Remembering our Decembering

Dec. always a busy month and often escapes in a blur.     Here is my effort to remember December


Aaron loves it when Raquels family invites him to come up for a couple of days.    It's always a good time when the Ross' are the host

Jane enjoyed a little creativity with an early winter Storm

December wouldn't be December without recitals

Emily with her Indian Hills School Orchestra Christmas Concert

Emily's Viola teacher in an adjunct professor for BYU.  She invited Emily to perform with her BYU student final recitals.  

Emily and Jane at their piano Christmas recital. 

Jane played "Carol of the Bells"

Emily played "Let it Snow"

At Halloween one of the teachers in the preschool classroom was sporting this awesome blue wig.    I admitted to them that I've always thought I'd look fabulous in blue hair and that if I wasn't a 40+  LDS mom of 4 I'd totally do it.   The teachers surprised me with an awesome blue wig for Christmas.   Now where to wear it? 😂

Ally's family stayed with us a few days before Christmas.  Ally spent much of her time buying furniture and supplies for her new Airbnb house in Teasdale.  I enjoyed some kid free shopping,  Ally enjoyed the insta babysitters my girls offered her and the cousins enjoyed making memories, videos and taking a lot of pictures together playing around together in my house.

Jane made the mistake of allowing 3 little wide eye girls into her room to play with all her American girl dolls that she has kept just so so. 

Roy stole Emily's heart.  The two of them became fast friends.  Emily says he looks like a baby model.  

Ally was also really kind to help me make a couple batches of caramels for neighbor gifts.   

Traditional Sunday before Christmas family pictures.  Easier said than done.  

One of the days Ally was here she snuck in a ski day.   She introduced Jane to skiing while I took her 2 younger ones for the day.  

Emily, Aaron, Clara, Spencer, Roy and I hopped on the trax and made our way downtown to the Grand America and then onto Temple Square.    

Later that night we drove to our favorite Christmas light show.   

Christmas Eve involved lots of Ninjas in Pajamas

The house was overfilled with excitement Christmas morning

Bart and I somehow managed to keep the best gift of all secret from the family.    Jane's been wishing for a ping pong table forever and when the renters moved out the end of November the space became available and Bart ever so slyly snuck it in the house and set it up.    

Hydroflasks for the win

Jane saw these little bitty jams at Harmons and besides her long lego wish list all she wanted in her stocking was one of them

More legos for Jane's birthday!

Friday we had our annual Pace family gathering.  This year held at the Torrey church

Later that night my Grandma Pace who just turned 98 invited us girls over to choose one of her prize hand pieced and hand quilted quilts.    I love the one I chose!  It kind of reminds me of my barbazone baby blanket I had as a little girl.  It still stings when I think of how it was lost at 4-h camp.  

It doesn't always snow in Teasdale at Christmas time but when it does the kids always enjoy sledding behind the 4 wheeler.  

That afternoon we made a way over a picturesque Boulder Mountain to Papa and Nona's cabin and found Jeff had made a fun sledding trail.   It was perfect way to enjoy the cabin.    Play a little in the snow, run in warm up, sled again and adults got to enjoy the fun watching from the windows.  

When we arrived Jeff was hard at work putting up the gate to the new driveway.  Bart and John were great supervisors.

We all enjoyed a lot of time in the cabin just relaxing and enjoying all the yummy meals prepared on the Traeger.  

Bart had to get back early for work on Monday morning.  The older 3 kids did not want to come back so Nona and Papa were gracious enough to let them stay another day and bring them back home.   Jeff made a winter campfire and everyone enjoyed roasting marshmallows on it!

Finally we finished the year off with build your own personal pizzas and a sparkling cider toast to the new year.  

See ya later 2019!  

School diddly school

Our fall has been full of school projects.....


The two papers that come home in backpacks that elicit a feeling of dread is the school fundraiser and 2nd the PTA reflections contest.  Cudos to our school for doing such a fantastic job motivating my kids to want to participate in both.     I refuse to be responsible for any fund raising so I've completely turned over fundraising to the kids and Aaron by himself ran around the neighborhood collecting orders for cookies.   As for the reflections I would see the paper occasionally, Jane and Aaron would halfheartedly bring it up but I had hopes that the due date would pass and I'd be off the hook.    Literally the night before Jane decides she has to complete something to turn in because she has to be invited to the root beef float party held for those who submit an entry.   She said she didn't even want to win she just wanted to enter something.    She had an idea but I wasn't seeing her vision and angry Jane was taking over so Bart the hero stepped forth and in his nurturing patient way sat next up at the counter with her for a couple of hours while she created this box after the theme look inside.

Aaron, getting a pocket knife for his birthday wanted to whittle a heart out of wood.   He started and then gave up with the complexity of the task.   Allyson tried to face time him helping him come up with is own song based on William being a year ahead of him in Lets Play Music where you learn to compose music but he didn't seem to be getting it and wormed his way out of the music room.  He seemed ok not doing the reflections so I stopped the battle and after dinner he settled in to his favorite spot (dining room table) with his favorite supplies, pencils, paper and scissors and busied himself writing.    Around bedtime Aaron asked me to read the story he wrote about himself.  I fell in love with it immediately and as I was tucking him in it dawned on me that his little self written story   fit in perfect with the theme "Look inside".  So I copied, filled out the entry form and shoved in all in an envelope and sent it off with him to be submitted.  Bart got a chuckle out of  the sentence is  "Aaron is rich."  I liked Aaron has school shoes but loved that he said Aaron is luveing. 

Both kids were beaming as they came off the bus raving that they both of the projects went to regionals. 

Sprucewood does a program called Nova for 5th graders helping them develop stronger emotional skills to resist harmful influences.    They were each assigned to make any sort of rocket.  Jane chose to make an avocado rocket with the phrase "It's an avocado" on it's wing.    We all thought her creation was hysterical and she placed 3rd amongst her classmates. 

In order to graduate from the Nova Program the students are given the challenge to completely unplug for a week.   Jane diligently denied all screens and in return found herself more productive than she's ever been.  She really got into her school project to disguise a turkey. 

After the week long screen fast a graduation ceremony was held.  Jane completed all the tasks and got all the certificates and pins.      At the end of the ceremony Officer     presented the highest honor called the "Supernova" and to no surprise to me they called Jane up on the stage.  She's such a rockstar that girl!!

Emily's AP English class had a "Make a difference" group project.   Despite being  put in a group with one annoying girl who didn't like anyone's ideas but wouldn't come up with any of her own, Emily managed to pull them together to come up with a plan to make weighted blankets for the special  needs preschool class I work in.   Nona graciously helped she and her friend Ava by supplying fabric and sewing machines and a little instructions.  The blankets and weighted hoodies turned out great and are used by students every day.

One of the funnest days for 5th Graders is the day they attend Biz town.  Biz town is basically a mini simulated city on top of the children's museum.  Each student prepares in advance to have a job for the day.   Jane was picked as the best job ever because she gets to be on TV as the KSL news reporter.   I volunteered that day and because they don't want parents hovering over their kids was placed in the Salt Lake City School District.   Mrs. Allan joked with me after Jane told her I work for the district that I'm really stepping out of my comfort zone.

It was fun taking pictures of Jane although she didn't want any pictures taken of her.   Nor did she want me on her breaks to follow her around and she learned to buy things with a real credit card and checks.  

My few from our store front.  Jane did an excellent job interviewing people to advertise their store products.    Such a fun day!

Halloween Time

 Spencer started celebrating Halloween when he found an old chicken costume that Emily wore one year.  He drug this around putting it on and off for the entire month. 

For the trunk or treat, Emily thought we should decorate as the ocean and then was gone all Sat afternoon working on a school project so Jane took the vision and made our trunk the reality.   

Introducing Grandpa "Henry" Richards  

😆  I could never get him to smile in any of the pictures.  I guess he took his roll seriously to be a grumpy old man

Pauline invited us up for dinner and asked the kids to come dressed up.   Sunday is a busy  day for me and I was too exhausted to make Spencer a grandpa so I utilized his passion for the chicken costume. 

Time for trick or treating.   

Jane met up with the gang and ran around the neighborhood and then she and her friend ran around the other part of our wards neighborhood and then convinced me to take her over to her teacher's neighborhood.  Her teacher was so happy to see her she gave her like 5 full size candy bars.    The Bart came out in her and she kept going like the energizer bunny and ended up with 14 lbs of candy.   Currently we are having discussions about possibly donating some of the candy. 

Aaron met up with his gang of boys and scoured the neighborhood and then scoured the other 1/2 of the wards neighborhood.  I didn't see his cute happy face all night but I'm assuming he had a blast.

Spencer and I set out together to pokey around the neighborhood while Bart handed out candy.  He was overjoyed when we ran into his besties Joseph and Lucy  and he happily ran around with them until he got cold and then suddenly he had enough candy and had enough trick or treating and just wanted to be home. 

Emily hooked up with friends and was all over our neighborhood and then all over her friends Alix's neighborhood as the chipmunks and ducktails.  

Halloween is now over but Spencer in denial as he has scoured our house for all black clothing and gloves to go with his newest pirate costume.