Dancing Through Life: January 2015 Week #5

Hey kids,
This week was a good one. We had a couple of birthdays and lots of fun. Jenna asked for a Raspberry white chocolate cheesecake this year. She even helped me make it.

Jenna's birthday feel on a Tuesday this year and we knew that it was going to be a busy night with mutual, activity day girls and Cub scout pinewood derby. With this we decided to celebrate Jenna's birthday on Monday. The kids didn't have school so we hung out, cleaned up, and decorated the house all white jamming out to our Disney favorite songs.

We planned something fun for our FHE/birthday party. We went to the church and played in the gym. We had scooters, balance bikes, roller skates, roller blades and the infamous blanket riding. It was so much fun. Grandpa Don and Grandma Angie came. It was fun to see Dad and Grandpa pulling kids around on blankets because Grandpa used to pull Daddy around when he was little.

It was a really fun family activity. We didn't really want to leave but there was joy in the fact that we were going home to cheesecake and presents.

Here is our Birthday Girl. 11 Years old!

The Cheesecake was definitely a hit! Good choice Jenna!

We opened a few presents but the big surprise was went Dad gave Jenna a little note to go outside. She found a bike waiting for her. It was fun to see the smile on her face.

What we love about our Jenna:

She is very helpful
She loves her brothers
She is learning to babysit at home
She always enjoys a good book
She tries hard things (Unicycle Club)
She works hard in school
She challenges herself (Goals!)
She is reading all of the standard works before she turns 12!
She has a beautiful smile
She is SO creative
She in very imaginative
She still enjoys PLAYING with her brothers
She loves her new found independence of sleeping downstairs
She is a good example
She has a testimony
She plays the piano in the morning
She has a fun laugh
She is definitely her own person
She is confident in who she is

What a wonderful girl. We are SO blessed to have her in our family. We hope you have another great year Jenna!

Tuesday night was the Pinewood derby. Dad and Cooper worked really hard on the car and had a good time watching it race. They made a good showing and were proud of how well they did. He only lost 2 of his 7 races!

After a crazy beginning of the week things seem to really settle down. It is nice when we have a night where we can just play games together. We picked "Feast or Famine" and it was really fun.

Trey is trying to learn all of the letters and the sounds so that means we need to do special preschool time at home when we can. We don't do it as often as we should but we did this week and it was fun. Weston of course joined us and had a great time too. We did E and painted an "Every Color Painting."

We have been having beautiful weather for this time of year and so on Thursday, after school, I kidnapped the kids and took them on a hike with me. It was a fun adventure. We zipped over to Washington Park and hiked around for about an hour and a half. We even got to see the Vietnam War Memorial, which was a good learning experience.

Weston is growing up a lot and I want to make sure to capture him at every stage I can. He still loves his wow and can be found carrying it all over the house. Sometime he even wears in on his head so his hands are free. He used to do this and then rub the tags on his face and suck his fingers. (Sometimes he even shares and will rub it on our face to show his love.) However, just before Christmas we tried leaving this wow in his bed so he would only suck his fingers in his bed. That worked for a while, now it is out and about again but his fingers are NOT. He doesn't suck them anymore! You think I would be happy about this but it makes me pretty sad. Jenna and Mom tried for a couple of weeks to get him suck them again with no luck. My baby is growing up.

On Thursday night, Daddy started to act really fun and excited about a "surprise" he had for me. I didn't know what it was and he wouldn't tell me. On Friday at lunch he called and asked if he could come home early. When he got home he told me that he had a plan to get away for the weekend. You kids would go and stay with Uncle John and Aunt Bethany and we would go to a hotel for the night to celebrate my birthday. It was an awesome surprise. We packed up fast and were on the rode about one hour later. Dad and I had a great time, dinner, pool, relaxing and even a workout in the gym. We even drove to a little town for some sight seeing and shopping. It is fun for us to have time with just us.

We celebrated my birthday when we got back to Bethany and John's house and it was fun to see you kids again. We had yummy Cheese pie and opened presents. I got a new scrapbook system and I am really excited about and Dad surprised me with some yummy oils from Our Best Bites that I have wanted for a long time.