You know you've made it as a parent when your child uses history (or book references or science, etc) to insult her sibling. (Haha) The other day, Brooke and Camille and Jack were playing in Camille and Jack's room, and they started arguing about something or other. When I came in, Camille complained that Brooke had called her "a King George". This week in history we learned about how unfairly and badly King George III had treated the American colonists. So Brooke had used that against Camille, meaning she was being unfair and unkind. I had to laugh about it. I never condone name-calling. But that was just so good! 

This week, we had swim lessons for the girls on Thursday. Camille loved it! It was her most favorite thing about that day. Brooke was less enthused about it. I'm not sure why. She loves swimming. Maybe she felt it was too easy for her. Jack starts swim lessons this week, and he is so excited... I think. He'll probably get all nervous and refuse to go in when it actually comes to it. 

We went to the library after that, and then after we got home and did school, the kids all had kiwico boxes that they wanted to play with and build from. It was a pretty good day for them. 

Sarah Frei and I are doing kids exchanges, and this week we did our first ones. She took my kids on Tuesday so that I could take Brooke on a one hour date. She wanted to go shopping and spend all her money, so we went to Smith's. She bought a journal and some glitter gel pens. We got snacks and drinks, she got a treat at 7-11, and that was it. But it was fun! 

Then the next day, I took Sarah's kids so that she could take one of her kids out. I think the arrangement went pretty well! It was nice to spend that one on one time with Brooke. We don't get to do that often enough. 

We've started a new thing this year. Every year for the past 3 years, I've tried to focus my family on something new and good for us. In 2019, we memorized a scripture every month together. 2020 was an off year (+ I was pregnant and had a new baby, so I call a pass). But last year, we memorized the Articles of Faith together, and learned the primary songs that go with them. 

This year, I told my family that we are focusing on service. My goal is to do one bigger service project every month, preferably the first Saturday of the month. We've had kind of a rocky start this year; we had some busy Saturdays, and I kept forgetting that we needed go do our service project. But yesterday, we finally did it. Daniel wanted to make a couple of batches of bread to give to people in our ward who are having a hard time. And also to our neighbors across from us, who we don't know and/or hardly ever talk to. We made the bread together, and then went to deliver them to people. Lots of people weren't home, or didn't answer the door. And we went to a bunch of people not on our list. But we did eventually give away all of the bread, and hopefully made some people feel loved and thought of. 

In all honesty, the kids weren't into our project. They didn't help in making the second batch of bread; the girls were more interested in playing with their dolls, and Jack just wanted to draw. And when we delivered bread, they complained about being bored when we talked too long, or they were frustrated about how long it was taking. When we got in the car to drive the last few loaves around, they all stayed in the car. 

Hopefully, the important thing here is that we did it anyway. And that they saw us trying to serve the best we can, even if it doesn't always work out perfectly like you want it to. And that we did it even though some didn't want to.  

I failed to get a picture though, darn it. I'll have to be better the rest of the year about that. 

After our service project, we took the kids to the pool to swim, and then picked up pizza for them for dinner. At home, we frantically fed them, cleaned up, got them ready and put to bed, because we had the Freis over for snacks and game night. We had a great time with them. I love them so much. We played one game that they brought, but mostly we just talked and ate. Sarah and I both made little charcuterie boards for snacks: I made a savory one, and she made a sweet one. And it was perfect. That was dinner for Daniel and me. I knew it would be delish, so I just skipped dinner in favor of snacks, haha. And I was so proud of how it turned out. 

Also, I had a happy accident in food yesterday. I wanted to make a plant based ranch dip, and I just winged it. I had some leftover cashew cream cheese that I whipped up with some almond milk, and then I added some of my ranch seasoning mix into it, and it turned out soooo good! It was very fun to have experimented and had it work out so well. 

• One morning, after my workout, Jack asked if we could play together for a while. I was thinking, "I need to shower and get ready so we can start school on time." But he convinced me to play with him. I set a time for 10 minutes and we played together, and it was great. Later that evening, Jack said our dinner or family prayer, and he thanked Heavenly Father for all the good things that had happened for him that day. He thank Heavenly Father for being able to play with mommy that morning. 😭❤
• One thing I want to remember is how funny Sawyer was the other day. I was trying to feed him some cheesy eggs before a nap, but he was all over the place, walking around and playing. Every so often, he would come charging across the dining room and kitchen,  with his mouth open wide the whole time, for a bite of egg. It was hilarious, and he had all of us cracking up. 
• One day this last week, Jack was throwing a tantrum over something or other. Can't remember what it was. But he turned to me at one point and said, "I woke up on the wrong side of the bed! That's why I'm having a tantrum!" He's been saying the funniest things lately. 

The kids wanted to be burritos. They called them something else, though... torpedos??

Sawyer just wanted to play in the sink all day. I think he would if I let him. 

• We were all sick for the first part of this month. Well, Daniel and I weren't sick. Just the kids. But it hit them one by one. It was especially sad for Sawyer because he was just needy and clingy and just wanted to sit with me all day. Poor little guy. 
• The kids decided to do "kid days" this week. They started on Friday with "Brookie Day". They set up the bathroom for a "spa" experience, complete with cute decorations. They painted her nails and had cucumbers (which she ate, instead of putting over her eyes 😆). It was completely adorable. I think yesterday was Camille's "spa day". 😍

• We got passes to the aquarium this week. We finished our science unit on marine biology, and it felt like the perfect way to cap our learning experience. We ran into our friends, the Swinyards, so we explored the aquarium with them, which was so fun. 

NOLA

 I went on a girls trip!! Oh my goodness, it was so fun. DeAnna and I had been planning it for maybe 3/4 of a year last year. She kinda said, "sooo, since we are both turning 35 in the next year, I think we should go on a girls trip!" We invited Sarah to come with us, and a number of other women, who couldn't make it work. So it just ended up being the 3 of us. 

We discussed all the different places we could go, but landed on New Orleans. None of us had ever been there, and we all thought it could be really fun. 

We spent a few weeks during December planning what we wanted to do, and Sarah and DeAnna made all the reservations for us. 

I made arrangements for mom and dad to come watch my kids for that weekend. They drove 2 days to get here, because of weather and road closures, and I felt so bad that I'd even asked them to come in the dead of winter. They were very kind and gracious about it, though. They said they couldn't pass up an opportunity to be with the kids. 

Our flight left midday Thursday, January 6th. It was so strange to be going somewhere without my kids. But also, travel was so easy!! We didn't get to sit with each other on the plane. But that was okay. I dozed off a bit and read a book. 

Our first night there, after getting settled into our hotel (which was on Canal Street, right on the edge of the French Quarter of downtown New Orleans), we wandered right into the area of New Orleans we were supposed to stay away from. Apparently, Bourbon Street is major sketch. We were told that as 3 women, by ourselves, we shouldn't be wandering down Bourbon Street. We didn't really know where we were going, so it was totally by accident. And when we were walking down the street, we each, individually, were feeling very uncomfortable, slightly nervous, and thinking to ourselves, "what have we gotten ourselves into?!?" 

We walked around trying to find a place to eat, and eventually stopped at a place on Bourbon Street. We ordered very New Orleans food: fried alligator, jambalaya, gumbo, and rice and red beans. It was all delicious. We were surprised by how much we liked the alligator, but the jambalaya was definitely the favorite. 

After dinner, we walked down a few streets and stopped to watch a Mardi Gras parade, the Joan of Arc parade, the first one this Mardi Gras season. It was quite an interesting experience. At one point, some guy randomly laid down in the middle of the street. He was clearly drunk, and they had to recruit a bunch of guys to pick him up and move him off the parade route. 

Also, people kept giving us stuff. I must have one of those faces, because I got way more than DeAnna or Sarah: French flag, necklaces, cards, tokens, etc.

One of the other sketch things that happened that first night was that random guys kept trying to hang beads around our necks, which is NOLA code for, "take off your shirt". One guy went for DeAnna first, and after she said, "No thank you," he came for me. I had to put my hand up to block him putting it over my head! It was a little creepy. 

We walked back to our hotel after the parade and just watched TV and talked until we went to bed. That first night of sleeping was extremely hard. One of my friends is... shall we say, a loud sleeper (something I had never even considered would be a problem... but I should've at least thought of it). I had a very hard time falling asleep, and then I was restless. 

At around 630am, after less than 6 hours of broken sleep, I woke up, and, knowing I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, got up and went to the gym. Sarah woke up too and joined me. I was glad to at least get that in before or day started. 

We walked down the street a ways to rent a car for the day, and drove out of the city for a while for a plantation tour. There were a number of plantations in the area; we went to Oak Alley Plantation. It was beautiful. The front entry is the main house was lined with dozens of huge, crazy old oak trees. The house was pink, and it had gardens, and it was lovely. We learned a lot about plantations, about growing and processing sugar, and about how slaves lived on the plantations. It was interesting and sobering.

We had lunch on the plantation: fried green tomatoes with some delicious shrimp sauce on it, and gumbo and crayfish ettoufee. It was delicious! 

Our next event was a swamp tour. We got in this old metal boat and had the most hysterical tour guide: an old 60s-70s year old man, all grizzled and hairy and telling stories and saying hilarious things. We saw a bunch of gators, some turtles, and even raccoons on the shore of the river. Our guide had a baby gator on the boat, and he brought it around to show us. We got to pet it! 

After our adventures, we drove back into the city and returned the car. We decided to walk to different places for dinner that night. We had soufflé potatoes, fried shrimp and appropriate drinks at some ritzy bar. Then we hopped down Bourbon Street to Cafe Beignet for our first sampling of beignets. 

This was possibly my favorite experience of the trip (it's hard to say, really. The whole thing was incredible). The atmosphere was just so good. It was an outdoor courtyard type situation, with cute Cafe lighting and tables and bronze statues of jazz players. We went to the very back of this courtyard to the little building to order our beignets, and then found a table right under an outdoor heater (it was so cold that day), right by a live jazz band. The band was so fun, the lights were so twinkly, the beignets were so warm and delicious. It was the perfect atmospheric experience, stimulating all 5 senses, and I just loved it. ❤️ 

We went to get a slice of pizza afterwards. We each got a piece and then shared all 3 with each other. It was the perfect dinner, and I'm still dreaming of those soufflé potatoes and Buffalo chicken pizza. So good! 

When we were done, we walked down to a voodoo shop for the start of our ghost tour. The ghost tour consisted of a tour guide (all dressed in black, with black lipstick, for effect, I'm assuming) walking a whole big group of us around the French Quarter, stopping at certain places and telling us rather creepy (sometimes grotesque) scary ghost stories. It was actually quite fun! There were a few times we had to huddle together, not just for warmth, but because we were creeped out! We also learned quite a lot of history of New Orleans, and because we were walking everywhere, we got to know the city pretty well that night. In the days that followed, we basically could navigate on our own around the French Quarter and know where we were. 

We got back to our hotel after our ghost tour and basically went right to sleep. This time we used a sound machine and we all slept easy better that night. 

The next day, we started out with a bus tour around the city, which was fascinating and so much better than we thought it would be. Our tour guide taught us history and culture of the city, told stories, pointed out architecture and gave us details about hurricane Katrina, which was so sad and sobering. We stopped at a cemetery, which was so interesting because they bury their people in New Orleans so differently than most cities do, because of the flooding that sometimes happens and because the land sits below sea level in most areas. We loved the bus tour! We learned so much! 

Our tour guide taught us that people from New Orleans (called "Yats") don't say, "hey, what's up?" "Not much." Their version of that greeting conversation is, "Where y'at?" And the proper response to that question is, "Yeah, ya right." What?! 😂😂😂 Thereafter, we kept saying that to each other. 

When our tour was done, we headed back to the French Quarter to wander around before our next appointment. We walked around Jackson Square and looked at the artists displaying their art, saw a historical 1850s house, went to the jazz museum for about an hour, did some window shopping and stopped at Cafe Du Monde for their famous beignets. They were better than the ones we had the night before, and completely delicious. 

We had a cooking class with the New Orleans cooking school. It was more of a demonstration, really. We didn't do any coming ourselves, but we learned how to make certain New Orleans dishes: creamy shrimp soup, crawfish ettoufee, and pralines. Sarah and I thought it was all delicious. DeAnna didn't like the ettoufee. We left with recipes to make them at home, and we each bought some of the spices he used in his food. 

That night we stayed in. I think we meant to just go back to the hotel to rest for an hour or so and then go back out. But we ended up just talking and snacking on junk food for hours into the night. And by the time we started getting hungry again, it was, like, 11pm, way too late to be going out to eat again. We had eaten so many snacks that we didn't really get hungry for real food until it was too late. And we stayed up for, like, 3 more hours after that! 🤦🏽‍♀️🙈

We were a little tired that next morning. 😂 We got up and ready (and missed church... we had planned to go to a catholic mass while we were there because church was farther away and earlier. There's a huge catholic presence in New Orleans.... But we took too long getting ready. It was a nice leisurely morning), and walked out to the bus stop, where we caught a bus to take us out to the Garden District. We had to take a bus and then a street car to get out to where we wanted to go. It was kinda fun riding the street car (no, it's not called a "trolley" in New Orleans. Don't get that wrong!). 

We went to famous Camellia's for Po Boys for lunch. It was an adorable place, just a little diner style place, but completely open inside. There was no back kitchen; all the grills and ranges were right there, and the cooks made the food right in front of us. We each got a different one and shared them. Our favorite was probably the fried shrimp one. 

After we finished, we walked around in the Garden District, looking at all the bigger, nicer houses of New Orleans. And we caught a street car and bus to take us back into the city. 

When we got back, we did the river walk, walking down a plaved path among the Mississippi River. The sun was setting, and it was beautiful. We explored a few places along the way, like Jackson brewery (a shopping center that we didn't stay long at), a drink bar where DeAnna got some kind of ice cream drink, and we also went to look at a bar that features in a TV show that DeAnna watched. 

We wandered around the French Quarter, looking for a good place to eat. We eventually stopped at a sports bar type place and had salads (because we had been eating so much rich food, we all felt like we needed to eat something a little healthier). Sarah and I got shrimp and scallops on our salads and shared, but we were kind of disappointed because at least 1/3 of the greens were wilted and going bad. It was kinda gross, but we tried not to complain too much. It seemed to us that people don't normally order salad when they come to New Orleans. 😆

We ordered bananas foster Beignet fries for dessert and they were AMAZING. So so good! 

We wandered over to a jazz bar that we'd seen at the beginning of the week, called Magnolia Jazz Bar. One of the things that both Sarah and I wanted was to experience some good jazz, and we were scouting out places from the very start. We finally, the last night we were there, went to listen to some jazz. The bar required us to buy drinks for every set of music, so we ordered something virgin and delicious; some kind of ginger beer based drink. It was good! The jazz was better. It was so fun. We listened and made comments and reminisced about the instruments we used to play in band. The band was fun and chatted with everyone and it was one of the more enjoyable experiences. 

We didn't stay too long at the jazz place; we stayed for one set, and then headed back to our hotel. We didn't stay up as late as the night before, but I think it was still after midnight. We stopped at a local CVS to stock up on snacks, played a few games and ate pretzels and m&ms.

Our last few hours in New Orleans were spent wandering the French Quarter, going back to Café Du Monde for another round of beignets and hot chocolate, shopping at the French Quarter Market, getting souvenirs for our people, and having another Po Boy, a muffalatta (which ended up being one of my favorite new foods from New Orleans) and crab cakes for lunch, touring through the old cathedral and hanging out in Jackson Square. 

We got everything packed up before we went out, so when we got to our hotel, we ordered an Uber, grabbed our bags and went to the airport. Our trip was over. 

It was so much fun! I loved every minute of it! We did so many cool and different activities, we experienced new things, ate new food and experienced a different culture. We spent time together and bonded, we got a break from our normal lives and the expectations everyone has of us, we talked and laughed, we were all happy, there was no drama or competition. We each were fully pleased with everything we did. It was perfect. And it's given me a newfound taste for girls trips. 😊😬

My impressions of New Orleans: 

• It's quite a raucous and lascivious town, full of mischief and debauchery. As we were walking down Bourbon Street, I looked up into a window and saw a room with dim lighting and... poles. 😬😬😬 It's all about drinking a ton, eating too much rich food, establishments of ill repute, and doing whatever one feels like doing. That first night we were there, I felt very uncomfortable, and wondered, "what have I gotten myself into? I certainly don't belong here. Because I'm not into debauchery."
• It's full of rich culture, which I absolutely loved. The food, the music, the general feeling of it was so different and fun. The history is so pervasive in the culture as well, and the architecture. Catholicism is very present, which is kind of ironic considering all of the debauchery.
• It's known as "The Big Easy" because of it's easy feeling and the kind of looseness that it emanates. 
• There are a lot of homeless people, one of the sad effects of hurricane Katrina. Also lots of crazy people. There was one woman that we saw literally every day we were there. It seemed she just hung out and wandered around the French Quarter, a real presence in the town. She wrote these bright flamboyant clothes, ruffley shirts and hats, and she just danced everywhere she went. She was there at the parade, there crossing the street to Café Du Monde, there on the streets. 
• There were also a ton of street performers and live jazz bands everywhere, which meant music no matter where we went. It was quite pleasant, really. 
• At the beginning of the trip, I was nervous about being there. At the end of the trip, I loved the feel of the town, despite the debauchery, and I loved the culture and food and music. 

Look at these adorable snowmen the girls painted at paint class today! They do watercolor paint class with Tenille Roylance, who's in our ward (she's the primary president). And they always do such cute projects and they love it so much. (Camille's isn't done yet) 

 Jack: "Mom, this picture reminds me of Jesus. Because of the heart reminds me that Jesus loves me." ❤️ 

It's actually a picture of a t-rex holding a heart with a bite taken out of it. He and the girls did an art for kids hub video and drew it together. 

My husband must love me. He went out tonight with Brooke and brought me home a bouquet of flowers and a swig drink. Just because. ❤

This last week of break for us has been good. 

Monday Daniel took Brooke night skiing, and I did a mini family home evening with Camille and Jack. 

We took Aleah's family, Rebekah and her girls, mom and Jennie to the Dino museum with us on Tuesday. And they came over afterwards to hang out and let the cousins play and have dinner. Mom bought pizza for everyone for dinner. 

Wednesday, the girls had play dates with friends: Brooke with Claire and Camille with Peyton. While they were occupied at friends houses, I took the boys to do grocery shopping and run a couple errands. It was very nice only having the boys with me for errands. Not so chaotic as usual. 

Thursday afternoon, after Sawyer's nap, we went to Emily's house so the kids could play with clay and create things. Aleah and her kids were there too. They had so much fun, and they asked when we could do it again. 

Friday was new year's eve. Daniel and I started a cleaning/ dejunking/ reorganizing project. Daniel has been kind of antsy about the garage and how messy and unorganized it always. And I've been antsy about how messy and unorganized the storage rooms always are. Daniel went on Monday to get a shelf unit and wood to complete some of his projects, and concluded that it would be cheaper and easier to get rid of stuff (the shelf was really expensive). And I was like, "Well, yes. This is what I always say. Get rid of stuff."

So we started on new years eve. Getting rid of things, reorganizing stuff and putting up shelves. We kept working on it yesterday, and it's already looking so much better. But we still have a lot to do. 

We had the Smiths over on new year's eve for dinner and games. The kids played games together and we had dinner and then we played a few games altogether with the kids, one of which was a virtual reality game. One person was in the vr goggles, and the rest of us played on our devices. It was fun, but we are so inexperienced with video games, it was kinda hard. 

We split, then, to put all our kids to bed, and then they came back over to play games without the kids. It was a fun night! 

Yesterday, after working on cleaning projects for a bunch of the day, we took the kids sledding for about an hour. Jack was done first. I don't think he even went down the hill once. He just complained about being cold, and then cried until I took him to the car. Camille quit shortly after that. She went down a couple of times, and then complained that her hands and feet were too cold. So Daniel took her to the car. I went down with Sawyer a number of times, and then he was done too. Only Brooke really had fun. She loved it and could've gone a lot longer, if the other kids hadn't been such stinkers. It was getting dark, too, though. So we left. We need to get these kids used to the cold, so we can play in it more! 

This year, I'm not making goals. Well, I'm sure I will make goals, but none for the entire year. Last year I made 2 or 3 goals for each category, like how the church does goal setting for the kids: physical, mental, social, and spiritual. And I did pretty well. I didn't lose all the baby weight, but I'm really close, and I think I'll get there in a few months. And I didn't hike timpanogos, because we were in Alaska when that was supposed to happen. But I did my other goals, not completely for the whole year, but mostly (for example, my desire to follow the news petered out the last few months of the year).

And while I did complete most of my goals, it was overwhelming at times, trying to get it done. And I didn't enjoy life as much as I feel I should've. That's not how I want goals to feel. I want to feel motivated, not overwhelmed. 

So this year, I'm not setting goals to complete for the year, except one: get ready for a baby. 😊 I would like to prepare my body and my home to welcome another baby into our family. I've been feeling more of a sense of urgency to have what I believe will be our last baby. And I've been feeling more and more that someone is missing, even when we're all together. But I always feel overwhelmed by the house and the kids and the stuff after having a baby. That's normal. But I'd like to lessen that sense as much as possible by preparing. Preparing my body by getting stronger and fitter, so that I can bear a cold. Preparing my home by organizing and getting rid of as much as I can, so that I don't feel overwhelmed after having a baby. 

That's it. That's the only goal I have for this year. That's all I want to get done. I'll likely make a to-do list for the year, and I'll likely have monthly goals. But that's it for yearly goals. My main purpose in doing it this way, different from how I've done it in the past, is so that I can enjoy my life and my kids more. They're growing up fast. Brooke turns 10 this year!! I want to be more present with them, enjoy them and get to know them better this year. So I don't want to feel burdened and cumbered about much by my goals and personal plans. I just want to have more fun.