February 2025

March 2, 2025

We've had a sunny week here in Lehi, and enjoyed getting outside a little more with a few walks to the lake and time in the backyard. Hinckley and I went skiing at Brighton and had a great time! The sky was a rich blue without a trace of clouds and it was around 50 degrees. Hinckley kept saying how much fun he was having and I'm considering doing a yearly trip down to Brianhead so he can ski more than once a year. We'll see. Adelaide had a lot of fun playing with Kate and Sadie on Saturday, she was so excited about that! She is in a community play (Alice in Wonderland) and the final production is fast approaching. Greyson had a fun night over at Grandma and Grandpa Burnsides in SLC and came back with stories of donuts, swimming, and also saw ski jumpers in Park City. He was also excited this week to celebrate Dr Suess day at school and wanted to wear his Grinch shirt and a bow tie to commemorate the occasion.

Ready to ski

"Doing the Dew"

Going down one of his first Blues

Amazing day at the edge of the lake

Greyson in class

Greyson sunbathing while I take down Christmas lights

Dessi/Dezzy? (We still don't know how to spell his nickname so I usually just write Des or Desmond...) graduated to using a full size bathtub and loved the extra water to splash and kick in! His favorite things right now include going outside, grabbing books off the shelf, the bunnies, and biting Kassie's shoulders and legs when he gets the chance. I finally got the baby gate installed on the top of the stairs so he is now licensed to roam on the second floor which is a good thing. Kassie and I had a fun date going to a choir concert our friend was singing in...and it was while we were there we discovered Teresa Dickson was in the same choir and it was one of Ron Staheli's final concerts as a director.

Kicking with Adelaide

Splashing time

 February 23, 2025
This week we began a new chapter of life with Desmond starting to crawl and of pet ownership. Athena and Artemis are female bunnies of a few years in age and are very mild and patient. Greyson was very excited about cleaning up their poop (not sure why) but is less excited now that he has done it once. Desmond loves them and vacillates between the real bunnies and his "Pat the Bunny" book. He has been rapidly gaining confidence in his crawling abilities and loves going for the books to tear out pages. He is still a little tentative and slow, but it's a matter of time he turns on the jets and begins full on wreck mode any chance he can get!

Addie and Athena

Greeting the bunnies

Des says hi

 

Dead Horse Point

Wiped out

Sand Dune Arch

Waiting for dinner at Moab Grill

Window Arch

Morning brother reading time

Ready for Delicate Arch

Delicate Arch

Hinckley, Kassie, and John under Delicate

Delicate Arch

We had some more snow this week and it was nice to get out of it for a bit with our small trip to Arches Friday through Saturday. We drove down and visited Dead Horse Point State Park and saw some arches, and then the next morning we hiked Delicate Arch. Everyone did a really good job, and Desmond managed pretty well too. Kassie's parents came down with us and all in all it was a good time for everybody.

February 16, 2025

We got some more snow this week which was met with rejoicing, hot chocolate, and many hours of kids playing outside. It was wonderful! Des really liked seeing the snow and thought it was pretty funny. He laughed whenever we held him up to the window to look at it as it fell. He also thought it was funny to see the fire when I turned the fireplace on and was just dying to touch the scalding glass. He's sleeping much better at night and finally seems to be over whatever sickness it was he had earlier this month.

Desmond experiences fire for the first-ish time

Coming in from the snow

Deacon temple trip

Hinckley had an early morning Deacons temple trip this week and I got to tag along. It is a whole new world driving deacons to and fro. The boys were pretty sedated on the way there, but the full force of those squirrely youth of Zion came out on our way home haha. Hinckley loves being a Deacon and can't wait for the young men's camp this summer which will be in Wallsburg UT. He's been pining for a haircut and on Saturday we got it done and he is transformed! He seems to think it is ok.


Addie had her last day of cheerleading on Saturday and it went well. She'd had some difficulties with the tumbling portion that had been a trial but all ended well and she seemed to have positive feelings about it all. It's great she has been able to try so many different things to explore what is out there.

 

Bath boy

Valentine pancakes/radioactive bunnies

Valentine baby

Addie's cheer  team

Swinging brothers

Greyson has been dying with anticipation for his Wimpy Kid book to arrive that he purchased online with his own allowance money. He continues to read like his life depends on it and takes great satisfaction that all the kids in his class recognize him for his reading ability. He has a special Valentine in his class (who is also in our ward) and they exchanged very cute notes and gifts - he made her a perler bead heart.


The Valentines Day Kicker (a tradition in our home) surprised everyone by coming before school this time and thwarted everyone's plans to catch him this year. Hinckley is planning an elaborate motion-activated video monitoring system for next year's Valentine's day to catch the kicker. We'll see if that will work out haha. Everyone brought home a large haul of candy and valentines. It was quite something! I attempted making pink heart pancakes...they were more like radioactive bunny heads, but overall everyone enjoyed them!

In-character shot

Normal shot

Saturday night we hosted a couples "Murder Mystery Dinner" (with drinks and snacks and no dinner) with 3 other couples. Kassie had requested this for her birthday, and we all had a lot of fun! It turned out that she was the murderer haha. We are celebrating Kassie some more today on her birthday! We are having veggie lasagna and the Burnsides are coming down to visit and bringing 7-layer cookies. Yum.

February 9, 2025

This week most of the remaining remnants of sickness left us alone and we are back on our feet. I had a fun birthday on Friday - thanks for all the kind words and outreach! In the morning I took Addie and Greyson to get free soda and popcorn at Grease Monkey where they did an emissions test on one of our cars and renewed the registration. That is always a hit haha. Afterwards Kassie took all the kids to swim in the rec center and Des loved getting in the deeper water where he could splash and be close to Mom. To celebrate my 36 years I took the three older kids to see "Dogman" in the theater which we enjoyed. Afterwards John and Naomi Burnside came down and we ate some beloved eclair cake and Bajio knock-off food (Costa Vida) too. I'm grateful for all the good people in my life!

Des swims

Eclair cake

Greyson coupon gifts

Walking near UT lake with the boys

Distracted during Elders Quorum

Baby in a box

Kitchen fun

Sister cuddles

Hinckley's tickle machine

Kassie started a 3-week Thai cooking class through the UVU continuing education community classes they offer and I have already enjoyed some of the fruits of that labor. YUM! Hinckley, Addie, and Greyson had parent-teacher-conferences this week and everyone is doing well. Addie completed her challenge Kassie had issued to ask other girls to play during recess and she has found a good set of girls who she can play with. She celebrated with a movie night on Saturday in which she and her close neighborhood friends watched (and sang/acted along with) "Wicked". Their obsession is a marvel to behold and very cute. The boys have found ways to assert their views that it isn't that good...but they couldn't leave the room either so I don't put much validity in their disdain.


Desmond shattered his 2-nights-in-a-row-sleeping-all-night record this week! He is now going on 8 full nights of all night sleep and we are filled with gratitude and joy. He still won't crawl forward but has a great system for moving backwards and to either side. For now it is enough to accomplish his goals and also served him in his first Library book attack in which he came off conqueror. We've finished all the Spider-Man movies with Hinckley and he really enjoyed those. It's clear we have an emerging teen amongst us!