the ones on their body didn't really bug them.

 This year for Christmas I decided to do homemade presents.  Here are some of the presents I made.  I  forgot to take pictures of all the presents I made. 

Stick horse

JJ on the horse

 I made this coloring set for Emily, Maddie, and JJ.

Coloring pad and colored pencil roll

 This is only a few of the pictures in the homemade memory game.  The kids love playing it and it helps them remember those family members we don't get to see.

Homemade memory game

Back of the homemade memory game

Christmas Stuff

 

 

Emily decorating the tree

All decorated for Christmas

With the lights on

 We got together with Ben and Sara and decorated gingerbread houses again.  This year we decided to just decorate graham crackers so I didn't have to spend all day making gingerbread.  I loved that it was so simple.

Decorating Gingerbread houses

Sara's Mcdonald's house

Benny "eating" his house

Emily's house

Maddie's house

JJ's house

Joe's house

My house

 On Christmas we went to church and then came home to open presents.  The kids loved everything they received.

Asher looking at his Santa presents

JJ with his Santa present

Maddie and her Santa presents

Emily and her Santa presents

During the month of December we enjoyed spending time as a family doing activities from an advent calendar I had made.  One of the activities was to go see the lights at Temple Square. We had a great time and really enjoyed seeing all the beautiful lights surrounding the temple.

All of us at Temple Square

The Temple

Lights near the Assembly Hall

Crafts

Here are a couple of fun crafts that I made at our ward Relief Society activities.  I had a lot of fun decorating them.  The first is just a decorative sign that says Peace.  The second is an advent calendar made out of a muffin tin.  Every day we will open it during the month of September and there is an activity, scripture, song, and chocolate inside.  

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving. Ben and Sara came over and we enjoyed a yummy turkey dinner, watched a movie (while the kids napped), and had some yummy pie.
I am so thankful for all that I have been blessed with. I am thankful for my family and friends and I am thankful for my Savior. I love this Holiday season.

Oreo turkeys

A couple of days before thanksgiving we made our Thanksgiving turkeys using oreos, candy corn, whoppers, nerds, and chocolate chips. We love doing this and the kids have so much fun. JJ I think loved it the most this year. We decided to let them do it all on their own after watching me make one. His didn't look like a turkey at all and was just a blob of cookie and candy corn, but he loved that blob and would get the biggest grin on his face whenever he saw it.

Joe's Turkey

My Turkey

Emily's Turkey

Maddie's Turkey

JJ's Turkey

JJ and Asher

JJ loves Asher so much. Lately whenever he gets up from his nap I will come into the front room (where Asher is napping) to find this:


JJ thinks that he needs to climb right in with Asher in his pack and play.