Lynnlee’s 12th Birthday

We celebrated our beautiful heart warrior’s 12th birthday over the weekend. Lynnlee loved every minute of planning her birthday. She made invitations for her party, planned games, picked out decorations, and made cupcakes. I helped but she definitely did most of it. She is a great party planner!

The Young Women leaders in our ward put this sign up for her birthday.

Nice chill morning with presents and breakfast.

She is going to an advanced sewing camp this summer so she got a new sewing machine.

Breakfast was chocolate chip pancakes, strawberries and cream. Mmm!

New outfit and traditional picture with birthday balloon. 

Snack table for her party.

I love hosting Lynnlee’s friends. They are so kind, funny and no drama.

Lynnlee planned so many fun party games! birthday dare, balloon pop, triple charades, candy bar unwrap, cake walk, and donut on a string. She had a few more but we ran out of time.

That night we went to Chick-Fil-A for dinner. Then Lynnlee saw the movie Uncharted with Marshall. James was the sibling she chose to take along.

Sunday we celebrated March birthdays with my family. We hosted and sang to Ali and Lynnlee. Love our family get together so much!

Sienna’s Braces

Sienna has now joined the braces club. She is really excited about them! 

Girls Night

Lynnlee has the best group of friends. Some of them went to the Provo Temple together to do baptisms. 

State Band Festival

James performed at his first state band festival. It was at the Libby Gardner Hall at the U of U. He enjoyed it and watching other school’s bands. 

The Court

We have hit dead ends trying to figure out how to finish our court. We also have changed our minds on finishing it with a maple floor. Our kids would damage a maple floor with scooters, roller blades, racquets, etc. So we decided to go with the most kid proof floor….epoxy. We hired out and it was done in a few hours. We love the new floor! Next is the walls and ceiling, upgrade the lights, paint lines and it should be complete.

Germs

Lynnlee gets sick so easily. Every few weeks she is sick again. She got really sick from each dose of the vaccination. This week she had the flu. She had a high fever for 3 days and on her worst day her oxygen dropped to 82%. I thought she was going to end up at Primary’s. She was taking medicine through it all but it wasn’t helping. 

Thankfully she turned a corner Saturday morning and was able to get up more. Today she is doing a little bit better. 

End of Term

This week got really crazy with Jameson’s end of term projects! Mostly thanks to procrastination. Tuesday he spent a couple of hours doing science experiments and then writing a report. Lynnleee and I had fun helping him out with the experiments.

Wednesday night he was up til midnight reading a book and answering questions. Oh the life of teeenagers. It will be madness when all of my kids are teenagers!

Living Cinema

This month for Living Cinema we saw American Underdog. James and I saw it in January but it was fun seeing it again. I liked it better this time. 

They didn’t have someone from the movie this time but they did have Garrett Batty, the director of Saratov Approach, Freetown, and Out of Liberty. 

As a family we really look forward to our movie nights once a month!

March Madness Half Marathon

James has been wanting to run a half marathon for about a year. He started training during summer with an intent to run the Swiss Days 10k in August and then a half in October. Once the soccer season started it was too tricky to keep up the training with games on Saturday’s when long runs are suppose to happen. He ran the 10k and then decided to hold off on the half. 

Then I decided it would be best if he ran a race in between fall and spring soccer. I searched half marathons in Utah at the beginning of March and found the March Madness Half in Bountiful/Woods Cross. It was perfect! The date gave them enough time to train, not too far to drive and a really flat course.

The other really cool part about it being in Bountiful on the Legacy Trail is that when we lived in Bountiful I pushed James in the jogging stroller and ran the legacy trail for my training runs for my first half marathon and marathon. He loved going in the jogging stroller. 

James’s friend Ben wanted to run a half as well. I made a training schedule and they did all of the training together. The training went well! They only had 7 weeks of training!

Ben got sick the week of the race and James got some 24 stomach flu on Thursday. I was praying they would both be well enough to still run it. Thankfully they both felt better in time.

At the race I asked them if they wanted me to stay with them. They were fine with me running my own pace. They trained at a 10 minute mile and I trained at a 9 minute mile. I was hoping to run a 8:45 mile and I thought they would run a 10 min mile being their first race. They were much faster and ran a 9 min mile. I ended up running 8:38 min mile.

It was an out and back course. I couldn’t believe how close they were behind me. I think this will be the one and only time I beat James. 

James turned on the jets on the home stretch and took 1st in his age group and Ben took 2nd. 1:58 was James’s time.

I took 2nd in my age group. My time was 1:52. Not my fastest but not my slowest.

James felt great after. He really wants to run a marathon now. If all goes as planned we’ll run the Utah Valley Marathon together. I ran it a few years ago and really like it.

Katie Time

Katie came to town for her birthday and brought Sidney, Miriel, and Brigham with her. We soaked up every minute.

We went skiing to Deer Valley. Usually it’s my dad and sisters only but this year two of my aunts came as well. It was so fun to be with all of those amazing people!

Betsy took our first pic. Next to her is Kathy, Wendy, Ali, Brig, Me, Katie and my Dad.

My dad, Aunt Kathy and Aunt Wendy. They are ages 70, 60, 50. I find that pretty awesome!

You can barely see Heber behind us. It was pretty cloudy on that side of the resort. It was surprising because it was sunny on the north side.

I loved catching up with everyone on the lift up and then cruising down.

Friday night we had a cousin super sleepover. Mir, Brig, and Drew came. We played a some rounds of speed, 4 v 4 indoor soccer and then called it a night. 

Saturday they played and played until it was time to go to dinner and tubing.

We had dinner at DK before going tubing. My kids had gotten their second dose of the vaccine the day before so some of them were really tired and not feeling great but we made the most of it.

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Tubing this year was way better than the ice we tubed on last year. Last year was terrifying as we saw multiple tubes crash through the barriers at the end of the runs. This year the snow was soft and we could actually stop at the bottom. It was cold but still a good time. 

Sienna was really feeling the side effects of the vaccine by the end so she stayed in the lodge.

Ali drove her “party bus” from the DK to Soldier Hollow. The kids loved it!

Sunday we hosted family dinner. The kids had a table in the front room.

Our cabinets were being painted so our kitchen had a unique look to it.