Shakespear Shuffle

January 2016 - birthday month!

Hunter was the first one with a birthday & a giant birthday it was!!!  He turned 8 this year & decided to get baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  We taught him our old missionary lessons in family home evening, the sister missionaries taught him the discussions & he read the entire Book of Mormon finishing it on Christmas Eve.  We are so proud of how prepared he was!

 

 

  

 

It was a wonderful day & it made it that much more special to have both sets of grandparents there & my brother Brigg, Havalah & their 3 kids.  We had a lot of ward members come & Hunter's best friend from school with his family, his piano teacher, his school teacher & Jeremy's secretary from work.  We felt so loved & supported!

  

He chose bowling with the family afterwards & chocolate cupcakes for dinner that night.

The following week he chose to have a friend party (we give our kids the choice to either have a family or friend party except when they turn 8 they get both since it's such a special time) at the local bowling alley & pizza joint.  All the friends he invited came & everyone had fun & were well behaved :) 

Justy chose a family party this year & he wanted Pa, Darlin, Nana & Poppie there so we had it the day before Hunter's baptism.  He wanted crumble cake & a smoothie for breakfast, a mousse cake, lightsabers & to play at the jump house.  Can't believe he turned 6 this year!!

 

 

While Poppie was here for the baptism he worked tirelessly putting together the Christmas present he & Nana gave the kids.  It was missing several pieces & had been manufactured slightly the wrong way so he had to take several trips to the hardware store & he drilled a couple extra holes :)  Sure glad he was here I think we would have given up!

 

Dallen is such a big helper in the kitchen!

  

Finally putting together Dallen's Christmas bike.  He rode it around in the house for about a month until he got really comfortable on it & then we finally (sometime in February I think) took it outside.  He loves it so much!  He's not a big outdoors kid yet but if you mention bike riding he is out the door in 5 seconds.  It's been so fun to have lots of family bike rides around our neighborhood since then.

Emma chose to have a friend party so we had it the week after her actual birthday.  I feel horrible I did not get many pictures at all of her birthday :(  I meant to & then it was over!  She had 10 or so friends to the jump house for playing, eating & present opening.  She had a blast!

Justy & Emma had a snowman project in their Kindergarten class.  They were learning about communities & all the people & places that it takes to make one.  Emma chose to make a flower shop & Justin chose an amusement park - funny he has never been to one before.  

We love lettuce!

Our friends had their baby about 4 weeks early & we got to watch two of their 3 kids - good times!

 

Hunter finally became a WOLF & joined the Cub Scouts with Hyrum he was so excited!  Jeremy & I put together that cabinet for our new & improved art room.  It was like putting together a giant Lego set.  Now all the junk has somewhere to go & it's much cleaner & more organized.

  

Hyrum turned the big old 10 this year - double digits!!!  He chose halfway between friend & family party.  He is like his Momma & doesn't like a lot of attention so he chose to have one friend with us on our family adventure.  He wanted to go to the Dairy Maid for lunch & play games at the arcade.  He opened his presents at home & he & Ryder put together his new giant Lego x-wing ship - Po's ship from the new Star Wars.  He still has it all set up in his room & guards it pretty closely.  He wanted root beer floats for his treat.  It was a fun day celebrating him :)

 

There I am at 6.5 months preggo & there is Dallen with a giant apple

  

Drew & Dallen sporting some awesome shades!

 

We spent 3 out of 4 Fridays in January in Portland at IKEA for a dresser for our baby, an art cabinet for the art room, new dishes & a few other random kitchen things.  We also spent a lot of time bouncing around furniture stores.  We really need a bigger couch that we can all fit on & something to sit on in the fireplace room.  So we finally decided on the above couch but in a chocolate brown color.  I love it!  It is super comfy & soft & warm & has a chaise lounge which I've always wanted.  It has 11 pillows for lots of comfort & an ottoman with a storage container.  So we will put the new sectional in the living/front room & the couches currently in there will move into the fireplace room.  The green armchair will go upstairs in our room for when the baby is here & needs lots of rocking.  Problem solved!  Dallen was a huge trooper at all the shopping we drug him around to.  He kept himself occupied occasionally by snapping selfies of himself.  He loved Ikea where there were plenty of things to sit & lay on & some of them were just the right size.