If the background is still Chritstmas, I failed.

Ok, so it's been so long since this old girl has been updated (I'm talking about the blog, not me-I'm still young and feelin' fine)

Let's see, since December-
We had a Christmas party for the girls, it was fun.

Christmas was fun. We had a disaster with the presents. We bought most of Aster's gifts online and they were delayed in the mail so they weren't going to make it until the next week. Well, my parents are always very generous with the kids, so we thought that with their gifts at least she would have something to open, right? After sorting into piles we found that Aster had two gifts, while the other's had something like 20 gifts. ANd one of Aster's was a blanket. My mom got a panicky phone call at 12:30am. She said she didn't have anything for Aster there, and nobody else had mentioned extra gifts that had gone home with them. We didn't know what to do. All of the gifts were specific for each kid, so we couldn't really divvy up the piles and redistribute. I sat on the coffee table with my head in my hands for a couple of minutes, said a little prayer, and had the thought that maybe some of the clothes had been mislabeled, so we checked the clothes and sure enough, Aster's clothes were labeled for Edith. So that took care of bulk, but still no toys to speak of. Then I remembered that in the closet I had a little puppy thing that I had bought on sale for various birthday parties, so we wrapped that up, and squeaked by. WHew! So when Santa the big online jerk that almost ruined Christmas, finally delivered the beaten up,squashed box of gifts the next week, it was just an added bonus. Also, I made the girls each night gowns and Jane got her ears pierced.

Ok January-who cares, nothing. No wait, not nothing. Konden got his wisdom teeth out in January and what a mess that was. One of the teeth developed dry socket AND got infected. He was in severe pain for at least two weeks. It was awful. ANd he started teaching his first class in January, too. Now, I don't have any evidence to support this claim, but I get the feeling he is the world's best world religions teacher. You know it's true.

Also in Janny, we (me, mostly) decided that we would homeschool the kids next year. I just want to try it out, see how we do. Might be great, might be a big mistake. But I figure that even if they learn nothing the year that they are home, they're smart enough that it won't take that too long to catch up. We'll see, it's an experiment. But I found out some interesting things. For example it's in the AZ law that homeschooled kids can still join extracurricular teams like band and sports and the like AND if you chose, you could send your kid to school for just part of the day. That seems to apply more for older grades, but still, interesting.

February flew by, realized that you can't shorten Valentines day to just VD, cause then it means something else. And soon it will be March.

I don't remember how to change the background for the blog, so hopefully, I figure it out soon, or it'll be Christmas still or those dots or something.

Gotta hurry, don't have time to rinse...

Just a few quick photos with very little commentary becasue I want to go to bed and actually see the inside of the gym tomorrow. Here we go... And these are in decending order because I don't want to bother with reordering them.

Aster's house. She was pretty proud of it.

Jane and Santa (pssst... she knows. ) You have to be pretty thick around our house to not know the truth about Santa and how his presents magically appear in our closet two weeks before Christmas.)
Edith suspects. She says she know he's not real, but in the same way she know cartoons aren't real. Meaning maybe santa is inanimate.

Eliza and santa.

Awww... Jane and Daddy right before she was baptised.

Aster taking the unicorn for a stroll.

Someone took a bite

Aster and Edith at dance class (in the back)

Caleb and Aster love dressing up as princesses together. Next to being naked, I think this is his favorite outfit.

Tucker's birthday cake. Cool huh? And fun to make! The top of our fridge, not so cool, nor fun to clean. But Konden DID clean it this week. He's so great.

Aster thought she'd drive us to church. Cute, even when you're running late.



Edie's birthday party. Hello kitty. The thing about your own kid's birthdays is that because you're doing everything else, you don't have time to make a cool cake. Cupcakes are just as good though.

Yes I look awful. No, I didn't shower. And, no, those are not clean clothes.

Hmmm...No pictures of Norah. It's just as well, this is a week we hope to forget with her. She's been running a fever half the week, and the other half-monstrous and grumpy!

I'd better update while I am here, even without pictures or it won't get done. Best of all, Jane was baptized yesterday. She is a sweet girl. I am excited to see her take charge of her own life, and use her agency, to make her own decisions, and really own them. We were talking in the car today about fasting because Jane fasted today but just breakfast and we started musing when we should start having her do a full 24 hour fast and we realized, well never, I guess, it's not really our decision to make. Weird.

In other news, Norah's been sick since friday. Well, we don't know if she's sick or teething, we thought teeting because nothing else is going on with her, but it's been a little long for her to still be having fevers I think so maybe it's something more. SO anyways we kept her home from church today, mostly to be kind to her, I don't think she's contagious of anything. She has been so sweet and lovey all weekend. You know when all they want to do is sit in your lap and snuggle or go to bed. well she's over that bit and she was a monster today. Just mad and fussy. So although I must admit I was somewhat looking forward to being home from church with her, my conclusion is that Konden was the one with the better end of the deal. No sweet febrile angel today. I'm taking her in tomorrow I think, I wonder if it's an ear infection.

Eliza sang at Jane's baptism. It was sweet.

Aster and Edith have also been a little out of sorts lately.We seem to be having an increase of breakdowns lately.

Konden's been working on his dissertation proposal like a madman, and he's thinking of significantly shortening his diss. We were hoping he would defend his proposal this semester, but it looks like maybe he'll have to wait until after the break. Ah me. But some cool news is that he has another article coming out i the spring journal of mormon history. What a smarty pants.

Me, well nothing really. My cake decorating class at joanns was cancelled for this month, not enough enrolled. I've been toying with the idea of teaching cake decorating just at my house, but I wouldn't know how to go about doing that. I don't really seem to have much luck with that sort of thing. I tried to start a home preschool a couple of years ago and it was a belly flop. I had three kids and they were all related to me.

Well, that's all that comes to mind. Maybe tomorrow I'll post our most recent photos.