Chase and Rachel come to visit

On our Lost River Classifieds Facebook page, a lady was advertising dance classes starting at ages 3-5. I decided to sign Emmett up for something else to be involved in. The first "class" was a whole-lotta baby shark, duck duck goose, and red light/green light so I was a little annoyed that it felt like I was paying for a glorified P.E. class... but they are supposed to start learning an actual dance starting tomorrow so... I will withhold judgement until we see how that goes.😂

getting stretched out

Beware! This video is playing Baby Shark😂

On Wednesday I decided to make a trip to Costco with the kids. We zipped over and back in time for lunch. While I was gone I asked Justin to assemble/fill our 55-gallon emergency water tank that's been sitting in the baby's room since November. Now if I can get a little extra propane on hand then I'll feel prepared to be able to take care of my family for a while if any emergency were to happen.

boxes make the best toys

the place for the 55-gallon tank for now...the bathtub we don't use😂 when I'm in labor I might regret this decision 

Saw this on Facebook and had to steal it 😂

Preschool on Thursday was the letter "M" - Emmett was so excited to show me his souvenir 

On Thursday we were excited all day for cousins to arrive! Chase and Rachel came to visit - our kids are all close together (Emmett and Hudson are three months apart, Logan and Sloane are two months apart...baby Kamryn and June baby will be nine months apart) and finally old enough to actually play together quite nicely without needing too much supervision. Friday morning Chase and Dad went ice fishing with Hudson. Emmett and Logan had a lot of fun with Sloane all morning until they returned at lunch. Rachel and I decided our kids should go skiing sometime so I plan to visit Burley next week for an overnighter.

Logan passed out part-way through the evening on Thursday night. Man! This kid and his sleep! Emmett took a three-hour solid nap until he was three and some change. He pretty much gave up naps without much of a transition period of sometimes napping, sometimes not. Logan is getting close to giving up naps (he'll be three in March) and it's been quite a process for him. On this day, he clearly didn't get a nap...and passed out at 6:00 because of it. 😂 The good news is he slept until 8:00 Saturday morning AND Sunday morning...keep that going little man! (Also, don't call him little man...he'll yell back at you, "I'm not little man - I'M LOGAN!" 😂)

awww sweet bub!

This was after he woke up from his nap but clearly still wanting some down time.

Amidst all the kids playing, Chase and Rachel managed to teach us a fun version of Uno. I have fun laughing just listening to Chase tease Mom and Dad. He about gave Mom a heart attack when he purposefully threw his Pepsi bottle down on her precious carpet. With the cap firmly in place, he wanted to show her that the carpet was in no danger of getting spilled on, so he threw it down not once, not twice, but THREE times to prove his point. You can image Mom's reaction to such a stunt.

Kids watching Tangled before bedtime

Emmett built me a lego present and said, "Look Mommy it's Samuel the Lamanite" - yay! Things are sticking!

Logan passed out on the couch after the cousins left

Emmett has been super into coloring lately...all dinosaurs of course

Saturday night we invited the Nielson's over for pizza and game night.

Emmett playing "Go Fish" with Justin

17 weeks

We got a little bit of snow last week but none of the snowfall we've had so far has been right for building a snowman. We try to get the kids outside once and a while but it's just so dang cold! I had an appointment with my midwife on Tuesday and decided I'd take the kids to the dinosaur museum afterward. The roads were a little snowy on the way over to I.F. My appointment went great: I have perfect labs and blood pressure and I'm measuring right on track. Tabitha asked Logan if he wanted to help listen to the baby, so she handed him the doppler and he put it on my belly to listen for the heart beat. It was really sweet. Unfortunately, baby was doing summer-saults and wasn't making the job easy so Tabitha had to take over. LOL. I'm 18 weeks this week.

17 week pic

Unfortunately for us, the museum was CLOSED and I felt like such an idiot for not checking ahead of time. Turns out they're closed until the end of this month to put up a new exhibit so now the dinosaurs will be gone! Bah! SO annoying and so sad for my dino-obsessed four year-old. I decided to order some chicken Pad Thai for myself and got happy meals for the kids which we ate on the way home.

Flossing Logan's teeth - worst chore of the day!

Friday I took the kids again; this time for a ski lesson for Emmett at Kelly Canyon. It was BUSY with a jam-packed parking lot and - to my dread - a school bus already there at 11:00. There were tons of teenage kids on the bunny hill on their school ski trip, so Emmett didn't get as many runs as usual. Oh well. Logan and I froze to death while I tried to get videos/pictures of him but spent the rest of the time in the lodge or by the fire. His hour lesson went quickly and we were off to grab a bite to eat and head to Trisha's' to eat it. We got Pizza Hut - oh my word, I haven't had Pizza Hut in ages and WOW their crust....so delicious! Trisha's kids were home and she offered to have us stay so the kids could play and we could watch a movie. We watched Jo Jo Rabbit and I loved it - so much so that when we got home that night I watched it again with Justin. I read the book it's based on (Caging Skies) and liked the movie way better. 

Life is good: waiting for Emmett while eating Swedish fish by the fire.

I have SO much joy watching him pick this up

Saturday I was feeling ambitious so I tried making Vietnamese food. I tried making authentic ramen but didn't have the bok choy, and I was too lazy to see if the A&A had any green onion or cilantro so I made due with the red cabbage I had in the fridge. It was okay but I probably won't ever make it again.😂

We've started doing family scriptures at night before bed time. Now that we're studying the Doctrine and Covenants for Come, Follow Me, we are reading The Book of Mormon in the evenings. Emmett gets excited to have his turn to read - we'll need to enjoy these days since they will become progressively more obstinate with age, I'm sure.😂

some at-home church poster teaching time

I got my hair done and my new maternity clothes came last week, so I am feeling like a new woman. I'm thrilled with the maternity jeans I found: impeccable fit! The Roses booked our family vacation for the summer in McCall which I'm already looking forward to. I've never been to McCall, and having it in Idaho this year will be easier for us with our new babe. I signed Emmett up for Dance class - why not? Today is the first day so we'll see how it goes.

Happy New Year!

Emmett had some work done on his teeth and he was an absolute champ. The worst part was afterward when he bit up his lip and he had to deal with that healing all week. It healed in time for his follow-up today. Even knowing what was coming he did GREAT and this time left his lip alone while the numbness went away. 

Getting numb!

Last week we had a last-minute Beal party to welcome in the new year. Alex brought his family over to hang out for a few days and Trisha decided to bring a couple of her kids along for the party. I was itching to make a new lasagna recipe I had found and quickly found upon assembling it that it was big enough to feed like 20 people, so I opted to bring it to Mom's for Tuesday night when everyone arrived. That, with a salad I had made and the bread Alex and Anna brought to share, made for a fabulous meal!

All day Wednesday the kids played with their cousins and had a total blast. They haven't run around that much all winter. We adults sat around and had a great time chatting about all the things. Anna made enchiladas to share and I was sure to get the recipe from her because they were the BEST I've had in forever. Justin couldn't get work off, but he was able to throw the ribs in the oven and whip up a delicious bbq sauce for it. Oh, not to mention the strawberry-pretzel dessert he whipped up too. He's pretty great. Anna made scalloped potatoes which made for a seriously scrumptious meal. Yum! After dinner, Justin let all the nieces and nephews take a spin on his VR set.

Emmett at dinner "I'm SO tired!" when we got shoes on to leave he said "I LOVE playing with my cousins!"😂😍

They were SO exhausted after a full day of play with cousins💓

I took the kids over early the next morning because everyone was leaving after breakfast, so it was their last chance to get some last-minute play time. After saying goodbye to everyone, I spent that morning taking down my Christmas tree. I also cleaned out a bunch of other areas of the house including my closet. I get tremendous satisfaction from throwing things away.

matching game one last time with McCoy

Emmett helped me take down the tree

Tidied up closet

New Year's Day we just hung around all day. It's about that time of pregnancy, so I treated myself to some online maternity shopping and started reading The Hiding Place. The next day we hired a babysitter because we were itching for a date. We haven't gone out since Justin's birthday which wasn't the most pleasant memory (que barfing in the bushes afterward). We drove to Pocatello to go out to lunch and do some shopping. WINCO! Oh how I miss the days of living close to WINCO!

Sunday night we watched Spencer's Mountain and played games with Justin's family online. Now that it's 2021 I'm feeling it's time to really gear up to welcome another baby to our family! Today I ordered a new breast pump and I've been haggling on Facebook marketplace for baby items I hope to pick up tomorrow when I go to I.F. for my doctor appointment. 

I attempted to do some rhythm stick action with the kids for some singing time

Carnivores around the meat...

Herbivores around the plants (this kid kills me!)

Emmett makes me "presents" with his magnets - he puts little treasures inside for me to open.

While welcoming in a new year, I looked back on my 2020 resolution which was to read 50 books. I read 51 with a few of those being audiobooks. Here are all the books I read last year. I marked ** next to the ones that I would recommend to anyone looking for a good read.

1.) Just Mercy

2.) To Kill a Mockingbird

3.) The Tattooist of Auschwitz ** (true story)

4.) Before We Were Yours

5.) Nine Perfect Strangers

6.) Oh Crap! I Have a Toddler! (Audio)

7.) The Millionaire Next Door

FEBRUARY

8.) Of Mice and Men

9.) Ghosted ** (novel)

10.) The Danish Way of Parenting

11.) Caging Skies

12.) Yes Please (audio)

13.) Truly, madly, guilty (audio)

MARCH

14.) The Magnolia Story (audio)

15.) Where the Red Fern Grows

16.) Virgil Wander** (novel - I really like this author)

17.) Marry Him - the case for settling for Mr. Good enough 

18.) The Shift

19.) Vaccines, Autoimmunity, and the Changing Nature of Childhood Illness

APRIL

20.) Behold the Dreamers

21.) The Catcher in the Rye

22.) All the Light We Cannot See ** (novel)

23.) A Man Called Ove ** (novel)

MAY

24.) Convenience Store Woman

25.) Half-Broke Horses** (true story)

26.) Ghost Soldiers** (true story)

27.) Present over perfect

28.) A Warning 

JUNE

29.) Me and White Supremacy

30.) So You Want to Talk About Race (audiobook)

31.) Tears We Cannot Stop (audiobook)

JULY:

32.) How to be an Anti-Racist

33.) Cilka's Journey** (based on a true story)

34.) The Road Back to You:. An Enneagram Journey to Self-Discovery** (self-help)

35.) One Second After** (novel)

36.) The New Jim Crow (audiobook)

37.) One Year After

AUGUST:

38.) Four Seasons in Rome

39.) Ask Again, Yes** (novel)

SEPTEMBER

40.) Parenting with Love and Logic 

41.) Counting by 7's

42.) The Woman in Cabin 10

43.) The Giver of Stars

44.) True Colors

45.) Things You Save in a Fire

OCTOBER

46.) Retire Inspired (audiobook)

NOVEMBER

47.) 10 Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now (audiobook)

DECEMBER

48.) I am Malala** (true story)

49.) The Book of Mormon

50.) Vaccine Epidemic 

51.) A Lion and a Lamb