December 2019

 Teya's school dance performance for all of the dance classes.  Because they offer dances classes IN SCHOOL here!!

Nolan has been a little behind in losing his teeth and finally lost his first top tooth this month!

He wanted me to take this picture so he could see what he looked like when crossing his eyes.

One of the best parts of this month was that I got to work with Marlow on his birthday! He had been talking about it for weeks and so you can only imagine how exciting the actual day was for him!  His mom's work decorated the break room for him and threw him a little party, I brought him a present and my 3 kids made him cards which he LOVED, then we went and delivered Meals on Wheels and he told every person that it was his birthday and some people gave him small gifts.  His mom thanked me for making the day so memorable for him but I let her know that he made it much more memorable for all of us!! 

 Us at Jared's work Christmas party.  He won a TV in a raffle!!!  (We sold it, of course).

 Volunteering at the food pantry with Marlow.  Have I mentioned that I have THE BEST JOB EVER?

 Dallin's ballroom club had performance for parents.

 Nolan's basketball team.

Jared's awesome parking job at Nolan's game.  We had a good laugh over that!!

Teya's dance performance through her dance studio, for the parents:

 Jared ripped up the carpet in our living room and started on extending the tile that's in our kitchen, into our living room.  We bought the extra tile a year or two ago in anticipation of this so that they wouldn't stop making it and we'd be out of luck!  We were SO excited to be rid of our ugly brown carpet!!! 

 Nolan was very interested in what Jared was doing.

 Drawing in church

And another top tooth gone!!! 

 Nolan was dying to make orange juice out of a couple of oranges we had left over.

I played a game of Battleship with Dallin one night and it did NOT go well for me.  Mine is the board on the right- he sunk every one of my ships before I even HIT one of his!!!  (We lost one ship so were only playing with 4 each).

 Progress!  

 The red things in the pics level out the tile so Jared doesn't have to do it, it was a huge time saver!

 He taught the boys (and me) to cut (break) the tile in straight lines with this thing.

Teya came to work with me one day over Christmas break.  

 Teya put on a recital for her piano and ukulele students at an assisted living facility.  It was AMAZING and the residents LOVED it!  She conducted it and made up programs and gave each student a treat and said something about each of them at the end.  Nolan and Dallin each performed their Christmas piano songs, even though Melanie is actually their teacher.

 This is her student Shelby playing the ukulele. 

 The tile took a few days longer than it should have because tiles kept popping up!!!!!  This has NEVER happened to Jared before in the 16-ish years he has been laying tile, and I asked the guy at the tile store about it, and he had never heard of it happening either!!  He figured it must be that the thinset was too old, so he got new thinset and had to spend a day fixing all of the loose tile.  

We went out to eat one night, and the waiter made the mistake of telling Jared that there were free refills on his strawberry lemonade.  Jared had 5 or 6 of these huge mugs full and his stomach was about to explode!  I wanted to stop by a store but Jared said he just needed to hurry home and lay down and stretch out his stomach and then he needed to hurry home before his bladder burst.  Oh my gosh, I laughed SOOOO hard!!!

 Nolan really wanted to learn how to make french toast on his own.  He even took my small liquid measuring cup and wrote, "milk" on the line where Jared said to fill it up with milk, and put the measuring cup in his room for next time.  

 Gingerbread train.  It would NOT stay together, so they ended up just eating the candy.

 Done with the living room and working on the front entry!  Two days before Christmas!

 We had to finish the front entry with him outside, it was a little cold, haha.  This was CHRISTMAS EVE!!!

Our new living room floor!!!  It is SOOOO beautiful!!!  I keep saying how I was just excited to get rid of our gross carpet, I had no idea how much I'd LOVE the tile in here!!  It makes the whole room look so much better, I love it!!!  We are SO blessed with Jared's talents!!!