December 2021

 December was full!  Of friends, family, activities, and Christmas. 

Kylee joined the dance team.  You may be wondering where that came from?!  I sure was.  She came home one day and told me she was going to try out for the team.  She says I snorted.  It was kind of a laugh. But I was just so surprised.  She hasn't danced since she was four years old, and back then she didn't love it.  She's done theater camp a few times and she liked that, but she wasn't a big "performer".  So I was skeptical.  Kylie Paskett has danced for years and she told Kylee that she has more tumbling skills than most of the team, and more flexible, so she thought she should come dance with them. I said, hey if that's what you want to do, go for it.  She did.  She impressed the coaches with her tumbling skills and her quick learning.  She caught on really fast.  Dance had been in full swing since school started, so she had missed out on a whole trimester.  There were a couple dances that they had already learned and you have to tryout for so she wasn't in those dances.  But she learned the hip hop dance with help from her friends.  And then they all learned the prop dance.  She got to go to the competitions with the team during second trimester.  And she loved it!  And she was good!  She did sprain her big toe really bad when she was working on a front aerial on pads at Kylie Paskett's house.  So that gave her problems for awhile but she was able to do what she needed to.

Kaden had his first piano recital!  It was so cute.  He was nervous but he did so well!

Sadie also had a recital that day.  She did great too.  It was really fun taking these kids to watch each other and support.

Sadie participated in the Battle of the Books and had her first book battle!  Her team was Evelyn and Quincee.  They did really well!  They didn't miss any questions.  The other two kids did this and I've enjoyed it because it makes them read books they probably wouldn't otherwise.

Sadie did the Hillcrest basketball camp with all the high school players.  Most of her team was there with her.

I got to help with Kaden's class party.  It's always fun being in class with those cute kids.

I got together with my friends to exchange gifts and have lunch.  That's always a blast.

Grandma Stokes came to visit us!

Grandma Carol came to visit us too!

Oakland came home from his mission so we went to Salem for his homecoming and to see family.

We got together with Ryan's side of the family for bingo night and gift exchange.  So fun!

We got a lot of snow the last half of December so I took the three kids and some friends out snowboarding.  It was so fun!  Sadie struggled a little with all the powder and she needed a break.  But after that she tried again and did well. 

Sherri invited us over for a New Year's Eve party.  We played games and ate food.  We didn't really expect to stay until midnight, but the kids were having a good time and nobody was so tired they were dying so we just stayed.  Kaden made it to midnight! Then we hurried home for bed.

Christmas 2021

 Christmas is fun.  Each year we seem to get busier so Christmas stuff gets less attention.  

This year I decided we needed new, prettier stockings.  I like them!

I couldn't get Dylan to take a picture with Santa, and Kylee was busy with dance stuff I think.  So I settled for just Kaden and Sadie.

One thing my kids make a priority every year is gingerbread houses.  This is the first year Kylee's fell apart, which humbled her a little bit.

I'm running out of things to get my kids for Christmas.  I didn't do any new snowboards this year.  We don't need anymore big sports things.  This year, we got an Oculus.  It was really fun and the kids were all happy.

November 2021

 This is the only picture of Dylan from the photographer that shot their games, because he didn't really play.  He's #30, and his jersey is slightly different from the others because it was borrowed from a different year.

They had an end of season banquet for football.  At the banquet the high school football coaches came and talked to them about what to expect.  Then they had them sign a letter of intent, agreeing to commit to football.  Dylan was a little uneasy about it.  I told him it was fine, he wasn't legally bound to anything and it was all for show, just for fun.  The coaches told him the same thing when he went up to sign.  They all know he's a soccer guy and he has never agreed to give up soccer.  He's still not sure what he wants to do but he has been enjoying football.  I know football has it's downsides, with injury being the biggest one.  But those coaches teach those boys some good lessons.  I love how they push them, how they set high expectations.  And I love how the boys have each other's backs.  I'm all for him playing football instead of soccer.  And I say that because I see him playing soccer and he just doesn't seem to be learning anything new or taking what the coaches tell him and trying to change.  I don't see him doing very well in soccer.  But I think he has potential in football.  Right now he is going to early morning weights with the high school football players (along with the other 8th graders) and he's doing well.  I think he will start the summer with the football team.  We will see how it goes.

Sadie and her team are playing a lot of basketball.  They joined the Madison league, which puts us driving to Rexburg once a week on a school night to play one or two games.  They also have IF rec league on Saturdays.  And they are playing in a few tournaments in Pocatello.  She claims she doesn't like it, but she's working hard.  She doesn't get the most play time, but that's okay.  She's just so small.

Kaden's little team is learning and growing.  Kaden is doing awesome and Ryan is a great coach!  The IF league ended and the Iona league starts in January with a couple new kids.

Sadie's friend Evelyn was in the play Oliver (along with her mom and her brother) and she really wanted these girls to come watch her.  It was long and a late night and the girls got super bored.  But I had fun hanging out with them and joking about boys and the play.  They stocked up on snacks at intermission so they could survive the rest of the show.  And Evelyn was thrilled to have them there so that was nice.

School pictures!

I was replacing their old pictures and the frames were too full so I had to pull out all the old pictures.  I thought it was fun to look at them all laid out together.  It looks like Kylee and Dylan changed the most between ages 11 and 12.  So I guess we can plan on Sadie looking a lot different next year?

Over Thanksgiving break Kylee and Sadie were asked to dog sit for our neighbor.  Sister Daniels is a good friend of Sadie.  She was the primary president for awhile and Sadie enjoys going to her house and hanging out with her dogs.  Sister Daniels seems to enjoy having them there and always sends her home with plums or cherries or jam, etc.  Kylee and I used to visit Sister Daniels as our ministering sister and she had asked Kylee if she would be able to dog sit for her sometime.  Well, they decided to go to Arizona for Thanksgiving break and they just got a new dog, making it three dogs total, and she didn't think she could bring them all.  So Sadie and Kylee got to stay at her house with the dogs.  Kylee was originally not wanting Sadie to stay with her.  She likes her solitude.  But when she found out that the dogs liked to sleep in the bed with her, she said Sadie could sleep with them all.

It was a long week and Kylee came home saying she no longer wanted a dog, lol.  Sadie was not getting much sleep with the dogs so she was exhausted.  But Sister Daniels had provided them with junk food and soda so they enjoyed being there.  They made $60 each and I don't think either of them are anxious to do it again anytime soon.

The reason the girls were available was because Carol decided she couldn't host Thanksgiving dinner and we were going to see Jeff's family for Oakland's homecoming a few weeks later so we didn't try to get together.  We planned on doing our own thing like we did in 2020, but it turns out Brooke and Jeff stayed in town for the holiday too so we got to go to their house and hang out with them all day.  It was a really nice meal and fun time visiting and playing games.  But we didn't take one picture!  I guess that shows we were too busy having fun.  I snapped this pic of Kaden hoarding the sodas on the way home.

Kaden's 7th Birthday

 I asked Kaden what he wanted to do for his birthday, and he said he didn't want a party.  He was pretty insistent that he didn't want one.  I couldn't really understand why.  But I let it go.  Unsurprisingly, he woke up the next morning and said, "fine, we can have a party."  Kids are weird.  Even though all his friends have had their parties at Blastoff recently, that's where he wanted to go.  He kept saying that he didn't really want to play laser tag, which was weird but I guess he only remembered years ago when he didn't like it much.  We convinced them all to try it, and of course everyone loved it.

We opened presents on his actual birthday, which was the day before his party.  He got a bunch of cool rocks, including a labradorite.

We had a lot of fun playing the arcade games too.