Messes

Toilet paper is Charlie's favorite thing.  He loves to shred up toilet paper or a paper towel.  I find these little chewed up messes all over.  He's tall enough to get into the garbage cans, so he finds lots of fodder.  Dang pup.  

On another note, I finally got his facial hair trimmed and now he doesn't have much black on him at all.  So sad!  He's really growing up.  I'm sad that all his puppy fine hair on his muzzle is turning into hard whiskers.  That's no fun!  Puberty is rough isn't it Charlie?

Puppy in a Backpack

Charlie puts up with a whole lot.  And he sure is cute while he puts up with it...

Reflections

A few weeks ago, Allie got a letter in the mail.  I didn't think anything of it and handed it to her as I was talking to Mike.  The next thing I know, she's shouting for joy and jumping up and down.  The letter was informing her that she had won the Reflections contest in her school and district and was going to region.  There was an invitation to a gala just after the Christmas break.  As I said, she was very excited.  She has entered a photo in reflections every year and she always does pretty well, but she's never gone this far!

Her friends were over on the day of the gala, so Lily did her hair.

Aubrey did the doll's hair :)

This head with real hair has been a continual favorite for Allie.

The other photos that she was competing against in region were good.

We really didn't know what to expect at all.  When we got there, we discovered that she would find out what place she took in region today and then would go on to state if she took first in region.  All of a sudden, she and I both got really nervous.
Her name was on the program and everything...

She ended up taking third place in region.  She was really happy about winning, but disappointed in herself because they mentioned that the art was all really good, so they awarded mostly on the entry paragraph.  Allie didn't spend much time at all on her paragraph and had she known that, she would have written something much more heartfelt.  It's a lesson learned though and next year, she'll spend more time and thought on that paragraph.

For now, first in her school, first in her district, and third in region is totally awesome!  Way to go Allie!

The theme was Heroes Around Us.

Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola

As I said before, Jake decided to get out of the hedgehog business.  We got an offer on Lola, so we got her all ready to go.

 Charlie said goodbye.

 ...and so did Jake and Allie. 

Jason cried.  To be fair, it was way past his bed time and he was not falling asleep. Any of us tend to get emotional when we're tired.
Nate was asleep, so he missed the tearful goodbye.
Lola was a wonderful first time pet for our kiddos.  She was unusually nice for a hedgehog and she put up with a lot from us.  Including having 4 batches of babies that brought in lots of money.  :)

I hope she is happy in her new home.  Goodbye Lola! 

A Lost Tooth

Charlie lost a tooth!  We could tell something was up with his mouth.  He kept licking his chops and trying to bat at his face with his paws.  I thought he might have something stuck in the back of his throat, so I was encouraging him to drink.  He just couldn't settle down, so I checked his mouth out and saw that he had a wiggly tooth.  I tried to yank it out, but he wouldn't let me get it.  Pretty soon, he got it loose himself and must have swallowed it because we never heard anything more about it.  The next day, he was doing the same thing, but only on the other side.  We were having scripture study and Jake decided to yank it out for Charlie.  He totally reached in there and got it out.  Maybe he'll have a future in dog dentistry.

 Charlie couldn't take his eyes off his missing tooth...

We all wondered if dogs have tooth fairies too.  Guess not because poor Charlie woke up with nothing but emptiness under his pillow and in his mouth.

A Back Up Plan

Jason:  Mom, this is my back up pencil, in case the yellow one breaks...it's the perfect place for your back up plan. (His ear)

A Wedding

My cousin, one of the Belnap family, got married in Provo.  That's close enough that I felt like I should go.  Mike watched the kids and I got to stay down there the whole day.

I met up with Dixie to give her the Christmas gift that came too late, and I got to see her new car. 

My Mom had to check it out because it looked like something she might want some day.  :)

I made the goal to take a picture every day this year again.  I've been able to be pretty consistent, but I really like making sure I try to think of something to photograph every day, so all morning I dreamed of getting a good shot of Mount Timpanogos.  It's the mountain of my childhood and it speaks home to me.  The Wellsvilles will always be the mountains of "home" to my kiddos and they are amazing, but Timp is my home.   The sky was blue and the sun was shining.  The fresh snow made my heart happy.  I watched that mountain as I hurried to the temple for the wedding.  I was in the car and had no hope of getting the right picture unless I risked an accident.  Taking photos and driving has to be way worse than texting. 
I looked at it longingly as we got out of the temple and I had a beautiful shot but no camera in hand.
I watched perfect angles disappear as I was once again, in the car, rushing off to sell someone our last baby hedgehog.
I got busy and then I had a lovely mid day nap.  When on earth has that ever happened before?!
By the time I could get another picture, the sun was well on its way out of here and I had all sorts of buildings and telephone wires in my way. 

Oh well, a bad shot is better than none at all.

Also, the wedding was beautiful.

My Mom helped with the soup table, so I helped with that too.

I love my mom's brothers.  They are really good to my mom too, so that's always good.

Mom went with Audrey on a trip years ago, so they've got a special relationship.  She also hosts all the BYU kids at her house for dinner sometimes.  Not only is she my awesome mom, but she's a pretty cool aunt!

I drove home amid phone calls asking when I would get home.  They all claimed that Charlie was depressed without me.  It was a great time to be away after seeing so much of them over the Christmas break :)

Thanks

As I've said before, Jason and Nate have a reputation in our ward.  They are "the Schwab boys" and when that is said, it is said with a smile and a chuckle at some crazy recent antic.  They have both been in the same Primary class for a while now with the same teachers.  There were 5 or 6 boys in there and it could be quite rough.  I decided to have the boys write thank  you notes to their teachers now that they've suffered through two whole years of "the Schwab boys".  

I made Jake write some too.

Nate wrote his own notes and Jason dictated his.  I wish I had taken pictures of the ones Jason wrote because they were hilarious.  He wrote about one of the teacher's gray suits and how he didn't have a gray crayon, so he was forced to color it blue.  He wrote about Mike from Monster's inc. (because he wanted to apologize that his drawing of the teacher looked more like Mike than the actual teacher).  He wrote exclamations about "the best teacher a kid could have".  It was all just awesome, and the teachers got a good laugh out of it too.

Nathan is moving on to an older class now that he's turning 8 this year.  He's got one other boy his age now in the ward.
Finn and Jason are being combined with 2 other girls.  He'll have girls in his class for the first time ever.  He told me that he is prepared to be kissed.  One of these girls kept kissing him in the Primary program, so he said he's expecting lots of kisses now that she's in his class.  He cracks me up.

Happy New Year!

We went up to our neighbor's cabin with them for our New Year adventure.  The kids played with crafts and had all sorts of fun.  They boys pretended to be soldiers,  ran in terror from the ghosts that they thought were all around, dug sea creatures out of muddy pods, and played outside in the snow.

The girls made slime.  Lots and lots of slime...

It was super cold outside.  We are used to cold, but when the temperature hovers right around zero, it's cold.  Mike had left several cans of pop in the truck along with a bottle of apple cider.  When it was time to go, we discovered they had all exploded.  I wish there was a picture, but I didn't see it before Mike had already cleaned it all up.  I've seen what happens when one can explodes in my freezer, so I can imagine it was bad.  We will not be making that mistake again.
Anyway, these brave souls ventured out in the cold and had fun riding sleds behind the RZR.

We celebrated the New Year at 10:00 in case the littles were asleep at 12.  We said all sorts of things like "this is the last fight of the year" and "I'm kissing you for the last time this year". 

Charlie was with us too and wore a hat to make us happy.

But he didn't love it, so he ate it the first chance he got. 

We had a good time and it was nice to sit around and hang out without any place to be.  The kids all got along great and we had fun playing games together.  Yay for a new year!  I hope 2019 will be wonderful!

Temple Attendance

Now that we have two kids that are old enough to go to the temple, it is a lot easier for them to go.  They like to go together.  They don't feel as intimidated as when they are alone.

One night over the break, we were able to take our neighbor friend too.  It makes me happy when I suggest that we go to the temple and they jump on it.  I hope they will always make temple attendance a priority.