Rhen's crazy friends

Rhen has a cute little group of friends that LOVE to get together.  They often go to Mountain View Village and walk around and shop and have lunch.  Today was their day to do that and they had fun like always!

 

Christmas with Papa and Grammie

We had our Christmas with Papa and Grammie tonight and it's always such a fun night!  We ate some delicious Indian food and opened gifts together.  Mom gave the boys a fanny pack, wallet and some money inside and the girls got a purse with some money.  So crazy that Christmas is right around the corner!  And we love kicking off the season with family!

 

Virtual band concert

Rease had her Christmas band concert virtually this year.  We zoomed in a watched them which was fun to see.  They have made a lot of progress this year and sounded actually really good!

 

Ceramic projects

Rease is taking a ceramics class this year and has really loved it!  She has made some cute projects in class.  But her teacher also lets her bring clay home to work on anything else she wants to do.  So she has been making these little instruments for her friends in Jazz Band for Christmas.  They turned out so cute and such a thoughtful gift!

 

Rhen's gift

Rhen has been working hard to get this gift done for Grammie for Christmas.  She has crocheted her little fingers to death, but finally finished it.  It turned out darling!  She's so thoughtful and creative and we are lucky to have this girl.

 

Baby Remy

Garrett and Rachel had their baby and she is this tiny, precious little thing that we already love so much.  Remy, welcome to the family!

 

Christmas card

 

Christmas Tree

This year we had our own personal helper when we went to pick out our Christmas tree.  Rease was awesome showing us around the tree lot and showing us where the Charlie Brown trees were located.  We picked out the perfect one and she helped strap it to the top of the van!  It's so fun to have the house all ready for Christmas!

 

Candy Day

I love candy day!  It's a day that we can all work together on a delicious project that we know will bring lots of joy to our neighbors and friends!  We've been doing this long enough now that certain people know that their treat box is coming this weekend and they always mention how much they look forward to it.  It's a fun tradition and we have a great crew to work on it together!

 

Thanksgiving

We had a small-ish Thanksgiving group this year as some of the family were a little nervous to gather because of covid.  But we hosted whoever wanted to come and we ate a most delicious dinner with even better pie afterward!  Rhen made 6 pies for her Cupcakes on the Corner customers and we made 4 others just for us.  We spent some time playing basketball and football at the church and watching movies and playing games into the night.  It was such a fun day and we are so grateful for the family we have!

This week we've been working on a "Give Thanks" board leading up to Thanksgiving.  It has been great to remember all that we have been blessed with and remember to be thankful for it.  Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Working the tree lot

Rease started working at the Christmas Tree lot this week.  For a couple years now she's talked about being able to work there when she's old enough.  She followed up with the owner and he said this is the perfect year for her to start.  Her and Josh went to the DI and found these old overalls and some boots for her to wear and bought her some new gloves.  So she had her first weekend of working and realized that it's good, hard work and she's learning how important it is to talk to and be friendly with everyone that comes to the lot.  She is adorable and told me that she earned $40 on tips just tonight!  Love this girl - even though she's growing up too fast for my liking...

 

Rease and her friends

Rease has the cutest group of friends and they are good girls that I totally trust and love having them around.  Tonight they went to Mountain View Village and ate dinner and shopped.  They took these cute pics trying on clothes at Old Navy.  The best girls night thing to do...

 

Desh

Desh is my guy and is the only one that is home with me for a few hours during the day.  He goes to preschool twice a week but the rest of the time we're home together.  It's so fun to have this caboose by my side for now!

 

Rhen and Tilley

This silly dog loves each of the kids and the love that they give her!  

 

Sunset

We had the most beautiful sunset out our back deck this evening.  We love our unobstructed view of the mountains and the many sunrises and sunsets that we get to enjoy!

 

Crimpy hair

Rhen and Rease did tiny braids in each others hair this week and it came out looking so cute and crimpy!

 

Desh preschool

Desh has been having such a fun year at preschool and was just recently the Star Student of the week.  He comes home every day and tells me all about the songs they sing, the letters they are learning and loves when he gets to be in charge of the lollipop drum.  It's so crazy that our caboose is off to school and growing up just like that!

 

Beck 1st grade

Beck is loving 1st grade and LOVES that he gets to eat lunch at school and stay all day with the big kids.  He has the nicest teacher this year, Mrs. Johnson, and she had great things to say about Beck.  She absolutely loves having him in her class and says he is the nicest and most respectful boy and works really hard at what he does.  I know that about him! So glad he's treating everyone the same way at school!

 

Keen 3rd grade

Keen is in 3rd grade and has Miss Kelly as his teacher.  He is the sweetest boy and she had such good things to say about him and how he is in class.  She said he's very helpful and always kind to those around him.  And he's doing amazing with his math facts and wants to be the first in his class to become a Math Fact Ninja.  I know he can do it!  Love this big boy of mine!

 

Liev 4th grade

We did a zoom conference with Liev's teacher, Miss Buckley, tonight and she couldn't say enough good about this boy.  She said he works hard and is doing awesome with his math and is nice and respectful.  All good things that we want to hear!  We made goals to do better reading at home (20 minutes a night) and he wants to pass off all his math big rocks.  4th grade has been great for Liev so far!

 

Rhen 6th grade

Rhen is in 6th grade (king of the school) and has Mrs. Keller.  She has loved being in Mrs. Keller's class and mostly because JT is finally in her class!  They've been hoping for that every year and finally got the chance to be in a class together.  She does great in school and works really hard.  And she hasn't even minded wearing her mask much though she does hate that she can't sit by her friends at lunch.  They have assigned seats because of covid and contact tracing, blah blah blah...so she's stuck sitting where she's at until Mrs. Keller decides to change up the order.  Other than that she is loving that they are back in school!

 

Rease first quarter grades

Rease has done so well this year and is loving 8th grade so far.  And despite what the report card says, she actually did get all A's (one was changed later and hasn't shown up on the report yet).  She had to do some talking and negotiating back and forth with a couple teachers to get them to realize that some of her assignments that had been marked missing were actually there and deserved to be graded and up her grade.  She was awesome getting this done and knew there was a dinner out with mom and dad on the line!  So proud of this beautiful girl and her hard work in school.

 

Shopping

I took these crazy girls with me to Hobby Lobby tonight and they were so hilarious trying to find the biggest flowers they could!

 

Family bike ride

The weather has been soooo nice lately, especially for this time of year, so we took advantage of the warm night and went for a family bike ride.  We rode around the lake at Daybreak and it was so fun and really a pretty nice place.  I know these warm days are limited so I'm glad we got out tonight before the cold weather comes.  

 

Drawing blood

Josh had to have his blood drawn today and took Desh with him to the doctor's office.  The nurse was so cute and let Desh have his own gloves and help with the blood draw.  Desh thought he was so grown up helping out!