January...done!

Dexter was supposed to start school on Tuesday, but we had another good snowfall.  The school district delay started the school, and that meant a snow day for kindergartners.  We enjoyed a jammy day and one last day to relax before school again.

Made a snowman with dad.

 The snow in our backyard was pretty decent, and I don't have legit snowboots.  I have some rainboots that I use for gardening, and I recently got duck boots.  But nothing for deeper snow.  My parents had given me some hand-me-downs from when they sold their cabin.  Mainly snow stuff since it's not needed in Vegas.  I remembered we had some snowshoes and thought it would be fun to try it out.

 They actually were fun.  Mine are old, and so one of the snaps is broken and would release often, but it was still pretty cool.

Dexter got a fun card game from Santa, Sleeping Queens.  It's pretty easy that even Ellie can do it, with a little guidance.  A bonus is that it can practice their addition (or subtraction) skills.  Definitely a favorite kid one in my books.

 Dexter is just a reading maniac.  He finished the phonic sets of books that kindergartners do, the first one of his class.  Now he gets to read, and write a little report.  This is proving pretty difficult for him.  Not that he can't do it, he just doesn't want to.  I still make him do it, but we're taking it at a little slower pace.

 Onto 1st grade set 2 of sight words, and those he didn't even batt an eye at.

So between the long Vegas/California trip, straight into school, then visitors every other week, then straight into holidays.  I kind of forgot about Ellie's 3 year checkup and Flynn's 15 month.

When I finally got around to it Ellie had her 3 year 5 month and Flynn's 18 month checkup.    Here's their stats:
Ellie:
Weight: 33.6 lbs (61%)
Height: 3' 3.5" (79%)
She checked out good on all her milestones. The only comment the doctor had was that she has anxiety, which is totally true.  Any abrupt change she usually freaks out about.  Like she did not want to take off her shoes, or lay down when they asked her too.

Flynn:
Weight: 26 lbs (74%)
Height: 33" (69%)
Head: 22 cm (99% - somebody got the full Hansen gene)

 I realized I forgot to post about a special procedure Flynn had done in September.He was born with hydronephrosis, which is very common in baby boys.  However, his wasn't going away even by 12 months.  So we got referred to a urologist at Primary Children's.  He got an ultrasound which he didn't cry or mind. 

But the next procedure was more sad.  They strapped and weighted him down.  Put an IV in his arm, and then put him under an x-ray machine for 45 minutes.  Poor guy was screaming his lungs out for 15 minutes straight before he finally fell asleep.

We did get results from it though.  Flynn has double ureters (what connects your kidney to your bladder) on both kidneys.  To have one double ureter is uncommon, and to have it on both is rare.  However, the urologist said that his kidneys were functioning perfectly (not all double ureters do), the hydronephrosis was lessening.  So no more worries about it.  Best news!!

 One of my college roomies and best friends moved to Clinton...only 8 minutes away!  Every so often we go on girls nights.  She teaches at a school so a lot of times, it's to her school's musicals. In January we got to go and see LaLaLand.  Kyle had no interest to see it, unlike me.

 One night Flynn was super cuddly.  He was cutting his two molars on the bottom, so I figured it was just teething.  I also soaked up him being all super snuggle, where he's normally wiggly all over.

 While some of it may have been teething, little did I know it was the start of a plague at my house.  The next morning Flynn threw up, and then again, and again.  He had a fever (that got really high at one point), and just wanted to lay and snuggle all day.

The next day though he was back to full functioning, climbing and destroying everything, normal boy.  Just a quick stomach flu.

Christmas - It's Showtime 2nd Half

Just as the TX Hansens were in town to visit the Hansens.  My brother's family from Texas were also in town.  We spent the 2nd half of the trip with them.

Kyle loves board games and card games.  This one he had been dying to try, but was pretty complicated and he wanted a few people to play the first time.  Jessica and Nathan, nicely agreed (they too love board games).  It was a good game, but took us around 3-4 hours to play.  There was definitely a big learning curve.

 Two babies, Jonathan (almost 1 yr) and Flynn (almost 1.5)

 Aunt Melynn set up a movie night for the kids.  Popcorn and Storks.

 Again getting our fill of playing outside, at all the parks.

 The others even sent us off on a date night.  We finally got to redeem some movie tickets we've had for a few years.  There just aren't any Regal cinemas near us.  Fantastic Beasts was a fun movie!

The next evening Sam threw a surprise birthday party for Tyler!  I and a few other friends helped her get it ready, and the guys were occupying Tyler by playing games.  He didn't even see it coming. 

The week ended quickly, and we went back home to rest before school started right away...or at least we thought. 

Christmas - It's Showtime! First Half

We started our trip to Vegas.  There was again a snowstorm that we had to watch out for, but this time it was for going down.  Thankfully it ended up not affecting our schedule, but we did miss what was a White Christmas.
Christmas Eve, and Christmas was spent primarily with the Hansens.  It was an extra special time with the Texas Hansens in town also!

It may have been cold to the natives, but we were relishing the sunshine and warmer temps.  Still chilly, but much better than below freezing.

 The cousins had lots of playtime.

 Star Wars thumb wars.

 We managed to get in family pictures.  There's two different versions, it's hard to choose which one is best.  The clearer picture but children with their faces.  Or a little brighter, but decent faces on most kids.

 The Hansens hosted their annual Christmas Even dinner.  There was lots of people there.  All the Hansens, which is a big group of 18 people.  Jana's family - Spencer and Stephanie were visiting from Hawaii.  The Chris Yi family was too. 

After dinner there was a fun white elephant/gift exchange thing.  It was pretty fun.  Kyle and my gifts ended up being stolen from others the most.  It was a laboratory beaker mug (with some hot chocolate packets) and Kyle had a foxtail.

Christmas morning we got to open presents with my family.

We attended church with the Hansens.  In non-Hansen style everyone just got to open presents....which was a bit of chaos.  Usually they do it one by one, but it takes a few hours to do....which we knew the 6 littles 5 and under would not last for. We need to find a good compromise.


I hope we earned best Aunt and Uncle award for our gift to the TX Hansens.  Milo and Otto love, Love, LOVE to dig and play with trucks in the mud.  I found some CAT construction vehicle toys that would be perfect.  When Milo opened it, it was like he had found gold.  Yay, for finding great presents.

 

 Buying presents for parents, is hard.  This year though I don't think we'll be able to top.  We surprised Leanne (it was also for Bruce, but he wasn't surprised) so much that she started to cry.  Everyone chipped in, including Bruce, and we gave her a brand new big TV.  She's been wanting one for SOOOOO many years.  But with Grandma, this big expense, that big expense, etc. it hasn't been able to happen.  On Monday they went out and bought it, and even installed it.

One of Leanne's gifts to the bigger kids was a trip to Build-A-Bear.  Word of note, do not go to Build-A-Bear on the day after Christmas, it's their busiest day of the year.  Ellie chose Olaf, and Dexter got Sonic.

Picking some songs to go in them.

 Stuffing Olaf

 Sonic's Turn

 They love them lots!

Tucking their new friends into bed with them.

Thus ended some busy, fun days.  We needed a break.

Christmas Pre-game

We were going to be out of town for Christmas, but had a few large presents for the kids.  We opened them one week before.

All Dexter could talk about after school was playing basketball.  So he got a hoop.

 Ellie loves to draw and color (unlike her brother), and got an art desk to keep all the things easy for her to get.

 Flynn we thought would love a playfort, and the teepees are quick to set up and put away.

December Fun 2016

Lots of fun time in December.  Although we were stuck inside because the snow outside never melted away, with all the fun and excitement of Christmas it didn't bother me too much.  Now just wait for January and February.  Bleh.

 I was really slow about getting around to decorating, but we did have this wall of countdowns.  We had 4 this year.  There was a advent calendar, Dexter's school chain, LDS Light of the World, and then my new paper bag advent.

Online there were a few posts about cute felt trees.  It was super easy to make.  The ornaments are very simple.  I even tried to be a fun mom and let them decorate them with glitter glue.  Sooo did not work.  Ellie thought it was actual glue and tried gluing a stack of 10 together.  Lots of crying when it didn't turn out.  Also, they played with it for like an hour all December.  More fun in concept than my kids actually cared for.

 Got hair cuts

 I love hot chocolate!!  It's necessary up here on cold days.  A store was having a sale...so I picked up a few flavors to try out.  The Mexican Chocolate one is our favorite.  Cinnamony and wonderful.

 Helping me decorate the tree

 He went to nursery all by himself.  It was a couple months early, but our nursery leaders were okay with it.  Surprisingly Ellie loved having him in there with her.

 Helping me wrap and decorate presents.  Kyle didn't like it (he likes fancy, which I don't do), but the kids enjoyed making them.  So the kids won.

 Ellie got a balance bike, but due to snow and coldness outside we let her test drive in the basement.

 I'll be torn when we finish the basement.  It's nice having so much open room, but it'll be wonderful to not be freezing, have electricity, a bathroom, and a new guest bedroom all down there.

 I was ambitious and invited some friends over to decorate cookies.  They're really well behaved girls that we love to play with, so it turned out great.

 I made some royal icing for me to practice.

 The final result of my icing.  Not too bad, but still needs work.

 Old tree....

New tree!  It's perfect because it's a slim tree, which is the right size for our small front room (parlor).  Target was running their 50% off christmas trees 2 weeks before Christmas, so I grabbed it then.

 Another snowstorm, and this time we remembered to stick a bowl out to catch the fresh snow to make snow cones!

 Flynn can climb the bed.  He is a tough one to watch and keep out of trouble.

 There was an amazing rainstorm that rolled in.  I looked out front and just watched that dark cloud cover the whole sky in just a few minutes.  It was beautiful and scary all at the same time, since it was quite a strong storm.

 We made treats for neighbors and delivered them too...even though it was only 15 outside.

 Yummy hot cocoa!

Smith's is my kids' favorite store.  They get fruit, cheese samples, cookies, and if we go on the right day...balloons!

 Dexter showed this colored picture to me in church, and I was so happy.  He has come a long way.  When he was little I'd ask if he wanted to color or draw.  The answer was always a strong no!  If there was something in preschool or primary that asked him to color...he'd do like 4 lines and call it done.  No cajoling could make him do a bit more.  So you can see that when he showed a fully colored in picture that he did willingly and was so proud of, I was so proud of him too.  It was even a big enough deal for his kindergarten teacher to mention at SEP (parent-teacher conference) that he no longer cried when it was time to color.  Big improvement!!

 Playing Chomp! A war game based on fish food chains. 

 Snapchat is still always fun!