End of the Year 2013

This year has had its ups and downs.  We are glad that it is coming to a close.

Corey has continued his work as a store manager for In-N-Out Burger.  He is very busy with his job and continues to enjoy it.

Jenna started a new part time job in the fall as an aide at the kids' school.  It is once a week on Fridays and she teaches a character curriculum, art, and Bully Blockers while the classroom teachers have collaboration meetings.  It works out well with Corey's flexible schedule, so he is able to be home Friday days with the younger kids.

In June, our family decided to welcome a foreign exchange student from Norway into our home.l  Margrethe has been a wonderful addition, allowing us to see what life with a teenager could be like if we raise our kids as well as her parents raised her.  She seems to be fitting in well and enjoying her time here.

Westley started fifth grade this year.  He still plays trumpet in the band, is obsessed with Minecraft, and helps  lot with his younger siblings.

Caleb started third grade this year.  He continues to be his sensitive, caring self.  He is very energetic and loves to laugh.

Travis started first grade.  He loves to spend time with friends and play the Wii.

Eliza started kindergarten.  She has learned to read this year and now reads everything she possibly can find.  I think she will be our first child to read everything in our home library.

Jonah is a very typical two-year-old.  He absolutely loves the Ninja Turtles and spends every day all day playing with the action figures or pretending to be them.

Annmarie joined our family in March.  She is a very content, joyful baby who loves to be part of all the action around here.  When she's not included, she makes her displeasure known.  She is adored by all of her older siblings.

We hope that this Christmas season is one of joy, peace, and love for you and your families.  Merry Christmas and God bless!

A King Christmas 2013

We had a good Christmas this year.  I worked really hard to keep with our new tradition of "something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read".  To explain this tradition, it helps to simplify Christmas and keep the spending under control.  Everyone gets four gifts as the above mentioned rhyme indicates.  In better years, we may include a Santa gift too.  This year, there were no Santa gifts, except for family gifts, which were a few movies and games.  In addition to this tradition, we also do a family gift exchange with both Corey's side of the family and my side of the family. 

This year, we had John and Allison's family and Aunt Jamie.  We got John and Allison's family a set of personalized popcorn bowls.  We got Aunt Jamie a cookbook.  Aaron and Kaori's family had us and they gave us several Wii games.  Traci and Brenden's family gave us some cooking utensils and a board game.  I liked how simple it all was with our new tradition. 

Pizza Eating Baby Girl

This baby girl of ours absolutely loves pizza.  It is her favorite food.  Every time I make it, she screeches at us until we give her some.  And she eats the whole slice, too.  She really hasn't shown much interest in most baby foods, especially the baby finger foods you can buy, but she loves to try out anything we are eating. 

Matching "Nana Jammies"

Every few years, Corey's mom makes all of her kids and grandkids matching pajamas.  I don't know if she does it every time, but at least once in the past, each family had their own pattern for the pants with all matching shirts.  Of course, only the kids are pictured here, but she made pajamas for Margrethe as well and both Corey and me.  The kids look forward to the matching "Nana jammies" every time she makes them.  And with five children, four kids-in-law, and fourteen grandchildren, that is a LOT of pajama pants to make!  We sure appreciate all of what she does for us!

New Car

Corey got into a minor accident in October in his Ford Focus Wagon, which we've had since 2008.  There was front end damage, but it didn't look considerably bad.  We saved up the money for the deductible ($500) and by December, we were ready to finally take it in and get it fixed.  But it turned out that with that damage, plus the rear end damage from a few years before, plus some side damage from Corey hitting the side of the garage, with all of that (we only asked for an estimate on the total), the car was deemed totaled by the insurance.  I don't know if they took into consideration they had already given us a paid out for the rear end damage, but they weren't going to cover the cost to repair the rest of the car.  So, we took the totaled amount, just over $5,000, and went to Carmax and Corey bought a new (used) car.

The car he picked was a 2010 Chevy Malibu.  He has driven Chevy Malibus on some of his In-N-Out management trips and has liked them, so that was what he wanted.  He felt they looked more sophisticated than compact cars, which he feels are "teenage" cars.  I wasn't so sure about how much we were spending (still am not) but in the end, he is happy and we can make the payments.  I just hope this car lasts longer than the other cars he has driven.

Christmas Eve Fowles Style

On Christmas Eve  we got together with all the Fowles in Utah for a brunch at Adam and Eve's house.  The younger kids all played downstairs while the adults and older kids played some silly games.
 

Visiting at first

The game:  We had to pick up a paper bag with our mouths and our hands behind our backs.  We also had to stay on our feet, no going down to knees.  When we got it, we put it back after cutting off a section, thus the paper bag grew smaller and smaller, lower and lower.

Allison demonstrates

Marianne has a go at it

Adam rocks it

Margrethe even tries

John has a turn

Austin is REALLY flexible!

We played a few other games, including Christmas charades.  A good time was had by all.  Hopefully Margrethe doesn't think we're too strange!

Christmas Lights at Temple Square

We try to go to the temple lights every year but this year it was really hard to get there.  It seemed we were busy through most of December.  We finally made it, but so close to the holidays and too late in the evening, so it was packed.  At least it was a slightly warmer night.  We had such a cold month of December that the weather was a deterrent to our Temple Square visit as well.

Principal's Pride: Think Win-Win

Travis earned the Principal's Pride award in Decemeber. These are based on the Seven Habits of Happy Kids, a program that our school has adopted (called "The Leader in Me"). Each month there is a habit for the month on which they focus. Travis' teacher chose him to be the recipient in his class for this award.

Christmas Band Concert

Westley had his band concert on Corey's birthday.  The band is huge this year!  Westley is now in advanced band and gets to do slightly more difficult music.  I've tried to be better about remembering to have him practice.  He does seem to enjoy it.  I hope he chooses to continue with it so he can have a good group of friends like some of my brothers did with band. 

Eliza's Birthday Party

When our kids turn six and eight, we let them have a birthday party, if they so choose.  They can either have that or have a fun family activity, like bowling or miniature golf.  

Eliza chose to have a party.  She invited a few friends from church and the neighborhood and all of the girls in her kindergarten class.  All but two showed up, so we had a LOT of little girls.

I divided the party into two groups.  The first group made jewelry while the second group decorated sugar cookies.  Then we switched.  After that, we had cake and ice cream and then Eliza opened her presents.  At the end, we had a dance party until all the parents came and picked up their kids.  Eliza's party theme was a "pink party".  Everything was pink--the decorations, the treats, the cake, the ice cream.

 All the girls greeting each other at the beginning

 Corey wasn't there, so I put my minions to work helping out.  These boys were stuffing party favor bags for me.  When they were done, they went upstairs.

 More greeting of friends

 pink heart cake

Dance party with remaining guests

Ward Christmas Breakfast

We had our ward Christmas breakfast on December 7th. The kids got to see Santa and the primary did a Christmas nativity. My three older boys were the three wise men. Eliza was in the angel choir and I didn't get any pictures of it. The boys hid behind the choir though, so I didn't get a very good picture of them either. I never take my kids to see Santa anymore because they can see him at the ward breakfast/dinner (depending on the year).

Westley did not sit on Santa's lap this year.  I suppose he is finally too old.  But Caleb still did.

Caleb with Santa

Jonah

Eliza

Travis

Even Annmarie sat on Santa's lap without crying

Six Years Old!

This little cutie turned six years old.  She is such a happy, spunky little girl.  Sometimes it's difficult because she and I have personalities that clash, but we are working on it.  I love her so much anyway.

The tradition in our house for birthdays is that they get to pick all their meals.  Eliza requested cinnamon rolls for breakfast, so I made the dough on Thursday night and then got up early on Friday, her birthday, to make them.  She had "homemade McDonald's" for lunch--freezer chicken nuggets, oven fries, and chocolate milk.  For dinner, we had her favorite, Italian chicken, which is chicken that is flattened, breaded and fried. 

Happy birthday, Eliza!

Big Holiday Fun

We had a get-together, Fellows style. It included good food, lots of talking, and of course, a white elephant gift exchange.

We had all the Fellows side who lived in Utah there.  Hopefully we can have many more of these in the days to come.