Snow, Colds, and Ward Choirs

So the last couple of weeks have been going well for our family. Carrie has been up and down with a cold… Call it the flu, bird flu, or in my opinion the need to get a new set of tonsils 😉 The winter cold is never any fun that is for sure. At the bottom of the post I’ve given some great pictures to show you what the weather is like!
Kennedy has picked up a little of what Carrie has had and it seems like she has a constant runny nose that has no end to the amount of gunk… ok sorry about the visual, I’ll stop there. I’m sure you get the point.

However, on the positive side of that Kennedy is so cute because she will walk up to Carrie or I and say “nose” which means that she wants a klennex to wipe her nose. Even in the middle of the night when she wakes up crying I’ll go into her room and she’ll say in the nicest little sleepy voice, “nose”. She does a half-way decent job of wiping her nose (at least for a 21 month old) but not to be fooled because if you leave a Kleenex box within her reach she will very efficiently use every single Kleenex in box.

Mya has been off track (that meas no school) for the last couple of weeks. Her school is year round. It seems to work out ok and we are adjusting to having kids in school and doing it year round. Probably the hardest thing about doing of track is it seems Mya gets going and in the school routine and then she goes off track. Getting back into the routine takes a little bit of time to accomplish as well. Over all Mya is liking school and is doing very well. We have a parent teacher conference next week and her teacher has very positive things to say about Mya. Mya is reading really well and we just love how enthusiastic she can be about learning. Mya’s big news is that she is an official girl scout! Go Mya. She joined the local Brownie troop that meets at the Baptist church in Bountiful! She’s now in the middle of selling girl scout cookies so if you want some let us know and we’ll order them for you and then ship them to you if needed. The cookies won’t be here until March but orders have to be in two weeks

Olivia is back in preschool, we didn’t have her in preschool the first couple of months because they were all full. She is now at Woods Cross Elementary with Mya and goes two hours on Tuesday’s and Thursday. She thinks it is so fun that Mya gets to come and get her and walk with her out to the car on those days. Olivia is such a great sister. Just the other day I saw her reading books to Kennedy and Madie. Very cute and adorable if you ask me!

Madie is doing great. She will talk your head off if you let her! She is working with a speech therapist at her preschool plus another one at the district office. We are so proud of her and all that she is accomplishing. She has graduated from the nursery at church and is doing really well as a sunbeam. She has wonderful primary teachers that are taking the time to get to know her and ask questions about how they can address her special needs!

Madie is scheduled for ear tube surgery on February 11th. Last time it went rather smoothly so we are positive that things will be very simple again. We are working with her doctors to clear up her ears from infection and liquid so we can truly pin point her hearing and determine if she needs more assistance or not.

I’m doing well, working a couple jobs on a couple of projects and enjoying spending time with the family. I conduct the ward choir and we had a performance last week. We sang the Hymnplicity’s version of How Great Thou Art. We have been working on it for a few weeks and last week it sounded rather good. However, on Sunday morning when we did a quick warmup practice it sounded very, very rough. I told everyone to pray (half joking, half serious) because we needed some help! In the end it turned out good (not great, but good) and the Spirit was brought to the meeting (in my mind one of the main reasons we have music in Sacrament Meeting). Yesterday, one of my choir members brought me a baton that he had made! It was awesome… He is an outdoors kind of guy and the handle of the baton is a 30-06 bullet casing! How’d he know that’s just my style.

We enjoyed having Bill and Linda Jones at our home the first of the month and are so grateful they could come. Carrie is working on 72 hour kits and emergency preparedness stuff in her spare time. Other news is the pending Hawaii vacation in March for Carrie and I.We’ll be sure to share more details with you as the date draws closer. Last but not least is the weather in Utah. It’s been very cold and snowy all month. It’s ok I suppose since we need the moisture and all but it sure makes for a horrible commute to work on snowy days. I’ve attached some pictures of the next 7 day forecast above and the snowpack levels in Utah for the year!