Should I Play Catch UP?

I haven't written our goings on for so long and I really miss it. I'm at the point of trying to decide to play catch up or just start from here and move forward. This has been a crazy year for us, a lot has happened, so I'll probably add randomly but if I don't start now, I'll never catch up. I was looking over my life recently and I have to say, I am overwhelmingly blessed. Chris and I are probably at our best place in our marriage. I mean, we've been happy and we've loved each other all these years, but just recently I've felt closer, happier and more in love than I thought possible. We have learned to balance each other so well. I understand him and he understands me. We still have room to grow, but life with Chris is near perfect. Our kids on the other hand...they're great, but they're kids and we're always a work in progress. Tyler starts his freshman year of High School today. I'm thankful he's still at the Jr. High, though. He's recently passed me up in height and is becoming more of a man everyday. What happened to my little boy?! Tyler has changed positions and is going to be Copper Hills hockey goalie. It's going to be a fun year for sports! Caely is in 6th grade and is more beautiful everyday. She is so smart and fun to be around. She is definitely becoming a young woman. I am so excited for her to turn 12 next month. It fun to see her journey and the choices she makes with friends, school and basketball. Alexa is 4th grade this year. She ran for student government and made Governor of her class. She's really excited about that and I think a little surprised at the extra work it is going to be. Alexa's working on basketball this season, I think it's going to be a great experience for her. She is such a smart girl and still my little cuddler. Patch is 2nd grade this year. Man, he is growing up. He's taking swimming lessons right now because he wants to join the swim team. I'm looking forward to what that will bring him. He really does well in individual/team sports. He loves to be the clown of the family and make everyone laugh and he's already so tall. Patch still struggles with his emotions. I'm getting worried about this fall, that's usually when it's the worst. Hopefully we can help him through it. I think we get better and better each year.

Work = Play

Tyler got another weekend of reffing jobs. It's kind of fun having him work. He's getting so much self satisfaction from it. This time he got to do an older group of kids, which he really liked. 

 Tyler had three games to ref in a row and since Chris and I are his transportation, and we didn't want to stay 4+ hours at the rink, we drove him up to the U of U, I hung around for his first game but had a list of other things to take care of. Tyler took TRAX home, by himself, for the first time.

He did great! No problems. I was more worried than anyone. He had to walk half a mile to the TRAX station, but after that he was set. Just one train the whole way home. I still can't believe I let him do that, but he's old enough and mature enough (at least that's what I tell myself).

He already has three more reffing games this weekend, so it's a good thing we had him ride TRAX so we both can get used to it.

Now we just need to set him up with the same account at the bank as we did Caely and he can start saving his pennies for all the hockey sticks he wants/breaks.

Flooding

It's freezing this January, earlier than I remember. I went to work and when I got home, I saw a frozen pond on our front driveway. I thought it looked pretty cool until I figured out that meant flooding. 

I then looked up to see a glacier in our front yard. I took these pictures after I had the water turned off, but when I first saw everything, water was running down the sidewalk and freezing almost immediately. 

 I looked up at the house and saw a few inches of water along the foundation. I ran in the house to check for flooding. Thank heavens there wasn't any.

With a lot of help from our dear friends, I got the water turned off and we dug a hole about 4 ft. down to find the pipe that was spewing water.

A plumber friend came out and checked everything, but he was too busy to fix it, so we had another guy come out and they went to work, fixing it in just a few hours.

I am so thankful for people with the right tools and the right skills to be able to fix something i can't.

Now, the pipe is fixed (it was never connected correctly) and the ground is put back together. All is well.

Celebrating the New Year

For New Years, our cousins, Michelle, Yvonne and Linda came for a visit. We love having them around! There were sleepovers, swimming, shopping, more shopping, eating, movie watching and lots of visiting. 

We had my mom and Chris' family over for New Years Eve. It's so freezing this year, 7 degrees, so we opted to not go out and bang pans or shoot off fireworks. 

 We stayed up too late and got up too early, but it's always fun when cousins are over!

Can't wait for their next visit, hopefully this summer!

French Class

 For french class Tyler had to make crepes for the family. We didn't mind.

 He did everything himself with some instruction from mom.

 We usually have them in the spring or summer, so we were missing the usual fruit we like to dress them up with. 

No worries, they were still fabulous, we ate the whole thing!

Christmas

Our Christmas very enjoyable this year. Christmas Eve we spent over at Chris' parents new house, playing out the Nativity, eating yummy treats and spending time with the family. 

 Christmas morning we got up really early because I had to work and the kids didn't want to wait to open their presents. My mom stayed the night, it was nice to have her there.

Christmas day I worked so Chris took the kids up to GG's for our traditional omelet breakfast. I met them their later and they had a yummy omelet waiting for me. We had more time with the family and the kids got to play with their cousins. We missed the Taylor cousins this year, they moved to Kansas in June and we not able to be here.

Christmas night we had dinner at our house with my brother and his family. That's always so nice. We had a yummy dinner and played the white elephant game with the kids. Caely got a new game for Christmas, Telestrations, and we played that, definitely a new favorite.

It was a great season this year. I feel like I did as much as I could to have the holiday spirit without having to feel like I was always trying to catch up or rush things. I felt more prepared this year than I have in years past. I think and hope my kids did too.

Responsible Banker

Caely is definitely a saver. She saved up for three birthdays and all her babysitting money to buy her iTouch last spring and since then, she's packed away all her dollars. 

With me working, we pay her to babysit the days that I work, so she's loving making some money. Now, what is she supposed to do with it? 

Well, we figured it would be much safer in a bank account than hanging out in her room waiting to get misplaced or snatched by her brother who loves money. 

We went to the bank to stick it in her savings account, but they talked us into a teen checking account to help her learn how to manage what she has. I really do think it was a great idea. No checks, just a debt card that won't let her go over what's in the account. Now she has some in savings and a little in her checking so she can have the freedom to buy things if she wants.

The funny thing is, she's had the account for over a month and still hasn't even used her debt card. What a good little saver!

 This kid can't wait to get his hands on some money so he can start saving too. I think he likes spending way more than he likes saving, though.