Our usual Christmas Eve party had to be postponed this year because Carter had hand-foot-mouth disease (a first for any of us). Instead, we spent a leisurely day at home.

Carter is demonstrating a candy cane.

12/2 Colleyville Tree Lighting Celebration

Raine and I went for a carriage ride (Carter didn’t want to go so he and Daddy played carnival games).

Awkward family photo with Santa!

12/3 was a very busy day . . .

First was the Lion’s Club Breakfast with Santa.

Next was the Richey Christmas Cookie Run (I didn’t get any photos from the “run” but here is Raine and I in our t-shirts).

Finally, we decorated the Christmas tree (this is the first year that we have used our fake one instead of buying a real one).

12/15 School Christmas parties

It’s still a mystery to me why Carter’s class room-mom thought it would be a good idea to feed doughnuts and marshmallows to a room full of 1st graders and then give them all a whistle, but that’s what she did. It was raucous!

Daddy, Carter, and Me at Ms. Feaster’s class party.

Ms. Feaster’s class. Carter is standing up, the second child to the left of Ms. Feaster.

Raine’s class party was much quieter; they each tied a fleece pillow.

Ella, Me, Raine, and Daddy at Ms. Seifried’s class party.

The girls of Ms. Seifried’s class. Raine is in the top-right corner.

12/17 Ward Christmas party

It took some serious bribing to get Carter to sit on Santa’s lap!!!

10/11 – Carter and Spencer playing math games.

10/13 – Carter’s class doing body-spell, Carter is on the right side next to the girl in the pink shirt.

10/15 Fall Festival – Carter shooting arrows with a bow.

10/15 Fall Festival – Raine loved the money cube, she collected coupons for things like a no-shoes day.

10/15 Fall Festival – Raine making a wax hand.

10/17 – Carter labeling bones in PE — Carter is right in the middle, striking a pose.

10/25 Red Ribbon Week – crazy hair day

10/26 Red Ribbon Week – mix-match day

10/26 Red Ribbon Week – Carter’s class on Mix-Match day — Carter is the 3rd from the right, in the back.

11/1 – Carter’s class celebrating the 50th day of school — Carter is in the middle, in the back.

11/4 – Carter’s class listening to a shared reader — Carter is in the middle in a black and grey striped hoodie.

11/5 – Carter got a spelling award that included a free kids-meal at BJ’s. The manager came to our table and made a big deal about his award. She even gave him an Awesome Achiever pin.

11/5 – The whole fam at BJ’s.

11/10 – Carter’s class making math sentences with their jackets — Carter is third from the left on the front row.

11/29 – Carter’s class did a writing assignment about Santa getting stuck in a chimney.

11/30 – Author Aaron Reynolds (“Caveboy Dave” and “Nerdy Birdy”) came to visit the school. Each grade level met with him. Raine got to ask him a question — she is up front in the purple shirt. She asked if he had any pets. Carter got an autographed copy of “Creepy Carrots.”

Friday afternoon we took advantage of the gorgeous weather and the BOGO black-Friday deal at Mountasia. We played mini-golf . . .

Raine climbed every face of the rock wall . . .

Daddy and Carter rode the go-carts . . .

then we all rode the go-carts . . .

then Carter and I rode the bumper boats . . .

lastly, we played video games in the arcade.

The San Antonio Millers came up to spend Thanksgiving with us this year and it could not have been more fun. Ritchie and I are cousins on our Moms’ side and their 7-year-old daughter Jessica falls perfectly between our kids’ ages. The arrived Wednesday night so Thursday morning the fun started bright and early. The dads went to the Turkey Bowl, then came home and played soccer with the kids while dinner cooked.

The neighbor kids, Ryan and Riley, joined the game.

Dinner was great. We had sweet potato souffle, green bean casserole, orange rolls, and turkey. We picked only our favorite dishes to cook.

Ritchie, Lindsay, Raine, Jessica, Carter, Daddy, Me

The kids played outside most of the day. Their little feet were so filthy that I wouldn’t let them into the house, so they all climbed up to the utility sink to wash together!

The kids all slept in the same room Thursday night (they tried Wednesday night but due to some obviously hilarious gas-passing, they had to be separated) and were up early Friday morning choreographing a skate show in the garage.

All too soon the Millers packed up and said goodbye.

Soccer is a family affair around our house. Daddy coaches Carter’s U7 team while I coach Raine’s U9 team.

The Peppermints played in the Northern Mid Cities Soccer League this year and ended the season with 5 wins, 2 ties, and 3 loses. It was good enough for 3rd place in our bracket.

Back: Leighton, Hannah, Makena, Amber, Katie, Lexi. Front: Jacqueline, Eugenia, Raine, Maddy, Greysen, Grace.

The Great White Sharks had a great year as well. They don’t officially keep score, but IF they did they would have had a lot of wins.

Carter, Owen, Luke, Trace, Branson, Kale (missing Conner)

Carter received his trophy after the game.

Here are a few photos from Carter’s game on Nov 12.

Carter scored a few goals this season. He has become a pretty good little player — although he still loves to fall down. As soon as he puts a little bulk on his bones, he will be a tough attacker.

Nov 5 – Carter’s game

Sept 23 – Raine’s game. This was a Friday night makeup game and Grandma and Grandpa Dewey were there to cheer.

Raine exclusively plays defender and she is really good at it. She has a good sense of where the ball is heading and has developed a pretty accurate kick. She saved a lot of goals from being scored against us this season.

Aug 27 – Carter’s first game of the season.

(It’s obvious who takes the photos in this family! Poor Raine doesn’t have any good photos because I’m always coaching her games.)

Carter dressed up as a hot dog while Raine went as a spy.

We decorated the house a bit this year.

The mythical house that gives out full-size candy bars really DOES exist!

We always hit the after-halloween sales to pick up more costumes for our dress-up bucket. Here’s Carter as a bug ninja.

Some of my co-workers, especially my legal assistant, have been pulling pranks around the office lately. One of the legal assistants had her notary stamp suspended in jello, one of the attorneys got a drawer full of paperclips all linked together, another one of the legal assistants had everything in her office wrapped in rubber-bands. Well, Raine was home sick one Friday and I came back on Monday to THIS:

I had to cut my way into my office with a pair of scissors. So, the next weekend I took the kids and DJ to the office to cover everyone’s office supplies with googly eyes! (Staplers, tape dispensers, hole punches, file cabinets, monitors, computer mice, keyboards, microwave, light switches, etc.) I didn’t take any pictures because I didn’t want any evidence, but it looked AWESOME! Raine even left a couple voice messages for people where she said “I’m watching you!” and laughed her evil laugh. It was great.

Saturday afternoon was Raine’s Spy birthday party. Ten of her friends from school came to help celebrate. The party was a month after her birthday because I had a hard time coming up with ideas to go along with the spy theme. Eventually, we come up with a list of games to play here at the house. These were the invitations. We printed them on fancy, marbled paper and mailed them off in matching envelopes, sealed with a red “Top Secret” stamp. They looked official!

Raine started a spy club a while ago and called it the International Spy League. We modified the International Spy Museum’s logo to make ours.

When the guests arrived, they had to select an agent file which listed their new code name — Raine’s was Silver Ninja. They also had to get their fingerprints taken for a game that we played later.

While we waited for everyone to arrive, they decorated neon colored fedoras and sunglasses. Then they split into two teams, Alpha and Beta, and tried to match the fingerprint cards of the other team the fastest.

Next was the encoded scavenger hunt. They had to use the cipher provided in their folders to decode each of the clues.

Here is team Beta working on a clue.

And team Alpha working on their clue.

After the scavenger hunt, they did the laser challenge. We strung “lasers” with bells on them all over the shed and then put bracelets in the back corner that they had to retrieve without sounding the “alarm.”

After the lasers was disguise training. Each team had to dress up one of their teammates faster than the other team.

Team Alpha won every single challenge. The teams were determined by the folders the girls selected but despite having one more person on team Beta, they came in behind team Alpha every time.

The pizza arrived and our kitchen became a melee of eight-year-old girls. They sang happy birthday and ate cake.

Then Raine opened the presents.

Raine had a blast at her party but Daddy and I renewed our vow to never have a birthday at our home. I have always preferred hosting it somewhere else, but the spy theme didn’t lend itself to any of the usual birthday party sites. After the insanity that reigned at this party, I have committed to never do this again!

8/24 Raine’s class doing a survey of classmates (Raine is in the background of the middle-left photo)

8/24 Raine’s class doing a scavenger hunt (Raine is in the back-left of the top photo)

Unfortunately, these were the first and only photos that Raine’s teacher posted to twitter.

8/25 Carter’s class getting out some wiggles (Carter is in the front-center in blue shorts

8/26 Carter’s class doing a watermelon science experiment (Carter is in the grey shirt in the bottom-right)

8/31 Carter’s class working with the 5th graders (Carter is standing up in the background in the green shirt)

9/8 Carter’s class learning about strong and weak beats in music

@FeastersFirstie learning about strong and weak beats with our favorite @QuaverMusic video @CEScowboys ?? pic.twitter.com/xlGLtWvqbe

— Mrs. Natalie Neugent (@CESmusicNeugent) September 8, 2016

9/27 Carter’s class

Singing our "shake it" song as we made matter change from a liquid to a solid…we turned cream into BUTTER #Science @CEScowboys #FirstIsFun pic.twitter.com/3CeBJRhUhN

— Alyson Feaster (@FeastersFirstie) September 27, 2016

9/29 Raine’s student council campaign poster. She didn’t win, but she learned a lot in the process. She had to apply and give a campaign speech.

9/29 Raine’s 3rd Grade patriotic program (Raine is on the back row toward the left side.

9/30 I was the shared reader for both Raine’s and Carter’s classes. The timing worked out so that I could eat lunch with Carter too!

Saturday, September 24 was Raine’s baptism day.

A number of our family and friends joined us for the baptism. My cousin Shannan and Alexa drove all the way up from Houston to support Raine. Grandma and Grandmpa Dewey came down from Utah for the weekend.

The Eastmans, Stahelis, and Boyers all came up from our old ward. It is always fun to reconnect with them.

Daddy performed the baptism and confirmation. Grandpa Dewey gave the talk on baptism. Grandma Dewey gave a talk on the holy ghost. Raine’s primary teachers, Sister Behymer and Sister Newland offered the opening and closing prayers. The confirmation circle included Grandpa Dewey, Bruce Crandall (bishopric member), Rob Norr (home teacher), Evan Eastman and Bryan Boyer (from the old ward). Brother Crandall conducted and welcomed Raine to the Ward. Molly Wood, the Primary President, made sure everything ran smoothly and welcomed Raine to Activity Days. My visiting teacher Carrie Moyle played the piano. She went above and beyond to practice the songs that Raine wanted so that she could play them smoothly. Raine picked two songs written by Grandma Gabbott for her big event, “Baptism” and “He Sent His Son.”

Our little friend Alice took this photo during Grandpa Dewey’s talk on baptism. Evan sent it to us afterward. I love the perspective it provides.

After the baptism we had a taco-bar luncheon at our house. Here are Raine and Alexa.

It was a great day. The support of our friends and family really meant a lot to both me and Raine. Raine really love being spoiled. Grandma gave her a special necklace and bracelet.

Her primary teacher, Sister Behymer, gave her a gift bag full of craft supplies. Several of her friends made cards for her. The Eastman’s gave her a whole bunch of bracelets. Sister Sweeney gave her some Shopkins. Sister Vanderpool embroidered this fluffy white towel with Raine’s name in her favorite color.

That evening was the General Women’s meeting at the church for all women and girls age 8 and up. I was so excited for Raine to finally be old enough to go with me. My illusions of a wonderful experience for Raine were shot down rather quickly as Raine threw her head back near the end of first speaker’s talk and declared, “This is SO BORING!” It was starting to look like Raine might die of boredom, but fortunately, the meeting ended and they opened up the gym with tables full of donuts. She recovered pretty quickly then!