January 24th Papa turned 70 and he retired!! President Ballard visits!

What a celebration we had! Papa turned 70 AND retired from IBM after working 37 years there! Incredible. We had an epic celebration that literally lasted for days. Ryan and Lindsey flew in to make it even more special. The couples all went out to eat on Friday night at Olive Garden. We, of course, stayed for hours just chatting and then brought the party back to Mom and Dads and hot tubed till 1 am. What party animals we are!

Saturday morning we went to Mom and Dads and hung out and took a "Papa Job Quiz" that John Collin put together. Benjamin scored the best out of everybody! I made a scrapbook of memories with Papa. Everybody contributed their special moments that they have had with him. Lindsey wrote a poem, it was beautiful! It starts off the memory book.

Lindsey and Mom made delicious cupcakes too! Chocolate and lemon so dang good!

 Benjamin and I had to slip out for a lunchtime meeting with President Ballard along with all the YW, RS, EQ, Bishops and Stake Presidents in Tucson. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. Rather unfortunate that the last-minute General Authority visit landed on our weekend celebration. Bella and Oliva were also blessed to be selected to serve dinner to the General Authorities. Brooke Hanson made aprons for all the youth who served.

That night the youth of three stakes in Tucson had a special devotional with Elder Ballard. Bella was asked to say the closing prayer! Friends that live in Sierra Vista texted saying Bella was famous because they broadcasted the devotional there :)

Later that night the family went to Little Anthonys for dinner and watched the late show at the Gaslight musical theater.

The next morning everyone met at my house for breakfast to give our last gift. Hillary collected retirement ideas from everybody and made a collage of the number 70 with the job ideas. Then Hillary and Ryan put Dads head on a bunch of stock photos representing some of the jobs he could do. So funny!

Later that Sunday Dad was put into the Bishopric of the singles University 5th ward. My parents love the University ward! Perfect timing for Dad to have a new job with his retirement. Heavenly Father knows best! The Smith flew out and everyone else joined us for lunch at my house. So grateful for my family.

January 17th A weekend in the Cabin at the Wright's Wroost

Our awesome friends the Wrights invited us up to their family cabin in Pine. Andrew and Michelle are the parents and they have four beautiful daughters Carolina 16, Georgianna 14, Sophia 11 and Emmaline 9. It was an awesome family weekend. We divided up meals and cooking chores and played games. It was so fun! This family is abundant with talent. All their daughters play the piano and would often walk by and just play for fun. It was lovely. Their daughter Sophia and Parkin an epic pogo jumping competition. They got up to 900 jumps! We visited the State Park for FREE because it was a free weekend in honor of Martin Luther King. A free visit meant that we didn't have to stay for hours to get our monies worth! We attended church in Pine and Andrew's Aunt who owns the cabin next to them also came in for church that day. Her husband passed away and has been living mostly in the valley with her daughter. Andrew had asked earlier if we wanted to join his family and sing at the Uncles graveyard. It was beautiful to sing with them to honor his uncle at his gravesite and now his Aunt too!. The spirit was so strong. The Aunt wept and we got teary-eyed. Later that evening we played minute to win it games, had smores by a fire, watched the blood moon come in and watched a family movie. Great weekend with a great family!

This was an awesome sing of their neighbors that we were allowed to play on.

 Drinking from the stream at the State Park

Sibling Christmas fun! December 2018

We were lucky enough that Ryan's niece was getting married in Gilbert so the Smiths were in town for the holidays. They came down for two days to spend some time with us it was a short visit but it's always wonderful to see them. We even got to see Preston on his break from college! We love spending Calvin's birthday with himB, the benefit of having a Holiday birthday. Because of the new church policy change all kids that turn 14 in the coming year were immediately made Mia Maids and Teachers so Holman and Annie got to join the older kids at their first New Year's dance. It was great fun that the cousins got to go together. In the morning of New Year's Eve we all went on a hike to Sabino Canyon. We love visiting this canyon when family comes to town. Gratefully we were back into our house for this visit, so the Smiths were able to stay in our guest house which was nice for Mom and Dad to get their place back in order before more family "came into town".

The Potter family comes to Tucson every Christmas. It's great that they're kids know who Grandma and Grandpa are even though they live in Alabama. Barbara and Ron do an excellent job of going out there and they do an excellent job of coming back here. This year during the Christmas break Melissa, Susie and Pete were able to watch their four kids and we provided our guest House for an anniversary getaway. Reese and Sarah haven't had an anniversary getaway trip since I think they've had children. So they were overdue for some time away! It was great having them on the property and we went out to dinner with them once with the Clark's it was great fun to get to hang out with them this year. I also got to have Hans at my preschool for 2 days he's such a smart inquisitive kid! I love getting a chance to have Sarah's kids in preschool when she comes to visit, even if it is just for a couple of days. It warms my preschool teacher heart ♥️

It's the year of the pig :)

Scott and Susie opened their home as they often do to make gingerbread houses with all the cousins. It's always a fan favorite whether it's at the Clark house or SS's house my kids love this activity.

I'll be home for Christmas.... December 26, 2018

Apparently everytime I rent out my house I think it's the last time I'm going to rent out my house. But every year there seems to be a reason why I should rent out my house. So when the request came in to rent our property for a family reunion we accepted. This meant that we were homeless for the holidays. But when you have fantastic parents like I do, you know you will never really be homeless. My wonderful parents took my family of 7 AND my dog into their home so that we could rent out our house and make a buck. My kids were less than thrilled to be away from their beds, but if they weren't able to sleep in their own beds, Nana and Papa's is the next best place! If we had infinite resources and a crazy deep savings then the need for us to rent our house out wouldn't exist but the doozy of a medical year and braces needing to be put on two of my children come the new year....and so the story goes every year. I am grateful for a way to raise money even as difficult as it is to move, it's still a way that I can pay for these surprise and needed expenses. My parents even bought mattress covers for each of the beds that we slept on. The beds were so cozy and inviting they really went above and beyond on hosting us and it was so fun to be "home" for the holidays. Christmas Eve we had mom's typical Mexican fiesta, so yummy!  Dad has been practicing his trumpet, he had a couple of Christmas carols memorized. We went and carold to a handful of neighbors. We came back home and watched Paddington Bear 2. It was the most relaxing Christmas Eve I've had in a long time! The next morning we woke up at 8 or 9 and opened presents. It was great fun. We bought the kids a mini-trampoline and told them that a large trampoline was too dangerous but we thought this little one would be perfect. Some of the kids were excited and thought that we could use it to jump into the pool. Bella especially thought it was a rip off gift :)  Benjamin didn't waste any time to tell them that we had a real trampoline on the back porch of Nana and Papa's house but that we would wait to set it up until we got back home. I personally would have rather let them all sweat it out and reveal it later in the day. It was a great Christmas with a lot of grateful hearts. We don't give our kids a ton of presents but they seemed grateful for what they did get. I made cinnamon rolls and Nana cooked bacon and had juice ready for us. Later in the day we went over to Barbara and Ron's and spent time over there and had their typical late Christmas lunch. It was a great Christmas day.  I seriously can't thank my parents enough for letting us stay there so that we could knock out some of these things that crept up on us in 2018. Our best asset continues to be the family that we're surrounded by.

 Picture of us right before break.

 Double rainbow at Mom and Dad's house. What a lucky girl to be raised there!

Olivia's Sweet 16 Bash! Baby gets a license... December 2018

Sweet Olivia's birthday is December 26th, great time to celebrate with family cause there is usually a couple of out of town families that come in, not the best time to gather friends though. So this year we threw her party earlier in December. Can't remember the last time we had a big bash for her so it was exciting! It was quite the party. She had a ton of people come from school, church, cousins and friends of her siblings that wanted to shower Olivia with support and love. She passed out invitations at church and one of the girls said: "I am so glad we get invited other grades are talking about this party!" The hype helps when your school is small. We had a nacho bar, snack foods and desserts, and smores. These were the most pictures I could smuggle out without being an obnoxious parent, Benjamin, Parkin, Anna and I hung out in the guest house for most of the party.

On her real birthday, we were at Nana and Papa's house. We rented our whole property for Christmas break its an unbelievable task moving a family of 7 but the amount people pay to rent our property is pretty unbelievable too... Olivia wanted to get her license on her birthday so we scheduled an appointment with MDV and borrowed Nana's smaller car. That proved to be a very stressful situation. The car didn't have current registration. We thought we will just pay to have a copy of the registration but then we found out the car still needed to pass the emissions test! My poor type-A-always-have-everything-planned-out-daughter did not need this hick-up. But she handled the setbacks SO WELL!! She asked to say a prayer with me and took a deep breath and called Dad! Benjamin came with the can, despite needing to print up our current insurance card. They were able to verify the insurance with his phone screenshot, phew!!! Of course, she passed the test with flying colors!! Bella made her a congratulations happy birthday cake with a red car, she said she was prepared to wipe the car off if things didn't go so well ... :)

Found this gem, wish I could say I took this picture when I was a kid, but no I was married, ha ha!! I wasn't even 21! So I was a baby.

Pic of me and my little girl who is growing up way to fast is too smart for school and who is incredibly witty and makes me feel young when she teaches me what all the cool kids are saying! Love you Livvers!!

Holman turns 14 dance legal!!

Holman turned 14 and is now dance legal! Watch out ladies cuz that hunk of love will be coming your way for New year's Eve! He continues to be a hoot and is interested in anything that is not your typical teenage boy thing. he is not a gamer and enjoys spending as much time as possible as he can outside. He just got released as the Deacon Quorum president and is now the Teachers Quorum president.Nana gave him a sweater vest to wear over this nice flannel shirt. Holman went into the other room just put on the vest and came out to show the family and he said "I think this might be a little too much, what do you guys think?" we all couldn't stop laughing. Most people don't know how crazy this kid is but I keep telling him he's crazy. We love him so much. He is taking art this year it had been fun to see his creative side. He continues to excel at Mandarin. We love his diligence and look forward to seeing what he will achieve. I love you Holman, so much ❤️❤️❤️

Anna turns 9, my baby is 9!!

This has been a big year for Ann. In this year it was discovered that her eyes didn't track at the same speed which made reading difficult. She had been struggling with reading and an eye exam helped diagnose part of the problem. All summer long she did daily eye exercises and attended eye therapy once a week. When school started she was taken out of class and tutored in reading. She has had two grading periods this year and both have been successful. We met with her teachers recently and she no longer needs special instruction!! So proud of my hardworking, kind and inventive girl. She brings joy and laughter to the people all around her. This year she started taking Irish dance lessons, we love to watch her do her reels and jigs!
Adrianna I love you so much!! You are the perfect caboose to this crazy train ❤️❤️❤️

For her birthday this year we had both sets of grandparents over to celebrate. I made her favorite meal, chilli and cornbread. Anna wanted an ice cream cake. Bella brought one home from work (she works at Cold Stone). Bella has been working there for about 7 weeks and she happened to be the one who made this cake. It was sweet just like Anna!

We gave her this "Little Woodzies Lakeside Cabin. We love playing with her and watching her play with it.