November 2018
Hamilton Newsletter
FAMILY: Happy Gratitude month! Our family is full of
gratitude - and the peak of that gratitude lies in the incomprehensible
blessing of our Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ. He is central to our faith
and our lives. November 3rd was our big
Snow Canyon race day. Mom did the half marathon and Daddy & the girls did
the 5k. It was a beautiful day and we all worked hard and had a great time!
That evening the Worths invited us to a surprise birthday party for Sherri at
the church & it was a lot of fun! They played a bunch of games, ate yummy
food, danced, and played with all the balloons! Good times! We got to see Uncle
Joseph a couple times this month - he stopped by for dinner on his way to or
from his jobs in St. George, it was great to see him! November 7th was Link’s
6th birthday. We went to the cemetery, wrote letters to him, went to
McDonald’s, and had cupcakes :) We got to have Grandma & Grandpa Potts stay
with us twice this month - once at the beginning of the month, and then at the
very end. We are cherishing all the time with them before they leave on their
mission. They even watched the girls at the end of the month so mom & dad
could go on a quick St. George getaway for a couple days. Thank you Grandma
& Grandpa! The 12th was Vetran’s Day & daddy had the day off work. We
took the littles to get donuts at Lin’s & then went to visit with some
insurance agents. The weekend/week after the 17th was a bit crazy! First, we
drove to Springville where Sandy (Keeley’s mom) watched the girls while Heidi &
Jason went to the Payson Temple with the rest of family to watch Sedona take
out her endowments. It was really neat! After the temple, we grabbed the girls
from Springville and drove to Richfield for Sedona’s farewell the next day. It
was a wonderful farewell and we enjoyed being with family. That evening we
packed up again and drove to SLC so we could see Kearns’ Cinderella play where
Michael had a main part. We were going to stay with Cindy, but she ended up
getting strep throat and so we stayed with the Simons. The girls had fun
playing with them & daddy was closer to his remote work location. Monday
was also Grandma Potts’ birthday and the girls and mom went over & helped
for a few hours to get their home ready for their renters. Tuesday we went to a
jump house (fun!), Wednesday we went and helped at Aunt Cindy’s home - cleaning
and daddy helped Michael put the roof on their playhouse outside. Afterwards,
Grandpa took the 3 older girls ice skating! Thursday was Thanksgiving at GG
Tew’s home. It was all wonderful & we enjoyed visiting afterwards! And the
girls were so good to help clean up! We left for home on Friday morning, having
been gone for a full week. We stopped by an Orem McDonald’s & ate with the
Bensons, it’d been a year since we’d seen them. Finally we made it back - It was good to be home & start decorating
for the holidays!
JASON : Jason was the 1st stroller across the finish like at
the 5k - great job daddy! Jason was so good to take some time off for all our
traveling this month. He is staying busy with his calling and his job!
HEIDI: Heidi felt good about the half marathon, finishing in
1:50. There were quite a few hill the last 5 miles, so she is happy with that
time. Also, one of her shoes had a good-sized tear in the side and she had to
safety-pin it and hope for the best! The completion of the half marathon also
marked the beginning of her half ironman training! She bought a bike trainer,
got her bike tuned up (and a new saddle), got new shoes (after the old ones
tore out), got a couple new swim suits and a punch card at the local gym and
started in! Her longest ride so far is 3 hours. It was a cold ride! But
beautiful! She’s excited to push herself and really get in good shape for
March’s race. She really enjoyed all the family time this month and continued
her tradition of writing gratitude items each day. She found SO much to be
grateful for!
McKINLEY:
-McKinley was so cute - one day she told Noelle she would
give her candy if she would sit good & listen to her read books. McKinley
read like 10 books to Noelle. She’s such a great reader & is going to be a
wonderful teacher one day!
-McKinley got a couple babysitting jobs this month - one
with the Potters and a couple with Becca Donahoe. She’s made a lot of money!
And we are SO proud of her that she is putting most of it away to help a couple
families in need this Christmas!
-McKinley & daddy went & did baptisms at the Cedar
City temple on Link’s birthday <3 o:p="">
-McKinley gave a talk in church at the end of the month -
she did a great job - and called out her dad, telling him that it was time to
start listening to Christmas music! (he is a grinch with Christmas music)
-For one of her classes she had to write an essay about
something she really liked. She chose to do it on Studio C. It was a great
essay - and she even chose to do a blog all about Studio C for extra credit!
IRELAND:
-Ireland was so cute & creative & made mom slippers
out of paper & bubble wrap!
-Ireland got to go to see the Harlem Globetrotters with
Mahina & her family & their church. She said it was super-cool!
-Ireland had a lot of fun in SLC - she really enjoyed the
bounce house & mom helped her do some backhandsrpings & she had fun
jumping off the “cliff” onto the big pillow.
-Ireland is getting better & better at the flute &
it’s fun to hear her play Christmas songs!
KEZIA:
-Kezia’s class earned the most for the walk-a-thonn and they
got to have a piniata party!! Later on in the month, the whole school got to
have a GLOW PARTY with tons of glow sticks and music. So fun!
-Kezia did a hot cider stand with Addie Price & she made
$39!!
-She was sick with a fever & headache for a few days :(
-Mom signed up to help out with Kezia’s class field trip to
the Homestead State Park. Mom was in charge of the “Graces” game where you
threw a hoop to each other with 2 sticks. Sadly, they ran out of time &
Kezia’s group never got to come to mom’s game :( It was fun, though & Mom
got to take her home.
-One morning Kezia got up super early & made the family
pancakes! Thank you Kezia (unfortunately, there was a bit of smoke and the rest
of the family got a fire-alarm wake up call)
-Kezia got a reading award in school! Way to go Kez!
-Kezi officially joined the ward choir and has had fun so
far :)
LINK:
Happy 6th birthday our sweet boy. We enjoyed picking out
cars and a Star Wars Lego set to send to the boys your age. We hope they
enjoyed them as much as we know you would have. We donated to both Ronald
McDonald Houses in your memory. We hope you could read our birthday letters to
you. We love and miss you SO much!
NOELLE:
-Noelle earned a date this month! She & mom went to see
The Grinch in the theater! It was a lot of fun :)
-We got a letter from Noelle’s preschool saying that she
didn’t pass her eye exam. We thought maybe she was just being sassy or didn’t
understand their questions, but we made an appointment with Dr. Albrecht and
she actually is far-sighted, especially in her right eye. Dr. Albrecht asked
Noelle “what do you think about getting glasses?” Noelle replied “Oh, I don’t
need glasses! I eat carrots!!” :)
-We were reading Jungle Book one day & Noelle asked “Why
is that boy wearing panties?”
-Apparently a boy hit Sam at preschool and Noelle stood up
for him. Sam’s mom was so glad he has such a good friend! Way to go Noelle!
-We were at the Post Office one day, waiting in line to mail
Link’s friends’ gifts, when a worker came up and called out “Does anyone have
any questions or something else I can help with?” Noelle looked up at mom &
said “I have a question! Why is the wall all yellow?”
-Jamie, who carpools to preschool with mom, sent this text
to mom:
I picked up Noelle & she said “Do you want to take a
picture of me or not?” Jamie said OK & took it. Then Noelle said “Now text
it to my mom!”
-One night, Noelle came out of her room & mom was
exhausted, but Noelle said “I can’t sleep! Frankenstein is under my bed!”
-When we were at the cemetery for Link’s birthday, Noelle
said “Mom! I felt Link in my heart!”
-It was really cold one day when we got in the van. Noelle
asked mom to turn on the air conditioner. Mom said that would make it cold. So
Noelle said “then turn on the WARM air conditioner!!”
-Noelle asks lots of interesting questions, like “Why did
Heavenly Father give us sugar bugs?” And “Why did Heavenly Father make
dinosaurs?”
-When Noelle is unhappy with the way someone treats her, she
often says “You made my feelings feel bad!!”
-One day Noelle said “It smells hot in here!”
-We love it when Noelle shares her dreams with us at
breakfast. One morning she said a mean robot turned her into the letter Q. She
said she got out of it by doing a Hulk jump!
-One day mom was making a slow cooker chicken recipe. Noelle
asked if that was chicken. Mom said yes. Noelle asked incredulously “Did
someone cut its butt off??”
OAKLYN:
-Oh our adorable 2-year-old! How you keep us on our toes!
-One day mom was looking everywhere for Oaklyn & finally
peeked her head into the pantry to see an adorable 2-year-old curly, blonde
with a mouth stuffed full of marshmallows
-One of Oaklyns current sayings “What the heck?”
-One day Oaklyn was totally on her game. She cracked about
10 eggs on the countertop, and then later she dumped non-washable white paint
in a big glob in the pantry. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if the dogs hadn’t
gone in there to eat and tracked white paint all over the upstairs!!
-Oaklyn loves to help bake & cook. She will immediately
pull up a stool to where mom or dad is at the stove. One day she was helping
mom with spaghetti sauce. Mom went to grab something & saw that Oaklyn had
dumped half a bottle of paprika in the sauce!
-Sacrament was not so reverent one Sunday when Oaklyn got a
piece of bread, chewed it up in her mouth and then opened wide and said loudly
“LOOK!” It didn’t get better with the water. She drank half of it and then
dripped the other half into other cups on her way to putting it in the slot.
-When we were at the Simons, mom came up to look for Oaklyn
and saw that the fridge door was open. Mom feared it had been open all day
& went to shut it, when what should she find? But a 2-year-old who was
trying with all her might to undo the rubber band around the large package of
shredded cheese!
-The day we were leaving the Simons, we had almost
everything packed up. Daddy put Oaklyn in the van while he went to grab the
rest of us. When we all came out to leave, we found that Oaklyn had locked the
van from the inside - with it running! So, here we all here trying to get her
to push the buttons and let us in. It was quite comical. At first she only
figured out how to unroll the window a couple inches, but finally she got the
unlock button. Thank goodness!
