Valentine's Day.

better late than never.

House project!

The laundry room has bugged me since we moved in and we finally (finally) redid it.

So.much.better.

strolling the neighborhood with Ava...

Superbowl!

So the Seahawks weren't in the Super Bowl this year.

But the Patriots didn't win, and that was good enough for us.

February means basketball!

Jemma playing at halftime in the Kibbie Dome.

and getting autographs from the big girls

I had the BEST time watching Jemma in her first year of aau!  

She was on a third grade team playing mostly fourth and fifth grade teams so there was a lot of losing but you would never have known it by watching these girls play.

They never gave up and hustled their way into a few exciting wins.

I mean seriously.

This girl is awesome.

Home!

The best part of leaving is coming home to these faces.

Vegas!

We headed to Vegas to celebrate Joe's 40th birthday!

our go-to plane mode

Sun!

Sitting outside in January!

We hunted long and hard for these burgers.

Paula and I spent our days here and our nights watching the Bellagio fountains (for hours!) while the boys filled their poker tanks.

High school basketball

I'm too busy watching to get action pictures of this girl but here she is being her smiley self on the court.

Happy 12 to Jack!

This kid.

It is so much fun to watch him grow up--he's so smart and tender hearted.  

He loves sixth grade, his teacher, his siblings, every sport he can think of, his cousins, his dog...pretty much everyone he meets and everything he does!

One of his favorites:

Cousin football:

Always Will and Henry versus Jack and Ben

Auction 2018

Jemma got to come to the auction this year to kick off the live auction with her (Latah County Fair prize winning) muffins.

Up on stage during the bidding, which brought her muffins to over $500!

We spend a lot of time in the car in January....

Montana!

I took Henry on the best road trip to Missoula for a tournament.

He was super excited and made pretty much the best travel buddy:

Even rest stops are awesome with Henry.

The first thing we did was hike the M.

He loved it.

Heading to the pool.

Which was outdoors.

And it was 33 degrees:

totally worth it.

thawing out.

it takes a lot of breakfast to power this kid.

January 2018

In an effort to save myself on New Year's Eve this year, I'm throwing back to January 2018 and trying to catch up.

The real question is when will I learn that procrastinating really never, ever, pays off?

Sara!

Ava moved on to high school ball this year so it was my first year coaching without one of my own kids on the team.

But I had Sara so it was a pretty good year after all.

Basketball tournaments.

Tis the season.

This weekend Ed took Jack to Moses Lake to play and I took the littles to Lewiston.

Ava had her own game get cancelled so she got to join us after all.

I love to watch Jemma play!

She loves it so much and in real life she is so calm and sweet but on the court she just goes all out over and over.

Her team started the tournament against the biggest, best team but they went on to win one game(!) and lose two games by only one point(!).  In one game, Jemma scored half the points and I totally forgot they lost because it was so exciting.

Who knew third grade girls basketball could be so exciting?!

Killing time in between games with snacks and books:

and chairs wherever we can find.

 I'm also a big fan of watching this kid:

He is just a second grader on a fourth grade team so he doesn't see a lot of playing time but when he comes in, he is all hustle and he had some great defensive plays.

And also, he is grinning the entire time.

He came home the first night and was still so excited that he played football and danced around for a solid hour after.

I mean seriously.

Cutest kid on the court at all times.