Lydia is 12 months old

Lydia is one! At her appointment, she weighed in at 29 lbs! What?!?! Where did my little baby who was losing weight go?

Daily Schedule:

Wakes up around 8-9ish. She sleeps in.

Takes one to two naps a day. Mostly two but if it's the weekend and she sleeps in, we only fit one nap in.

Her naps are about 1.5 hours in length. Every now and then, it is longer (or shorter).

Bedtime is around 8:30/9pm. After the big kids go to bed. Since her bad cold/infection over Christmas, Lydia has slept through the night every night. Sleep is wonderful!

Likes: Me, walks in the stroller, playing rough and tumble with Tanner, swinging in the hammock, carrots, broccoli, loading the dishwasher, baths, walking a bunch.

Dislikes: Anyone except me.

After Ashton and Gemma, I said no baby could possibly be more sensitive or clingy. And then I had Lydia. She barely tolerates Joseph. She cries and screams if a stranger or another adult even thinks about looking at her. This makes school pick up at the door really fun.

Words: Lydia can say Mamama and Dadada. She also says ba-ba for bath, which is cute. As soon as she hears, "bath," she goes right up the stairs to the bathtub. And all along the way, she is repeating "ba, ba, ba." I think it's pretty clear she knows the understanding of the word as well as the accurate use of it.

Tanner and Lydia continue to have a wonderful relationship.

Tanner's 5th Birthday Interview

 How old are you? 5

What is your favorite color? Blue

What is your favorite animal? Camels

What is your favorite book? Star Wars books

 What is your favorite show? Star Wars shows

 What do you like to eat? Chicken nuggets (same as last year)

What is your favorite game? Yahtzee

What is your favorite thing to do? Have cake

Who is your best friend? Logan (a kid in our neighborhood)

What do you like to do with Daddy? Read books

What do you like to do with Mommy? Watch football games

What is your favorite restaurant? I can't think of any restaurants

Where do you want to go for vacation? To see Aunt Trescha and her house

What do you want to be when you grow up? Football or basketball player

What is your favorite song? When I am Baptized

What is the best time of day? Playing with friends

What makes you happy? Giving hugs to mommy

Tanner turns 5

 Tanner had a wonderful birthday! He celebrated at preschool the day before. Then we had two brothers over to play in the backyard and join us for cake and ice cream. It was about as "social" as we've been for many months.

Tanner couldn't wait to open presents. He chose pancakes (in shapes made by Ashton) and orange juice for breakfast. Then, chicken nuggets and apples for lunch. And dinner... hotdogs. What an easy kid! He also is very particular with food so we're struggling with expanding his options.

At age five, Tanner loves all things adventurous. He enjoys playing with army men and having battles. He loves building things. He LOVES sports. He is often out practicing some sport right after waking up in the morning. He has thrived in preschool and finally gotten the hang of writing letters and understanding how sounds work. Tanner is such a fun boy. He is thoughtful to his sisters (mostly Lydia but sometimes the others). He loves playing with Ashton but also does very well with Gemma. I think he likes to be the boss with Ashton gone.

 

2021 Goals

 Joseph

Physical: Run 2,000 miles over the year

Intellectual: Practice more soup recipes

Social: Play tag games with kids

Spiritual: Lead interactive scripture study with family

 

Casie

Physical: Physical therapy work (I'm doing some therapy for injuries from childbirth/postpartum. It takes several hours a week of appointments and exercises)

Intellectual: Improve family pizza night. I want to challenge myself to find the best crust recipe, sauce, toppings, etc.

Social: Continue to foster non-church playdates and relationships. We have a couple families in the neighborhood that we have gotten to know this school year. I want to continue and increase in those.

Spiritual: Patience! This breaks down into a few additional goals:

1. No online purchases until after 30 days. So if I think of something I want or "need," I have to wait 30 days before buying. Exception is if it is something for the kids (ie Ashton needs new headphones) or the house (our washer needed a replacement part).

2. Study patience in General Conference talks and write quotes around the house. This is to hopefully help me think about it more throughout the day.

3. Decrease yelling at my kids. Ha! I hope I see a decrease but I'm sure my kids won't think so.

4. Do not start another house/fun project until the others are complete. I am prone to starting one project, getting it mostly done but then finding another cooler project to do. I have a firm list of undone projects. I cannot add to that list until the entire list is done. This will help me stick to my plan more and suffer through parts of projects that I don't like as much.

 

Ashton

Physical: practice piano for 15 minutes/daily

Intellectual: Write a long sentence every day

Social: Ask her siblings nicely the first time

Spiritual: Share a scripture about baptism at Family Home Evening

 

Tanner

Physical: Play coach pitch (the next step up from tee ball)

Intellectual: Learn the rules of football or other sports

Social: Get better at cops and robbers! The neighborhood kids get together at least once a week to play cops and robbers. Tanner really wants to get good to beat the 10-12 year olds.

Spiritual: Say better prayers (This one is cute because every time he finishes a prayer, he now asks, "Did I improve my prayer?"

2020 Goal Recap

What a year 2020 was! When we made these goals, we had minimal insight into how the year would turn out. Here is a quick recap of our goals last year.

Ashton: 

 Social: Make a new friend. ACCOMPLISHED and then some.

Intellectual: Learn to read. ACCOMPLISHED. She reads so well now.

Spiritual: Memorize the Articles of Faith. We did not get this accomplished. Oh well.

 Physical: Learning a new art skill. She definitely improved her drawing abilities. We branched out and did some Mo Willems videos over the summer. For Christmas, she received a "How to Draw" book that goes beyond just copying. It explains how to shade and stuff. She has been enjoying that so far.

Casie: 

Social: Be in the moment. I think I did better at this. Hence the lack of pictures throughout the year.

Intellectual: Translate a family history book from Norwegian to English. Ha! Nope, that did not happen. 

Spiritual: Family History (increase blogging as family journal) I feel I improved on this but could still improve more. Spending time writing blog entries is often competing with work hours.

Physical: I definitely had a baby!

Tanner: 

Social: His goal was to plan a vacation day/field trip. With COVID, that did not happen. 

Intellectual: Launch rockets at NASA. He launched one at the very beginning of January and we never got back. His interest in space has waned slightly but I bet we could get back out to the rocket club later this year.

Spiritual: His goal was to become a sunbeam. Poor kid didn't get much time for that.

Physical: Spring season got pushed back to summer and Tanner played. Then, fall ball is only $75 for everything so we signed him up for one more season. We already had the pants and equipment so it was an easy choice. He loves it.

Christmas 2020

 Christmas was wonderful this year. On Christmas Eve, we stayed busy getting our chores done and getting prepped for the next day. That evening, the kids opened their Christmas Eve box for new pajamas and a new family game. The kids loved their pajamas. Ashton got some village/gnome ones. Tanner got a Star Wars shirt and some comfy pants. Gemma got a purple (her favorite color) Frozen nightgown. They were over the moon. The game was actually one from Starlux. I had preordered it over the summer and then decided against it. But they still sent it so considering it was free, it was a nice game.

We spent time playing that and then ate our Jerusalem dinner. Ashton made her own challah bread this year, which she was excited about. We had fish, olives, grape juice, and bread. After dinner, we acted out the nativity story and read scriptures. It was a wonderful night with the kids.

Christmas morning was a typical Christmas morning. The kids enjoyed opening gifts and playing with their toys. We had a very chill day around the house and loved it.

I am terrible at taking pictures. 

Our traditional nativity cake to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus Christ.

Documented her first Christmas

Favorite gifts

Joseph: All the popcorn seasonings and a bunch of BYU and running things.

Casie: My new hammock

Ashton: Skateboard and stilts

Tanner: sling shot and the football sport figures (although the sling shot lost his interest)

Gemma: the 18 inch doll and all the accessories

Lydia: boxes