High Fitness with the Beehives

Sometimes Ryker has a hard time not being angry at all of us and sometimes I like to take pictures of the ridiculous situations.

 The Beehives wanted to do a High Fitness night and Jessica Lewis, who teaches it, was all too happy to come and do a 30 minute class with them. The gym was taken so we were on the stage for the sweaty workout and it got pretty hot in there but the girls were amazing and worked hard and had fun. 

back row: Claire Elder, Kenzie Amar, Aubrey Pinon, Kenzie Bjorn, Allie Hansen, Addie Lewis, Brynn Givens and Lainey Olsen
front row: Makayla Pace, Taycee Olson, Taylee Price, Rylee Peterson, Saylor Shoemaker, Eliza Lewis and Lola Lindley

Cousin Time

Sunday after church we went out to the farm to be with family and so Kenedy could see her cousins and grandparents. We always have a good time out in Nyssa and the kids love their cousins and being with them.

Rylee spent some time reading books with Madison.

Kenedy and Makayla took some funny pictures with Amelia while in the background Ryker played with Caleb and Sadie.

Kefford even got into the playing time by holding and teasing Sadie.

Kenedy had Kinsley on her lap and they were taking pictures with filters. When Kenedy would put a filter on that Kinsley didn't like she would cover her face. It was pretty cute. Luckily she liked most of them so we saw a lot of happy faces from the cutie.

Kenedy and Makayla think it is hilarious to take filtered pictures of their Grandpa while he is sleeping. They have to be sneaky about it because if he wakes up and catches them they could be in big trouble, hahaha

Makayla is always the brave one and uses Kenedy's phone for the picture. 

Kenedy visits and a farewell

Kenedy came home for the weekend because her bestie Gabi Caroaca was having her mission farewell and Kenedy wanted to be here to listen and have one last goodbye with her friend. 

I wasn't sure if Kenedy was going to be able to come because it was snowing and we were not sure she would be able to get here. When I did not hear from her I assumed she was not coming and I called her after I got done with dance to see what she was up to. When she answered I asked her what she was dong and she said doing homework. I then asked her if she couldn't come because of the snow and she laughed and said she was sitting on our couch. I was so excited! I really didn't think she was coming so it was such a fun surprise and it was great to see her when I got home.

Ave and Ryker had plans that night so Rylee and Kenedy played some Mario Kart while I watched. It was cute watching them play together. Their relationship has improved and blossomed since Kenedy has gone to college. It has been really great watching them bond.

Saturday night Ave and Rylee were both busy so the four of us left at home went out to eat at Dickie's Barbecue. It was really good and the free soft serve was especially delicious.

The next day we went to the Linder Ward for church to listen to Gabi speak. She did such a great job and she is going to do so great on her mission to Italy. I am really excited for her. 

McKoy's family was there also to hear Gabi speak and Kenedy was really happy to see them. She has a close bond with them and it was nice for her to visit with them for a bit. McKoy's littlest sister was especially happy to see Kenedy and had a hard time leaving her side.

Ethan, Gabi and Kenedy

Blog Book 2018

It is always a happy day when I get my new blog book in the email. 2018 was a little rough for me for blogging, I got really far behind, months behind, and I considered giving up on it altogether. I don't always love blogging but I love watching my kids pull out previous years books and read through them. Seeing how much they love them really keeps me a part of the game. I do love it also, sometimes some posts get overwhelming and so it takes me a while to get to them and then when I get so far behind it is even more overwhelming. I am so happy that I stuck with it and got caught up and now have 10 years of blog books with memories and pictures and stories, most of which would have been forgotten by now. I am using google photos for storing and collaging pictures and that has been my lifesaver, so heres to at least 10 more years of blogging and memories stored:)

Happy 19 Kenedy!

Kenedy was in Rexburg for her birthday and it was a little sad not being with her on her birthday for the first time ever. I did like being able to send her a birthday package, that was a lot of fun and I did talk with her on her birthday so we managed to survive the day. :)

Kenedy went to the hot springs with her roommates and friends and then they went out to dinner at the Texas Roadhouse. I think she had a good day :)

We didn't get to talk too much on her actual birthday so she facetimed me the next day and I got to hear all about her fun day.

5 things I love about Kenedy:

1. She texts, calls and FaceTimes us quite often and I am so glad she is good at staying in touch. I love that she calls me during the week and that she likes to chat and tell me whats up with her. It is fun seeing our relationship slowly sift to friends. She is still and will always be my daughter but it is fun to have her as my friend as well.

2. I love her thoughtfulness in wanting to get all of us a Christmas present. She put a lot of thought into each gift and really showed her love for each of us. I love the book she made for me filled with pictures of the two of us and I look at it often. She has a good heart.

3. She is loving the college life and I love watching her have fun and make memories. It reminds me of my college days and I find it funny when she sends pictures or tells me stories that remind me of things I did in college. She loves her roommates and likes to have fun and is really making the most of her time there.

4. She is continuing to strengthen her testimony and I love when she tells me about things she is learning at church, in her religion classes or at the devotionals. It would be super easy to skip out on the religious part of life at BYUI or not be as devoted but Kenedy is all in and I love seeing her grow deeper in the Gospel.

5. Kenedy is just so pretty and she dresses super cute and she really is a beautiful girl inside and out. I love that she takes care of herself and likes to look pretty and get dressed up but that she can also be super casual and low maintenance and still look just as beautiful.

Monster Cookies

Kefford was going to the farm on Saturday with Ryker to work on his pickup. Rylee really wanted to go also but she couldn't because she had already committed to going to Serena's house that day. She was really sad about it so I told her I would take her, Avynlea and Ryker to the farm on Monday, President's Day. That seemed to appease her and so on Monday after I taught one dance class we stopped in Star so Kelsey could adjust Avynlea's braces and then we finally headed out to the farm. Ryker had to help Cameron Roberts with his Eagle Project that morning and so he couldn't go out with us. Bailey said he would pick him up when he was done and they wanted to go dirt bike riding so I took the pickup out to the Farm with Ryker's bike in the bed. 

Whitney was at her Mom's when we got there and I had an enjoyable time visiting with her and Alison while also holding Lainey. She is at such a fun plump age with all her fat rolls and squishiness,  I could not get enough of this cute baby. 

Avynlea went to hang out with Makayla and Ally at their house while Rylee stayed with us and played with Maddie, Sadie and Kinsley. Even though she is so much older then her Cousins, Rylee was so sweet to play their games and she had a lot of fun with them. After a while Alison made some cookies and whipped up some frosting and we all had fun making Monster Cookies.

Maddie, Sadie, Whitney, Kinsley, Rylee and Elizabeth 

Monster Cookie decorating was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed my inner creativity coming out. 

Sweethearts

It is different being on the guys side of these formal dances. With Kenedy the guys would come and pick her up and I could take some pictures and see them off. With having a boy I didn't get to see any of it because he was going to her house. I took a picture of him before he left and thought he looked pretty handsome. 

After he picked her up they went to Scentsy Commons to take pictures and then went to Aubrey;s house for dinner.

Ryker hates eating pasta, and I had to laugh and cringe a little when he came home from school a couple of days before the dance to say that Aubrey asked if he likes pasta because that was what her Mom was making them for dinner. He told her it was fine because he did not want to be rude and he did a good job that night at dinner to try a little bit of it. 

Aubrey Young, Ryker, Shandel, Mario, Lucy, Ty, Megan and Alec

Makovers and Modeling (Kenedy College Life)

Kenedy has been pretty good to periodically send me pictures of her adventures in college. One picture she sent gave me serious flashbacks to my second year in college. She did mudmasks with some of her friends, girls and guys. It reminded me of when Melody and I talked some of our guy friends into letting us put mud masks on them. I had to look in my Ricks College scrapbook to find the pictures and it was so fun looking through and remembering all the fun. I am glad Kenedy is having just as much fun making memories as I did.

Emma Jo, Derek, Kenedy, Addie and Nate

Kefford, Elizabeth, Brandon, Melody and Blake (1997)

She also got a picture of her dying her roommates hair blue. :)

Kenedy wanted to document her last day of being 18 so she did a little photoshoot with her roommate taking her pictures. She is so pretty and I love how these pictures capture her beauty inside and out. 

Valentines Day

On Wednesday I went to the High School so that I could pay the bookkeeper the NHS fees for Ryker. While I was waiting for the bookkeeper my friend Scott who is the Vice Principle of the school passed by with some other administrative people looking a bit concerned and talking about some fire trucks. I didn't think anything of it, just said hi as he passed by and went on my way. It was a cold and rainy day and as I was leaving the school and getting into my car I saw a bunch of fire trucks in the parking lot with their lights flashing. I was really curious as to what was going on especially when I suddenly saw students pouring out of the school. I didn't see or smell any smoke and I wondered if it was just a drill and then I thought, what a crummy day to do a fire drill. As I left the parking lot and was driving down the road, a couple more fire trucks passed with their sirens and lights going and I saw all of the students gathering in the field. I sent a text to Ryker asking if he knew what was going on and he thought it might just be a drill. All of my questions were answered not too much longer when I got a text from the school saying the kids had to evacuate for a short time because of an electrical fire that had happened in the night but had gone out before they discovered it. For safety reasons they had to evacuate for the fire men to come and inspect. 

For Mutual that night I had the Beehives come to my house so I could teach them how to make Oreo Truffles and then we were going to go Heart Attack the Bishopric. Truffles are really easy to make but they do require to be frozen before dipping them in chocolate and since I knew we would not have time for that I decided to premake the ones we were going to deliver to the Bishopric. The girls were going to eat the ones they made that night. I had the pan of truffles in the freezer and after a couple of hours I went to pull them out for the dipping but when I opened the freezer the pan fell out and the truffles went all over the garage floor. Oops! I didn't want to waste the ones I had made so I checked them over very carefully and wiped them all off with a towel, hoped I didn't miss any grossness and went ahead with my plan. It was kind of sad but really funny and I feel terrible about giving them garage floor truffles but I really didn't know what else to do. Our garage floor is not terribly dirty and as long as they don't know it should be ok...right?

It was a really fun night and when it was time to do the heart attacking we divided into 3 groups and I took my group to Heart Attack the Allreds. We were trying to be super quiet as we put the hearts on the door but they must of heard some noise because we were in the middle of taping hearts when the door opened. The youngest son thought one of their pets was trying to get inside and so he opened the door only to find a bunch of suspicious looking Beehives on his front porch. I couldn't see in but the girls said the family was sitting in the front room staring at them so Lainey very politely grabbed the door handle and shut the door saying "nothing to see here". It was so funny and we were dying with laughter on our way home!

With all of our new Beehives we needed to take pictures for the Bishops board in his office. I thought this one of Rylee was too cute.

The next day was Valentines day and I had  box of Oreo Truffles for each of my family along with a card for each of them telling some things I love about them. I made Truffles and cookies on Sunday so the I could send Kenedy some Valentine love and I also sent Mom and Heather a box each. I love spreading the love. I tried to make pink heart pancakes for breakfast for my family and the pink turned out but the hearts were a little wonky.  

Rylee made the cutest valentines for all of us (bottom left) and Avynlea made a card for me and one for Rylee. I got a love letter from Kefford along with some flowers and that was super sweet. I love his love notes!

 Rylee requested braids for her Valentine hair and I had an idea and was so happy that it turned out even better then I hoped for. She told me to add the ribbon and her hair was perfect for the holiday. She said she got a lot of compliments at school with everyone loving her hair.

 I made our traditional Lutes family Valentines dinner with a heart shaped meatloaf. I like to do pink mashed potatoes and I found Cheesecake factory bread rolls which I love. For dessert I made a heart shaped cake and it looked really cute and tasted super yummy!

 The next day I was feeling really Disney with my Mickey sweater and Mermaid hat. 

Chocolate Flowers

Some of Kenedy's friends and Roommates came to Boise for the weekend to stay in a Bed and Breakfast and explore the area. After the cheer competition Kenedy went to go and stay with them at the B&B. They left early Sunday morning so they could make it back to Rexburg in time to go to their Ward. Kenedy sent me this picture as they were leaving the B&B. 

Brother Larson asked the Beehive class if they would come in to Elders Quorum the last 10 minutes of class and sing "I'm trying to be like Jesus" as part of his lesson. I was teaching them a lesson on "How The Things I Say Affect Me and Those Around Me" and it was such a good lesson I didn't want to end when the time came. But we promised and I ended my lesson so the girls could go and sing. Good thing the song fit so well with my lesson also. Jeni Lindley and I stood in the back and watched our sweet group of beehives go to the front and sing in front of all the Elder's Quorum, Blake Hansen was kind enough to accompany so they didn't have to do it A Capella. The girls did a beautiful job and after they were done the men in the aisle rows stood up and handed each girl a chocolate flower. It was super sweet but a little awkward, the girls were not quite sure what was going on but I saw a couple of Dad's who were in attendance give their girls a hug along with their chocolate and that was sweet.

When we got back to our room to grab our stuff I had the girls pose for some pictures. They are so cute and I love my group of Beehives!

 Standing: Makayla, Aubrey, Claire, Rylee, Kenzie, Tayci, Taylee, Kensey and Addie

Kneeling: Halsey, Saylor, Brynn, Allie and Kate