Party of Six

Saturday, March 14, 2020

Back to the 80s

Before the fear of the Coronavirus truly hit, we had a fantastic party with some of our great friends!! I've always wanted to do an 80s party, so this year I finally did it!

We had a costume contest, a guess who game (everyone brought a picture of themselves from the 1980s), Name That Tune, and 80s Outburst.

This picture doesn't show Mike's pinch-rolled jeans and my neon legwarmers:) But I managed to crimp my hair, find pink frost lipstick and do my eyeshadow half pink half blue! So much fun dressing up for this party!!!

The best male costume went to Scott (the one with the pink hat)

The best female costume winner was Jessica (beside me with the lips shirt), but everyone had such great costumes! Traci in front with the 80s prom dress was fantastic--haha.

I was so proud of my cupcakes...and the toppers I made.

I really struggled with party favor ideas, then Mike mentioned that Pepsi was super popular in the 80s and I went with it. I found these cute mini six-pack cans and bought some Bublicious gum to go with it. And look at those cute neon bows from the dollar store!

I definitely need to do a 90s party next year!!

Coronavirus 2020

Remember when I said we were hanging on by a thread in 2020...well, the thread broke and we are freefalling. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse, they did...a lot worse. The world has been infected with Coronoaviris (Covid-19). It started in China, then Italy and now it is all over the world. And guess where the American epicenter is? You guessed it--Washington. School is canceled, everyone who can is working from home (including Mike), stores are sold out of hand sanitizer (and toilet paper), the stock market has crashed (big-time), college kids are coming home, temples are closed, church services are canceled, all concerts are canceled, the NBA season is over, March Madness is done--basically everyone is in a huge panic. I just feel like a dark cloud resides over my head. I keep telling myself, the silver lining in the whole thing is more family time. But it is hard to enjoy it when this virus is looming over us. We had a week of online school, but that too has come to a screeching halt because of equality concerns. So now, basically everything is done...with no end date in sight! Luckily the weather is starting to warm up so I can work in my garden and the kids can play outside. I sure hope this doesn't last as long as they are predicting...

Here are the kids doing their online school...while it lasted

Outdoor PE (badminton, trampoline & scooters)

Callie was finally allowed outside:)

And even a little chalk art

Now if I can just focus on the positive, I think we can get through this...well, that and if we don't get taken out by this deadly virus--wahhhh.

Saturday, February 8, 2020

Happy New Year? Not Quite!!

The "negative" new year post actually starts a few days before we officially kicked off 2020:

It started with Callie going to the vet to get spay. Apparently, everything went great with the surgery, but when I picked her up and got her home she wasn't doing great at all...I was actually worried to go to bed that night. When I woke up the next morning and Callie wasn't upstairs waiting for me (like she normally was) I knew something was wrong. I hurried downstairs and found her on the couch in really bad shape. I took her cone off and just held her. We couldn't get her to eat or drink, she was foaming at the mouth, she was totally limp and looked so sad...it was really scary. I called the vet and they gave me some ideas, but nothing really worked. Luckily by the end of the day, she was starting to improve slightly, and the next day she was miles better, but it was super scary for a little while. I had never seen any kitty react this way.

Next, we had to send Jordan back to Hawaii. The heartbreaking part was when she dropped Phoebe off the night before and just came home and cried saying "I don't want to go back."

Then came the snow/fever combination. After one week back to school after winter break, we had enough snow to give us 3 whole snow days. As annoying as it is to have the already bored kids home for another 3 days (without really being able to drive anywhere to do anything), but Summer (the one who loves the snow the most) got sick. She had a HIGH fever that lasted FIVE days!! She had a sore throat, fever, stuffy nose, throwing up, diarrhea, no appetite...man it was awful! I was worried, especially when her fever hit 104--yikes.

(Luckily Summer was feeling better before the snow was gone)

And lastly, THE RAIN! We have had the wettest, darkest, January ever! I think we had 28 days of no sun!! And we had so much rain that our backyard is turning into a swamp and the streets are all starting to flood. The rain doesn't usually bother me, but this has been crazy. We are all so ready for spring/summer to get here.

One thing I failed to mention, that through it all...I still have this stupid boot on my foot with no answers or hope for improvement--boohoo.

Hopefully 2020 improves...quickly! We are hanging on by a thread...

Friday, January 3, 2020

Christmas Day 2019

Another wonderful Christmas for our family. Although, I didn't get many pictures!! I missed Christmas Eve jammy pictures😭

Milk and cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer:)

I made Mike re-plug in the Christmas tree because I forgot to take a picture after all the presents were set up. It seems like every year I get tired of wrapping and there's always one present that ruins the picture--haha. This year it was Mike's BYU Corn Hole game.

As the kids get older, the gifts seem to get smaller but more expensive! We stopped the traditional present pictures a few years ago and I really miss looking back on what everyone got....but apparently not enough to force everyone to pose for pictures. The girls both finally got Airpods, and Kya got her AirForce Ones. and Jordan got her Lulus.

Tyson's main gifts were his Elite Xbox controller and his badminton set...along with a book to learn cursive--haha:) Usually I struggle with gift ideas for Tyson, but this year I think he might have got the most presents!

Summer got her Our Generation School Room and TONS of Hatchimals and her Paw Patrol Firetruck that she has been waiting years for--shopping for a 6-year old girl is SO MUCH FUN!

I'm pretty sure Christmas dinner was my best one yet--maybe it was that extra stick of butter I added to the stuffing:) Having the whole family together was so special.

Christmas cracker crown picture! I used to save the Christmas Crackers for New Years but now that the kids are older and not around for New Year, I've switched them to Christmas dinner...where most people have them. We couldn't stop laughing about how tight Mike's crown was--hahaha.

What a wonderful Christmas! So grateful 💗

Christmas Traditions

This year Mom and Summer alone kept some of the family traditions alive. Others we forced the family to join us, some were successful, some not so much.

Christmas Sunday Picture

(everyone was very cooperative and look how gorgeous!)

Christmas Baking

(Started off with just Mom and Summer but Kya joined in for decorating...we also made Nanaimo Bars for Dad but didn't get to Pulla this year)

Christmas Eve Ice Skating

(Got a lot of push back this year...nobody wanted to go except Summer and Tyson. I thought if we forced it, everyone would have fun once we got there. Didn't work out that way. Jordan didn't skate, Tyson and Kya lasted about 10 minutes and Mike's skates were hurting his feet so much that he didn't last much longer. Summer loved it though:) I don't think I'll force this one next year...we may be saying goodbye to this tradition...kind of sad letting go)

Bellevue Festival of the Nativity

(I don't think I'd call this a tradition since I think we've only been one other time. But I really want to start doing this every year. Summer and I went by ourselves--Mike had meetings, Tyson really didn't want to go, Jordan was still in Hawaii, and Kya went with Jason. Summer and I had a great time though. It was way better than I remembered)

Evergreen Lights

(I can't believe we all didn't make it to the lights this year! On Christmas Eve we still hadn't been and I really didn't want to miss it! I scheduled to go before Summer went to bed, but the girls both were napping and Tyson and Mike had to meet someone for a signature for his Eagle project--there will be another blog post about that ordeal in the new year. Summer and I had lots of fun though and I'm glad we squeezed it in. We will definitely try to get the whole family there next year)

Overcoming Fear

Summer has always been scared of Santa. When she was a baby, she held it together long enough to get a cute photo...but that was it! By the time Christmas rolled around the following year, she absolutely REFUSED to go anywhere near him! Even when her cousin Eric walked right up to Santa, Summer stayed far away.

Now that Summer is 5 and 1/2, I thought I could reason with her a little and possibly get a picture with Santa for my collection. Since bribery has been successful in the past, I thought I'd start there. I knew Santa was going to be at our Ward Christmas Party, so I told Summer if she got a picture with him she could get a prize from my closet. She agreed right away, and I thought "that was easy."

At the party, we ate and sang and some kids acted out the nativity. Summer talked very excitedly about the prize she was going to earn...but the second the stage curtains parted and there sat Santa Clause she said: "no, I can't do it!" It was sad to watch her struggle between wanting a prize and her fear of Santa. I told her it was ok and she could maybe earn the prize another time for doing something else that might be hard. But she really wanted it then. I also thought it might help to tell her who was dressed up as Santa for the party (she knows that all Santas at the mall etc. are just people dressed up). Finally, she said she wanted to do it...she was the very last child in line, but she DID IT! So proud of my little girl for facing her fear:)

Thursday, January 2, 2020

Leavenworth for our 20th!

Mike and I spent a magical overnight date to Leavenworth to celebrate our anniversary...with the expectation of a bigger trip in the summer to REALLY celebrate (Italy, maybe?).

Leavenworth is a little Bavarian town about 2hrs away, through Steven's pass.