The Year in Review 2011 (the first half)

it's still January so figure I still have to time to do a year in review for last year.  We had a busy, adventurous and challenging year.  But still it was a good one here is a little glimpse of what we did....

January

We enjoyed playing in the snow in January, the kids all got new snow gear and were excited to try it our.  It was really nice to have a place to sled right next door.  

The other big event that happened to our family in January set the stage for the rest of our adventurous year, Jake got laid off from his job in January 2011 and the search for employment began.  

February

In February we took a great family vacation to Yellowstone.  It was amazing to see the park in the depths of winter.  I had the best time (and that is saying something, because I hate being cold) and I think that Yellowstone in winter is my new favorite time of year to visit.  

As you can see it was COLD, but we all had an amazing time.  We were waiting for old faithful here...

The wind was relentless and this was by far the coldest part of our day.  

This is the snow coach which Jake and I rode on to tour the park.  My parents and kids were on their own coach, it was fun to see them but not have to deal the drama of kids the whole time.  Thanks Mom and Dad for coming along and helping our kids have a great day too.  Oh and be careful, if you went any further off the groomed trail than this lady in the picture you were in snow up to your waist.

Also Ashton finished his preschool's reading program and was rewarded with a certificate and a book. 

Good Job Ashton!

March

In March we had a fun day at the children's museum at the gateway.  This kids played with the balls and visited the farm among other things while we were there.

ride 'em cowboys!

After an unseasonably warm February we had a chilly March and trying to convince spring to come we planted flowers on our front porch.  

We also said good-bye to Jake for a few months while he worked the only job he could find, on the power plant outage circuit.  He left in early March for Bay City, Texas.  

April

April brought slightly warmer, if not wetter, weather and spring sports.  We were super busy with soccer for Lexie and baseball for Ashton.  Both of them had a great season.  

We also celebrated Easter...

And Lexie turned 11.

This was her one and only birthday present this year, but it has been loved and well used.  

May

May started off with Abbie turning 3. 

She opened her presents during a video chat with Jake since he was still working outages, although he was now in Red Wing.  

Her birthday was everything princess this year...

complete with a "Tangled" cake.  

Ashton lost his first tooth...

and we ended the month with a trip to Vernal.

 Fed a few cows

 ate a few rolls.

 rode a few horses, 

 and, fed a few calves...

FUN FUN FUN.  My kids look forward to their trips to Vernal so much.  Wish we had gone more when it was closer.  

May was also the month that we found out that we would be moving 1300 miles away.  Jake was offered a full time job at the PI plant after the outage and we knew that it was the best thing for our family, even if it was going to be hard.  

June

June found us with mixed emotions, we knew that we were going to move soon, when we didn't know for sure, but we were busily getting ready for that.  

We made one final trip to the zoo with Jake while he was home for a short visit. And spent a lot of time making "last visits" to some of our other favorite places....

It was also time for Ashton to graduate from preschool, he had a great year.

This is him with his teacher, Miss Amber.

We also had family day with Jake's National Guard unit...

And Lexie had her first and last piano recital with her piano teacher Taylor.

Wow, that took a lot longer than I was thinking it would.  The second half of the year is coming soon...

Aquarium Trip

For Christmas, Grandma June sent us money to be used to purchase gifts instead of having to have the extra expense of mailing actual packages.  We talked to the kids about it and we decided as a family that rather than get more "things" that we wanted to use the money for a family adventure.  The kids picked the Aquarium at the Mall of America, which was fine with Jake and me.  The only problem ended up being finding a day when we could go.  Jake has been working extra lately for reasons that I can't go into here, but anyway he has been spending 12 hours a day 6 days a week at work for the last few weeks and that hasn't left much time for going anywhere.  Well, finally we had a day that we could go so last Saturday we packed everyone into the car and set of for the twin cities.  We had a great time exploring the aquarium here is a little of what we did....

 waiting in line to get in... they were kinda busy.

Abbie and Lexie looking at the lion fish.

 looking in the star fish pools

One of the kids favorite parts was the jellyfish.

This is what they are looking at...

Then there were the big shark tanks.  This was my favorite part.  Although I didn't get very good pictures.

 Abbie thought this huge turtle was amazing.

 Some of the big sharks in the tank.  

After the aquarium we hit the Lego store for even more Legos (just more to make our creationary game a little easier)  and a few other stores in the mall.  Then it was off to Buca de Beppo for dinner.  Abbie wanted their giant meatballs.  

Overall it was a fun trip.

Lexie's Band Concert

As I have said before Lexie started playing French Horn just before Christmas.  She has mostly just had individual lessons trying to catch her up with the rest of the band that has been playing and practicing since September.  Last Monday night was the first concert of the year.  The band teacher told her that he really wanted her to be part of the concert but if she didn't want to then she didn't have too.  Well, she really wanted to do it so she went to all of the rehearsals and played in her very first band concert after only practicing with the entire band FIVE times.  She was so brave and did a great job for just starting out.  I videoed the whole thing with my new camera, well at least I thought I was videoing the whole thing, but somehow I must have pushed the button twice and not realized it because I videoed just about everything but the actual concert playing...the wall, the floor, the people in front of us, and all the talking in-between songs, just not the actual songs themselves.  I guess that it what I get for not trying out my new camera before the big day.  I was so disappointed when I got the footage on my computer and started trying to watch it.  But I did take a couple of pictures too.  Here is one to prove that she did it.

there's always next time to get it on video right?

(I feel so dumb)

Pet Rocks

During Christmas break Lexie informed me that for one of her art projects in school she was supposed to draw a pet...  only one problem we have no pets.  We had to get rid of our fish when we moved, they wouldn't have survived the drive and we couldn't have Ginger in our new house (and she wouldn't have liked it here anyway. no yard to run around in).  So Lexie was trying to come up with some way to do her homework.  I, mostly jokingly, gave her the suggestion of a pet rock.  Well Ashton decided that I was serious and when out immediately to find a rock that could be his pet.  It was about 8:00 at night and he was in his PJ's and didn't bother with shoes or a coat.  It was so cute and he was so dead set on having a pet rock that I let each of them go out and pick a rock to make into a pet (the next morning).  We then gave them a little character with some glitter glue.

And now we are the proud owners of three pet rocks....

I think they are kinda cute.

Christmas 2011

We had a great Christmas despite being far from loved ones in Utah.   Jake had to work both Christmas Eve night and Christmas Day night we had a rather low key celebration, but fun nevertheless.  I don't have many pictures of Christmas Eve, but we made cookies and skyped with family back in Utah.

The kids got there traditional new jammies and went to bed without too much drama.   Wish I would have gotten a picture of them in their jammies.  Then Santa made his promised visit...  We told the kids that if they could hear dad home from work, then they could get up and come upstairs.  So we actually let our kids get up super early so that we could open presents with Dad before he went to sleep for a few hours.  Otherwise it would have been 3:00 pm before we could have opened presents and I didn't want to have to think of ways to entertain the kids all day with such a temptation right in front of them.  So here we are at 6 am seeing what santa brought and opening all of our other gifts.

 Abbie got a dollhouse

 and Ashton and Lexie got Legos (the present of choice this year at our house)

Abbie got her much loved "Jack" blanket 

and Ashton got more Legos...

more Legos here too....

this was the way our table looked for most of Christmas Day (and the next and the next)

even Abbie got in on the building fun...

Abbie and Ashton got play dough, which Abbie was much more excited than Ashton and while the older kids built and built she rolled 

and rolled 

and cut up play dough.

Wait I need to backup a little bit, after we opened presents we said goodnight to Dad and we had breakfast (waffles) and got ready for church, we had a really good spiritual sacrament meeting.  Here are the kids all dressed up after church.

We got even more Legos (I must have been crazy when I thought this many Legos were a good idea) but only in the form of a game from Uncle BJ and Aunt Holly.... Creationary.  It was one of the most fun games I have played in a long time, here are a few of the things that we created

and here is Ashton acting excited for me after I took this picture and told him that he looked bored to tears....

One of the things that Lexie asked for and got was some patterns to sew.  She has taken a great interest in sewing in the past few months and is basically teaching herself because I only have very basic sewing skills myself. A few days after Christmas we went to the store and got material and she made these aprons for them so that they have something to wear when it is their turn to help me cook.  I thought they turned out great for her first real sewing project all by herself.  She did everything start to finish by herself.  

(they each got to pick out what material they wanted.)