January Newsletter & Slideshow

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January 2019
Hamilton Newsletter
FAMILY: Happy 2019!! Levi and Truly came to visit at the beginning of the month. It was so good to see Truly! They asked us to be a part of their upcoming wedding in May and we are so happy to take part! On the 5th, Jason took the older girls skiing up at Brian Head. They had a great time! Jason was scheduled to go back to work on the 3rd, but ended up being furloughed. It ended up being the longest furlough in our nation’s history. :( Thankfully, he got back pay, but ended up going without 2 paychecks. We are thankful for our savings & grateful also for the extra time we got to spend with him. Early in the month was Diane Bealer’s birthday & we had a wonderful time going with them & friends to the temple, then out to Chilies.  On the 9th, mom, dad, McKinley & Ireland went to the temple for Ireland’s 1st time! So neat that these 11 year olds get to go to the temple now! On the 13th, we had something happen that has never happened to us before - the fire alarm went off at church! We had just started in on the 2nd hour of church when the fire alarm went off. It ended up being something wrong with the furnace, but we only had one hour of church that day. That evening, we had quite a few people over for dinner - Dalace & Jessie, Lex & Zhane, Levi, and the sister missionaries. We enjoyed visiting with all of them and had a short lesson from the sisters that was neat. We are thankful we get to have so many awesome people in our lives! On the 14th, we hit Dairy Queen for a CMS school fundraiser. It was fun to go out as a family :) On the 19th, we met at the Hamiltons for the big opening of Camri’s mission call. She is going to Sacramento, CA! English-speaking, leaving on March 20th. We are so excited for her! The 21st was Martin Luther King, Jr Day & the girls had it off school, which was nice because we had a huge snow storm that day! It was so fun to play in the snow and relax by the fireplace :) McKinley (played Maleficent) & Kezia (Snow White) had their CCCMT Once Upon a Time play on January 26th & 28th. On the 26th, the Hamilton family all came for pizza & to watch the show. Also, Truly and Levi.  On Monday, Mom, Chris Marx, GG Tew, Zhane, Michaella, and Dalace came. It was so fun and great!

JASON : Well, Jason had about the whole month of January off work with the furlough! He went skiing about 5 times, did some honey-dos and worked out more. It was nice to have him home to help out with carpooling and errands, too. He’s a good daddy & we’re glad he got to have some fun and also get some to-dos done. We’re grateful he was able to go back to work.

HEIDI: Heidi is excited for this new year and decided that her word for 2019 is COURAGE. She hopes to get out of her comfort zone more often and do hard things. One of those hard things is training for the half ironman. She’s gone on some pretty long rides and done some interval work, too. She was riding down in St. George when her back tire shredded. She knew how she was watched over because just at that moment, a guy and his family from Hurricane came to help. Eventually, they had to go to Hurricane & he was so kind - gave her a new tire, tube, and CO2 cartridge. Added 10 miles to her ride and a lot of time, but she is just so thankful for the help. At the end of the month for some cross-training, Heidi went cross-country skiing up the canyon with Daizy. It was a such a beautiful day & she definitely wants to go back! Heidi read Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer this month & started Huck Finn. She finished listening to The Boys in the Boat - the story of the 1936 Berlin Olympic rowing team, and she also watched 2 Charles Dicken’s shows. She has really enjoyed growing and learning!

McKINLEY:
-McKinley enjoyed the Once Upon a Time play and being with her friends. Some favorite memories from the play: McKinley & Faith (the Evil Queen) - getting in each other’s faces & trying not to laugh. Seeing Truly & Levi at the end of her play and being so excited. She did a great job with her evil voice and her singing voice - the only thing she didn’t do was her evil laugh :) We all loved watching her, though. She did a great job memorizing all those lines in such a short period of time.
-McKinley got the rainbow kindness award at school and we are SO proud! They called her down to the office and she got some rainbow candy.
-McKinley had to do some PowerPoint mazes for CCA (College & Career Awareness). She had a lot of fun and made some really hard mazes! We all tried them and they were hard & fun.


IRELAND:
-On Jan 9th, Ireland got to go to the temple for the first time! It was pretty busy, and a bit stressful to get done in time for school, but it was a great experience & we are so happy to have her go with us!
-Ireland started Young Womens this month! Mom is excited to get to spend more time with her. She loves to wear her torch necklace & she’s talked a lot with McKinley about personal progress. She’s also having fun going to the activities every week. We’re so excited for her :)
-Early this month, Ireland babysat the littles and when mom got home, she was so impressed! Ireland had gotten the littles all ready, including their hair fixed, made cookies & muddy buddies, and she had cleaned the whole kitchen! It was amazing! Great job Ireland!
-Ireland has been more conscientious of looking nice for school lately. She’s been waking up early & taking a shower, blow drying her hair and choosing her clothes more carefully. She has even been learning more how to curl her hair! She’s doing a great job - she just unfortunately burned her eye one Sunday. :(
-Ireland sliced her foot on some nails on Kezia’s floor and it was super sad :(
-Ireland had a science project due this month & she chose to do a rock collection and learn about each type of rock. She borrowed most of them from Kezia and it turned out great!


KEZIA:
-Kezia’s rock tumbler finally finished with the first set of rocks at the end of the month! They were really cool! It was fun to watch them go from rough rocks to super nice rocks.
-Kezia had a lot of fun for the Once Upon a Time play. She loved laughing & acting with the other princesses. Her comedic timing is so great & she is such a great actress!
-Kezia got to have extra 1-on-1 time this month with mom - for her earned date, we went bowling & had treats afterward. Then, on the last day of January, mom took her out to the brand new Golden Corral. Kezi especially loved getting to choose as many desserts as she wanted :)
-Kezia was in charge of one of the dinners and she made tacos. She was so cute and had a tablecloth and for the taco toppings, she MADE dividers out of construction paper and tape, and put 3 different kinds of toppings in a bowl. It was so creative and cute :)

LINK:
Another year has started without you by our physical side. We miss you SO much Link!

NOELLE:
-Mom was so proud of Noelle. She asked her to be nice to a new little boy in church & his mom told me afterwards how grateful she was. She said she asked her son to sit next to her and was so nice to him. It was the first time he’d stayed for primary, so Noelle really helped him feel welcome.
-Noelle is such a good example of prayer & faith when something is lost. If someone is walking around trying to find something, she asks “have you prayed? Heavenly Father will help you find it!”
-Noelle LOVES knock knock jokes :) Usually on the way to or from preschool, or at the dinner table, we are entertained with numerous make-up knock knock jokes :)
-Noelle is doing so well with her sight words. She’s passed off about 15 & working on more!
-Noelle LOVES to play/torment Daizy. Both her little UFO toy from Christmas and the remote control car she got fascinate and scare Daizy, so Noelle will just SQUEAL and laugh with delight as she tries to engage Daizy.
-Noelle had a cold at the end of the month :(


 OAKLYN:
-Oaklyn seems to still wake up at least once a night a few nights a week. One night we gave in and let her sleep in bed with us. Somewhere in the night, she was yelling in her sleep. She said “Noelle!! You have to share Noelle!”
-One day mom asked Noelle what her favorite animal was & she said “My Link Bear” :)
-For some reason, Oaklyn has demanded that she not sleep on the bed with Noelle, but the floor. Almost every night, no matter what we do to try to get her on the bed, she wants to sleep on the floor.
-Still one of my favorite things Oaklyn says that mommy can’t hardly ever turn down is when she says “let’s rock and roll!” (meaning, rock in her rocking chair with mommy) :)
-Oaklyn always called McKinley “Kinley Lou” :)
-Oaklyn has really enjoyed our huge Book of Mormon puzzle. She is constantly getting it out and asking people to do it with her. Whenever she figures out where a piece of the puzzle goes, she shouts “I did it, all right!”
-Noelle & Oaklyn have been doing this thing where they pray for each other - a lot. It sounds sweet, but they know it annoys the other person. Oaklyn will say “And thank you for Noelle. And thank you for Noelle. And please help Noelle” till Noelle can’t stand it anymore. It’s funny, but also a source of contention!
-Another thing Oaklyn has been constantly asking - what time is it? Like, a hundred times a day. We think she’s after “what activity are we supposed to be doing right now?” Like, “what time is it mom?” “It’s yogurt/lunch/play time”
-We’ve had a lot of fun with the tea set that Oaklyn got for Christmas. She is SO CUTE pouring out tea into the cups! We go through a LOT of rags, but it’s totally worth it to see that smile :)
-Poor Oaklyn - all the rest of the family can get Alexa to do what we want, but Alexa really hasn’t gotten Oaklyn’s little voice down yet. She will sit and yell at Alexa “Alexa, turn on Tumbleleaf!” But, no response :( She gets quite frustrated, but we are glad that she isn’t quite there yet :)
-Oaklyn is getting SO good at remembering books now! She knows a lot of “Share Bear” “The Hungry Caterpillar” and “Green Eggs and Ham” - it’s sooooo cute!
-Oaklyn is getting out the blocks from the ottoman at least 3 times a day. She LOVES building with the blocks and pulls mom & dad onto the floor to help out.