Dart Wars

We gave each of our older kids "committee assignments"  it is a bad name because it is a committee of 1.  It was supposed to serve several purposes, a few were: lighten my load and put some mental burden on other people, let the kids take on some responsibility and give them some agency in what our family does, give them a chance to receive some responsibility that they maybe done want and still do it (like a church calling), support each other in their responsibility, even if you don't think they are doing it right or how you would do it (like church callings), and then, the main reason, give them a chance to seek and receive revelation (and then act).  It has not gone well.  I don't know if it is just going to die or if we will adjust and keep trying.  The committees are: No Poor Among Us (Serve "poor" around us (there are lots of definitions of poor)), Gather Israel (on both sides of the veil), Ministering/social, family unity.  

Madison's assignment is family unity and she decided to have us all have a dart war in our house one evening.  Everyone had a blast, especially the babies.  Go Maddie!

Of course Jason is the star of the game and everyone just wants to get him out, he takes it very seriously.

But if I can remember right, he never won.  Megan won like twice, and I think Brock another time.

We played a few different ways: every man for himself, boys against girls, and everyone vs dad

 

December Fun

secret santa family 

Since we have been remodeling our house for the past 4 months (a post to come later) We don't have any furniture or shelves to put christmas decorations on and I haven't put any holes in the walls yet - so decorating for Christmas was a challenge.  I didn't use everything and just kind of let Dane and Eve put things where they wanted things.  Dane was very judicious about setting up a little tree in the corner.

The young men and young women went down town to sing at the giving machines.

Megan had a school assignment to make and clean up dinner all by themselves. She made shrimp fettuccini alfredo.

For light the world these three (Brock was at wrestling) went early one Saturday morning to the elementary school to set up the breakfast with Santa event.  I didn't do much with light the world this year.  I felt like they were old enough to do it by themselves.  They, I guess, disagreed.  A few days in they were like "when are we going to start doing light the world things".  I said, "I have the calendar up and the reminders of  things you can do, look, decide what you want to do, and do it"  They wanted whole family service projects, which is great, but I also feel strongly that I need to stop spoon feeding them things and they need to start taking some initiative.  But I guess asking is initiative, so I went online and found a few things.  They happily went.  I think I will plan a few more big things next year.  I also have some plans to do a few things throughout the year.

Megan had a young woman sock exchange (Maddie also had an AD one - but I didn't get pictures)

I had a birthday.

My friends took me to PF Changs after Christmas (December birthday's are hard)

These two melted our hearts all Christmas season.  

Madison was the only Herbert doing Battle of the Books this fall.  It was harder and different to stay on top of it without several kids participating, but I was so proud of her and Jason for staying on top of it.  She finished all 10 books - but what was best was she managed it all herself.  She got the books and read them with out me having to be involved or us making a tracking sheet for her.  Her team rocked it at the school battle and won by quite a bit (even though Maddie said they were to "worse team").  Sadly Maddie didn't make the school team, but she took the disappointment well.  It is hard being  the 4th Herbert sometimes, and sometimes things shake out unfairly for her.  But we have loved Battle of the Books, it has blessed our lives so much and really created a strong culture of reading in our home, and reading and discussing books together.  I truly believe it changed Brock's life.  It is the end of an era.

We had quite a few sicknesses in December.  Mostly me and the babies.  

The older 4 and Jason go to church an hour early to go to choir.  Noah doesn't participate in the choir and instead helps set up, Megan wants to do both.  She loves setting  up chairs and putting out the hymn books.  She does that for about 30 minutes and then goes to choir.  In December I went to choir instead of Jason because I love Christmas music more than Jason, so I got to watch their service.  It was endearing 

One of our outings is going to the mall and playing at the play place, running around, and playing on the escalators/elevator, Christmas is even better because we get to throw seeing Santa in there.  We saw him maybe 3 or 4 times.

I was quickly and sternly told by Santa that I can not take pictures.  I must pay for them.  haha

We have had colder weather here than we have the last 10 years we have lived here.  One morning it was negative 17 degrees, I woke up the kids and told them that if they wanted to feel what negative 16 feels like to go outside.  A few took me up on it.  

Megan and Noah spent the majority of their winter break at the library.  

Dad, of course, read to us.  He read the usual, The Worst/best Christmas Pageant Ever, but we are also reading Mistborn - it is like 700 pages, so it has taken a while.  Noah recommended it for us.

Brock was home during finals week a lot because of an adjusted schedule (Noah had tech - other wise he would have been home as well).  I actually loved it.  I don't get a lot of time with him, and while he slept a lot, I just liked having him home.

He needed new shoes so he came to the mall with the babies and I to play one day, and he chased them around and was so much fun

Everything is better with an older brother!  The babies loved it!

And a random morning picture.  

 

Christmas Concerts

Tis the season for Christmas concerts.  I have gone on quite an emotional journey with these concerts.  When they were all younger I kind of dreaded them.  They were long and often boring.  I am not a musically inclined person, so I don't appreciate it.  Also, they aren't very good at the younger levels (especially band and orchestra) and it can be almost painful to sit through them.  In the last 2 years or so I have come to love them.  I have so much pride and happiness that my kids love music.  This year all 4 of them participated in the music programs in their schools and I loved it, I figured this was our future.  THEN as my kids have registered for classes for next year 2 of them dropped out of their music classes.  I am so sad.  I hope they will find their way back to them. 

This was Madison's Christmas choir concert.  Maddie also sings in the ward choir and stake choirs.

Our whole family came (which is rare).  We typically leave the babies home sleeping (concerts are usually too late for them).  But this one was earlier so we took them.  Dane loves music so he particularly loved it.  They were both really good, we need to take them more places like this. 

Then Brock's orchestra concert.

Megan's choir concert.  

And Noah's choir concert.  

The middle school and high school performed on the same night.  Cuties! 

 

Dane Turns 4

 Dane turned 4 at the beginning of December.  We didn't have a friend party, but we did meet some of his friends at "the gymnastic place" for open gym (a few couldn't make it).  For his "cake" I gave them all a quarter to get a gumball from the coolest gum ball machine ever.

Dane was all over the place with his birthday cake.  First he wanted a Lion King cake, then a moana cake, then many different kinds of weapons (guns, swords, etc), there were also several others I can't remember right now.  He kept coming back to Maui's hook.  I ended up running with that.  Not the most creative cake I have ever made, but he was happy with it.

He is at the cheesy un natural smile phase.  It is pretty cute.

I guess he thinks winking is smiling.

For his birthday he got a board game from Aunt Ashley (that he loves to play)

Dress ups from his siblings (that were theirs at his age)

Binoculars from grandma Hanna.  (This was the one thing he asked for and he was SO EXCITED about them - that is his REAL smile)

And from us a bike!  December birthdays are hard.  You only get presents one time a year, so its never a good time to get something like a bike.  He LOVED it, but has only rode it a handful of times.

I was surprised that he hoped right on and knew how to ride.

The best part about a young child's birthday is everyone gathering around singing happy birthday.  You can see that they feel so special and loved.  In such a large family I am sure they don't get moments like this as much as other kids, so it is so fun to see their reaction.

Dane at 4

• Dane loves Eve.  He is very defensive of her.  He does not like when i get upset with her or put her in time out or ignore her.  He tells me what she needs and when she needs it.  They share a room and are both in toddler beds, so she is very capable of coming out and telling us things.  But Dane always comes out (even at 2 in the morning), to tell us Eve needs to go potty, or lost her blanket, or needs a drink.  Pretty funny.
• His favorite things is weapons.  He loves to have a sword down the back of his shirt or in the side of his pants.  
• His favorite show is Wild Kratts.  He loves to play with animals.  His favorite animal to play with is the lion.
• Dane is extremely musical.  I am interested to see how this is going to play out in his life.  He loves to sing, play instruments, and listen to music.  When we went to Madison's choir performance the orchestra played at the same time and afterwards he wanted to play every instrument he saw.  His favorite instrument in the Cello. 
• Dane has the highlest level of.... curiosity... than any of my other kids.  He is into everything, on everything, and questioning everything.  He has made Jason and I really stretch our parenting muscles.  (was that all a positive way of saying he is our hardest toddler??)