Lydia Fun

Lydia made the junior varsity soccer team for her high school.  She loves it!  Can you find her?  (Hint, she’s the only white girl.)
Lydia also got a phone. After researching and saving her money she bought herself a used iPhone.  It has actually been amazingly convenient with her soccer practices and games.  And she has been super responsible.  Here she is doing family history.

It has also been a blast getting texts from her during the day.  Who knew texting my teenage daughter could be so fun? 

A New Year

We enjoyed the rest of our Christmas break before our lives got crazy again.  We went to a Japanese restaurant so Lydia could try real ramen.  Yum!

It was fun to try lots of new stuff.  Isaac loved his miso soup.  Bridget liked the California rolls. But the only thing Alice ate was rice.

The girls turned Lydia into a library.

We went to the Natural Science Museum and saw their model train exhibit, only here for Christmas.  It made us remember last Christmas and the amazing model train museum we went to with Oma and Opa.  Was that only last year?  

We finally went to the museum’s butterfly house.

This was one of my favorite butterflies.  It is literally called the dead leaf butterfly.

And the glasswing butterflies were so pretty!

Happy 2020!

We celebrated New Year’s Eve at the Call’s (just like last year, except last year was out of necessity because we had no home).  Lydia, Ashley and Tyler had a dance at the stake center (that’s 5 minutes from the Call’s house - win win!). Here is Lydia with some friends.

The rest of us stayed home and toasted in the New Year.  I think this toast was at 8.

The next day we went ice skating!

Bridget was a pro with this walker thing.

Alice was less than thrilled with hers.

She much preferred riding a seal.  Who wouldn’t?  In fact, all the kids took a turn.

I like Chad’s face.  He was just joking, but there were several times I wondered if I I was going to make it out without hurting myself.  Luckily, we all made it unscathed.  

Merry Christmas!

Eagerly waiting.
This year Alice wanted Santa to bring her a Minnie Mouse phone (I wasn’t even aware she knew who Minnie Mouse was). 
Bridget asked Santa for a mermaid pen that she’d seen at a local craft store.  Santa brought that AND a shiny mermaid notebook.
My favorite part of Christmas gifts is the kids’ presents for each other.  Alice (mostly mom) made Lydia a sunflower sloth t-shirt.

Lydia made Evelyn some cute pipe cleaner puppies.
Evelyn made Alice a stuffed kitty out of fuzzy socks.  It was super adorable!!

Bridget made paracord bracelets for Isaac in his favorite colors.  I snuck in one night and measured Isaac’s wrist while he was sleeping.  Bridget was tickled with how I sneaky I was.  “Gasp!  You did what?”  Mom is a ninja spy.

Isaac made Bridget scrunchies.  She wears them on her wrist like all the cool 1st graders do.  

Bridget surprised me with a gift!  She spent ALL her good behavior “tiger bucks” at the school’s Christmas store to buy me these beautiful bowls!  I was so touched.  And impressed with her good taste.  They are perfect soup bowls and we’ve used them several times already.  So pretty!  

We got lots of family games this year.  Playing Pandemic, a neat cooperative game.  Totally eating peanut butter for lunch in our pajamas. I love Christmas!

 
We had the Calls over for Christmas dinner so we did eventually get dressed and eat real food.  Too much fun to remember to take pictures, but I finally got to break open our fruit cake.  It was rather delightful.  I’ll definitely make it again.
Oh, I almost forgot!  We did get to have our Nativity play.  Here are angels singing to a very astonished shepherd. 
And wise men worshipping young Jesus (Jane is 2, so that’s about right).
Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Mike was able to have most of Christmas break off.  It was glorious just to hang out together as a family.  Here is us napping in the sun after a picnic lunch.  (Man, I love Houston in the winter!)  Evelyn took the picture for us.  Even Hephaestus was there.
Speaking of Hephaestus, he loved our real Christmas tree.  We’d get him out of his cage and he’d climb up the tree and fall asleep.  It was cute.

I love our “clean out the candy cupboard” Christmas Eve gingerbread house tradition.  We even had old Peeps!  Ha!  This year I got to make my own gingerbread house because Alice was determined to decorate her own.  She did great!
My house had a porch, just like any perfect house does.  The kids thought it looked like a piano.

Isaac’s destructo house.

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Evelyn’s house.

The older kids thought it would be fun to glue gum drops on their faces.

I love the look on Evelyn’s face.

December

After Isaac’s Brickstormer’s competition the month didn’t slow down.  We had our ward Christmas party that night, with a Mexican theme.  I’ll admit after hearing the previous years had been themed Chinese and then French, I was a little disappointed in a Mexican theme.  “Isn’t Houston already Mexican?”  But it was delicious and I repented of my complaining.

A picture with Santa.  I was impressed that Alice sat on his lap.  She was extremely reluctant until she saw he was handing out goodie bags.  

The next week Mike and I got fancy for his work party.

The next day we hit the zoo because December weather in Houston is gorgeous!  Look at these amazing door handles!  But we were all a little surprised when you had to push on the door.  (Why have handles?)
Trying to escape a runaway rhino!

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I had to include this next bit so as to appreciate its absence. The Thurs before, Bridget threw up all night (I’m talking all night).  That night after the zoo the stomach bug hit again, with force.  It got Alice (in the car on the way home, poor lamb), Mike, myself and Evelyn.  What a night.  Isaac and Lydia followed suit a few days later.  Boy, am I glad that’s a rare occurrence and that it was swift in its rounds!  But I got this really cute picture.  

In the midst of the madness we had a literal home centered church that Sunday, like let’s all stay home because we didn’t want any of that nasty going anywhere.  I got this beautiful picture of Bridget.  Look at our lemon tree!

Happy and healthy again.  Mike had a homemade ugly sweater contest at work (or sweatshirt).  It was a lot of fun to work on together.  Doesn’t he look great?

Bridget had a class gingerbread house party that I got to help with.  So cute.