January

Elliot finally finished his latest BOB Books sticker chart! He is way good at reading 3 letter words and his sight words now, but hates it when he has to try hard to sound something out, even though he can totally do it. His sticker chart reward was a movie night (Emporors New Groove) and cookies. I didn't feel like making cookies, so fortunately he was happy with my substitute of this graham cracker- nutella- marshmallow creation. I thought it was gross but kids like sugar. 

An example of the house forts that Elliot and Wyatt make 2-3 times a week at the Church. 

Can you see all 4 boys in this cousin pile?

Playing "Scary Bingo"

Mary's friend Gary let us pick a bunch of oranges on his property. They are SO SWEET AND DELICIOUS

A carrot harvest from the community garden

Annie's hair is now long enough for pigtails!

She pulls them out whenever she notices they are there, which includes every time she gets into her carseat, so I don't always make the effort. But I love it so much when she has them!

We got invited to a fondue night. Elliot is all about that chocolate fountain

We did a babysitting swap with the crows. Annie and Avery are 10 days apart and look so similar that it was almost like having twins for a day

I sneakily documented this guys game night. They spent like 5 hours getting through 2 turns of axis and allies. 

This little lady is always getting into trouble, exhibit A

This little lady is always getting into trouble, exhibit B

This little lady is always getting into trouble, exhibit C

 January marked the start of the new home centered church curriculum. It has been working out really well for us so far. 2 hours of church is definitely easier to make it through with little kids than 3 hours. We have 1:00 church, so lately we have been putting Annie down for an early nap from 10-12:30. We do "Home Church" while Annie is napping. We realized that Elliot loves any activity where he has our undivided attention, so it has been pretty easy to do. Aaron and I read the "Come, Follow Me" manual together over the week and then take turns teaching to Elliot on Sunday morning. We keep it pretty short and sweet and always end with drawing pictures of whatever we learned about.

Elliot's interpretation of the parable of the sower

New Year's Eve

We spent New Year's Eve flying home. We had some pretty good flights that got us home around 7pm, which would leave us with enough time to get a ride home from the airport and then go over to a little party at the Knell's house. Alas. There was some issue with the plane that delayed our flight 3 hours, causing us to miss our connection into Tucson. The annoying thing was that they pushed the departing time way back, then moved it up to just half an hour away. Then every 15 minutes after that they would push it back another 15 minutes. The rumor at the gate was that the plane was good to go, but the flight crew had left and they struggled to find another one since it was the night of New Year's Eve. They gave us free sandwiches, which only slightly took the sting off our annoyance. We eventually got our very tired kids home and to bed. 

We had quite the surprise when we woke up- Snow! I have never seen snow in Arizona before, and we didn't have any in West Virginia. Elliot slept in so late that he almost missed it. It certainly did not last long, but it was still a cool sight to see. 

The Knells were kid enough to turn the New Year's Eve party into a New Years party a day later. We decided this plan was a must when we realized that we had almost identical New Year's Eve traditions. We went over for dinner and party poppers, then put all the kids to sleep at their house (Elliot did not accept sleeping in the closet quite as well as I hoped he would). We watched The Quiet Place and Kind Hearts and Coronets and drank Pina Coladas. 

Elliot was ALL ABOUT the party poppers

2018 was a great year for us. We set a record for most action packed summer, had some dear friends move away, and made some awesome new ones. We are excited to see what 2019 has in store for us!

Lil Aaronhead

Mom Blood brought out a shoebox of old pictures one day, and I had a blast looking at them! Here's some pictures I took of the pictures. We'll have to get them scanned someday. 

Wasn't he just adorable?

Stephen, Elizabeth, Aaron, and Timmy in some classic halloween costumes

Just a lil Aaron clowning around

Blood fam 1989. Aaron is the baby.

West Virginia

We spent Christmas with the Bloods in West Virginia. All seven Blood Brothers were there, but none of the three sisters made it. Altogether it was a pretty good group! We stayed at Stephen and Claudia's house. That meant driving half an hour back and forth to Grandma and Grandpa's house every day, but that was balanced out by nice quiet mornings where we got to sleep in. Most of us had varying degrees of colds, so the extra sleep (and access to Claudia's nyquil supply) was very appreciated. We also got to have late night board games with Stephen. Aaron decided to boycott Blood Rage after one night, but then Stephen got a new game called Puerto Rico to fill the rest of the nights.

Annie was happy to be reunited with her old friend, the flight safety information pamphlet

Angel baby slept 1 hour on the flight out there and 2 hours on the way home (only woke up because Elliot dropped a water bottle on her)

Annie made herself right at home by consuming all the bananas and breaking the snow globe

Our resident epidemiologist taught us the most effective method for sharing germs. I was BLOWN AWAY by Timmy's impressive lung capacity.

Much of the break was spent with the menfolk playing Warcraft on the laptops

The crew after church on Sunday

We went back to the church later that night for a cousin talent show. My kids showcased their ability to take their shoes off and run around distracting everyone. 

On Christmas Eve, we gathered to have the kids act out the Nativity. Dad Blood was the narrator like always. Afterwards he bore his testimony. My father-in-law is such a humble, spiritual man. Sadly, he is also a very soft spoken man and it is always hard to hear him over the kids. 

Elliot was a wise man who spent the whole time insisting he was actually Joseph

Ethan was a superb baby Jesus

And then it was Christmas morning! It is always a bit of a mad scene. They go youngest to oldest, having each kid open all their gifts when it is their turn.

Annabelle LOVES the baby doll from Grandma Blood

Elliot's turn!

We also got to chat with Sister Blood that day! 

Two weeks is a long time to stay cooped up inside, so we went on a few outings. 

There aren't too many parks with old school merry-go-rounds anymore

 We were at the old park when we got a call that they had discovered an awesome brand new park over by the wave pool. This park had it all, including a ninja warrior style obstacle course with a big timer and a 40 yard dash, also with a big timer display. It had sensors underneath the turf that determined the start and stop times. The brothers had an amusing healthy competition.

The obstacle course

Uncle Timmy is the fun one

These things are awesome

She'll be climbing with the rest of them before we know it. In the meantime, she tried her best to saturate herself in cold puddle water. 

Another essential activity: kickball and dodgeball in the church gym

Also a trip to the Clay Center. Props to Claudia for working some coupon magic

Dad Blood was kind enough to take everyone out for dinner while Mom Blood watched all of the kids. We took Annie with us because she's good in restaurants and we worried about her tumbling down the stairs in the chaos at Claudia's house. We also went on an anniversary double date lunch to Thai Valley with Jonny and Megan. 

Annabelle is screaming in this picture because she decided to grab the ice cube in my cup. Letting it go was apparently not an option.

 The last surprise of the trip was that Stephen and Cluadia got a puppy for Christmas! They decided to wait until the day we left to pick it up to minimize the craziness. Probably a good call.

Admiring their new pup

For some reason, they decided it was super fun to lock themselves in the cage? Kids are strange. 

All in all it was a great vacation with some swell people.