January 2021

We did lots with chocolate this month because Henry's chef subscription box was all about chocolate.  He started out the month making us a chocolate cake.

At the beginning of the month Alex was ordained a Deacon and James was ordained a Teacher.  Because William is a Priest he got to assist in the ordinations.  Pretty awesome!  We will now have a Deacon, Teacher, and Priest until the year Henry turns 14.  I am so proud of the young men they are all becoming.

We took our annual trip to play at Gravady.  It's always a good time!

Lydia took time to smell our winter roses.

One night some monsters attacked Lydia's Barbie house!

Lydia had a great time in gymnastics!

Henry and Lydia were learning about government in school so they decided to hold an election.  They presented speeches to the whole family and made campaign posters all around the house!

We also watched Joe Biden's inauguration.

For Henry's chocolate box we did a chocolate taste testing.

We did a chocolate science experiment. 

We also made some of our own chocolates.

Henry is always cool... but he's especially awesome when he has a million pairs of glasses on.

Henry and Lydia can't resist playing in the rain... we were so lucky to get a little rain!

And then, the next morning, we woke up to snow!  The kids had a great time playing in it and it was all melted by 10 am.

Sundays in quarantine

Our first week of "at home" church was very nice (and short).  We weren't given permission to administer the sacrament at home that day but we still sang and James gave a talk.  Rich was funny with the announcements while he conducted!

We were given permission the next week to have the sacrament in our home which was so nice and such a blessing.  I'm glad that William and James were able to bless and pass the sacrament.  I tried to make the living room feel special.




Our primary music leader has been sending out a singing time lesson every week which we love!

After our sacrament meeting we all go have some quiet time so that everyone can read the chapters for Come Follow Me.  Then we are able to come together and have our lesson--and everyone has read it!  It's really nice. 

In preparation for the upcoming General Conference celebrating the 200th year since the First Vision, in addition to memorizing Joseph's account of the First Vision, we followed a painting tutorial and each made a painting of the sacred grove.

 (top to bottom, left to right: Alex, William, Jeanine, James, Lydia, Henry, Rich)

James receives the priesthood

In mid-December 2018 the Church announced that beginning in January all boys that would turn 12 during 2019 would be eligible to be ordained a Deacon and receive the Aaronic priesthood.  For James this meant that he would be able to receive the priesthood a few months earlier than we had expected.  

Today he was ordained to the office of a Deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood--exactly 2 months before his 12th birthday.  

We are proud of him for his righteous desires and his behaviors which have helped him to be worthy to have this responsibility.

Cedar City

Since the beginning of the year when they announced that the Cedar City temple would be completed in the Fall I've been looking forward to taking our family to the open house.  The tickets were gone in seconds and we were unable to get any for the day we wanted to go... so we decided to head up and hope that we didn't have to wait too long to tour the temple.

We woke up really early to drive up so that we could get there when they were just starting the tours.  We made great time and got there around 9:30.  After parking we took a bus over to the temple.

We were lucked out and were able to get right into the next tour.  The temple is just gorgeous.  I love to point out all the little details to our kids.

Afterward, Lydia wanted to take a picture with Jesus.

I'm so glad we had the opportunity to take our kids to see the temple!

After the bus ride back to the car we changed into comfier clothes.

Since we were nearby we decided to take the opportunity to stop at Staheli Family Farm and see what all the fuss was about.

We had so much fun playing outside in the beautiful weather and exploring the farm there.

These swings were pretty awesome.

Lydia loved seeing all of the animals.

They all really loved jumping on this giant air pillow.

And they loved being rolled around in this giant tube as well.

We even went through a giant corn maze.  Unfortunately, everyone was pretty hungry by now so they were a little grumpy when we went through it.  But we did find our way out!

After the cornmaze we went back to the farm and James participated in a pumpkin seed spitting contest.

We ended our outing by stopping by Chic-fil-A for lunch.  

It was a really great day!  I'm glad that we made the time to take our family up to the new temple!