January 2016

Makai is smiling big enough now that it's getting easier to get pictures

Kaliya got a tea set for Christmas but it's hard to tell who likes it more: her or Carter. 

We took a trip to Sioux Falls to see a urologist for Laken so we made a day trip out of it. After the appointment, we went to the mall to do some shopping and Laken found this green 4x4 ride that he wanted a picture with. 

While in Sioux Falls we also went to the Jump Zone. It's an indoor trampoline park. So as an early birthday gift, I let Jared and the kids bounce around for a while. They all had tons of fun. We'll have to go again. It was hard getting pictures of them jumping around but I managed a few decent ones. 

Kaliya pouting for a minute. I think someone either bounced into her or just jumped on her trampoline which made her upset. But she couldn't stay mad for long....there was just too much fun to be had. 

There was a foam pit to jump into. If you look closely, you can see Carter in there. Laken was the only kid of ours brave enough to actually jump into them. Kaliya and Carter would sort of climb down.

The kids love helping to make cookies. I don't know what I'm going to do when Makai is big enough to join in. We will have one crowded corner.

One Saturday we decided to take the kids to the RWC to go swimming and play with the blocks. The kids had lots of fun playing with the giant blocks. We made an obstacle course for them to run through which was fun too. After we played there for a bit, we went to the pool area. Kaliya was excited to go but she had a couple times where she slipped under water and couldn't get her head back above (once where she was actually under for a while before we could grab her) so that put a damper on her enthusiasm. Carter wasn't a huge fan of being in the water either. He just wanted to stay in the super shallow spot. Laken, on the other hand, had a fun time and even wanted to go in the deep water with Jared.

This is just to document how cold it got here. One Sunday this is what we woke up to. Needless to say we didn't have church that day. But it was in the negatives for a few days that week.

One thing we gave the kids for Christmas was date cards. So each month, each kid could hand in their date card and one of us would take them out for something special. So this is Jared taking Kaliya on her first date.
Then another day she decided to wear a new dress and then found some of my shoes to walk around in.

And I just can't get enough pictures of Kaliya holding Makai. During the cold mornings, she makes sure he has a blanket on him to stay warm. And one thing she has started doing recently is telling me that I'm patting him too hard when I try to burp him. She tells me I need to be gentle.

Here is me and Laken on his first date for the year. He chose to go to DQ for an icecream.

I love that Laken is learning how to sound things out to write. Every once in a while he brings home a card for me that he made at school. So here's one. The outside says "To Mommy Skool wrds" (school words). The inside he wrote "I lov u mommy" then he wrote some words he has learned at school.

The other part to his card says "frm Laken to mommy" Then has a few more words he learned at school.
Then there is a picture he drew during art class. His teacher spent a few classes teaching them the proper way to draw. He would draw something and the kids would have to copy. 

One thing we started doing was filling a jar with marbles whenever the kids had good behavior. That includes sharing, playing well, obeying the first time they are asked to do something, and being reverent when we read scriptures. When they fill up the jar, they get to choose something fun to do as a family. This was their first time filling it so they chose to have a pizza party. We got soda (which is rare), ordered a pizza, and also had ice cream afterwards. Now they get to dump the jar and start over. 

Jared turned 30 this year. We wanted to do something special for it but it ended up being pretty low-key. Other than going to the Jump Zone a few weeks ago, we didn't do anything big. We decorated the house a little bit, filled his car up with 30 balloons while he was at work, then hid to surprise him with silly string when he came home.

His cake this year was a chocolate pudding, vanilla cake with coconut pudding for icing. He and Laken liked it but Carter and Kaliya didn't.

And this month, Bruce and Ingrid (Jared's parents) finished getting their house ready to leave for their mission. So here they are at the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in Provo, Utah where they spent about a week before leaving for California to serve for 18 months.