New Year, New-ish Us

 

One of my New Year's goals was supposed to be to blog more frequently, so I guess that pretty much sums up how things are going around here.  Hahahaha.  Just kidding, just kidding.  My personal shortcomings aside, I've been doing my best to crack the whip around here and try to get everyone on board with actually DOING something about our "Back to Basics" theme for the school year.  Change is hard for everyone, though, so we've basically (see what I did there -- back to BASICs?? 😂) only been managing 2 baby steps forward and 1 step back all along the road of our journey this month (and hopefully this year) to focus on the small and simple things we can do each day to improve all of our lives.  But FIRST, here's a little year in review from each of the kids as per tradition...

• ETHAN:

A LITTLE ABOUT ME

Name: Elder Ethan _______

Favorite Food:  Chicken Alfredo

Age: 19

Favorite Activity:  Going to the temple

Favorite Color:  Orange (still)

Favorite Book:  Probably the Book of Mormon

HIGHLIGHTS OF 2022

Greatest lesson learned:  Obedience brings blessings

Hardest thing of the year:  The Mission

Favorite memory:  Working in the temple

What I loved most about 2022:  BYU and the people I've grown to love on the mission

LOOKING FOWARD TO 2023

Want to learn:  How to love missionary work more

Want to get better at:  Street contacting 🙄

Biggest goal:  Help a family get sealed in the temple

• GRACE:

A LITTLE ABOUT ME

Name: Grace

Favorite Food:  Pasta/stir fry

Age: 18

Favorite Activity:  Roblox

Favorite Color:  Green

Favorite Book:  Selection, Percy Jackson, Lord of the Flies, Catcher in the Rye

HIGHLIGHTS OF 2022

Greatest lesson learned:  How to drive better

Hardest thing of the year:  APLAC 10 page research paper

Favorite memory:  Road trip & raft trip

  (King's Island & Mackinac)

What I loved most about 2022:  Hanging out with friends

LOOKING FOWARD TO 2023

Want to learn:  How to play piano/life skills for when I move

Want to get better at:  Saving money

Biggest goal:  Get a job finally (this has been on my sheet past 3 years)

• SOPHIE:

A LITTLE ABOUT ME

Name: Sophie

Favorite Food:  Mashed potatoes

Age: 15

Favorite Activity:  Reading & watching stuff

Favorite Color:  Pink

Favorite Book:  Catcher in the Rye & Dinky Hocker

HIGHLIGHTS OF 2022

Greatest lesson learned:  None

Hardest thing of the year:  idk

Favorite memory:  Road trip

What I loved most about 2022:  Road trip

LOOKING FOWARD TO 2023

Want to learn:  Guitar

Want to get better at:  Guitar

Biggest goal:  Read 50 books

• JANE:

A LITTLE ABOUT ME

Name: Jane

Favorite Food:  Kraft mac n' cheese (idc if you make fun of me)

Age: 13

Favorite Activity:  Anything Taylor Swift related

Favorite Color:  Pink

Favorite Book:  Hunger Games: Catching Fire

HIGHLIGHTS OF 2022

Greatest lesson learned:  Where there's one there's usually another

Hardest thing of the year:  Getting Taylor Swift concert tickets

Favorite memory:  Getting Taylor Swift tickets or Mackinac Island

What I loved most about 2022:  The road trip and Midnights by T Swift

LOOKING FOWARD TO 2023

Want to learn:  How to bake better

Want to get better at:  Band (ew.)

Biggest goal:  Get better grades

As you can see, the girls are a long way off from paying me back for those T Swizzle tickets.  I told them they have until the end of June to get it done or I'll be reselling those tickets and making a killing on them.  

• ALEX:

A LITTLE ABOUT ME

Name: Alex

Favorite Food:  Cereal/pizza/mac n cheese

Age: 11

Favorite Activity:  Video games/tv/reading

Favorite Color:  Red/pink

Favorite Book:  Hunger Games (the OG one)

HIGHLIGHTS OF 2022

Greatest lesson learned:  Don't judge a book by its cover

Hardest thing of the year:  School

Favorite memory:  Seeing my friends at school and Christmas

What I loved most about 2022:  Getting to take off my mask at school and getting in the same pod as almost all of my best friends

LOOKING FOWARD TO 2023

Want to learn:  More math

Want to get better at:  Handwriting

Biggest goal:  Better at handwriting

The junior high band went to the middle school back in December to perform a mini concert, and one of their teachers snapped this photo of Alex and Jane with her xylophone.

• ISAAC:

A LITTLE ABOUT ME

Name: Isaac

Favorite Food:  Pizza

Age: 7

Favorite Activity:  Roblox

Favorite Color:  Green

Favorite Book:  IDK

HIGHLIGHTS OF 2022

Greatest lesson learned:  My lisp

Hardest thing of the year:  Making a sandwich

Favorite memory:  Go karting 

What I loved most about 2022:  Road trip

LOOKING FOWARD TO 2023

Want to learn:  My lisp (I guess)

Want to get better at:  Art

Biggest goal:  Makeing money

And here he is in all his glory doing the hardest thing of the year -- making a sandwich.  Hahahaha.

As I said, most of the changes we're trying to enact -- ok, that I'M trying to enact -- revolve around getting the kids/our family back to basics on things like chores, homework, MANNERS, reading the Book of Mormon, life skills, etc.  It's been a mixed bag so far, but we'll just have to keep plugging along.

And in case anyone was wondering, THIS was what broke the camel's back, so to speak.  Apparently I committed the unpardonable by overhauling our chore chart and adding some new elements into the mix.  The uproar and outrage over being a dinner helper alone unhinged almost all of them.  It was nuts.  You would think I was asking them to make a 5-course meal for the entire family every night in perpetuity with the reaction I got from them.

To encourage everyone to participate in family Book of Mormon reading, we've essentially resorted to bribes, with the promise of a trip to an amusement park once we've read for 100 days.

Part of the "life skills" basics that I'm trying to impart to us all, is some mental health awareness and some coping strategies for when things are a little rough.  With multiple ADHD, high anxiety, and SPD (sensory processing disorder) kids in the house, meltdowns and freak outs happen on the regular.  After scouring Pinterest for ideas, I copycatted several different posters/infographics to hang on our wall and I'm hoping SOMETHING out of the mix will speak to whichever kids are needing it in the moment.  A mother can always dream, amiright??  Hahaha.

I cobbled together a few different things I saw online (and used my own ideas for the picture representation for quite a few of them) to create this "A to Z Coping Skills" poster for the wall.

In closing, I'll finish up with a quick recap of January highlights -- although highlights may be stretching the term as it's been a fairly nondescript month in my opinion.  (As most Januaries usually are.  Hahahaha.)  There have been school projects, some attempts at journaling from the kids, a lost tooth, one or two moments of sweetness, Target runs, and some planning for the future by the girls -- or at least planning for the names of their future children.  You know, as one does.  Hahahaha.  {In all seriousness, though, I did the exact same thing when I was a teenager.  And I even ended up using several of the names from my list: Ethan Scott (chosen well before I had ever met or married my Scott), Grace, Sophie, Jane (although I had it as a middle name), and Alexander.}  UPDATED to note that I've been ordered to redact the "embarrassing" pictures of said names.  🙄

With his school research project on Spiders, I discovered that Isaac has aspirations of becoming a magician when he grows up.  So that's good to know.  Hahahaha.

After seeing the journals I got for all the big kids at the beginning of them month, Isaac was insistent that he really needed one, too, so I ordered this "Little Heroes" edition for him online.  In the opening info section, I was confused to see that Isaac's superpower was "TPing" and not any less confused when he informed me that "TP is for teleportation."  Hahahaha.  That kid.

And speaking of that kid, he's had a wiggly tooth for MONTHS now and it was still hanging strong up until a few days ago.  Contrary to appearances, this is NOT an after picture of losing the tooth.  No, it's a snapshot of what I called his "goofy tooth" which was being pushed out of the way and to the side by the grown-up tooth coming in behind it.  It's impossible to tell from this angle, but the tooth was pointing almost straight out from his mouth and practically perpendicular to the rest of the teeth around it.  It was, without a doubt, super goofy looking.  Hahaha. 

In one of the aforementioned moments of sweetness, Alex -- of his own volition -- made a card for Sophie one day when she was having a rough time.  It was so sweet (and borderline out of character) that I had to document it for the record.

(The picture has an arrow pointing to the girl saying "you" and another one saying "amazing."  Seeing as how words of affirmation are Sophie's love language, I think it really hit the spot.)

#when-you-go-to-target-to-buy-new-sheets-and-discover-all-the-gardening-stuff-on-display (and then end up buying ALL the stuff).

(It didn't help that they also had all the Valentine's Day stuff on display, and I obviously needed to get some stuff for the 5 Days of Valentine.  🙈)

How could I resist this cute little garden gnome??  It's a smaller version of the one I bought last year that, incidentally, was what I modeled the kids' Christmas ornaments after.

Last week we had a legit snow storm and no school for two days.  This week, we've had ice/sleet/a tiny bit of snow and the kids haven't had in-person school since Friday.  This week has been all AMI (alternate methods of instruction -- i.e. using Google classrooms and zoom calls to get the work done) and I think everyone's happy enough to stay home that they don't mind having to actually do some school work as well.  I mean, did Alex have a mini meltdown this morning because he hates zooms and didn't want to join in for any of them today?  Yes.  Yes, he did.  But he sucked it up and did it anyway, so I'm obviously counting that as a win.  Hahaha.

We probably got about 5 or 6 inches last week.  Unfortunately, since it was so cold and we have no appropriate snow gear, no one ended up playing out there for very long and the one attempt to make a snowman ended before they were even halfway through.

Meanwhile, I used last week's snow days to work on this puzzle that I had picked up at Barnes & Noble the last time I was there.  I did the whole thing by myself (minus a few pieces Alex put in while I was elsewhere) and I can't emphasize enough how satisfying it was to put in the last piece. 

And on that note, I'm gonna go ahead and sign off for the day -- and hope that it won't end up being the whole month.  Hahaha.  Until next time...

This One's For You Ethan

Look at me getting the last blog post of the year up and running with a whole day to spare!  Hahaha.  As the title proclaims, Ethan is the driving force behind my recapping of Christmas before the new year is upon us.  And even though this Christmas felt a little strange in a lot of ways -- not having Ethan here being a major reason and Isaac no longer being a Santa believer a factor as well -- it has still been an enjoyable break from the every day grind.

The bulk of the last two weeks have been spent lazing about, playing lots of games, doing some puzzles, and having far more screen time than strictly necessary.  Although, I guess you could argue that screen time is not technically a necessity in the first place.  Hahaha.  Regardless, the boys have had a whole lot of screen time while the girls have managed to sleep half the day away for almost every day of the break.  

You'll have to forgive me for the rest of the post being a bit of a photo dump, but I'll throw in some commentary to try and keep things entertaining.  Hahahaha.  

CHRISTMAS EVE

For whatever reason (and contributing to the strangeness of the season), we failed to follow through with several our family Christmas traditions this year.  It may be that a lot of those traditions are geared more towards younger kids -- and we don't have a lot of those left around here -- but we never worked up enough enthusiasm to do things like our kid ornament exchange, seeing the lights on the square downtown, decorating cookies, or having everyone make their own gingerbread houses.  The lights didn't happen mostly because the days leading up to Christmas turned arctic-ly freezing -- literally -- and no one wanted to brave the elements and walk around outside at night in the cold, but just about everything else fell prey to apathy and indifference and I didn't feeling like mustering up enough energy to make fetch happen (so to speak), so it didn't.  

We came down one morning last week to see our thermostat was at 54*, with other people in the neighborhood seeming to have the same issue.  Thankfully, the gas company eventually got everything good to go, but it still took SEVERAL hours before the heat inched its way back up to a warm enough temp.  But at least it eventually got there!

My mom had this super cute ornament made for all of us with everyone's names on it.

Alex and Isaac were beyond impatient for the girls to wake up on Christmas Eve.  While antsily waiting for that to happen, they took it upon themselves to create a check-yes-or-no survey of sorts for everyone to weigh in on whether or not they wanted to open the gifts right away.

The finished gnome ornaments.  I'm still worried they'll end up broken sooner rather than later, but I do like the way they turned out.

L --> R Grace, Sophie, Jane, Alex, and Isaac's gnomes

"To open presents now...Put your name in the box you want"

Yes or No

What DID happen, you ask?  Well, in my opinion, the most important elements of Christmas Eve: we opened our family gifts in the afternoon, made gumbo for dinner, did our Christmas pageant and Jolabokaflod in the evening, and then followed it all up by making the kids go "to bed" relatively early so that Santa and his elves could work their magic.  (It's me, hi, I'm the magic, it's me.)  Hahaha.  

I figured (or at least hoped) that the games and puzzles they opened would give them something to do to fill up their day.

I thought having a whole gingerbread village to decorate would be perfect for negating any fighting or fussing over who got to do what.  Turns out Jane was the only one who ended up being interested anyway.

Jane lost patience with the icing -- it was super runny and wasn't holding anything together -- so she switched gears and used hot glue instead.  Haha.

She went with a Taylor Swift theme, in case you couldn't tell.  This side of the roof represents her "Red" album...

...this side represents "Midnights" -- you know because of the stars dotting the roof -- and the lines of grey sprinkles represent another album, but I can't remember which one.  Hahahaha.

Scott's parents sent us these beautiful luminaries to light up on Christmas Eve.

(It was still freezing outside and super windy, so we opted to line the stairs rather than the front walkway leading up to our house.)

Jolabokaflod is an Icelandic tradition we adopted a few years ago.  The idea is to exchange books on Christmas Eve and then spend the evening reading.  Obviously I'm a big fan.  Haha.

As always, I picked out a book for everyone and everyone picked out a book for ME.

CHRISTMAS DAY

While the kids actually waited until 7 o'clock on the dot to wake us all up on Christmas morning, I was still practically a zombie as I stumbled down the stairs to get the party started and start taking pictures.  For the second year in a row, the kids requested my scavenger-hunt-ish clues (a description of the wrapping paper + bow combo) to help them find their presents under the tree, and I was surprised yet again by the lack of complaining and impatience that I always think will happen while taking turns -- from youngest to oldest -- to unwrap one present at a time.  Hahaha.  In the end, everyone was super pleased with their gifts and -- after the third or fourth time of the girls exclaiming, "This was on my wish list! -- it became a bit of a running joke that almost everything they got was from their wish lists. Hahaha. 

(It was so sad seeing Ethan's empty stocking.)

Isaac's 3 gifts -- a game, a VTech watch, and a gel blaster -- the piece de resistance.

Alex's -- a Lego puzzle, a smart watch, and a gel blaster.

Jane's -- a galaxy lamp, an Instax photo printer, and some Taylor Swift merch.

Sophie's -- an alarm clock, a guitar, and this year's unconventional gift: some Lana Del Rey art work copycatted by yours truly.  Lol.

and Grace's -- some clothes, a sunset lamp, and a camera.

Just what every girl wants for Christmas -- an alarm clock, amiright??  Hahahaha.  (At least it doubles as a wireless charger for her phone. And fingers crossed it will help her to actually wake up on time every morning for school.)

Alex opened his Gel Blaster before Isaac did...

...and it was the funniest thing ever when Isaac recognized that one of his gifts was the exact some shape and size and excitedly exclaimed, "Imagine if these were the same!"  Hahahaha.  Spoiler alert -- they were exactly the same.  Lol.

I found this sweatshirt on Etsy -- "ME AND KARMA VIBE LIKE THAT" -- and thought it was perfect for our resident Swifty.  Hahaha.  (She also got a new pair of leggings to round things out.)

The above-mentioned artwork.  There's a set of 8 Pantone colors styled pictures with a song title and a line or two of lyrics from some of the songs on one of Sophie's favorite Lana Del Rey albums.

I made this picture using an amalgamation of a few different posters I saw online for reference.  (Illustrated with ink and alcohol-based markers.)

This "holden caulfield thinks you're a phony" t-shirt I found on Redbubble was mostly a lol for me, but I knew Grace would get a kick out of the reference to her favorite book character as well.  And while she immediately informed me that there's no way she would ever wear this out in public, she appreciated the sentiment and was happy to find that she got a couple new pairs of pants to boot.  From her wish list, of course.  Hahahaha.

Finally opening that identically shaped present...

...and discovering he was right!  Hahahaha.  He was the one who made sure I knew this was on his wishlist when he pulled it up on Amazon a few weeks ago, so to say he was excited to actually get the gel blaster is an understatement.  Lol.

Sophie's biggest wish on her list was a pink electric guitar...

...and a pink electric guitar is what she got.

Once the stockings were handed out and the loot was rooted through, we managed to get most of the present-wrapping detritus cleaned up before the girls headed back to bed to catch some more zzzzz and the boys went off to make good use of the Roblox gift cards they each got in their stockings.  After video chatting with Ethan later that afternoon, we spent the rest of the day leisurely enjoying family-togetherness-time and staying nice and cozied up inside while the arctic weather continued to reign supreme on the outside. (Point of fact -- church was cancelled that afternoon thanks to pipes bursting from the cold and flooding the building.)  All in all, it was a delightful Christmas Day.  :)

Grace picked Isaac's name for stocking stuffers.

The Roblox gift cards I stashed in everyone's stocking was the sleeper hit of the morning.

Sophie had Alex's name.

Alex had Jane.

Jane had Sophie.

And Isaac had Grace.

Chatting with our favorite missionary while he opened up the 3 gifts I sent him -- a fleece blanket, a pair of socks (that said Called to Serve on the bottom), and his piece de resistance...

...a Michael Buble -- or rather a Michael Bauble Christmas mug -- to compensate for the fact that he can't listen to Michael Buble's Christmas album (which is his favorite) on the mission.

It's hard to tell from this picture, but the mug has an ornament styled like Michael Buble on it singing some Christmas lyrics.  I thought it was punnily hilarious, but since Ethan didn't know what a bauble was, the whole Michael Bauble joke didn't quite land.  I think he still loved the gift regardless, so I'm gonna call it a win!  Hahaha.

(Isaac playing with his new Gravity Maze game.)

One of my favorite moments of Christmas -- Alex sitting down to pore over this "Absurd Words" book that I got as a Jolabokaflod gift for all the kids.  I didn't have high hopes that they would love it as much as I did, but the fact that I've caught both Alex and Isaac leafing through it over the last few days warms the very cockles of my heart.

And possibly the greatest accomplishment of our whole Christmas vacation...

...completing this "Silent Night, Starry Night" puzzle that I got for the family for Christmas.  It was super hard, but still a lot of fun.  Scott and I were the main ones working on it, and I was surprised that we were able to finish the whole thing in 3 days.

CHRISTMAS CARD

As a little bonus for you, I figured what better way to close out the year than with this year's Christmas card preserved for posterity.  Hahaha.  Using a picture from this summer's road trip, and an allusion to last year's Christmas jammies (proclaiming "Gnome for the Holidays"), I worked up a design template in photoshop and created this year's card.  It actually ended up taking FOREVER to make and possibly caused more aggravation than it was worth, but I was pleased enough with the end result even if Walmart did do a crappy job in printing them out for me.  And because I couldn't decide which color background I liked the most from my mock-ups, I ended up ordering some of each.  

"There's no place like Gnome for the Holidays!"

"The Year in Review in a Single Word (or Two):

Ethan (19) --> Mission

Grace (18) --> Senior...

...Sophie (15) --> Music

Jane (13) --> Taylor Swift...

...Alex (11) --> Bed Wars

Isaac (7) --> Roblox...

...Jessica --> Tired

Scott --> Tireder...

A long and newsy newsletter this is not, but done is better than perfect, right??  We hope you all are happy and well and filled with the joy of the season.  Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

("World's Largest Concrete Gnome" courtesy of Ames, IA via this summer's roadtrip through the Midwest.)"    

THE END

Well, folks -- that's it!  We've come to the end of the road for this year's family record.  To close, I'll leave you with a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  Peace out, 2022.