Temple Baptisms

Our amazing young women leaders set up a temple baptism date for January 26th knowing that we would have a whole bunch of new girls wanting to go for their first time. They gave priority to the youngest girls and also made sure that any parents who wanted to go could attend as well. So Brandon and I got to go with Mckinley for her first time. It was a great experience! Very special.

I thought I would finally take a picture of us at our annual Chinese New Year dinner that my parents do. It's Brandon's favorite event of the entire year with my family. The food is always so incredible and the kids love getting money in their red envelopes.

Beef and Broccoli is my favorite Chinese dish and my parents actually didn't make it this year. I love it so much that last year on my birthday I asked my parents to come teach me how to make it and buy me all the ingredients I would need so I could make it on my own. It took me 9 months to get around to it, but the day after Chinese New Year dinner I made beef and broccoli on my own (with Brandon's help). And it was so stinking yummy!!! I'm so glad I finally did it so now I have the confidence to do it again!

Another fun bowling experience!

Brandon grew some nice facial hair and had a goatee first, then this handlebar mustache, then a regular mustache with a french tickler. Ha ha. This is the only stage I got a picture of, but all of it looked amazing!

 

BYU Volleyball

The kids had a couple of unexpected at home learning days over MLK day weekend so we tried to do some fun stuff. We actually planned to go stay in St. George for the weekend but that plan didn't work out. We went bowling with cousins.

Another day I took the kids to the Orem rec center to play and swim.

Tyler and his cute friend Maximus had a hot chocolate stand. They asked me if they could do one and I said no and the next day they played at Maximus's house and his mom was nice enough to say yes. They were so cute! We drove over and bought some hot chocolate.

On the way home from picking up Tyler, we saw a group of 17 deer in the tall grass by the clubhouse. It was so cool! I've never seen that many deer in one spot before.

Ross bought season tickets to the men's BYU volleyball games and we were lucky enough to be able to join him one weekend in January. It had been years and years since I had been to a game. We had such a great time and Tyler and Kallie did a great job holding down the fort at home. :) We got Taco Bell and their lobby was closed (we are living in SUCH weird times right now) so we took the food and ate it at BYU and then went to the game. It was such an amazing night.

I got to see my friend Anna from high school and my friend Cyleste from our town home ward while we were there.

Hoping we are lucky enough to get invited to another game with Ross this season!

 

Mckinley gets braces!

Oh my heavens we have so many pictures of Jackson sleeping in random places. The kid won't hardly ever take a nap but he still needs the extra sleep so he ends up crashing on the couch watching TV or in the car. Like all the time. We have brought him in to so any places asleep on our shoulder.

Random cute bathtub picture.

Okay and here's the main reason for this post. On January 10th Mckinley got braces on! Here is her before and after.

I love them so much! She looks so grown up and sounds so cute talking in them. At first I was freaking out that she was never going to be able to floss them but she caught on quick and is using Kristen's water flosser right now so hopefully she is doing a decent job taking care of her teeth. I sure love this girl!

And more sleeping pictures. We go to Del Taco on Tuesdays pretty often and two weeks in a row we brought Jackson in asleep and he just slept through most of the meal, ha ha. Crazy kid.

And while we're posting sleeping pics, I thought this one of Ava and Brandon was so sweet. Gosh we lucked out with these kids. They are all so incredible and make our lives full of so much joy!

 

New Years and Brandon's Birthday

We had a great time at our annual glow/dance/confetti party with Brandon's family at the Church. We had Indian food this time and it was super yummy!

We went to Ross and Karen's on a Sunday and Ava was wearing a dress that matches their couch pillows so she decided to play hide and seek. Ha ha ha.

Ava has been waiting and waiting to start dance and she finally got to do it in January. I was sitting there watching her during her first class and realized that the lady sitting next to me was one of my old college roommates! I hadn't seen her in years and years. So we have a great time chatting each week while our girls dance.

Brandon turned 39! He doesn't eat breakfast these days so to compromise we made breakfast for dinner the night before his birthday and he got it served to him in bed. Gotta keep the breakfast in bed tradition alive!

French toast with homemade coconut syrup! Mmm.....

On his birthday we went to Nickel City and then to Chili's for dinner.

Home for brownies after. He told the kids it was his best birthday ever. He tells them that every year. Brandon hates his birthday. Just sucks being in January and so soon after Christmas.