2013 Wrap Up!

I love reading people's Christmas letters & getting caught up on their families. Paul said mine sounded too brag-y, so I stopped. But, it's the same principal as Facebook, right? I WANT my friends to brag and post pictures of their adorable children so I can 'like' them and make them feel good about their lives (and in return, I can stay caught up on their comings and goings). Everyone needs to be uplifted by their friends from time to time, right?

So, with that preamble here goes:

We are still living in North Las Vegas and we absolutely adore it here. The first few years were spent wishing we could move to Colorado (where I grew up). What a waste of time! Every time Paul found a job out there, it just never panned out. In August, we took a trip to Colorado for a week and realized we were homesick for Vegas a few days in. We imposed on my best friend, Sabrena, and she (and her husband) were gracious hosts to our crazy brood! It was lovely getting caught up with friends again and hiking at Estes Park. 

                             

We stopped over in Utah with my sisters for a couple nights on the way home. It was fun to see all the updates Kelsey (my baby sister) and her husband had done to their home.

The boys loved trips to the Hogle Zoo and farm to play with their cousin, Ben!

At the end of August, Alec (6) started first grade. He was thrilled, I was devastated (gone ALL day?!) He's now attending a charter school with a uniform shirt. I volunteer every Wednesday morning (courtesy of my mom watching my little two).

His class isn't challenging him, but Alec is thriving at home with supplemental work to keep him learning (I'd prefer to homeschool him, Paul says he needs to socialize. Paul is right, I just know Alec would advance better academically at home and I wouldn't miss him so much). He's so sweet with his younger siblings (barring the occasional mood swings when he demands some peace and space).

He adores science and tends to be a walking encyclopedia about weather, dinosaurs, rocks, the human body, Star Wars, & minerals, etc. He's a great reader and has to be told to turn off his lights at night and put his books away. Sometimes I get funny responses. One night it was, "mom, I'm mapping the life cycle of ammonites!" Another night it was, "I'm learning how to kill bacteria at the cell level!" 

Funny guy. He's still reading 'The Magic Treehouse' series, which he loves. He forayed into Harry Potter for a bit, but it proved too many words per page for him. I'm sure he'll try again in 2014. 

He's still my social butterfly. Everytime we go out in public, he makes a new friend. Age, gender, doesn't matter to him. 

He is quite behind physically though, and appears to have no natural coordination. So, we put him in gymnastics. He is growing wonderfully! He started off going once a week. When the semester ended (second week in December), we had to switch to Thursday nights, as we knew in the spring we couldn't make Tuesday nights, so I switched him to 'Tumbling and Trampoline'. It turns out that class is boys and girls, and Alec ended up being the only boy in the class! He apparently protested and walked off with another coach that he knew back from Parks and Recreation, Dave. Dave's class is an hour and a half twice a week; an introduction to the competitive team group for ages 4-6. Apparently, Alec did good the first week and Dave said he was allowed to join his 'invitation-only' class. So, now he goes Thursday nights and Saturday afternoons. He's loving it and that much exercise is really helping his focus. He's been begging for music lessons, but we haven't bought a piano yet, planning that in 2014 for him. 

His other new love this year is Legos. We've always had some duplo and his Uncle Nick & Auntie Morgan have sent him loads of mini figures and small sets, but this year he's really gotten into them. I love it! He builds them, plays with them, then they go into a box where he 'creates' new machines for our delight. Great for the imagination.

James (3) began preschool in the fall at Miss Andrea's. Most importantly, his best friend and cousin, Kayden, is in his class!! He's definitely more shy than his elder brother, so I'm incredibly grateful his cousin is in class with him. 

He knew his letters and sounds for over a year, so we started him on the Thomas phonics books (same ones Alec started on). I bribe him with 10 minutes of 'Angry Birds Star Wars' for every book he reads. He now wakes me up at 6.30am begging to read and I've had to put a cap on the number of books he can read each day (3). Because his elder brother started gymnastics, James followed suit. On Thursday nights, their classes overlap for an hour. During the last half-hour of Alec's class, James comes and sits with me in the observation room and reads a couple books and plays 'Angry Birds Star Wars'. He has some awesome upper body strength, so he really enjoys the bars and the rings. James is still obsessed with Star Wars, and always insists on being the bad guys. He plays daily with his Playskool set. He's our cheeky monkey at the moment, always trying to get away with things he shouldn't. He often gives us a wide grin and 'tiptoe dances' out the room so we laugh and can't punish him.

Evelyn (1) is a pill and we all adore her! She didn't begin walking until 14 months old (same as Alec!), but was already crawling and climbing up everything in sight. Yeesh, I thought the boys were wiggly, but she keeps me on my toes! 

Her favorites are to climb the computer desk chair (which necessitates pushing buttons and coloring on the monitor or keyboard), and climbing the kitchen table to see if any scraps of food have been left. Mainly because, if there's one thing Evelyn loves most, it's eating! She has been blessed with rapid digestion and is incredibly tiny (6th percentile for height, 12th for weight), but she eats more than the boys!

Amongst her firsts this year: nursery, haircut, and word ('dada'). 

As soon as we leave her in nursery (or at my mom's or with a babysitter), she cries horribly. Within a minute of us gone, she acts as though nothing happened and happily plays. She adores animals-live and in her books. She's not big on dolls or most toys, but she loves her purse, toy cellphone, (trying to not to think why) and BOOKS! Definitely my daughter. Right now, she's mesmerized by our latest addition-a cat!

Monticito, or Monty, was found starving outside the Monticito Apartments (they thought he was a feral and clipped his right ear). I'd been actively 'cat-hunting' as Paul is certain we are done having children. We didn't care what it looked like, but we needed a cat accustomed to children, dogs, at least a year old, and with a cuddly, social personality. We saw Monticito's ad on Craigslist, Paul cried out, "Monty!" and we knew he was our cat. (Bear in mind this occurred the night we went to the Smith Center to see 'Evita'.) By Monday he was ours and we're so happy! He cuddles on the couch, runs away from James, and follows us around. He acts more like a dog than Maggie!

Maggie (7, kee-chow, it will be a breed one day, just wait) and Milo (6, Keeshond) have been about the same. Poor Mags tore her dew claw and had to go visit Tess to get it clipped, but nothing serious. She's still our little princess puppy, sweet and seems to always know when I'm down and need some extra cuddles). Milo has begun to relax a little. He doesn't ALWAYS jump when you walk near him, whilst he's lying down. Improvement! His saving grace is that he's willing to jump in bed with the boys when they get scared at night. According to Alec he, "bites the bad guys on the arms, but not our friends!" Either way, he helps the boys sleep on the nights they get scared.

Under the category of most boring pets ever, we adopted a desert tortoise this year. It wandered into the Lorenzens' yard and they were unable to locate its owner. Unfortunately, this was in October. So, within a day of taking it in, it dug under the shed and is currently hibernating until the spring. I didn't even get a picture of it! Ah, well.

Paul has had a successful and busy year. He continues to work at Smart City Networks, but in June received a substantial raise & shift in position. He has to constantly be challenged or he gets bored. So, he figured out ways to streamline the Accounting side of his financial analyst job (writing programs and algorithms that allowed 4-day jobs to be completed in 1-2 days). Then in his spare time he wrote programs for other problems in the company, which is essentially 'business analyst' work. So, the company is moving him to doing that work full time & Paul has been shifting his accounting work to another employee. He loves that!! He still loves teaching Astronomy at NSC and continues to teach a class one night and the corresponding lab one night. He's currently serving in Young Men's (12-18 year old boys) as Secreatary and simply loves all the camping trips he gets to attend!

I'm loving serving in Relief Society on the Enrichment (Activities) Committee. I love planning and organizing, plus serving with the adult women! Score! I've continued teaching Anthropology at CSN, and during 2013 I moved to night classes. That allowed complete flexibility around the boys' schooling and activities. It did, however, mess with my sleeping pattern. Causing me to stay up later and sleep in longer (I'm one of those lame people that absolutely require 8+ hours of sleep a night or I'm a grouch), means I don't get up in time to exercise before the kids wake. This throws off my mornings. But, 2014 will be different! I got approved to teach online classes and will be doing that completely. I'll pay my mom to put the kids to bed one night a week so I can hole up at the computer grading, but that's about it! SO blessed! I've gotten back into running and hope to build up to a half marathon this year (I'm not usually a distance runner, 8 miles is about my limit). I've begun teaching myself to sew-though hemming pants has been the extent of my YouTube training. I've been enjoying learning Spanish on DuoLingo, trying to ensure I can supplement Alec's school class. This free app is super addictive! Slowly working my way through the list of classic novels I want to read. I've been working on the unabridged version of Les Miserables for a few months now.

We've had several beach trips (our family fave!). We drive out Friday (Paul usually takes off a few hours early), stay my grandma's Friday night, then spend the morning and early afternoon at a beach! The kids can run wild, play in the ocean, and build sandcastles to their hearts' content. Once everyone is worn out, we head back for baths and Mission Burrito for dinner with my Grandma, Aunt Jerri and cousin Colin. We usually drive back early Sunday morning, to make church. 

One trip we talked my cousin, Chad, and his fun wife, Nicole, into joining us. I think Chad spent most of the trip burying Alec and James in the sand!

This year we managed one weekend whilst Paul's parents were out! Adding a day on the trip, we also visited the La Brea Tar Pits, to Alec's absolute delight!

Mum and dad live in England, which is just too expensive a flight for us to make often (honestly, we've only gone back once in 7 years-when Paul's sister was getting married). Luckily, mum and dad are willing to use their holiday time to come visit us! They especially enjoy the Halloween season and try to come in October. This year we let the kids have a Halloween party for their church classes, and the boys enlisted Granny to help make treats.

We ended the year, with lots of fun Christmas activities. Both of my sisters traveled out from Utah, to spend the holidays with us. We did the Boulder City Santa train ride, gingerbread houses, a Wranglers game (ice hockey), caroling, and loads of decorating treats.

Well, that seems to wrap up the parts that I missed on our blog this past year. This will teach me to update more, since I intend this to be a sort of journal for the children to look back on! We have big plans and resolutions for 2014, so it should be a wonderful year for us!