Lydia Temple

One of the sweetest things about watching Lydia grow is up is bring able to do things that I love with her and being able to enjoy them together. Lydia has expressed desire to attend the temple regularly to do Baptisms for the Dead. David stayed home with the kids so Lydia and I could sneak away to the Draper temple early one morning. 

Lydia went in January to both the Saratoga Springs Temple and the Provo City Center Temple (with Wendy and Aubrey Rencher). We are planning to go to the St. George Temple in just a couple of weeks. It's neat to be able to choose which temple to go to, but I do also think there is value in getting really familiar with one temple so we will see what Lydia chooses to do in the future!

Valentine's Day

We had some nice Valentine celebrations this year. I'm glad that we have community to celebrate holidays like this with. Here are some highlights:

SPARK Coop Valentine Exchange

The kids reused boxes that we made last year and had a great time picking valentines at the store and handing them out to all of their friends.

Thursday Coop (Big and Mini) 

The big kids celebrated Valentine's Day at coop (no pictures) and we had a Valentine celebration for Mini Coop, too. We did some fun activities, made a craft, and had a Valentine Gift Exchange. I took the kids to the dollar store on our way home from pickup and let everyone pick something to use for the gift exchange. Everyone got to buy two of the same thing. I told them they could buy anything in the whole store thinking that they would come home with some cool things - but no. They all just picked massive bags of candy. I tried to talk them out of the candy, or at least of ALL of them buying candy. But they reminded me that I had told them they could buy anything and so I decided to allow it. For the gift exchange, we put one of each item in a bag and then did a "left, right" story where they had to pass the present. They got to keep whatever present they ended up with. Then for our Valentine exchange they took turns handing out their little valentines and when it was my turn I handed out each of the items that they had picked at the store. It was cute and fun and they all took home a MASSIVE amount of candy. 

Our own family celebration was simple and nice. We set out a a few decorations the night before so when the kids came down for breakfast they found the table set with a box of chocolates, a heart sucker, a box of candy hearts, and a letter telling them how much we love and appreciate them in our family. 

That night we had a "red" dinner, with juice, jello, and a red entree. We usually do spaghetti, but I remember having the supplies for something else and I asked David "Can we do this instead, it's red." and he agreed. But apparently we didn't take any pictures and now I can't remember, ha. 

To conclude our family Valentine Celebration I want to note here that I am so grateful for my five Valentines. I am a lucky mama to have so many sweet people to love. I love them for their individual characteristics and for how they work together to create this wonderful family. 

I'm also grateful for my everyday-everyyear-always-and-forever Valentine, David. He means the world to me and I couldn't be more grateful that I get to partner with my best friend through this life together. I love him. 

January Wrap-Up

The Wrap Up blog post is like a catch-all post for all of the pictures that didn't really have anywhere else to go but we still want to say something about them. At one point in our blogging life, we may have included these in a "5 Things on Friday" post or something - but now they just get lumped together at the end of the month with the hope that we remember to say the thing that we wanted to say about them. 

Here are a few "wrap-up" things from January. 

1- David was out of town for Assurance Advantage Level 1 from Monday, January 8- Thursday, January 11. He was leading the training for his company (and did a great job). He travels 7-8ish weeks per year and I feel like it's a manageable amount for us. We miss him while he is gone, but we find things to do to make it through. I often find us changing our routine a tiny bit; maybe not going to bed as early, or maybe having a bonus movie night. We don't usually eat out, but we might eat frozen pizza or something. On the Monday that he was gone, we loaded up into the car at 6:15 and headed to the library to get some books.  I snapped a picture because it was definitely out of our normal Monday night routine. (Who leaves the house after it gets dark in winter? Not us!) It was a good excursion for us. 

2- Lately we have been doing a rotating meal plan and it's really been working for us. We make a 3 week meal plan and then rotate through it 4 times. It means that we are only making the same thing about once a month, but we get three months of meals out of it. The other great thing about it, is that for many recipes I can quadruple the dinner and freeze the extras. Then, when that meal comes back around- I already have it prepped and can just pull it out and heat it up. It's been really really good for me! I snapped this picture of the lasagna's that I prepped to freeze for us to eat over the next several months. 

3-Lydia has been babysitting a handful of dogs while their families are gone for trips and it's a good business for her. She doesn't have a lot of interest in babysitting kids, but a dog-watching business is a good fit for her! I can't get her a dog, I just can't. But I can support her in feeding her love of dogs by helping care for the other pets in our neighborhood. She loves watching Harley (Bradfield Family). 

4-David and I have started switching back and forth for who is teaching Family Home Evening. But we have told Lydia that if she ever wants to teach a lesson, she just has to prepare it the Sunday before and she can lead. She decided she wanted to and she did such an incredible job with activities, stories, scriptures, and testimony. 

5-The kids don't know this yet, shhhh! We are going to Disneyland in March and we are attempting to watch ALL of the Disney movies that they might encounter references to on our trip. All of the movies that have rides associated with them and princesses that they should probably know. We have instituted "Wednesday Night Family Movie Night" and are making our way through a whole bunch of them. The kids just think we are doing a fun winter thing by having an extra movie night here and there - but they are going to be so excited! 

6-The Lydia we know and love, reading a book while making a snack at the same time. 

7- Our backyard isn't the dreamiest backyard you might ever imagine, but it's pretty much the best backyard in the winter. The perfect little sledding hill, rock wall to build a for against, and lots of snow piled in from the wind. Our kids love it and I love that they will go out and play while I stay nice and warm in my kitchen. 

8- I 'm grateful for the relationship these sisters have together. 

9- Austin drew this cool thing on the LCD pad and wanted a picture of it. Poor guy has a fever sore on his lip and his nose and we are trying to get it under control. 

10- We finally sold our 2014 Chrysler Town and Country. We posted about it back in November when we bought our new Honda Oddesy, but as a note for our 2024 book: 

We bought the Town and Country in April 2016 when it had just over 30,000 miles. We named her Millie.  She took us on so many trips and we've been able to do so many fun things together. Some of our favorite memories are going to the Oregon Coast and the California Redwoods, but she also took us to Logan, Wyoming, St. George, Bryce Canyon and a whole lot of driving around town.  We loved that it had the stow-and-go seating and so often used it to haul things usually done by trucks. David said, "Shantel believed that it could carry anything in it (beds, furniture and cattle guards) and was rarely proven wrong about what it could fit inside." (true) 

We had hoped to get $7,000 or $8,000 for the van, but were only able to sell it for $3,900. It took a few months to sell it since we tried posting it higher, but we're glad to have it finally sold and so excited for our new van. Millie had about 120,000 miles on it]. We are grateful for the many memories we made together in this van and all the trips and running around and going places together as a family.