2nd trip to AZ in 2020

 It's funny...the media makes you believe that if you get together with anyone who isn't living in your own home, you WILL get Covid and spread it to hundreds of people.  Interestingly, twice this year during the pandemic, we were able to travel from Utah to Arizona and visit my parents and brothers and their wives and nieces and nephews and my grandma and my aunt and uncle...and we didn't get sick.  Imagine that.  

Anyway, I'm glad we didn't let Covid scare us out of going on our trip because it was so nice to have my entire family together for a week or so.  We stayed at my aunt's new cabin/house for a couple days, then we finished the trip at my parent's house and had Thanksgiving.  

We drove straight to Heber and met up with Scott's family there.  My parents and other brothers showed up the next day.

Cade was a big hit with the girls the next morning.  He was already in bed when we got there that first night.  We had home church and the sacrament that morning and later we had a little talent show.  It was fun to see Calvin recite a poem he wrote and some of the kids played instruments.  Grandpa juggled and grandma showed us some cool moves with the poi balls.  

The kids did a dog pile on Zac...

Which turned into a 5 person pile up.  ha ha.  

We all enjoyed playing with and holding Cade.

Before the trip, I made a goal to make everyone a shirt or hoodie out of fabric I already had on hand.  I finished the day before we left.  And I think they all fit!

We did lots of puzzles.  

It was fun, and lots of people helped!

We also played lots of nine square.  Such a fun game.  My aunt and uncle actually designed this room in their place to accommodate the nine square game.  They have 8 kids who are all mostly married with kids of their own, so they always have enough people to play!

My mom and dad (proabably mostly my mom) spent a lot of time planning and organizing this trip.  Meaning she planned all of the meals, brought all of the food, and activities.  It was such a fun trip because of all the hard work they put in.  THanks mom and dad!

One of the nights, Shanna and Evan taught us how to be glow stick dancing people.  It was so fun!

Glow sticks make for a fun night!

Grandpa getting some Cade snuggles.

See the peacock back there??

It wasn't going to show it's feathers though.

Cool building at the park.

Loved being able to spend so much time outside.  The weather was so nice!

Gathering around grandma as she explains the grandma store.  The kids all earned grandma bucks and were able to spend their "money" at the end of the week at the grandma store.  

Scott and Christie had us over (even though it was probably stressful because they were moving shortly after our visit) and we had a barbeque.  We played some Nintendo Switch and ate some yummy food.  

Apparently Cade likes to hang out outside in his race car walker.  It's so cute, I had to take a picture.

Grandma let Finley help make some cupcakes.

Then Finley took over.  Ha ha!

Daisy, Riley and Emery spent a lot of time together playing Harry Potter, doing crafts and just hanging out.  We wish they lived closer so we could get together more often!  They were such good friends!

Critical moment on Thanksgiving figuring out the turkey.  The meal was delicious and it was so great having everyone there together.  It had been quite a while since we had thanksgiving together!

STATIC!

Coloring fun.  

Zac and Calving played a lot of games together.  Here they are playing chess.

Isaac's birthday was on Thanksgiving.  We sang to him and my mom put together some fun birthday games we all got to play.  

Happy Birthday Isaac!!

Visiting grandma's chickens was a big highlight especially for Finley.  She loves them!

Finley talking great grandma's ear off.  :)

We took family pictures one of the days we were at my aunt's house.  Isaac got some pictures with my parents. :)

We took pictures on the fun swings.  Fitting, since Finley pretty much wanted to swing all day, every day we were there.

Family picture.

Everyone on my side of the family.  So great to have everyone together.

I loved this Arizona trip.  It may be because it gets easier and easier to travel with the kids getting older, but every time we go on vacation, we come home saying how that was the best trip ever.  

Harry Potter Party

 Sadie and her friend decided they wanted to do a Harry Potter party with their friends in the neighborhood.  We invited everyone their age and almost everyone came!  We made sure to do it safely by providing Harry Potter masks and having the kids doing things they could stay a safe distance apart.  Even so, I worried that after the party everyone would get sick with Covid and I would get angry calls from parents.  Ha ha.  Thankfully that didn't happen and the girls all had a blast.  It was so great to see the joy on the girls faces.  It had been months since they had been able to get together like this, so I think it was such a good thing.  

Eva and Sadie planned the whole thing.  They came up with the food, the activities and everything.  We (the moms) provided a budget and they got to go crazy with their ideas.  They started around 6 and then when it got dark, we turned on Harry Potter 3 for them to watch outside.  I got some nail stamps that were Harry Potter themed and did all their nails during the movie.  It was really fun.  

At the beginning, the girls all picked a sugar cone that looked like a witch hat.  Inside were m&ms in the color of the house they were sorted into.  :)  Sadie and Eva put a special mark on theirs to make sure they made it into Gryffindor.  

They all opened them at the same time.  It was really fun.

Surprise!  Sadie was in Gryffindor!  

Here they all are in their masks and robes.  

The set up crew.  They really did such a good job.  Sadie stood up an took charge when it was time and it was fun to see her in that position.  She's growing up!

Hanging the decorations.

We can't wait for next year!  The girls are hoping to make it a yearly party.  

Halloween 2020

Halloween was a bit different this year.  There weren't a lot of parties to attend, or events happening, but the kids still had requests for costumes.  I made Sadie's, Emery's and Zac's with just a few hours to spare!  Ha ha.  Sadie was dressed up as Artemis the Goddess of the Hunt. Emery was Claudia from a show called The Dragon Prince on Netflix, and Zac was an archer.  Riley was Hermione and Finley was, of course, Harry Potter.  She had been pretending to be Harry ever since we watched the first Harry Potter movie.  She didn't break character for about three weeks.  She still pretends to be Harry a lot, but it's not constant like it was before.  

The night before Halloween, the primary presidency came up with the idea to do a Halloween parade where the leaders and teachers who wanted to could drive around the neighborhood and throw candy to the kids who were standing out on their lawn.  The primary is usually in charge of the ward Halloween party but this year it was a no go because of covid.  So I went with them since I am the music leader and I wanted to see all the kids.  I stood with my head out of the sunroof and threw candy to all of them!  It was pretty fun!

 

We were watching a few kids for a friend that day so they made it in our picture.  

                              RIley lost her 2nd tooth on Halloween!  Pretty exciting! And isn't Finley just the cutest little Harry Potter you have ever seen?

Gryffindor friends!

We waited to carve pumpkins until Halloween.  And it was warm enough to do it outside!  Yay for no messes in the house!  Sadly, I didn't ever take a picture of all the kids with their finished pumpkins.

I also did a fun craft with them.  It has been a while since I've been a fun mom I feel like, so we made some fun Halloween salt and water color pictures.  

It kept us busy for a while.  I joined in on the fun!

 Happy Halloween!

Feelings and hugs

 When I was young, I used to cry during movies.  I remember the one I always cried during was the movie Big.  Ha ha!!!  But Riley has the same emotions as I did when I was younger (and still do) when watching movies.  The other day they were watching Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and at the end I noticed she was crying.  I went over and talked to her and gave her hugs.  She said "I'm just so happy!" through her tears.  ha ha.  Then when Finley saw what was happening, she came over and hugged her.  It was really cute.