February Newsletter & Slideshow

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FAMILY:  On the first Sunday of the month, the girls got to hand out programs at church and were so cute, smiling and welcoming everyone as they entered the chapel. Jason & Heidi got to go to the temple twice this month (thank you Camri!!) & loved taking family names through. On the 7^th, Heidi took a great aunt on her side & Jason took a great uncle on his side – both of which had birthdays of September 9^th, which is McKinley’s birthday! Pretty neat! Jason took the girls sledding after our one big snowstorm at the beginning of the month & they had a great time.  On the 12^th, we headed down to St. George again – this time for another Noelle ultrasound. The girls all came and we loved seeing how much she’d grown since we last had an ultrasound at about 19 weeks. The 3D even showed how chubby and cute her cheeks are getting J Afterwards, we headed to the park and enjoyed some exercise and sunshine.  Valentines was a fun day. Daddy bought the girls their white roses and mom got a dozen red ones, along with candy. Daddy also made pink heart pancakes for breakfast. Mom “heart-attacked” the girls doors with post-it notes featuring all the things she loves about them. Mom fixed their hair in hearts and they brought back lots of candy from school. Dad took the day off to be a watchdog at their school – meaning a helper and a safety guy. The girls had been looking forward to that all year long & were SO excited to get to see their dad at school & play with him at recess!  That evening the girls hung out at the Bealers while mom and dad went to see The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and then out for a romantic dinner at The Garden House. It was a wonderful day. We got to see the Corrys new baby boy this month, Kaden. He is really cute and we are so excited for their family! When Jason went on an overnight scout trip this month, Heidi decided to let the girls have a lateover. McKinley invited Kiersten Corry and Ireland invited Shaylee Johnson. We had fun making & eating pizza, painting nails, watching the “real” 101 Dalmations, and eating caramel popcorn J The 17^th was President’s Day & we had full intentions of going on the Kanarraville Falls hike. Unfortunately, it seemed to be ill-fated. Neither Jason nor Heidi brought money & the parking lot was $10, so Jason parked about a ½ mile away & walked up to meet us, but then we saw a sign that said NO DOGS and we had Sydney with us. Sigh… so, we headed back home. We still had fun, though, and Jason took McKinley out for a date while mom took Ireland & Kezia swimming. The girls also had fun this month going to our neighbor, Mahina’s, birthday party. They had been looking forward to it all week and had a lot of fun. We have been really lacking in moisture here in Utah this year. We fasted for moisture and got some, but it melted pretty quickly. It has sure made it nice, though. We’ve gone on walks, the girls have ridden their scooters & bikes & played in the backyard more. We also enjoyed watching the Olympics this month, though for part of the month it didn’t come in on our TV. We did get to see ice dancing, some bobsledding, the ski halfpipe, some slalom, and women’s skating. It was a lot of fun and the girls had fun staying up late J GO USA!

JASON: Heidi made “14 days of Valentines” for her sweetie this month & had fun leaving all sorts of treats for him every day, along with witty sayings J  Jason enjoyed being a watchdog at the girls’ school and getting to meet their teachers and friends and help out. Jason enjoyed watching the superbowl – at least half of it – Denver pretty much gave up the game from the beginning, so we ended up watching America’s Funniest Home Videos. Jason had an overnighter with the scouts this month up at the Davies cabin. He said they played a fun game & had a good time. They also hiked the Bristlecone Trail. Jason got a sweet surprise in the mail this month from our good friend, Vic Jackson (Lucy Jackson’s dad). He had made him a dog tag with a picture of Link on one side and picture of Link and Jason on the other. He wrote a sweet note about how dog tags identify people and Link is a part of Jason’s identity. Jason has worn it quite a bit and it’s such a neat gift. He has also taken more time this month for family history and enjoyed talking with his Aunt Margaret on the phone – clearing up some confusion & getting more information about his relatives on that side. Jason apparently has decided to grow his hair out & it’s almost long enough to braid now!

 HEIDI:  Heidi was busy with her calling this month - making posters for the upcoming Relief Society meeting about family history work. She also made flyers and door-to-door postcards. It was fun to get to be creative J Heidi still deals with the 3^rd trimester difficulties, but it’s par for the course. She went to the chiropractor a few times, but didn’t notice a major difference, so she is just trying to stay active and do yoga to help with the carpal tunnel, sciatic pain, and achy hips. She is grateful for all her helpers that pick things off the floor for her J She did have a bit of a scare in the middle of the month when Noelle wasn’t moving quite as much as she usually does – she went into the hospital in the morning and they did a non-stress test and she was fine, which was such a relief to Heidi.  She went to a Share service day, where she got to help make headbands for stillborn babies & visit with some great ladies. Much of this month was spent in memory projects for Heidi. She has scanned all her hard copy pictures up through college and has transferred probably 50+ video or camcorder tapes to her computer. She has enjoyed seeing these videos – especially the ones from when she was in elementary school. One of them reminds her very much of Ireland. She also shared a couple of these videos (from 1984 &85) with her family & got lots of fun comments & reminiscing. One night while dad was at scouts, Kezia got out the lotion and each of the girls took a hand or a foot and gave mom a wonderful massage. It was so nice.  The girls have also been cute about wanting to fix mom’s hair this month. They will fix and brush and spray and primp and eye-shadow till mom is just beautiful! Heidi decided to go ahead and start therapy this month to help her deal with some anxiety she is having about Noelle’s upcoming birth. The first day brought out more emotions than anticipated & she was pretty emotional all day long. The family was so sweet, though, and brought her breakfast in bed to help her feel better the next day. She is sure thankful for her family.

McKINLEY:

-McKinley had fun at activity days this month – including sweeping Sage Drive and passing out Stake Conference reminders. She also got to go to a Stake Activity Day get-together on the 8^th. She learned about families and made a “service wand” that you place wherever you do a service. She gathered the whole family together when she got home to talk about what she had learned & how the service wand works J

-McKinley learned how to make friendship bracelets & made one for Emma Beacham during Stake Conference, along with a sweet note.

-McKinley also made a few projects from Aunt Trisha’s craft box that she got for Christmas, including crystallized pipe cleaners (cool!), silly sludge (crazy!), and a button bowl (that one didn’t quite turn out, but was fun to try).

-McKinley’s creativity kept going & she put on a little play that we printed out and then she decided she wanted to make her very own play, so she wrote the script, directed it & starred in it J Way to go McKinley! She also did a cute treasure hunt for the family where there were about 7 different clues and we ended up finding stickers in the end.

-McKinley & Ireland had a cool happening at their school – a helicopter landed on their field & they got to go explore the inside!

-McKinley is reading The BFG (Big Friendly Giant), by Ronald Dahl in class & mom has enjoyed hearing about it J

-McKinley really enjoyed the Olympics and after watching skating she would put on socks and a dress and glide around the room.

IRELAND:

-Ireland had her first of what will probably be many trips to the orthodontist this month. He verified that her mouth is going to be too small for all those teeth & suggested we wait 6 months & then possibly proceed with a retainer and/or mouth expander. Ireland did great with all the pictures and prodding.

-Ireland has been learning all sorts of fun things this month! She continues to excel at jump roping. She also learned how to do McKinley’s ankle jump rope. She learned how to do a “3-braid” (yay!) and she learned how to make the friendship bracelets (she made one for every member of our family – including dad!). Way to go Ireland!

-Ireland doesn’t remember her dreams a lot, but one night she said she had a dream that Miss Whizzle (from the Magic Schoolbus) came to our house and we were all My Little Ponies and we were all running from a bad guy.

-McKinley & Ireland had a cool happening at their school – a helicopter landed on their field & they got to go explore the inside!

-It’s humerous listening to conversations in the van sometimes when mom takes the girls to school. One day they were talking about who had crushes on who. Ireland said “No one has a crush on me…” (and just when mom was going to say something about Ireland still being beautiful and wonderful and so many people loving her, she said)… “I’m lucky!” ;-)

-Ireland loved watching the Olympic ice skating, but mostly just talked about their outfits J She did, however, watch the ice dancing & said “Can Grandpa Potts do that – cuz he is a REALLLY good ice skater!”

-I showed Ireland a pictures of Aunt Cindy with some flowers she got for her birthday. Ireland just saw her & the flowers & said “Did she just get out of the hospital?”

KEZIA –

-Kezia earned a date this month & decided to go to McDonald’s. She & mom had a great time! J

-Kezia seemed to be missing her baby brother one Sunday this month. She wanted to keep singing his goodnight song and hold his picture.

-Kezia had a parent-teacher conference this month & her teacher talked about how great she’s doing! She is doing most things that the older kids that are going into Kindergarten this year are doing- and she’s REALLY taken to sight words! She knows about 30 sight words now. Way to go Kez!

-Kezia called for mom in the middle of the night and she went into her room. Her eyes were still closed & it was like she was still dreaming, but she was telling mom about her dream – something about her sisters in their room and spelling her name – K-e-z-i-a. And she was reaching out for something.

-One night as mom and dad were putting Kezia to bed, we started singing her goodnight song & she said “WAIT! I do not allow you to sign my goodnight song unless you are rubbing my back!”

-On Valentines Day, Kezia was so cute. She secretly colored & cut out a bunch of hearts. Then, she told mom to go in the other room & she would ring the front doorbell & run in & mom would say “hmmm – I wonder who is at the door?” and then she would find a heart. This happened about 3 different times & Kezia was so happy that mom never “figured it out.” Until the next day & she told the TRUTH about the secret heart giver J

- One time, Kezi said to dad “You go in the other room while I fashion-style mom to be Sleeping Beauty and then you can come in and be her prince and kiss her.”

-One day at church, Kezia said to mom “I think my mind is starting to tell me that I’m almost starting to fall in love with him” (the “him” being Luke Beacham – a 7 year old in our ward)

-Kezia has about 3 different containers for her “collections” and she has now started one for “prizes.” She will randomly tell people they can pick out of her prize bag. The difficulty comes when they pick something and she says “Um… sorry, you can’t have that. It’s too special.” So, they pick something else and she says the same thing. In the end, we tell her to just let us know which ones we can have J

-Kezi & Ireland have lately been wanting to be hammock-blanketed to bed lately – where we put a blanket on the ground, they lay on it, and we each take a side and carry them into bed.

LINK:

We enjoyed decorating Link’s grave for Valentines at the beginning of the month. It looked really sweet with roses, a decorative Valentine envelope and hearts. Kezia even picked out a pink butterfly & even though she didn’t want to leave it at his grave, she did and we are sure he enjoyed it. One night, we had pizza for dinner and Heidi looked around and had a very strong sense that Link should be there – that he was missing from our family. At that same moment, Jason commented on how Link would have loved eating pizza. We think he might have truly been close with both of us having those same feelings at the same time. Some friends of ours, the Corrys, had their baby boy this month & Heidi decided to give them one of Link’s outfits that he never got to wear. It was hard, but we are thankful to share and give something so meaningful to our good friends. Mom had a rough time on Valentines, missing her baby boy. It wasn’t the same to write Valentines’ notes to the girls and not our boy. One day, mom & Kezia stopped to visit his grave and a flock of doves flew right in front of them, low to the ground. It was a wonderful love note. Mom posted about our plans for honoring Link for his angelversary next month & we have felt his love and help as we have taken family names through the temple and continue to search out names.