We very deeply believe in revisionist history, so here we are celebrating New Year's Eve on January 1st haha! Looks like sparkling cider in plastic cups, cheese pizza, and apples to apples rounded out the party:
Chuck got distracted and almost sliced off a decent chunk of his finger. Just call me Florence Nightengale - I refused to look at it, almost threw up, almost fainted, and sat in the car WHILE HE FINISHED MAKING LUNCH FOR THE KIDS and then I drove him to have somebody look at it. It was a fun back and forth on stitches vs. glue, glue and a very large gauze wrap won.
Jack had a few friends over to celebrate his birthday! It was football themed, of course:
Pretty serious nerf battles occurred.
I'm not really an epic birthday party thrower BUT my best pro tip is to make cupcakes and let the kids decorate them. It's pretty painless, not super messy, and they have so much fun doing it AND it takes a decent amount of time - again, time where they're happily corralled.
Clyde had some friends over during the winter break. Jack and Carma were sure they were part of the gang:
Believe it or not, this photograph was not staged by me. They chose this seating? standing? relaxing? arrangement haha.
And then it was back to school for everyone, ie Will and this amazing movie poster he made:
Math Night at Park Ridge - they always kill it at these interactive evenings for students and families. SO many cool math activities; we tried to hit up as many as we could.
Apparently Will wanted to make sure I actually opened the folder he brings home monthly haha. Also I took this picture because I did a double take - Will's handwriting here looks EERILY like Uncle Cody's.
Yet another evening at Park Ridge - this time featuring my favorite Miss Overcast and a bunch of graphs saying that Jack is a rockstar at reading and testing. Works for me!
Oh yeah, I subbed a few days. Like a million days. Per instagram: Survived my first/possibly last week of subbing 🖐🏼 days in a row 😅🤪. Highlights: a class at West asked why I wouldn’t let them listen to music and I said I didn’t want to lose my chance at being named Meanest Sub of the Year for Nampa school district... and an alarming number of them believed that was a real thing 😳🤦🏻♀️🏆; I got to carpool to school with Clyde three days in a row and he came to see me both days we had lunch the same period 🤗 (okay, it was to ask for food but still counts 😏); watching a Bill Nye video six times in one day... that I also watched a month ago six times in one day 🧬🔬(I’m basically an expert on DNA and genes, no big deal); and when I told a science class I’d be back the next day with them in social studies, the cheers were juuuuust barely louder than the ‘noooooo!’s 😎. Now to enjoy a lazy Saturday of nonstop laundry, dishes, and the like. I don’t know how all y’all gainfully employed people do it 👀🙃. {and thanks to Grammy Pam for watching Carma June weds and thurs! You da real MVP 🤩}
Couple more pictures from subbing at East, including finding pictures of Clyde's sports teams (that we never order whoops): tennis last spring and cross country this last fall!
I love picking Carma up from preschool in the afternoons after I sub - it's usually the first time I see her for the day and I get to see what cute and/or crazy outfit she and Daddy picked out. This one is so cute (hand-me-downs from Angie!) and she looks like we're on our way to horse riding lessons:
Mom working a lot = lots of extra time with Grandma Pam. Did they match on purpose or have they just grown that close? We may never know ;).
Funny story: the cashier at D.I. couldn't figure out how to add the survey discount (15% off) without having to re-ring everything up so a manager told her just to give me the employee discount (20% off). I feel like this was a long time coming, but I'm finally being compensated appropriately for how much time I spend at D.I., basically 40 hours a week.
The Mother Octopus is one of my fave parenting meme instagram accounts.
It should be obvious why:
Random smattering of snow mid-January.
Caption via instagram: Waxing nostalgic about this scene from last weekend: cutest football watching boys around 😍👨🏻👦🏼🏈📺. It only took chuck three tries to convince a son that football fandom is worth the time, energy, and emotional distress 😏😂😭🤦🏻♀️
Caption via instagram: I present to you Carma singing an original composition- not sure of the exact title, but it’s mostly about farts coming from her booty 🤦🏻♀️👀😳. #GoodNews is that almost five years in, I finally have an answer for the oft posed question about the difference between raising boys and girls: our boys have always laughed them silly about the passing of gas, but our girl takes it to a whole nother level 😅🚻🤪🎶🙃
I had a birthday! I turned 34 mid month, and here are some things to note: Chuck and I went to the temple earlier that week, the day before I found that amazing orange camp lounge chair at D.I. for $10, Chuck made me delicious breakfast that morning and then took a quick picture with me that evening before he headed off to work, and my incredibly talented and hard-working sister-in-law Aleesha made me the COOLEST cake ever!
The next day we headed over to Boise for lunch a movie with Grandpa Braden for his birthday!! I love celebrating our birthdays together.
Random Friday off of school lent itself well to inviting friends over. Will and Tiernan holed up with legos for quite a while, eventually emerging with these cool beach scenes:
The older group opted for snacks, hide and seek, more snacks, and nerf.
Partnerships for a couple rounds:
Shockingly these two were the hardest to get a normal picture of ;).
Seven-year-olds can carry TONS more groceries than six-year-olds could. FYI.
Yes. My camera roll is my calendar, my to-do list, my shopping list, etc.
Instagram caption: Okkkay, if you’d had the pleasure 😎 of an in-person encounter with me over the last few months, you’ve observed my newest hairstyle 🙄🙆🏻♀️... I wear it like this every day because variety is the spice of life and I don’t like spicy stuff 🌶🙅🏻♀️🥵. Re: feedback to this choice, I’ll quote Sgt. Bilko and say the results are mixed 😉. I like it though, so it’s here (for now!) to stay💃🏻. What IS up for discussion is who I most resemble now: any votes? 🤔🗳⁉️ If you say Elizabeth Bennet or J. Lo I will love you forever 😘😘
Dying at this one - literally what Jack looks like allll the time.
Carma hadn't been to plasma with me for a while, and sweet Shaun wrote her out a little letter. Carma sat down and read the whole thing out loud, to Shaun's complete amazement. Super cute buddies.
Ohhhh we love Carma.
We scheduled an outpatient procedure for Clyde on yet another day off school in January. He was a champ, as always. My favorite parts were him insisting he roll himself out in the wheelchair without help from the nurse and also when they half-heartedly offered him a cuddly bear (protocol for all pediatric patients), expecting him to decline... you better believe he grabbed that teddy bear! Snuggled with it all the rest of the day haha:
Blessedly his recovery was quick, since basketball started in January! We had so much fun going to the games to cheer him on:
Carma was undoubtedly his biggest fan, but Grandma and I both ranked pretty high.
Chuck is the best at playing games at the table with the kids. I am a total party pooper - I'll generally hang out with them but not play as often as I probably should.
Really, though, this reflects well on me for choosing such a swell guy to parent with ;).
I honestly have no idea why we were riding bikes on a January afternoon? But it looks like a good time!
And finally, a bit more of Carma Junie this month - she always seems to be mid-adventure and we love her for it!
