December has been sooooo cold

 Yes, it seems that I am always cold. Yes, I wear pants and long sleeves and sweatshirts. But, I am still cold. I have the little space heater in Colten's room with me while I work (it doesn't run the whole time but I turn it on a few times). But taking the dogs on longer walks is out of the question for me. How cold is it you ask? Cold enough that it snowed on Monday night (overnight) and I was surprised there was snow on the ground in the morning when I took the dogs out. It's cold. Anyway, onto the blog.

Monday I drove Colten out to St. George to attend a training session with a guy named Elia. Elia works with the high school football team. Colten worked with him last Saturday and Monday but has said that he has already learned so much about changing his technique, his running, etc. We are going to try and keep him going with him while we can. It was still cold for him but I sat in the car reading and would turn on the heater as needed. Then it was off to wrestling so the boy was pretty tired when he got home.

Tuesday night a few of us went to see Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer at Tuacahn thanks to mom and dad. It was a cute show that went right along with the movie. They did a great job with it. 

Thursday Aspen had her 2nd quarter choir concert. Grandma, Grandpa and Kayleeya came out to see it along with Hollee. Colten was taking wrestling pictures for yearbook so he came over afterwards but he joined his friends. It was an amazing concert. Miss Stackhouse picks fun songs that the kids can have fun with while remembering the Christmas season. Aspen asked Grandma if she could bring her a Santa hat since ours are buried in the back room...she was happy to oblige. 

Rocket seems to be doing a lot better with the potty training. It's like it just clicked one day. He did have an accident yesterday but he had barked and we didn't take him out. Then he spit up a little bit later and wouldn't drink any water so I am thinking he was not feeling well for a little bit. But I like to try and take the dogs out of the kennel and let them play. It usually happens right after I take them out to go to the bathroom but if anyone has an accident, play time is over. Rocket has lots of fun growling (the play kind) and showing that he is the boss. He likes to jump up on the couch and attack from there because the puppies can't jump up there yet. He'll be losing that advantage soon. And Rocket does a good job of keeping them contained in the little area I set for them. Every once in a while they get over to the kitchen but then it is just funny to watch them try and stop.

The kids (well the parents) wanted to earn money so they could buy each other presents for Christmas. Due to time and business, we decided to do fudge. Well, fudge did the trick. Poor Colten has been making fudge for a week (or longer) straight. He learned from his Grandmas and is the only one who really knows the softball technique. I've watched enough that I think I could do it but will leave it up to him. Aspen helps when she can and the little girls help deliver. Annika helped me put fudge into the bags so we could deliver the batch for yesterday. The kids will have enough money to buy their siblings a nice gift instead of a cheap one.

Colten had his training with Elia, again it was cold. But after that we pretty much watched football before heading out for the girls recital. Well, we weren't too impressed with the fact that the concert started 30 minutes late AND it ended up being 2.5 hours long. But we stuck it out. Then we spent the rest of the day watching football before heading out to the dance recital.

Annika, Channing, Tashlee and Oaklee each did a dance for the recital. They each did a great job. Darcee and Jay came out and endured the 2.5 hour performance (was really there 3 since it started 30 minutes late). We thoroughly enjoyed watching our girls perform and hope that builds their confidence. It was also fun to see Oaklee getting a piggy back ride from Tashlee walking up to the finale with Annika and Channing right behind.

November ends and the last month of 2022 begins

 Last Monday was busy for me. I still had work, usual Monday stuff but in the afternoon I was picking up the kids from the bus. It is really nice for them to have phones and I can track them. Otherwise, I would have been waiting at the bus stop for at least 30 minutes. Got the kids back and headed home. Colten's 8th grade football banquet was that night so we left Aspen at home to take care of the dogs and do some homework. 

The banquet turned out great. Jodi, Jack's mom, brought cute football decorations. Parents had contributed to doing the football posters again so those were up. Parents brought lots of food, good food I might add. It was a great evening. The boys took home water bottles (lasered with their football number and Hurricane football done by Zac), a wooden plaque for winning the USA Invitational and a T-shirt. Each of the coaches gave an inspiring speech to continue working and harassing their talent to bring the Hurricane High School football team up a winning team. This group of boys has been fun (sometimes frustrating) to watch but they came together in the tournament and won. I hope to see great things out them.

For the most part the next week was pretty low key. We are still seeing the girls 4 days a week due to their mom's work schedule. Colten has been doing wrestling and Aspen has been working away. The first weekend in December brought not only Winterfest in La Verkin but Holiday Trees in Hurricane. Friday night we went to Winterfest and enjoyed a little bit of their talentfest before heading over to Hurricane to check out their decorated trees.

Saturday was bright and early for Colten and I. He had seen a flyer when signing up for wrestling about the Winterfest 5K and wanted to do it. The Winterfest 5K is the best I've seen just because they do a "treasure" hunt for the participants before the race. The participants run to find snowflakes spread throughout the city park. They had some pretty awesome prizes and a lot of them. Colten got a new water bottle. After the treasure hunt, the participants could do a warm up with someone (can't remember the name). It was fun to see Colten participating and get stretched before the run. Then the race started. They had a 5K going through the streets of La Verkin by the elementary while the 10K headed up SR-9 (no thank you!). Colten had a goal to complete the 5K in less than 30 minutes but he also didn't know the course and that there were hills lol. Since we have iphones I was able to track him along the race. I actually went back to the car for some warmth and read but was only in there for like 10 minutes before Colten was heading in the final stretch. The winner of the race (a 15 year old) finished in like 23 minutes, than an older gentleman and Colten came in 7th at 27:24. Colten actually came in 2nd in his age group (11-15) but when announced for the medal he got first because the overall winner was in his age group. He was sore afterwards but showered and massage his legs and was good to go.

Colten was forced into being the Gingerbread character at the school carnival for a couple of hours (I didn't get a picture of him) and Aspen was a Princess after him. We took Annika and Channing over to Winterfest and the carnival pretty much the rest of the day. They were able to get their face painted and do all sorts of crafts. I had walked up and down the vendors I think like 7 times the whole day. We got dinner at the street tacos vendor there after the light parade. The girls did a good job riding on the float for their dance group. I don't think there were as many people that came to Winterfest this year but it was still fun.

The next week was pretty calm. Aspen and Colten volunteered to help out at the traveling Tabernacle that was set up in St. George. Good thing that I stuck around because I needed to get Tylenol to Aspen, water for Colten, oh and a blanket for Colten. I did manage to go through the tour and display myself. It was very informative about what the tabernacle is.

We didn't have Annika and Channing as much this week because their mom was working mornings but we did get to see them on Thursday and Friday. The girls have been doing the missionary discussions again so Annika can be baptized. The missionaries this time around are doing more objective lessons, hopefully those stick a little better.

With Christmas right around the corner, we decided to have the kids do another fundraiser to raise money for Christmas presents. This time we are doing fudge, chocolate and cookies 'n cream. Colten has been busy making the fudge since he is the only one that knows how to do the softball form but I am getting the idea after helping him. We will have the girls help more this week. So far, the we have sold 53 bags of 1/2 pound of fudge...yikes!

On Friday, Hollee and I gave Grandma our Christmas present for this year. As soon as Grandpa gets feeling better we will get a picture of both of them :)

On Saturday morning we had our ward party with breakfast and man did the committee do a good job. There was dutch oven potatoes, biscuits and gravy, french toast and pancakes with cinnamon rolls as dessert. After breakfast, Santa came by for a visit followed by a short Christmas program. There was ballroom dancing, the youth singing and signing "White Christmas" and the primary kids singing. It was a fun morning.

Well I think I am caught up for the moment except for pictures. My computer doesn't like to keep the hard drive loaded for too long lol.

Thanksgiving already???

 Man, November flew by. Now that the tournament is over, Colten keeps busy with wrestling, normally three days a week but this week he only went on Monday. He seems to be picking up on it. Zac had two dads from the football team tell him they were glad that Colten joined. Aspen was busy working Monday and Tuesday and keeping up with school. 

Wednesday morning I dropped Aspen and Colten off at the bus to spend Thanksgiving with their dad. I ran a few errands for Zac while I was in St. George. When I got back, Tashlee, Annika and Channing got dropped off for the their Thanksgiving sleepover. Annika and Channing were playing well together but when it came time to go help Zac at the shop, things didn't go so well. Zac ended up texting saying that we didn't have time to load the trailer and since the girls weren't behaving, he would just come home. Spencer, Sandy and kids were coming to go shooting that afternoon. They all fell in love with Piper and Thor and were amazed at all the lizards in our house. We finally made it up to the range and it was windy and cold. Zac and Spencer shot the most but little Nixon got in a few shots. Maddie and Talan each shot a couple of different hand guns. Our girls stayed in the windless Escalade and I joined them after the wind and cold got to be too much. Despite the outing not being as long as they would have liked, I think Spencer and Zac had fun.

Once we got back from shooting, we had to head straight to the shop so we could load the parts to deliver to Robbie. The parts had been sitting at the shop for a couple of weeks but were done. So, to get rid of the parts and out of his life, Zac delivered them. We went to Burger King for dinner and then went to Wal-Mart to shop for our Thanksgiving breakfast. We kept it pretty simple, lots of sugar and headed home. The girls watched a movie and Zac and I chilled in our room.

Thursday morning we got up and had breakfast. The girls loved the donuts and all the sugar. Zac dropped the girls off to their mom's and we headed out to my parents with our dogs. We got over there to watch the first football game of the day. Hollee and her family joined us around noonish. Of course, Oaklee and Raven love the puppies but as soon as Jonah saw that they laid in their pee in the playpen, he was like "kids don't touch the dogs". Hollee made a chip dip that was a huge hit. Justyn, Rachel and Issy joined us a little later as well as Kayleeya and Alijah. The puppies were in their laps pretty much until dinner. Oh and Darcee, Jay, Jeramiah, Paige and Trent (although at different times) joined us so we had a full house. It took a little longer to prepare dinner so by the time it was ready, we were ready to devour it. The food was delicious and filling. I had made popcorn earlier that day and did the caramel after dinner for caramel popcorn, which was devoured as well. All in all, we had a great family day.

Friday, Zac decided to stay at home and work on somethings he needed to do around the house. I vacuumed the floors, and cleaned two ceiling fans before I was done for the day. Annika and Channing joined us when their mom went to work. I played a math game with Annika and discovered she pretty much has a song for multiples of all the numbers 1-12. She did really well too. There were a few other games that I want to play on her paper that I want to try. I played Spot It with Channing but taught her the Hot Potato version. I discovered that she is really good at Spot It. Zac said that is why she likes to play it. The girls had a much better day than Wednesday, except when their mom came to pick them up. Channing was a little difficult.

Saturday we headed to my parents again, with the dogs, to plan our trip out to the Indy 500. My dad watches the race every year, and for the past couple Zac and I have joined him. Well, my dad had mentioned that he would love to get back and watch the race live one more time in his life. Well, Zac said that he would go and that brought us out to their house to plan the trip. We got the whole trip pretty much planned. After the planning meeting, we went out and helped my dad get all the palm leaves loaded onto the trailer.

Sunday Zac and I had a quiet day, mainly watching football from our bed, attending church and just enjoying our time together. To me, it has been a short break but definitely needed.

Ugh...busy two weeks = no blog update :(

 Well, Colten's team got eliminated from the regular season championship but they were still participating in the USA Invitational in Mesquite so he had practice. But to add on top of football practice, Colten decided to do wrestling to help him with his footwork and strength for football. He went to football for two hours and then straight to wrestling for another hour to an hour and a half. He said that he is actually enjoying wrestling. His height may work against him in wrestling but he is doing pretty good. After his 4th practice he went and did an open gym where he was able to do three matches. He won one of the three. He said that on his last match he was just so gassed lol. Wrestling also requires 90 seconds of go hard while football is usually 10-15 seconds.

Aspen had a school project where she brought the mechanical baby home for two nights. Well, her and Tashlee had them at the same time. It was fun to watch her wait on "Tesla" hand and foot. The first night was a pretty easy since Tesla only woke up once, at 5am. Aspen was able to feed her and go back to sleep for another hour. Apparently she had a friend that her baby woke up 13 times that first night. The second night wasn't as easy though. She was up 6 times and a little ornery that morning. I think she was happy to give Tesla back. I asked her what she learned from this project and she said "Babies are hard". I said "They are but if you have them when you are married, you'll have someone to help you".

That weekend, Colten and I had planned to go to the 8th grade championship since it was the first championship that Snow Canyon wouldn't be in it. But I never got the notice that times were changed so we missed it. It was changed to 3 hours before we had planned to be there :(. We had gone to Grandma and Grandpa's house for a little bit before the game so since we were already in St. George, we decided to do a mom/son date instead. Colten was a little sad that we missed the game but found a new VR/console place with some free things on the Starving Student Card. So, we headed over to Washington and he played 30 mins of virtual reality. The place had a TV where I could see what Colten was seeing, without having the controls. It was cool to watch him make moves and go after people. We will definitely go back there again.

After the video games, we headed over to Black Bear Diner to get something to eat. We both got a hamburger with french fries but man were those plates full. And after dinner we hooped over to Culver's for some concrete ice cream. We then headed home to play a little Star Wars Risk. Colten is determined to play the "dark side" and win the game.  Unfortunately, that wasn't the case that night. He is 0-4 but getting a little closer. It was a fun, much needed, night.

Rocket has made great strides since getting the puppies. He seems to not enjoy them but is learning to tolerate them. He has been more cuddly since he has watched us carry the puppies around. We are definitely enjoying this new Rocket. Now if he will just learn to listen, we'll be good.

Colten had a busy week with more football practice and wrestling. But the football tournament finally arrived on Thursday. Coach Matua had arranged for us to scrimmage against Brigham City to see if we were prepared enough. We held up pretty well but lost 12-6. There was a lot to learn but we held with them. So we headed back to Hurricane to spend the evening. The next game was on Friday night against Bingham so we headed down after school, this time with Annika and Channing. Unfortunately for all of us, the weather was not in our favor. The wind was going about 20 mph and after the sun went down, the colder it got. We were definitely not prepared for the wind. The girls played on the playground for a little before coming to get the blankets. After about half-time they finally got up and ran around for the last half. In the meantime, Zac and I were pacing the sidelines to keep ourselves warm. Grandma and Grandpa showed up at about half-time as well. This game went much better than Thursday's game. The wind meant there wasn't a whole lot of throwing by either side but Colten did have a fumble recovery. The defense scored a touchdown in the 1st quarter followed by an offense touchdown. That was all the points we were able to score but the defense did a pretty good job of allowing one touchdown thus Hurricane won 12-6. Winning the game got us to the championship game on Saturday. So back to La Verkin we went.

Saturday was a busy day for us. Started with getting Rocket groomed. While he was getting beautified, Aspen and I stopped at Wal-Mart and picked up some flannel for a service project the Young Women will be doing on Tuesday. Once we got Rocket back, we headed down to St. George for Annika's friend birthday party. Annika was able to have a couple of friends go to House of Jump with her. Oaklee and Raven were able to join in so Hollee and Jonah were there. Grandma and Grandpa joined us and Hollee and I were able to give Grandpa his Christmas presents...Grinch gifts that is. I found him a Christmas ornament of the Grinch wearing Broncos, pooping in a Raiders toilet with Chargers toilet paper and Chiefs footstool. Hollee found him some yard decorations and a Grinch light thing that he can put on his garage. All the kids had so much fun jumping around for an hour before we went to McDonald's for lunch. Zac, Colten and I went to Grandma's and Grandpa's until we had to leave for Mesquite one last time. The girls all headed back to La Verkin to enjoy a sister's evening. I think they watched two movies and got candy and TV. We headed to Mesquite, again early, but we were able to watch the Hurricane 7th grade team win their game. It was fun to see the 8th grade team warming up in the end zone and cheering on the 7th grade team trying to score. Unfortunately, they didn't score that time. Our game was at 5pm and there wasn't any wind but man it was cold. We were a little more prepared, except my toes. They were bricks by the end of the night. We were playing Herriman, who apparently liked to throw the ball a lot. We won the coin toss and deferred so we started on defense. First play, they throw the ball and Colten intercepted it. That set the tone for the rest of the game. Sure, we had a few mistakes, missed tackles but the boys held up. Daxton, Colten's friend, even scored a touchdown on the last drive of the game. Hurricane won 26-8 and became USA Invitational champions. We probably spent another 45 minutes doing the ceremony and taking pictures. After we were finally done, Colten said "I'm hungry" and I mentioned Panda Express so he said "I haven't had that for awhile, let's go there". We were able to sit and talk about the game and just let Colten how how proud we were of him. Then we made our last trek back home to La Verkin one last time.

Since we had had a full schedule for 3 days, we relaxed on Sunday enjoying some family time.