Bella’s 13th Birthday!

Hooray!!!  We have another teenager in the house!!!  Kaley curled her hair all cute for her birthday. Love that! 

I took Frostys to her friend group for lunch.





Grammie and Pops brought cake and presents.










Happy Birthday Bella!!! 

January!

We have another Priesthood holder in our house!  Jace was ordained to the office of a deacon in the aaronic priesthood!  We had grandparents and aunts and uncles on FaceTime for it. Thank heavens for technology!

We switched up how we keep track of money around here.  I bought the kids little binders with clear pouches and some ledger papers. We also switched the kids accounts at the banks.  It was a good finance lesson and I think they are all going to do better keeping track of tithing and savings.  




So nice to have some things on the calendar!  It's basketball season!  And we added some YM/YW activities in there!  Woot!

Josh's birthday dinner at Red Robin.  The only other time we had taken kids here was Josh's birthday when the twins were 5. They still talk about how the mac n cheese was the BEST they ever had.  Nobody got it though to try it. Everybody wanted a big hamburger!







YW!!! Finally!

Thomas had a friend bday party - this is a pic the mom sent me.

We bought new mattresses!!! I don't think we have ever had new mattresses for the kids - they've all been hand-me-downs.  So this was a big deal!

Indoor soccer too!  It was a busy month!





School stuff!



Jace showing me some dance they did in class. 

Sophie is learning how to straighten her own hair.  

AND volley ball!!!  Sophie is on a team with a bunch of friends.  I get to sit there that hour and talk to my bestie while Soph plays.  Then the 2nd hour, Bells is on a team and I either get quiet time, or a I get to talk to Janessa.







Kaley had a bunch of friends over for a party for Andrew's birthday.  I LOVED having them all over and filling the house with all their energy and noise and fun! Look at that pile of shoes.  

Cameron, Logan, Andrew, Treyven, Micah and Mason, Kenzie, Kaley, Emma and Kara

We went up and visited Grandma and Grandpa in Malad, and stopped at Danielle's to stay the night. 

We went for a walk around a fun pond.



This was real life for us in December.  I laughed right out loud when I read it!  Adding Kaley to our car insurance more than doubled our payment!  Ugh.  I am thinking I'll need a 3rd or 4th job to afford the rest of these kids when they are teenage drivers!  



Josh was making fun of me one night after a shopping visit to At Home.  He liked a painting there of a beach/ocean scape. I told him I could easily paint that.  He was shocked. I was more than a little offended! So he said, well, go paint something right now. So I did. I think it looks every bit of good as the one at the store! And it was FREE. 

My handsome new deacon!  

New Year’s Eve

For NYE this year, we had the Mounteers come down and hang out.  Kaley had Emma come over too.  Thomas went to a party at Tyler Dallin's house, and Bella went over to Elsie's. It was a fun night!

Playing games - this was after our epic dance party before we put the littles to bed.  It was SO fun!  It was the first time the basement felt hot to me!  HAHA!



Stolen from Emma ;)

Annual burning of the Christmas trees.  It's one of my favorite traditions!
















It was a great way to end a crazy year, and kick off a new one!