Rockin' At This Mom Thing

To kick of this year we started by having a Family Home Evening in which we wrote down our goals for the year.  We always did that growing up and I just think its a really great way to dive into a new chapter of life.  I put them on the fridge and in our bedroom so that we could see them throughout the year and be re-inspired when we read through them.  

Tommy's Goals:

1. Potty Train
2. Be reverent and fold arms during the prayer (it is seriously a battle every time guys)
3. Taste one bite of dinner (the other serious battle).

Elsy's Goals:

1. Make bed every day (that hasn't happened once yet... eek)
2. Pray - say morning prayers (oops... that hasn't happened either...)
3. Cook with Mom every Monday (wow... we only did that once so far!)

Dang, see its good to review them now and then to remember that you need to resubmit yourself to trying!

While most of Logan and my goals are personal I will share a couple with you.  For example Logan wants to go to the temple once a month, start running, and get some career goals accomplished.  I made goals to have weekly family history time, cook a vegetable for dinner every day, and have a spiritual experience every day.

Of course, goals were meant to be broken!  But that is what makes them goals!  So we are going to keep trying when we forget or mess up.  We are only in February after all... we only have to be completely better at them by December, right? Haha!

Well, one of my goals was to do more sensory bins for my kids.  Both of them have texture issues, especially Elsy!, and it is greatly manifested at the dinner table.  I read somewhere that playing with new and interesting textures can help kids when it comes to being able to try and eat new and different foods.  So I decided to try it.  Logan got me an amazing, cordless Dyson vacuum for Christmas and I figured I could tackle messes more conveniently with it so we got down and dirty.  The first bin I started with was just plain sugar that I shook in ziplock bags with food coloring in them.  The kids LOVED it.  I feel like something is a success when the kids play with something for longer than 15 minutes.  These two played in the sugar ALL MORNING!  Granted, there was sugar snow all over the floor but thanks to my trusty Dyson I had it all up in a jiffy.

(NOTE:  Sugar is super fun the first couple times, but after a while it starts to get sticky... especially if your kid has a runny nose *gag* or discovers that it is the same sugar you put into recipes and decides to eat it and lick it off their hands.  In either of these cases, a Dyson will not do the job.  Neither will moping the floor 4 times.  Or scrubbing the floor on your hands and knees.  And then the sugar will end up not being a play thing any longer.  Just saying.)

Oh my Elsy girl!  She is just a doll!  When we got home from Christmas break we officially decided to let her stay up from naps.  It was just time.  She is three and a half and was starting to have a really hard time going to sleep at night because she just wasn't tired enough.  She also started to wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep for over an hour.  So we decided it was time.  This has been a big challenge for me because nap time is a huge pick-me-up for me.  It is when I usually read my scriptures, get chores done, plan piano lessons, craft and sew, and even catch my own nap.  Elsy just wants me to play play play with her and I just can't.  Those two and a half hours are times where I just get so much done.  I struggled with the idea of letting her play on the iPad or watching a movie every day but I just couldn't quite do it.  I am pretty strict with the kids with screen time and I decided 2.5 hrs a day was just not what I wanted for her.  So we have been experimenting with what works.  I bought her some fun workbooks that she loves and sometimes she will paint.  But I have found that the best thing during nap time is to have a friend over for her.  She leaves me completely alone and her and her friend play non stop and it is just wonderful.  I can get everything done... even a nap in! (shhh don't tell the friends mom haha!)  I usually let her have a friend over during naps about twice a week.

Wednesday's are my family history days.  During nap time I read and learn about my ancestors and then in the evening I write on my blog to keep our own family history.  Elsy has been snuggling up to me the past couple weeks while I read from the family history books my grandpa and grandma Volmer gave us and I will read to her out loud.  I never think she is listening but then she will chime in and comment on things every now and then.  Its been pretty fun.

Good ole Tommy boy.  He is such a hoot.  He is so rambuncious and we just can NOT get him to hold still.... ever.  We just switched him out of the high chair and into a booster seat at the table because he kept trying to stand in the high chair... but now he just stands on the booster seat!  He has fallen a few times but always catches himself and he will be yelling and I will find him holding the edge of the table with his fingertips and his body suspended between the chair and the floor.  He really is so strong.

I mentioned above that it is a battle for prayers every morning, noon, and night.  And it is really just because he doesn't want to sit still!  He wants to keep playing, eat his food, jump, skip, ribbit like a frog.  He only holds still if he has a pacifier in his mouth.... speaking of which we just stopped letting him have it during the day, its only an 'in-the-crib' thing now.  It was hard at first but it only took a day or two and now he is fine with it.  He has started to do what Elsy used to do though when we did the same to her and that is him saying he is sleepy all the time because he hopes he will get it. "I seepy!" he will say when he is sad, "I seepy!" he says when he gets in trouble, "I seepy, when he doesn't want to do something.

We had a thunder storm this week and a big clap of thunder made him jump so high he skipped and then he ran straight to me bawling.  He clung to me with his arms and legs and I had to pry him off limb by limb to change his diaper.  He loves to pretend he is tough but he sure is tenderhearted.

We decided to renew our lease here at our housing complex for another year.  In order to do that though we decided we needed to de-junk our lives!  We watched a documentary on minimalism of Netflix that inspired us to get rid of a lot of things that we had been holding onto for no reason.  We went through every inch of our apartment and got rid of so much stuff!  We filled the whole back of our van with clothes, toys, books, kitchen appliances, shoe racks, etc.  I couldn't believe we had so much stuff we never use.  We got rid of a whole bookcase, bar stools, and a dresser.  I haven't missed a single thing yet and it has been over a month.

One of the things we decided we wanted to do when we renewed our lease was to make our room feel more like a bedroom.  It was a bedroom/office/piano room combo and it just never felt clean to me.  We decided in all our cleaning out that we would clean out our closet, buy a dresser, and move Logan's "office" into our walk in closet.  That really opened up our room and makes it feel so much more cozy to me.  We got a nice dresser at IKEA as well as a shoe cabinet to free up some space in the closets to put more things in storage.  Elsy and Tommy were great helpers to Logan at first but I finally had to step in and let him have his space... and sanity!

This year Elsy became a Sunbeam at church!  Here she is on her first day at primary.  Ugh, I'm rolling my eyes because she wouldn't take a picture.  She got that little head on a stick and on the other side is a mirror.  She wouldn't stop looking in the mirror sadly.  Since I am the primary pianist I get to watch her while she is singing and I just think she is so darling and grown up!  I may have messed up on the piano a couple times because I was watching her sing over the top of my music.  After two weeks I taught her how to raise her hand... she seemed confused as to why she never got asked to do anything!  Hehe!  I taught her but she still didn't get picked for a couple weeks, there are a lot of kids!  But she got picked for the first time this week and it was an answer to my prayer because she wanted it so badly.  She just soaks up all that knowledge and all the music and sings everything at home.

So one of my goals this year is to potty train Tommy.  I am in no hurry, even though we started potty training Elsy when she was 22 months old.  I just want him potty trained before we have another kid, so I have at least 9+ months to accomplish that.  But he has started to get interested in sitting on the potty now and then so I let him just sit in there.  Sometimes he likes to read a book but mostly he wants me to sit on the stool next to him and talk to him.  So far my patience has led to three poops and one pee into the potty!  I'd say that is pretty good!  Usually, he just poops in his diaper and then asks me "a tote!" (a toilet!).  He likes to watch me dump his poo in the toilet and then he wants to sit on the toilet for a minute or two before I clean him up.  He is so silly.  If I could just get him to tell me "a tote!" before he poops... that would be great.

One of the things that I have discovered that helps Elsy stay occupied during nap time is stringing pony beads on yarn.  She loves to do this and loves to make me nice long necklaces.  I guess in this picture you can't see but I am wearing a matching necklace to Elsy's.  

Elsy always gives me boosts in my confidence.  She tells me I look beautiful all the time.  And even better she will often give me a big tight hug and tell me "You are the best mommy ever!".  It is so sweet and makes me feel special and like I am doing a good job.  I really am trying to get this Mom Thing down.  It is a challenge every day but a good challenge never hurt anybody... at least I keep telling myself that.

Tommy absolutely loves books.  Here he is reading a book in his crib at night.  His favorites are I SPY books and look and find type books... or anything to do with cars.  Grandma Bean gave him the Richard Scary book about Cars and Trucks and Things That Go for Christmas.  Each page he has to look for the Goldbug and since he loves look and finds he loves to just pour over the pages and find that little Goldbug.  Grandma Volmer gave him a Micky Mouse look and find book for Christmas as well.  He loves looking through that one too.  I hate to admit it but I ended up hiding both of those books for a while because I just couldn't stand to read them one more time.  I probably read the Richard Scary one 2-3x a day for a few weeks straight because Elsy got hooked on that one too!  But Tommy is so so sweet about books.  He always caries one around and when he finds me he will say, "Book, please!" and want to sit on my lap to read it.  Today he bawled his eyes out outside the bathroom door because I was in there when he wanted me to read a book, please.  His other favorite book was given to Elsy by Grandpa Bean a few years ago when she was Tommy's age.  It is called "The Approved Inter-Universal Pan-Dimensional Omni-Galactic Alphabetical Guide to the Cosmos for Beginning Space Explorers".  And if the title didn't give you a hint as to how hard that book is to read, let me just give you a sample of a few of the words that you have to read while trying to teach your kids the letters of the alphabet, "U is for Urganticonian Maximum Capacity Star Bus," "X is for Xylomortipraxian Automated Moon Buggy," "C is for Carthalonian Supersonic Dyna-tron," and my favorite, "E is for Elephantine Hair Creature of Winklehutniczortlebladder 9."  Not to brag, but I have actually gotten pretty good at reading all the crazy words in that book. ;)  And the kids even have some of those words memorized.  It is hilarious.  But the most surprising thing is that it is actually teaching Tommy his letters.  On every page I say, "Where is the A?" and he will point to the big A on the page, "Where is the B?".  This week I started saying, "What letter is that?" instead and he knew over half of them.  So that was pretty cool.

Elsy and Tommy's new favorite nightly activity is playing Trap.  We used to go out on a walk or to the park after dinner but since it is winter and dark we have to be imaginative.  My dad used to play trap with us which just basically included him laying on the floor on his back and holding onto any limbs he could grab and then not letting go while the rest of the siblings try to wrestle him and/or save the trapped victim.  It almost always ended in somebody getting hurt and crying.  He still plays it with my younger siblings... and they are in high school haha!  But Elsy loves to play it.  Its kind of nice because I get to just lay on the floor and basically do nothing except hold onto an ankle for a while.

Elsy has discovered how to take pictures with my phone.  Most of them are random and just take up tons of space (especially the burst photos of like 57 images) but some of them I really like.  Like this one, for instance.  I just love her pink chubby toes and chunky legs.

Elsy learned how to write her name!  This was actually taken a couple months ago but I had to remember to include it.  We were visiting Logan at his work and Elsy was writting on the white board and she just wrote her name, right there, for the very fist time!  We were so proud of her and she was so proud of herself so we had to take a picture.  Her S could still use some work, but hey! She is only three.

Book time with my buddies!

We decided for scripture time, in an effort to get Tom to hold still during it, to give him his own picture scriptures to follow along.  I can't tell you it has been successful... because it hasn't exactly been successful really.  But we are trying, nonetheless.  I just feel like it has been so easy to teach Elsy about the gospel because she just sits and loves to listen and learn.  But Tommy just wants to crash his cars together or fight with his Link sward and it has been a real challenge for me.  I am trying to think of ways to help him out.  Let me know if you have any ideas...

My dear Logan has perfected the cottage loaf of bread.  Oh yum it is so delicious.  I am the WORST at making bread.  It never comes out right.  But Logan has always had a knack for it and I am so grateful... and I am even more grateful that we have had these cottage loaves around quite often now days.

Elsy came home from Joy School one day as an owl.  She wouldn't stop "Whooooo"-ing, even for the picture.

Two of our family goals this year involved Saturday morning activities.  We decided that on Saturday mornings we will be doing chores as a family.  And then, if everyone helps and does their part we will go out for a Saturday Snack.  We have only done this twice because Saturdays can be pretty up in the air sometimes, but it has been a lot of fun.

We just love Panera!  And the kids love the cinnamon rolls there now haha!

Here is my pretty Elsy girl holding the bag my mom made her for Christmas.  It has become her scripture bag for church and she carries a Book of Mormon and a mini Children's Songbook in it.  She loves to sit in the pew on Sundays and just flip through her Book of Mormon.  She is so close to the Spirit, even at her young young age.  I am grateful for her example to me.

I feel like my focus so far this year has been finding peace and joy along this crazy journey we call life.  There is so much hardship and suffering that we each go through on a daily basis.  But I have also discovered there are so many blessings and so much good in each day as well.  I have been praying for God to help remind me throughout the day to see those little bright spots.  At first I started noticing them after the fact but after a lot of practice, and more praying for help remembering, I feel like I am starting to recognize those little blessings in the moment more often.  I often forget that the reason I am living each day is not to get dinner made, clean my house, workout, and keep the kids happy but is to help me prepare for my eternal destiny after this life.  I often get swept up in all the to do's and forget all the whys.  It is definitely a work in progress but I have been finding more and more that when I remember the why I can find joy in each day and even a little bit of peace.

Halloween, Hunting, and Harvest

Well!  This is my last post catching up from 2016!  Yippy skippy!

2016 was full of ups and downs, just like any year.  So many people said 2016 brought nothing but yuck and I would not go that far.  There were plenty of good things that came out of it for our family!  I just love making memories with these people and I am learning to try and find joy in the journey.

Elsy loves to button the buttons on my cardigans.  When she sees them she says, "Ooo buttons!" and she promptly wants to do them all up and then down again.

This girl is such a chatter box.  She loves to just talk with me all the time.  At bed time she will say, "Mommy talk to me!" and we will just talk about whatever it is she wants to chat about.  One time while she was going #2 she told me, "Some bums have big bums and some bums have little bums.  Kids bums have little bums and grown up bums have big bums."... what?!  She really is a hoot.  She is also the master of trying to get us do notice what she wants.  For example she will say things like, "I really like that treat on the counter!" in hopes that we will say, "Oh! You do?  Well then why don't you have one?"  Haha, shes just so sweet about it.  She also love love loves to pretend these days.  While in the tub she will say things like, "Mom, look who's swimming with that long red hair!" in reference to herself.  And then she will make a diving curve with her hands and say, "Spwash!" as she splashes into the water.

Elsy's new favorite word is "cute" and she is always saying "That's so cute!"  When we go through a store she thinks everything is cute.  When Tommy speaks in a little silly squeaky voice it is "so cute!"  I just love it.  One day I said to her, "Stop it!  Stop growing!" and she said, "We have to grow!".  I asked her, "Why do we have to grow?"  Her answer made my heart melt, "So I can be a mommy!"  I hope she never looses sight of that.  I know that the reason she was put on this earth was to grow closer to God and I know that as a mother she will do just that.  I am proud of the little choices she is making each day.

One of my favorite things she says everyday is in her prayers.  Every day when she prays she says, "Dear Heavenly Father, thank thee fer dis day.  Thank thee fer all the fun feelings we had to do...." and then she prays for other things.  Well, I have started to think about that line that she is always including:  'Thank thee for all the fun feelings we had to do'.  I don't know exactly where she came up with it but I really think it has been inspired.  She has been saying it for months and it has only been recently that I have been able to really think about it.  I have been realizing that we do have to go through lots of different feelings each day.  Every day I feel like I feel cranky or upset, happy, bored, excited, frustrated, peace, etc.  And I am not always thankful for all the feelings I experience.  But I am realizing that we were given these bodies by our Heavenly Father and part of these bodies are our emotions and feelings, both the good and the bad ones.  I think for the longest time I thought that if I felt mad then I was somehow a bad person or if I was cranky I was feeling a feeling that I shouldn't feel.  But I have been learning that it is not bad to feel mad, it is not bad to feel frustrated, or cranky, or scared.  But it is how I respond when we feel those feelings that matters.  So that is something I have been thinking a lot about lately and have been working on.  I am trying to be more grateful for all the fun feelings I have to do.

She has also discovered how to take pictures on our cameras.  She told me tonight that she likes to take pictures and I thought that was great!  This is one of the first selfies I have found of her on my phone.  It is absolutely hilarious! and it also proves that even the cutest little girl on the planet can have a double chin in a selfie.  GUYS!  Here is my schpeal on selfies....STOP IT!! They are just so self centered it drives me crazy!  How many times did you take that candid shot you took of yourself?  (My eyes are rolling).  In my book the rule is you can only take a selfie if there is one other person in it. Okay, the end.

I am hop skipping back to October, many months ago to cover our trip to my parents house to go hunting.  We took the kids to Sportsman's Warehouse while Logan picked out a gun with my dad and brother-in-law Steve.  The kids loved playing in all the sleeping bags and running up and down the isles.  

My mom watched the kids while Logan and I went hunting with my Dad and sisters Riley and Kelsy early in the morning.  I know I say this every year but I just really like going hunting.  It is a fun thing to get to do with my daddy-o.   I just like sitting up on a dark hill watching the sunrise and eating Snickers bars while looking for bucks.

Logan has been coming to do his own version of 'shooting' the last two years.  It is fun to have our very own cameraman.

My sister Kelsy was on a different canyon than we were with our friend Ryan and shot at this buck.  She had hit it on it's hoof but it ran over to us where I shot it.  It was amazing how well these animals can blend into this tall grass!  When we went down into the ravine to find him he was almost invisible until we were right on him.   It was a really fun hunt that morning and we got a good hike in.  I'm grateful for my dad for always taking me hunting every year.  It is fun to get to spend time with him and my siblings and to also feel like you are helping to provide for your family.

Kelsy was able to shoot her own buck as well so we got to snap a picture.  The little boy in the front is my cousin Justin, my uncle Josh's son.  It was a short trip but we had a lot of fun.  Logan has continued to keep his promise to me he made before we got married that he would always do his best to bring me home for hunting season.  

I still remember where we were sitting when he told me that, it was really cold and we were sitting in the stadium at BYU-I and I was telling him my fear of marrying him because I was afraid he would take me away and we would live somewhere other than the Tri-Cities. I love the town I grew up in and have always imagined my kids growing up like I did, surrounded by family, cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.  And it might seem silly but that was one of the biggest things that made me nervous in the beginning when Logan and I started talking about getting married.  We were talking in the stadium seats and I think I probably was crying because I am emotional like that, and I just told him all about how I wanted to live there but I knew that I loved him more than that and that he was worth it to me to give up one of those dreams I had for a bigger and more important one.  (I knew with his line of work there was nothing really going for him in Tri-Cities)  He told me he would do his best to bring me home multiple times a year, one of those especially being hunting because we agreed it would be so fun for our future kids to learn to hunt with their grandpa. :)

I feel like I blinked and this happened. ^^

I can't believe how big my little girl is getting!  I was holding her in my lap yesterday and she was snuggling me and I just remembered holding her when she was only a few days old and crying because I was nervous to be a mom but I felt so overwhelmed with love for her.  And looking at her now I can't believe how much more I love her than even then.

Elsy has been really loving Joy School.  After only a few weeks one of the little guys, Doran, in her group moved.  They all gave each other a big group hug on his last day. (That's Elsy in the hat... she really likes hats.)

Tommy is just the toughest little boy around but also the tenderest and I just can't get enough of him.  He absolutely loves his rain boots.  He also likes to step on my feet while he is wearing his rain boots but I won't get into that right now.  One day I just found him sitting at Logan's desk pretending to work.  He is so sweet and just loves his dad.  Over the last few months of the year Tommy has really come a long way with being able to talk.  I feel like his vocabulary is definitely not as strong as Elsy's was as his age but his dictation is better.  Although, I do think he has developed a little bit of a lisp and its so darn cute!

Tommy loves all things cars, planes, and Zelda.  He also can spot a hold a mile away in anything.  He loves to put things into them.  For example he loves to help me put my earrings in.  I caught him throwing magnets down the garbage disposal and when I asked him to stop he said, "A hooooooe!" (He leaves out the L haha)  He is always sticking his fingers into things and dropping things down the cracks of the couch.  He has also begun to master the sound effects that I feel all boys learn.  The other day he found an empty bullet shell I keep in my jewelry box (its from the biggest buck I ever shot).  He asked what it was and I told him it was a bullet.  He immediately held it up as if he were shooting a gun and started making shooting sounds "Pew! Pew!"  I laughed and laughed because I really don't know if I have ever told him what a bullet is.  How do little boys just learn these kinds of things?

I bought a bunch of puff balls for Joy School but now the kids like to play with them often when they dance.  I find them everywhere even now.  Here they are making snow angels in them.  Elsy and Tommy have become such good friends ever since he has begun to talk better.  They have their good share of fights but it is so fun to walk in on Elsy trying to teach Tommy to count ("Tommy say 'One!', 'One!" "Tommy say, 'Two!" "Tuuooo"  Tommy say, "Three!" "Treee") or see them give each other a hug without being prompted.

For Halloween time we  took the kids to an awesome pumpkin patch out in Carnation, although I cannot remember what it is called now (and I'm going to be mad at myself because I will want to go back next year!).  We let the kiddos pick out pumpkins and then didn't buy them because pumpkin patches are so expensive.  We always go to the patch and then to Fred Meyer haha.  Its all about the experience for us. ;)

It was really muddy and I was glad we all wore our rain boots.  

We are all about the free stuff but we did pay for a fun little hay ride on the back of a tractor.  The kids loved it and to be honest I did too.  I love all things farm and dream of having my own mini farm someday.... maybe I have been watching a little to much of Fixer Upper and dreaming of the little homestead Chip and Joanna Gaines have haha, but it really does sound exactly like something I would love.

There was a fun little corn maze for kids and big bales of hay to climb all over and around.  I just loved how everything was free, free, free.  We are total cheap-o's around here.

And here we are at the Fred Meyer pumpkin patch!  The kids really like sitting on pumpkins for some reason.

It was my turn for Joy School when we did the letter G.  I chose to do grapes on the first day.  I drew little vines and the kids made thumb print grapes all over the vines.

Then I gave them a bunch of toothpicks and grapes and they made little structures with them.  The group seems so small now with only four kids.  We tried and tried to find someone to join after Doran left but with no luck.  Poor Cache is the only boy but he and Elsy are basically best friends so I don't think anyone notices.

This has become a recurring activity in our house... Logan playing Twilight Princess while the kids hole controllers without battery packs in them.  Whenever Logan lets me take a nap, go out for a while, or go teach piano lessons they usually do this.  The kids love it.

We carved pumpkins for Family Home Evening the Monday before Halloween.   The kids loved getting to try out pulling out the gunk.  Elsy was more interested in doing the cutting.  That poor girl has so much anxiety about different textures.  We are working on it but she still will grab any food she has to touch with only her pointer finger and thumb and all her other fingers spread so they won't have to touch it.  Yikes, its rough sometimes but I think we have made a little progress.... I think.... I hope....

We had our good friends and neighbors, the Carruths, over to carve with us.  Andrea has become a really good friend and we are always swapping kids almost on a daily basis because her kids are the same age as mine and they all get along so well.

I think Tommy was just happy to get to sit on the table!

The finished products!!  I usually clean out the pumpkins and Logan carves them while I prep pumpkin seeds.  He did the two on the left and the Carruth's are the two on the right.  

My kids are so funny.  Here they are trying to hide from me in Old Navy.

My second day of the week for Joy School we did the letter G is for Ghost.  We did white upside down footprints where I dipped the kids feet in paint and then drew eyes on them for ghosts.  Then we cracked out the shaving cream and I told them it was "Ghost Goo" and they got to play in it.  Tommy got way into it!

I worked really hard on the kid's Halloween costumes this year!  Elsy was dead set on being Master Tigress from Kung Fu Panda.  I had an orange dress someone had given us as a hand-me-down and used that as a starting place.  I was also excited to learn how to make a vest because now I can make some for Tommy... if I ever get done with all my other projects... yikes.

And Tommy was Link.  He still loves to wear around the vest, belt, and hat (in fact he was wearing it tonight when I changed him into his PJs.)

I always spend so much time making these costumes and its only for one or two nights.  I always think, 'Next year I'm not doing this again!' but then the next year comes and I just get so excited!  And I love to sew!... Just not at 2am the night before the Trunk-or-Treat.

I got really excited about getting to paint Elsy's face like a tiger.  I looked up a picture on Pinterest to copy.  Elsy did an awesome job holding still and it was fun to talk with her while I did that.  She was "Hiii-yaaa!"-ing all over the place and I loved it.

Tommy made the cutest, littlest Link.  I had to get all the angles so you could see his slouchy hat and the shield on his back.  He really really hated to boot covers I made for him but after he warmed up to it he was happy.

I decided to be an Ice Cream Cone and had a great vision but it didn't turn out very well.... it mostly just made me look frumpy and thick waist-ed (and I know I'm not but I did look it in that costume haha).  Logan was Sam again from Splinter Cell.  This was the only good family picture we got sadly... Elsy is eating a donut from the donut-on-a-string game. 

I basically hate Halloween.  I hate all the  gory, gruesome, satanic parts of it.  It really is a yucky holiday.  I refuse to put any ghastly decor in my house or let any of my children dress like something yucky and creepy.  But I do enjoy a good party and a fun costume now and then.

One fun party we were invited to was a murder mystery.  My friend Alyssa let me borrow a fancy dress and Logan and I got to dress up all fancy.  

The group was a hoot and we were so glad to get to be a part of it all.

October marked some of the last good walks we went on together as a family before it got to cold.  This winter has been a cold one and we have had a hard time getting the courage to go out in it.  I am missing the good ole days when we played outside and can't wait for spring.

Tommy learned to swing on a bar.  He was so excited and giggled and giggled.

One thing we started doing that I have really enjoyed is "Cozy Time" as a family.  Since it is to cold to go outdoors (and I've already mentioned how cheap we are) we have started renting movies as a family and making or getting a little treat to eat while we watch it.  The kids love it and so do we.

In early November we got to vote!  I have been really trying to take voting seriously the last couple years.  I always struggle though because I don't keep up with politics because I always feel confused and lied too.  So when voting comes around I always do my best by starting with a prayer to help discern who may be telling the truth, and then I look everyone up and read about them and then vote.   It takes quite a long time but I am glad to try and do my small part.  I know I can't really participate more in politics at this phase of my life but I like to try to do my part.

Luckily I roped Logan into helping me after a while.  It was a total chore but was also a little bit fun getting to talk things over.  We were absolutely floored with some of the policies that were trying to weasel their way into law form.  Yikes, stuff like this always makes me feel on edge.  We prayed and discussed a lot about who we should vote for for president this year.  It was a major war between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton.  We really didn't feel good about voting for either of them and I decided my conscience just couldn't feel good about voting for someone with bad morals.  We decided to vote for a third party fellow, Evan McMullin that we felt had a lot more to offer.  As it turns out Trump won.  I think Logan said it right when he said, "I think I will feel 10% relieved and 90% terrified if either of those candidates win."

In other news... this has been happening a little bit more frequently.  :(  He is a pretty good sport about standing in the corner but he is such a sweetheart that it really breaks my heart when he is in the corner.

I took the kids to the dentist and then to McDonald's after for lunch.  Why do I still keep going to that place?  Seriously, every time it is so gross and the kids don't even like it!  Maybe if it is published here in my blog I will remember to never go there again! (Its that darn indoor play place!  I need somewhere to go on a rainy day!)

Okay just look at these two!  This is Elsy when she was about Tommy's age now and I took one of Tommy too.  He is a few months older than her in this picture.  But I just love fresh, clean, sweet smelling babies!

Another round of Joy School!  T's!  We made Turkey T's!

And here we are at my parent's for Thanksgiving.  Elsy and Hannah are good cousin buddies.

I have been learning to make a turkey, this was my third I have ever made.  I feel like I have found a pretty good recipe.  I have been discovering just how much I like to cook new recipes and learn new ideas and ways to do things.  Logan tells me often how impressed he is with how far I've come since we were just married. (For example, I was making homemade fettuccine alfredo and it said to put whipping cream in it so I bought some cool whip to put int it.... yeeesh I had a lot to learn!)

Here it is though!  Yummy yum yum.

And of course the kids eating at the kid table.  We had Thanksgiving dinner at my uncle' Lance's house this year.  

Grandpa wrestles!

And to kick off the Christmas season my mom bough gingerbread train kits for the girls to do that weekend.  

Phewy!! All done with 2016!  I am so so so sossosososososososososossosososoooooooooo glad.