Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point

We had a museum day for home school families mid-January at Museum of Natural Science and History... and I showed up to this museum instead. I'm using the "I'm 8 1/2 months pregnant" card for that one. We had a great time by ourselves though (and lots of strangers). 

Myla found her favorite snack in my bag and was sooo content pounding the circle crackers. 

Cambry loved the 3D build-a-dinosaur puzzle

Finished product... Veena helped... kind of ;)

holes to step in, or puzzles, depending on the child

Veena hoarded as many dinos as she could find and "graciously" handed out her least favorite ones to other kids.

I sure love each of these girls. I have my hands full as I'm reminded by strangers all the time, but they are priceless little gems.

All ready to dig, and she finally got to take her shoes off

January Happenings

January 9th the Rappleye and Airhart women threw me a baby shower, since this is my first boy. Kind of embarrassing, but I only took these 2 pictures. It was so cute, and many people that I love came and I was spoiled rotten.

On January 11th, Jess and I brought our girls to kidnap Beck for her birthday. It was so fun to take her out to breakfast. My phone was having focusing issues (I have those issues too), so this is as good as it gets, but we had a great time trying to keep 5 little girls seated and behaved over waffles and crepes.

While we are doing school, Vienna often likes to sit up on the TV stand, and sing the songs with gusto. She is so funny.

Aunt Sara moved over by us in the fall, and we get to have her over for dinner and bed time a lot. She is so fantastic and we love that she is just a mile a way now. 

Jess and I decided to embrace the cold and took our girls to the park. Great move. We all enjoyed ourselves, except for Myla who is so cold blooded and hates wearing mittens... not a great combo. 

I had about 40 pictures on my phone of Myla's "purple booboo" as she cals it. She takes her little purple blanket everywhere we'll let her. This is her favorite comfort item and maybe it's a good thing we have the tag documented for future reference if we ever lose it. 

Dr. Rappleye

Devin has worked so hard on his PhD for the past 3 years, but especially from October till Christmas. January 5th he successfully defended his dissertation. He defended for about an hour, then was grilled by his committee for another couple of hours. This picture was taken right after he was told he passed. It captures perfectly Devin's relief and his body has finally been allowed to relax. I'm so proud of his accomplishments in the science realm, but even more I'm so impressed how he was able to balance being a loving husband, an engaged father, and worthy priesthood leader in our home amidst all the different directions he was being pulled. Way to go babe!

I slyly snapped a shot of him presenting. 

100!

A neighbor stopped by early January to chat, and she told us that when she was little, she got $1 after she counted to 100 for the first time. I told C and V that they could earn a dollar too when they did it. They practiced and worked hard that day and both of them nailed it. They've been learning numbers for a while, but we never had a test until this time. So proud of these littles!

Frampton Family Christmas Party

This Frampton Family party was very bitter sweet. Of course there was lots of great memories made, many of which revolved around the stage where karaoke happened for a solid 3 hours. But it was the first big family party that we had where Grandma Ber wasn't there.  I missed her so much.

Here are Pepper, Cambry, Vienna, Rylee, and Mimi performing "Do you want to build a snowman?" From Frozen. They only knew that one line, so it was pretty funy.

Vienna and Cambry on uncle Jordan and my cousin Bridger's shoulders while all my mom's siblings performed "We are Family." hehehe

Grandma Ber had made so many quilts, we all got to inherit one. I mean, every single pew had her handiwork draped over it, leaving only a finger's width in between each one. We picked a number and got to pick a quilt in order. Right when I walked into the chapel, I was completely overcome with her presence, seeing all her beautiful fabric creations. After I picked my quilt, I was immediately a big sobbing mess feeling so poignantly the ache in my heart for Grandma Ber. At the time I was quite bugged to have my cousin taking pictures of our choices. Now I'm so grateful I have this memory along with my beautiful watermelon quilt.

I spy Cambry's little legs. She's such a sweetheart, staying right by me to comfort me.

Winter Wonderland

Oh how we've loved the snow this season! Sledding, skiing, eating icicles, making snow angels and snow forts, and snow men, and rolling around in the yard. Aunt Jess made these hats for the girls for Christmas and they were so excited about them.

We went sledding with Grandma and Grandpa Rappleye and the Rowes. It was a blast! 

Got to protect those sensitive Airhart eyes!

Cambry and Vienna got more and more daring, trying out all the sleds, going down with different people and going different ways. 

Vienna even commandeered 2 sleds at once while Devin pulled her up. 

Veena even tried out blind folded. hehe

Devin took the C and V over to the Millcreek park by our house to give them some skiing lessons. Cambry's first "run" of the year. She made lots of progress!

Vienna was more interested in the park, and how fast she could go down the slides in her slippery pants.

Cambry eventually got in on the fun as well.

We didn't get snow in the Salt Lake Valley till almost Christmas, so one day I took C and V and M up Big Cottonwood Canyon by Donut Falls in search of a winter wonderland. It was snowing and we had about 3 feet of powder. C and V were in heaven. M warmed up to it after 45 minutes, and she and I went down the hill together 2 dozen times. We all laughed and laughed and laughed. Being so pregnant, I was quite the spectacle, but I didn't care, and the girls I'm sure were so glad to have fun mom instead of tired, grumpy mom. 

Veena realized on the parking lot ice mountains, sleds weren't necessary. Slippery pants worked out just fine. 

Veena making snow cones

After a big snow storm, Devin took the girls outside and made a big fort for them, and a throne for each of them to sit, and a snow girl that was their exact height for each of them. He's such a great dad. No wonder they love him so much. 

Christmas Celebrations

We had our traditional Nativity reenactment. For some reason we had a really hard time keeping the peace throughout the evening. So we cut our losses, wrapped it up in a few minutes and with a few pics, and moved on. Having the love of the Savior in our home was more important than having the Savior being born in our home. 

Myla was a great angel!

Vienna with baby Jesus.

Christmas Eve morning we had a delicious brunch provided solely by Beck. She is so gracious and generous with us. 

We had our nativity reenactment with cousins that went much smoother and was much more spiritual and entertaining.

Veena and Wells were fantastic shepherds. 

And here are all the participants.

After brunch and festivities, Grandma Beck watched all our kids and Jess, Jordan, Margaret, Devin and I went to the latest Star Wars movie. It was fun to be all together and for Margaret and I to try to forget how uncomfortable we were carrying around our fetuses. 

Christmas Eve Dinner was at the Rappleye residence. It was wonderful to keep the party going and enjoy each other's company. On the drive over here, our car just completely stopped working (we found out it was the alternator that went out). We were fortunately only about a mile from the Rappleyes, and Cory and Grandpa were kind enough to come pick us up. While we waited, we let our girls open their present of Christmas jammies. They were so excited. It was a humbling experience being stuck on the side of the road on Christmas Eve. We got to talk about how grateful we are for Mary and Joseph who traveled by donkey to Jerusalem, then didn't have anywhere to stay once they got there. We are so fortunate to live in a time of tow trucks and live by generous family members. 

Myla and Sofie had a great time rearranging all of Grandma's magnets. 

We al had a great time singing Christmas carols and remembering the Christ Child through song. The girls were so excited to get on their new Christmas jammies. 

Here's a blurry pic of Myla putting her puppet on her foot. hehehe

The kids all got to open one present from Grandma Rappleye! 

Christmas Morning, Santa brought the girls scooters! They were ecstatic! 

They spent the rest of the our time at home pretending to go to bed in their new sleeping bags. 

Christmas day we did the reverse of Christmas Eve. Brunch with Rappleyes and dinner with Airharts. It's our last year to live by family, so we lived it up and enjoyed every outing together.