Golden

At the beginning of December, the young women in our ward decided to participate in "Project Warm" and to collect coats, hats, gloves, blankets...any warm clothing and shoes to donate to homeless shelter in the area.  They made a fun contest out of it, and at the first activity when they explained all of the rules of the contest, they made trophies to award at the final night.  I remember thinking it odd that night when Rachel brought weird, random objects from our house.  I couldn't figure out why she needed to bring them...now I know.

 

The final night came, and all of the donations were counted and tallied.  Rachel and her friend Shelby won first place, so they won the golden trophy.  I love it.  All of those weird, random objects that the girls brought from home were glued to a lamp base, and then spray painted gold.  Rachel was so excited to bring home the trophy.

Seriously, could this have been any more fun?  I had to take some pictures of some of the stuff.  Pig snouts, scissors, bead necklaces...

a creepy little doll, a microphone...

A crown, the word "hope"...

hair clipper attachments...you name it.  I just laughed and laughed when she showed me this work of art!

there was even a car, and a fork.

Rachel had set up donation boxes in two of her classes at school, and her teachers were really supportive of her announcing to the class what she was doing and then making reminder announcements throughout the duration of the contest.  It was really great to see the kids at South Middle School come with donations for Rachel to bring in.  What a great cause, and what a golden opportunity for these kids to help others who are struggling or who are in need of our help.  It was a great way to bring the spirit of Christmas into our home and Rachel's life this year.

Potty Time...Almost!

Addyson was given a Minnie Mouse training toilet for her 2nd birthday last June.  She unwrapped it, had fun "flushing" it and hearing all the fun sounds that it made and even sat on it to read books.  However, when we tried to get her interested in actually using it to go potty...it was a complete failure.

 

That's okay.  No stress.  I've had enough children to have learned by now that each child has their own timeline...no matter what all the "experts" say and think.  In fact, I think most of the "experts" have never even had children...but that's between me, everyone who reads my blog...and the fencepost.  So we've just kept her cute toilet out in the open in our bathroom and I've waited for her to show some interest in it again.  The time has come!

I found her in the bathroom the other night with her favorite snuggly blanket sitting on her toilet singing.  What was she singing?  "Eight little monkeys jumping on the bed..."  What a cute, silly little girl!

I told her to smile...her reaction is typical Addyson.

 

Seriously Mom...I'm on the toilet...can't you give me any privacy?

 

And she had also smuggled in a pack of gum...and was enjoying that as well.  She must have been in there for at least 30 minutes.  Did she go potty?  Nope.  Maybe next time.

Little Miss Blue Eyes

Little Miss Emma is changing so quickly.  She is a beautiful baby and is so much fun.  Here she is at 5 months old.  Her hair is so long and thick, that if I don't put in a little pixie ponytail right in the front, her hair is always in her eyes.  Her hair is like Addyson's...when it is wet it is curly.  So I love it when she is fresh out of the bath and I can play with her curls. 

And we couldn't have that because her blue eyes are just too cute to hide.  She is such a happy baby, and loves to play on her blanket.  She rolls all over the place, and tries to move forward by putting her feet and hands in the air and kicking and waving like crazy.  Its the funniest thing ever!

One of the things I love most about Emma is that whenever she hears my voice, she turns to see me...and when our eyes meet, she gets the sweetest smile on her face and her whole face lights up.  I feel so blessed to have her as my little one.



Another Teenager in the Thuernagle House!

Rachel turned 13 this year! 

We wanted to make her first teenager birthday extra special, because, you only turn 13 once! 

 

 

Her birthday was on a Monday, so Friday, I emailed each of her teachers and told them it was going to be her birthday and asked them to a little something for her in class.  So each one of her teachers had the classes sing to her, or announced that it was her birthday, etc. 

 

I also emailed her school counselor, Ms. Coffey, who is a fun, fun lady and who also likes to hang out with Rachel's lunch table during lunch.  The kids at Rachel's lunch table are always doing goofy things and Ms. Coffey likes to take videos and show me.  So I asked her if she could arrange for the lunch table to do something as a surprise at lunch.  When Rachey walked into the lunch room, her table started singing, and Rachey said that most of the lunchroom joined in.  She was grinning from ear to ear when she told me about it.

I owe a few of her friends big time...before Rachey's big day I gave them each a brown paper bag that had one of Rachel's favorite candybars or bags of candy inside...and their secret mission (which they all chose to accept) was to wish her a happy birthday and give her the candybar at a random time during the school day.  To top off the day, we ordered flowers for her to pick up at the office.  I loved seeing her face when I picked her up after cheer practice.  She exclaimed, "Mom!  You won't believe everything that happened to me today!"  

For dinner we had her favorite...chicken alfredo with homemade bread...

 

And then we went to open gifts.  

 

Lainah was so excited for Rachel, so she made her a birthday banner all by herself and hung it up in the living room as a surprise. 

And Addy is always willing and ready to help open gifts.

 

Here is Rachey with her surprise birthday flowers!

And along with the birthday banner, Lainah made Rachel a homemade card.  

 

Rachey opened one of the gifts to reveal....

 

Doll clothes!?!  A dolly sweater and boots?  She was excited because this meant a shopping trip with mom to go get a new sweater and yes....boots.

 

We also wrapped up some deoderant as a corny joke.  She thought it was pretty funny.

 

And last year, all Taylor wanted for Christmas was an Ipod something or another.  So we bought him one.  But literally 2 days before Christmas, our bank called to let me know that he had one the annual prize drawing and had won...yep...you guessed it...the Ipod whatever it is.  So when we went in to get the prize, on the way home he had it opened up before I could figure out how to convince him to just wait a few days..long story short...I did some last minute Christmas shopping for him, and the Ipod we had bought has sat up on our closet shelf for the year.  Rachey has been asking for it....so...Happy Birthday!

I love Rachey's fun personality.  Here she is showing us all the fine art of blowing out candles.

The tongue roll



The pucker up



the chubby cheeks



the two front teeth



the laugh



the wide mouth



the lazy eye



and finally...the make a wish.

 

Taylor was helping by being the camera-man during this entire sequence.  What a goofball.

Here they all are!  Two teenagers in the house!

But wait...I had one more surprise for Miss Rachel. 

I made her cake her favorite color....purple.  Matthew thinks I. am. AMAZING.  He still can't figure out how I did it.

Love this girly!!!

Happy 13th birthday Rachel!

Everything I Ever Needed to Know in Life...

I learned in Kindergarten!

Kindergarten, that magical year in school of coloring, pasting, using scissors...playing outside, eating snacks, taking rest time, listening to stories...singing songs, wiggling....learning how to write, read, spell, count to 100...etc, etc.  There's nothing like it in the world, and Lainah is loving Kindergarten and thinks her teacher is amazing!

 

One of the fun things her teacher does to help keep the students' behavior at their best is to give them a daily "star" rating.  At the end of the day, they get to color their star a certain color.  Rainbow is the best, then purple, then blue...green is neutral...and yellow and red are not so great.  I love picking Lainah up from school and how she'll jump into her seat with big wide eyes and say, "MOM!  I got another RAINBOW STAR!!!" 

 

Lainah came home during the first week of school and told me that she had to move her marker down to the yellow star for a little while during the day, but worked really hard to get it moved back up to a blue.  I asked her what she had done to get it moved down.  She got a little shy smile on her face, but grinned and said that she and another girl were crawling underneath the bathroom stalls instead of using the doors.  I tried my best to keep a straight face. (I didn't even try for stern, I knew that wasn't going to happen.)  I asked Lainah why she thought going under the stall would be okay and she said, "well...I don't know...I just wanted to do it for once in my life." 

 

Straight face disappeared.  Laughing began.  Then hugging and laughing some more.  What am I going to do with this funny, silly little girl?  She assured me that now that she knows its not okay she wouldn't do it again.  The real reason why I laughed so hard?  Because I was about as straight arrow as you could be in school.  I pretty much never broke rules...but in Kindergarten...I got in trouble one day by the first grade teacher Mrs. Jensen.  For what?  For crawling under the bathroom stalls.  Maybe I just had to try it "for once in my life."

Big Nose

In November, Rachel and a few of her friends starred in the play "Big Nose." 

Rachel's character, "Chuck" was the comic relief in the show and she had a fun time playing him.  Something that I like and admire about Rachel is her excitement about trying new things.  I think she lives that old adage, "variety is the spice of life," very well...she participates in sports, choir, drama, cheerleading...and also works really hard academically.  I love that she is "living it up" in middle school!

She learned a lot from this experience.  She helped to build and paint the set, memorized her lines and learned about stage placement and how to project her voice.  It was a great experience and she had a lot of fun with her friends.

Here she is after the show with two fellow co-stars.  Her friend's parents brought flowers for the girls, which made them beam even brighter at the end.  What a great opportunity!

True Friendship Knows No Boundaries

One of the things I worried about the most with our building a new house and moving, was upsetting the friendships that my children had made.  I was especially concerned with Taylor, who would be starting high school, and with Rachel who is in Middle School.  I knew the elementary kids would have enough time to recover and get a good set of friends before entering the upper grades.

 

I shouldn't have worried.  Both Rachel and Taylor have found great friends in their new schools, Rachel especially has been so excited and happy about the move and the new friendships she has made.  And I have been so excited to see that they have both put forth the effort to keep and maintain the good friendships they had with their close friends in their previous schools.

 

Skyview played Columbia a couple of weeks ago, which meant that Taylor had to play basketball against his old team and old set of friends.  He was really nervous going into the game, he didn't admit it or say anything, but I could tell that his nerves were on edge!  It was a great game...Skyview won...Tay was happy about that...he was fierce and aggressive on the court...but I enjoyed how after the game as the two teams passed one another giving each other high fives, that Taylor and his old buddies were doing the shoulder hug thing that guys do. 

 

And speaking of friendship...these two crack me up.  Here is Taylor, and his good buddy, Mason, directly after their game.  These two make me laugh all the time...

 

They both play post position...and I just laughed when I saw that they also have the same number.  I couldn't resist, I had to take their picture.  During the game, it was fun for me to see their little smirks at each other when they were lining up across from each other on a foul shot.  These two are goofs.

Poor Mason he didn't want to put his jersey back on because it was sweaty.  They were both whining at me for making them pose for a picture.  But I did not relent.  

These two have so much fun together at stake dances and other activities...I am anticipating some fun dating years...reminding Taylor that having one at each school will work to their advantage...they can introduce each other to all of the cute girls and have some group dates!  I also look forward to seeing where these two get called to serve their missions, and to comparing stories with Mason's mom and laughing about the goofy things our boys do over the years.  

So here they are...one tall and dark, the other tall and blond, one maroon and gold, the other navy and silver...one a Wildcat...the other...a Hawk...but none of that even matters because true friendship knows no boundaries.

Thanksgiving 2014

For the past 5 Thanksgiving Holidays, we have traveled over to Southeastern Idaho to spend Thanksgiving with extended family.  This year, because we didn't take a summer family vacation, we decided we really needed some alone time with our kids so we chose to do a mini Thanksgiving vacation with just our family instead.  We missed seeing grandparents, and Aunts and Uncles and cousins, but it turned out to be just what our family needed.

 

We booked a cabin for a few days closeby in Garden Valley.  The girls were big helpers to me the day before.  I taught Rachel how to make apple pie, and here she is making the crust.  This crust recipe is the same one that my mom used and taught me how to make when I was about Rachey's age. 

She was so worried that she'd "mess up" the pretty fluted edges.  I told her to relax and have fun with it, that pie dough was a lot like play dough...only you were SUPPOSED to eat it and it was a lot less salty!  She laughed at that, and stopped worrying about her edges.  

She even did the little apple shape that I have done on my pies ever since Andy and I were married.  I don't think my kids would know what to do with an apple pie that didn't have an apple shape on the crust.  She did a beautiful job and the pie was yummy!

And since no one in my family really likes pumpkin pie all that much, we do pumpkin rolls instead.  Brooklynn was my big helper with these.  Here she is starting the second batch.  We love these so much that we have to do two each year.  Yummy.

Here is her finished product.  A big yummy pumpkin roll filled with cinnamon cream cheese goodness.  It was so fun to have these two help me this year in the kitchen!  I am looking forward to many years ahead with all five of my daughters baking with me in the kitchen.

We arrived at the cabin early Wednesday evening, and first thing the kids wanted to do was hop into the private pool just out the back patio doors.  It was lightly snowing...and it was the coolest thing to be out swimming in a hot pool in the mountains in the middle of a snow storm!

Rachey and Brooklynn having fun on one of the loungers.  There was also a drift of snow closeby the pool, and the kids had a few snowball fights in and around the pool.  Weird. 

All of the kids except for Emma got in that night.  It was so fun to see them out there playing, while Andy and I unpacked and then relaxed.

Lainah was in the pool more than anyone during those four days.  She would swim, come in and eat...and then go swim some more.  She is a little fishy that's for sure!

Lainah and Addy shared a bed, and when I went in to tuck them in, I found them like this.  Lainah was reading with a flashlight, while Addy was watching Spirit on my phone...all snuggled up together.  It was too sweet.  This cabin also had a pool house that had a bunch of games in it and a tv and couches.  Taylor, Rachel, Brooklynn, and Matthew hung out in there quite a bit watching movies and playing games together.  We let all of the bedtime rules go, and let the kids just enjoy being together without schedules, or deadlines, or bedtimes...etc.  It was awesome.

Andy and I enjoyed the pool too.  I really couldn't get over the fact that it was November and snowing, and we were lounging around in a pool. 

And here we all are gathered around for our Thanksgiving feast. 

There was a Mancala game there that was missing about half of the marbles...but no worries...the kids used our M&Ms instead.  It reminded me of a trip to my Uncle Terry and Aunt Debbie's cabin once as a kid,when my cousins and I were playing a game with M&Ms too.  Fun times.

Emma was snuggled by one person, and then passed on to the next.  She enjoyed all of the attention from everyone...and it was especially cute to see her cuddling up to big brother Matthew.

Here's all of us silly girlies (minus Emma) in the pool!

The kids also played a lot of Jenga.  Matthew and Brooklynn found a quiet spot in the pantry.

And I taught them how to play "Go Fish."  Grandpa Thuernagle,who didn't allow face cards in his home, was probably making a fuss up in heaven when he saw what his grandchildren were doing!

Andy doesn't get a lot of time to read, but I noticed during these four days that his nose was in a book a lot of the time!  It was so great to see him be able to sit down and truly relax.

And the great part about having older kids like Taylor and Rachel, is that Andy and I were able to take some quiet walks alone, and spend time in the pool together while they "babysat."  We didn't have cell phone coverage while we were up there which actually made it even better.  I noticed how it was difficult for the first day to be without internet and texting and phone calls...but then it just felt completely liberating and I saw how our entire family relaxed.  Why don't we do this more often?  This year, with Emma there, I also felt a completeness that I haven't felt before.  I felt at peace and so content.  As I looked around the table at all of our children, and then as mine and Andy's eyes met...I just felt so very thankful for all that we had and knew that the greatest blessings we had were gathered right there around the table.  Our family.  

 

Saturday morning, as we packed up to leave, we piled all of the pool towels in the designated corner of the laundry room.  The hamper was stuffed full, and it was mounded over.  That's a lot of towels for 4 days!  The pool was well-used!

And here is the gang, full of enough good memories and good times to carry us through until our next little getaway!

Happy Thanksgiving 2014!