Feelin' the Love

Valentine's Day is still a week away, but at our house we are feeling it a little early.

Just for fun, my kids got out the craft box and spent hours this past weekend making valentines for everyone in the family. They happily worked together laughing and joking, and praising each others creativity. It was great!

They set up a mail station in the hallway upstairs. I was waiting to take a picture til the end because it was pretty amazing and every time I walked by, it had grown. Only problem was that by the time they were finished, they asked Jared and I to wait in the living room and then everything was delivered. No mail station picture.

They started off by putting on a little skit. We asked them to do it twice. It had nothing to do with Valentine's Day or love letters, but it was cute. Then, the dispersed an even amount of valentines to each person in the family, including Emma's doll.

Here was my stash.

This was one of my favorites!

I love that amongst all the sibling rivalry, grumpy mornings or tattle-telling, my kids can have weekends like this where they don't seem to mind that we aren't going out to movies or getting ice cream, and they don't care that friends aren't available to play with, they just have fun together which as a parent is so satisfying.

Hunter told me this was the most fun he's had in soo long and the girls quickly agreed. I'll be replenishing the craft box with paper and stickers this week!

Glory Days

The BYU Rugby team came to Seattle last weekend. Of course, we dragged our family and friends out into the cold to support our cougars and re-live some of the memories from a few years back when Jared was a BYU Rugby player, and I was a supportive wife watching all the games, cringing and hoping that at the end he would still be in one piece.

Walking out onto the field at the start of the game brought back a flood of memories, for both of us. Once the game started, Jared turned to me and said, I forgot how brutal this was. I remembered.

Those were fun days. The team was, good, really good, they still are. It was fun to watch them blow away every team they played, and go on to win the National Championships his final year.

Hunter was impressed when the coach recognized Jared and called him by name. He turned to Linsey in amazement and she said, "Well, he was the best player on the team!"

He certainly was my favorite player, and he was pretty amazing!

We came prepared to cheer! It was cold, but the cougars played a good game and beat the Huskies 48-5.


We had so much fun we came out the next day to watch them play a club team from the Rugby Super League, OPSB. Coach Smyth likes to have the team play some good club teams while they are out so they have some experience playing hard teams before the National Championships. This was just what he ordered. It was a tough game. We were behind and with just 2 minutes left, BYU scored a try and took the lead 19-15. OPSB fought hard and was able to get within a meter of scoring before being dragged out of bounds. It was a crazy finish and the fans went wild! Go Cougars!


Linsey enjoyed some glory of her own as her soccer team was awarded 2nd place in their district.
Pretty cool! She had another great soccer season and is gearing up to start again this Spring!

Go Strykers!

And just because it's such a big deal to Emma, I have to add that she has finally lost that long awaited first tooth. My kids all seem to be the last of their friends, and their entire first grade classes to loose a tooth. It makes the day they finally loose their first tooth that much more exciting, and that day was yesterday for Emma.... finally!

She even let Jared pull it out for her, and he really had to pull. It wasn't one of those hanging by a thread situations. He told her it might hurt a little bit and she said, "I don't care." That's my girl! I love that toothless, proud smile.

How we are surviving the Big Storm!

It started out small.
Just a little snow on Sunday, enough to make a little snowman, with a snow bunny.

The snow continued to dump and our kids were thrilled when school was cancelled again and again and again. Really, everything we had scheduled for this entire week has all been cancelled.

It seemed like Christmas. We don't get much snow in the Pacific Northwest which means when it does snow, everything shuts down and you stay home... and if you have kids, you play! They amaze me with their ability to stay out in the cold all day. Even little Austin would stay out for hours.

Here are some pictures to document some of the fun they had.
Jared went out with the kids one evening and helped them make a big fort.
They worked until dark, but it was all worth it, look how cool it turned out!
Then came the ice. It started Wednesday, but by Thursday morning everything was covered in a thick layer of ice. Each individual branch was well over an inch thick. I've never seen anything quite like it.
It really was pretty, but unfortunately many of the trees couldn't quite handle the weight of the ice and trees began to fall right and left.

Look at this poor little tree drooped all the way over.

We feel fortunate that our trees have all survived the ice storm. This evergreen is struggling, but thankfully none of it's branches have snapped.

Many of our neighbors were not so fortunate.

While this week has been sort of exciting and in many ways we have enjoyed being snowed in, we are grateful for our safety, and especially for our warm home. With all of the fallen trees, all around us hundreds of thousands are without power and we are warned that it may take several days before the power lines are fixed. It really is a mess.

Thankfully, it's been raining today and things are starting to thaw.

It's been quite the week!

Hunter-Man

Lately, there's been a lot of reasons to celebrate Hunter!

His third grade class put on a program in celebration of Martin Luther King Day. It was fabulous, as usual, and we especially enjoyed Hunter's scat solo/duet. I never would have been brave enough to do something like that.

He also had a few speaking parts, a pretty big deal to him.

A few days later, Hunter had his first official piano recital. He practiced, and practiced, and practiced his song and thankfully played it flawlessly at the recital. He said he didn't even feel nervous about it.

Here he is with his teacher, Brandy.

She really is great for him, just what he needs, super positive and encouraging and she makes it really fun for him.

Last, but not least, there was the pinewood derby.
Jared asked Hunter to draw what he wanted his car to look like and then my two very artistic and talented boys made that car up to look just like Hunter imagined.

It looks black in the picture, but it's actually dark blue.
I think he named it Blue Thunder.

I love this picture, waiting and cheering for the car, but it's oh so serious too!
You'd think this kid was loud, but Jared tells me from across the gym, the loudest person cheering in the crowd was my little Austin!

Blue Thunder did it's best and won an award for "Best Detail".

It finished somewhere in the middle which was a bit of a disappointment to both dad and Hunter, especially since one of the boys made a car on the spot - colored the block of wood with markers and glued the wheels on right there... and that car beat Blue Thunder believe it or not.

I was proud of Hunter last year when he took home a trophy, but I was more proud this year to watch my son, who quite often struggles with sportsmanship, cheer on the other boys and keep a positive attitude even when he wasn't blowing away the competition. It really was a great night!

As we left Emma said, "What are we going to do to celebrate Hunter?" I feel like we have been celebrating him for a week non-stop, but we did stop and get donuts!

Way to go Hunter!

Merry Christmas!

Jared and I told our kids they could not wake up before 7:00 Christmas morning. About 6:55, I could hear them all in our doorway, whispering. They sat there and waited til our clock showed 7:00 and then shouted out, "It's Christmas!!!"

Santa puts up a barricade so the kids can't sneak downstairs to peak. The kids excitedly made their way through chairs and boxes covered by blankets and wrapping paper and raced down the stairs.

I'm sure my kids would love it if we let them all just unwrap everything all at once, but I love watching them open each gift, one by one.

I love watching the look on all of their faces as they take turn opening gifts.

This doll made Emma's day!

Here we are headed off to Grandma's house for dinner.

I wish I would have taken a picture of everyone in their Sunday best, but they changed so quickly once we got home, anxious to get back to their Christmas toys and gadgets. I have mixed feelings about Christmas falling on Sunday. It was really neat to go to church, sing Christmas music, and feel of the Spirit there on Christmas day; after all, we are celebrating the Savior's birth. It was the dressing up and leaving by 10:00 Christmas morning that was hard.

It all worked out though and we had a lovely day.

We had a fancy Christmas dinner with the McInelly Family at Jared's parents house. Turkey, stuffing, rolls, and all the fixin's. It was delicious and all prepared by my mother-in-law which was a wonderful treat!

At bedtime, I found my entire family snuggled up with dad admiring his new ipad.

Everyone agreed that this was one of our favorite Christmases. Although, I think we say that every year!

And the day after Christmas was lovely too... We spent the whole day relaxing, and playing together, working on projects and playing with new stuff. The kids ran back and forth with their neighbor friends enjoying their new toys. It was just what we all needed.