G is for Gonna Be Christmas Soon

This is going to surprise you, but this month is flying by.

All the Christmas things and the basketball things and just all of it is a giant blur.

Everyone keep your fingers crossed that basketball doesn't get shut down. eye roll. 

If the children aren't going to be able to play sports, they will just go home and play on tik tok. 

So pick your poison.

Ugg. I'm so covid fatigued. 

Andrew told Ward Party Santa that he wants a b b gun for Christmas just to hear the santa chuckle and say "You'll shoot your eye out kid".

We always find fun things on our night hikes. The rock snowman was our main treasure this time.

Say hi to the ugliest tree in the world. It put me in the worst mood. It's so scraggly and half the lights are burnt out.

After it was up and decorated, I marched into Costco and bought a new one. 

We transferred the ornaments and I love my new tree. 

Here are this years' ornaments.

When we did baptisms in November, the grounds keeper jumped off his lawn mower and handed us all these hand made ornaments. 

Then Koda ate it. wahhhh. 

The last day of school before winter break was ugly sweater day.

We don't have any ugly sweaters, but I do have this awesome sweater I used to wear all the time when I was Avery's size. It's one of my favorite finds from my thrift store days.

It served as an adorable "ugly sweater" for my middle schooler. 

Her English teacher sent this pic in an email. It snowed for ten minutes so they all went out to enjoy it.

For the record, this was the day that many kids stayed home because nation wide there were threats of school violence stemming from stupid tik tok. 

What a world. 

Ok, there is always a Sunday in December that Avery teaches the best family home evening. 

It's always random, never assigned, and the topic is a surprise.

This week we were sitting in Stake Conference when she asked if she could do FHE tonight. 

The focus was service. She talked all about what and why we serve. Then she had these chain papers ready for the boys. They wrote a small act of kindness that they would do every day leading up to Christmas. They picked their own things they would do. They could go big or small. 

One of Andrew's was "make a chilli dog for someone"

One of Evan's was "take a break today. don't serve anyone" (but then that day he cleaned the whole house for me, so I'm thinking reverse psychology?).

Andrew's first chain on Monday said "massage someone's feet". 

cha ching. 

This year we made gingerbread houses because I had tons of leftover stuff from doing it with the young women. PS I was just released from YW Pres. I have mixed feelings about it.

Evan was SO excited to build his gingerbread house. He said he day dreamed about it all day at school. While Mr. Minkler read a book at the end of the day, he sat there and planned it all in his head. It would have two eves like this and a flat part so that he could sit his Santa and reindeer up there:

Those gum drops are the reindeer. 

I think it's fabulous. 

Andrew put a lot less effort into his house...

....and finished. 

Avery is back there folding laundry because she told me she needs a job, and I told her I need an employee, so we shook hands and she gives me an hour a day where she does whatever I tell her to do (beyond all her regular chores).

This was one day in December when school was cancelled because the power went out.

I was so annoyed. I swear school feels negotiable these days. The kids aren't one bit surprised when they are told school is cancelled. 

I took them to the trampoline zone, and they played for hours. We met a million friends there. 

April

Lots of things 

and 

nothing

has been going on, so it's hard to sit down and pound out a post about the mundane,

but "the mundane" is the most interesting to me when I delve into the archives,

so I will carry on dutifully with the cataloguing of the mundane.

Baseball has started and it's been a rainy season so far.

I need to get a picture of their new uniforms. They look so cute. 

The past two Saturdays, Lindsay takes the boys to the baseball game, and I take the girls to the soccer game because they are at the same time and our husbands are working. Divide and have the village help raise my children. 

PS my/Avery's soccer team is still undefeated. They are soooo good. 

One weekend Lisa was out of town, but the Blacks came over to work on bikes and play anyway.

Everyone had a play mate but me. I just kind of wandered around bored while the rest of them spent hours in their happy place.

I am thankful for friends. Loneliness is not my happy place. (not that I was lonely this particular weekend...but in my life when I have been lonely...it's no fun. So, all this to say: I'm thankful that I am never lonely.)

He wanted his picture taken. 

We did a Pinewood Derby! 

Evan's car placed about halfway down the roster. I don't know what the magic bullet is to a winning car because Jim applied all the YouTube tricks to this thing. 

It's recorder season. 4th grade. 

We did our best to listen to conference together. The boys were loud. 

Family Home Evening. I can't remember what her topic was. 

I'm sure it was awesome, and I'm sure the boys were turds the whole time. 

Slime.

We went running in the POURING rain. 

The first half was exciting and pretty and the rain felt good,

the second half I was over it and sick of being wet and tired of jumping over puddles. 

Someone built this pretty bridge. It smelled of fresh cut wood. 

Do you remember all of the handmade dresses Avery wore when she was a little girl? Grandma Larsen made so many, and Avery wore them every day with crocs. 

Well, my friends secretly picked out all the seams and used the fabric to make a quilt for me. It was such a nice thing to do. I can't even believe someone would do such a thing for me. 

X box. 

They play Minecraft and have a pretend world going on. For the most part it's cooperative and creative. 

More scouts. 

Tonight for Earth Day/FHE, Avery gave a lesson about the creation. 

Then for the activity, she gave us supplies and had us "create" something.

Jim braided some yarn,

Evan made a paper Allegiant airplane and drew in pics of each of us, plus a "random person".

Avery drew a diagram of her "lucky money machine" invention she is going to make. If you find money on the ground, you can cash it in for double via the lucky money machine. But it knows if the money was found on the ground, or came from your wallet, so don't try and trick it. 

My boring old go-to doodle. A tree. 

FHE is rough because Avery has so many meticulous plans she wants to execute, but the boys cannot handle all the little details or the amount of time she wants to extend. There is a lot of fighting and complaining and threatening and bad moods. 

Strangely though, by the time we get to the "make/draw/create" section of the FHE, everyone seems to get a second wind and things are pleasant. 

Also in April, I want to go on record saying that I don't know how to raise children. It's too hard. They are too hard. I can't do it. 

So if you wonder "what happened to the Larsen children?" this is your answer: I don't know how to do it. They have come to this earth with their own personalities, and I don't know much more about it than that. I will put a roof over their heads, but beyond that, I got nothing. 

If you would like to pray for them, that would probably help. But again, don't take advice from me because I am all question marks over here. 

Family Home Evening

We have our FHE lessons on Sunday nights like I did when I was a kid. 

Most of the time - like, 80% of the time - Avery wants to be the one to give the lesson.

She always does a fabulous job, above and beyond, with a lesson and a game or activity. Sometimes her ambitions don't account for the boys' short attention spans. 

One thing I love, and I wish I would have documented from the beginning: 

she always gives us paper, then gives us kind of vague instructions about what to draw, and then we compare what we came up with and they are all similar but different.

Two weeks ago, she was teaching us about being kind in little ways.

Her instructions were to draw a situation in which someone was in distress, then she hid our drawings around the room (an activity to get the boys up and moving), then with each drawing we talked about how we could help that person in distress.

"A mom is traveling alone with three small kids. She is stressed."

by Kelli

by Jim

(this cracked me up. Christopher's braid...)

"Hunter is sad"

by Andrew

"Daddy had surgery on his shoulder"

by Evan

by Avery