Kylee turns TWELVE

Who here can believe that Kylee is TWELVE!?!? Not me. Where in the world does the time go? It seems crazy that she is already in YW (she just got called to be the President of the 11-14 class), and she's in 7th grade...and she's TWELVE. The little kiddos helped me make her a sign for her b-day while she was gone babysitting, and they picked out some balloons from the dollar store, too.

She opened her presents from grandparents, parents, and little kids (they got her a unicorn pillow from the dollar store). She was excited to get her own set of scriptures with her name on them, a new dress, some games, and a kid camera.

After presents we headed over to the ninja gym because it was their open house so they had some different obstacles set up to try.

After that we zoomed the little kids home and Kylee and I headed out to Craters of the Moon to snowshoe to a volcano. They said they do it every Saturday from Jan 11 thru the end of Feb from 1-4pm, and I even called the day before to see if I needed to make reservations, and they said "Nope! Just show up! Dress warm, though, because we're expecting a snow storm." Yeah...1 hr and 40 minutes later we arrived to find a sign on the door saying "due to unsafe driving conditions we're closed and the snowshoe hike is cancelled." Umm...unsafe driving conditions? You tell us that AFTER we've already DRIVEN all the way out here?!? Plus, the sky was BLUE. But whatever. We drove 1 hr and 40 minutes back to town and thought we'd try ice skating since Kylee has never done that either. Sadly, due to an ice hockey tournament there was no public ice skating available that day. Then we thought maybe tubing? But apparently there is no place near here that does that. So...after driving for almost 3.5 hours we ended up at the Cold Stone that is about 5 minutes away from our house. We consoled ourselves with Gotta Have It-sized ice creams, EACH. {Note: This is TOO much ice cream! Don't order Gotta Have It size to eat all by yourself!}

Then we went to the mall and spent too much money at Bath & Body Works (I should really ban myself from that store...) and then we went home and invited all the kids and Andy out to Texas Roadhouse for Kylee's birthday dinner.

Even though all the activities we tried to do were a TOTAL BUST, Kylee said it was a really fun birthday because she and I got to spend time together without anybody else. We're hoping to try the snow shoeing again another Saturday (we'll call in the morning this time to make sure they're doing it!), but Saturday swim meets have started and I'm not sure they'll end before the snow shoeing does, so we might be out of luck. Bummer! It sounded super fun!

New Years and Random

Colby, having lived his whole life in Florida and New Mexico, used to want to wear shorts every day. Now he has finally realized that Idaho is COLD. He always wants to wear his coat and his Mickey hat, and when we go inside stores and stuff he doesn't even usually want to take them off! Poor little guy is a warm-weather kid!

Andy and I had free vouchers for bowling, glow-golf, and arcade games at the Fat Cats in Rexburg that were expiring on Dec. 31, so one night we went on a date up there. Andy is a MUCH better bowler than me, and he of course got a way higher score. But for the record - I was winning for the first THREE WHOLE FRAMES. That deserves some kind of award. Then we did the golf. It was really tiny and short, but the glowing stuff was super cool! We ended up tying on this. Then we played arcade games and used all our tickets to get prizes for the kiddos.

One day the kids wanted me to make a bridge for them to crawl under. After we did it about three hundred MILLION times, I suggested they might ask dad to be the bridge next. He was a good sport.

Skyler got this magnet game for Christmas, and you're supposed to figure out which magnet shapes will fill in the design on the card. After Skyler finished them all Colby wanted to try. He was SUPER proud of himself when he "finished" #30. "I did it mom! I got all of 'em!" It was a good effort.

Colby got a bubble machine for Christmas and all the kids love to play with it in the kitchen. It makes the floor super slippery, though! They are pretty good about drying it up when they're done, but when I mopped the floor a few days later it was still super soapy!

We have yet to get a huge snowstorm here, but between Christmas and New Years we got several storms that dropped 1-3 inches each, and since it is freakishly cold (it hasn't got above freezing in over a month, I think), it doesn't melt. It just all piles up on top of each other. On New Years Day the kids built a snowman in the front yard. (Big thanks to Aunt Elaine for the snowman kit!) 

Even better, they don't believe in plowing roads here. Andy was off work for New Years so we went and bought a sled to tie to the back of the truck and cruise around the neighborhood. 

It was super fun but OH. SOOOO. COLD. It started snowing right about the time we started sledding, and it was only like 15 degrees outside. The snowflakes felt like ice pellets slamming into your face as you went along. It also was a really wet snow, so we were SOAKED. Still, the kids had a blast and didn't want to go back inside even though they were freezing!

I think this was on Jan. 2? Colby was sooo tired, but he refused to take a nap. Finally Kylee invited him to sit on her lap while she watched a movie. He fell asleep!

We laid him down on the couch and again...cute squishy face!

On the last day of Christmas Break Skyler and Colby played giant UNO...

...while the girls made manicotti for dinner. Everybody was getting along so well and there was no fighting! It was some kind of miracle, I'm telling you! This almost NEVER happens.

Colby figured out that his train track can be used as a roller coaster for his huge bouncy ball, and it's his new favorite thing to do. He piles up all sorts of random stuff underneath it to make a hill. One day I helped him and we played for over an hour. You would think rolling a ball down a track would get old, but apparently it does not.

Colby got this 36-piece ABC puzzle for Christmas. The first couple of times he did it he needed a lot of help because it was "too tricky" (his words). Now he is a pro, and puts it together several times per day without any help at all.

Colby LOVES oranges. His favorite thing about going to Cafe Rio is the orange slice he gets on his plate with his free quesadilla. He's so strange! Anyway, he'll bring Andy a cutie and make him help him peel it so he can eat it. It's so cute!

Our local McDonald's had a fundraiser night for Skyler and Ally's elementary school, and all the kids colored pictures to put up on display during the fundraiser. The one above with the two Happy Meals is Ally's, and the one below with the rainbow cloud is Skyler's.

We've been going to ninja class for about 4 months now, and Skyler was really frustrated that he is unable to do the warped wall. Lately he's been getting sooo close. Finally at our Thursday night class (when Andy was again not there -- bummer!) he got it! The first time he got it I of course didn't have my camera out because I didn't know he was going to make it, so I made him try again, and he got it again! Twice in a row! He was too shy/embarrassed to stand up on top for me to take a picture, but I was super proud of him, and he was sooo happy to have finally done it!

The night before Kylee's birthday she got a babysitting gig, and she was super excited about it. The rest of the kids wanted to go to get stuff with their Christmas money (they each had $10). Ally got a bunch of stuff from Dollar Tree, and Skyler got more wooden kits from Harbor Freight (plus his free flashlight, of course!).

Can anyone guess what Colby loves?!? He picked out every Mickey Mouse thing the Dollar Tree owned. Eventually he settled on getting two Mickey Mouse cups, a bottle of bubbles, and a Mickey Mouse balloon. We also ordered a little Mickey Mouse backpack from Amazon because he's going to a little free one-month preschool at the high school soon, and he's convinced he needs a backpack to go to school.

Christmas 2019

When Andy and I got back from New Mexico we only had 4 days left until Christmas! Our neighbor, who flies a small plane, gave Skyler this airplane hat while we were gone, and he wore it non-stop for like a week. Then he realized you don't really need a baseball cap in the winter. :)

On Christmas Eve Andy had to work 7am-7pm, which was kind of a bummer! However, Aunt Annette invited us over to her parents' house for dinner and to watch the church Christmas movie, and the kids had a blast. After the movie all the "kids" (aka anyone unmarried) got their new Christmas Eve jammies and they all put them on for a picture.

On Christmas Day Andy had to work 7am-7pm again, but the kids woke up at around 6am, so he got to see them open their Santa presents before he left for work. Colby and Ally got toy organizers (Mickey Mouse and Frozen) for their rooms; Skyler got Super Mario bedding for his bed and vinyl Mario stickers for his bedroom wall, and Kylee got a 4-pack slime kit.

Colby was SUPER excited about every single thing. Three is such a fun age! He finally knows what is going on enough to care and be excited about it!

This is the face of a girl who is jealous that Kylee got so many slime kits. But then Kylee graciously offered to let her help make some and she was pleased.

Colby got lots of new play-doh, which he LOVES. Of course within about a week he had smooshed it all together and then left the lids off so it got mostly dried out...but that's the great thing about play-doh. It is sooo cheap!

Andy took a picture of us with our matching jammies before he left for work and we started opening the rest of our presents.

Colby kept saying "Whoa! I got a LOTTA presents! Whoa! Whoa!" I only got them 3-4 from parents, but since they have several sets of grand-parents and even some from great-grandma Timmins and great-aunt Elaine this time, they felt like they had tons.

Aunt Elaine made Colby this fishing game out of needlepoint and he LOVES it. He played a million times on Christmas Day and a lot of days since. He's pretty good at catching the fish!

I found these wooden dinosaur kits at Harbor Frieght for $1.99 quite by accident, but I got a couple for Skyler because he loves dinos. The Chinese instructions are not the easiest to follow -- in fact I use the word "instructions" loosely because it basically says "punch of the pieces, put them together, use glue as needed" -- but we figured it out, and for $2 they're actually pretty impressive. We built all three of the ones he got within a week (they take about an hour each), and then he used some of his grandparent money to go back and buy a couple more, plus some wooden airplane kits that were $1.99 as well, so now we're working on building those.

Below is the original three plus one of the airplanes. This is what we've built as of today (Jan 23). We still have two more airplanes and two more dinos to go. When Skyler moves into his new room in the basement Andy is going to build him a shelf to put them all on.

Kylee asked for "Baking Stuff" so I got her an apron and some cake mixes, frosting, sprinkles, and other baking stuff. She and Ally made some Christmas cupcakes.

In the afternoon on Christmas Day we went to visit Andy at the hospital and hung out for about an hour while he was between cases. On the way home Colby fell asleep so I put him on the couch. I LOVE sleeping babies. His face is so cute and squishy!