February - Valentines & Birthdays

Since Valentine's was on a Sunday this year, Pat and I went out on Friday to 

dinner and a movie. We ate at the Black Bear Diner in Orem, which recently opened 

up. We ate there when we were in St. George last May and liked it a lot. And the 

food didn't disappoint. Their portions are huge so you can definitely have left overs.

Next we headed over to the Orem Cinemark and saw Deadpool!!  This 

movie is super crude, super bloody but super funny. Which is true 

to the character in the comic books. It was a fun night out for us.

The next day I was able to have a pre-birthday lunch at Zupas with Karri, Lisa 

and Mom. Afterwards we shopped at Target for some new shirts for me. I have 

been wanting some nicer shirts for church since all I wear are cotton t-shirt 

type shirts. Also it helps that I've lost 30 pounds and NEED new shirts too.

Sunday the 14th, we celebrated mine and Pat's birthday's at Moms. 

Karri made us a BB-8 cake!!! It was so perfect!!

JD & Chris gave me this kids birthday card that had stickers to dress up Barbie. I was super 

excited about it because it reminded me of my Barbie sticker book from when I was a kid!!

Lisa has been doing watercolor paintings lately and they are amazing. She painted 

one of me and dad from my 18th birthday. Instantly it made me cry hard, 

because it meant so much to me. Truly one of the best gifts I could have received. 

Here's a side by side of the original picture and her watercolor of it.

Mom got Pat this 6 in 1 Star Wars games set. Anything Star Wars makes this man happy.

Karri got him this awesome shirt and he loves it!!!

Thanks family for making it a great birthday celebration.

One weekend morning Jaina decided to camp out on the landing with her legs 

through the slats and play her DS. It's so funny to me the things that kids do.

Pat and I are slowly getting so freedom and using Xander and Mara as baby sitters. 

This night we actually put the little girls to bed and had the big kids stay up 

while we went to a movie. It was really nice and a great way to help them 

gain some responsibility. Zoolander 2 was funny, but not as good as the 

first one. But we still had a great time out on our 'date'.

February - Xander's Science Fair & Mara's Pioneer Day

Melody and I have so much one on one time each day while the bigger kids are at school. It's 

so fun to watch her learn and grow. She really likes the piano and likes to 'play' it all the time.

One night Mara was in the shower and Melody decided that she wanted to take a bath. So instead 

of putting her off for 20 minutes, I took her up to my bathroom and let her play in the big tub!!!

Xander and his best friend Josh, did their science fair project together 

and completely on their own!! It was such a difference from last year, 

when Pat and I helped him out a ton on his project, and this year we didn't 

help at all. They were able to advance on to the District level too!!!

The only picture I took of Pat on his birthday. We went to the temple then 

to dinner at Yamato. It seems like this is a birthday tradition for him.

Mara's been wanting to get her hair cut, so we finally went and did it. They styled it 

with some beach waves and she loved it. Sadly, I haven't been able to recreate it since.

Melody surely has a different taste in food than the rest of the kids 

did at 2 years old. Here she is eating broccoli, and loving it!!!

Mara is so good to play with Melody and do whatever she wants. This day they were 

coloring together and I spied them from the landing. Melody had been hollering 

at Mara saying that she was done coloring, then looked up, saw me and smiled.

I don't get snuggles much lately, and it makes me sad. So I have to 

document the random times that she's willing to give me loves.

This year the 4th grade decided that they wanted to make Valentine's boxes at home 

instead of just using a bag at school. Mara wanted to make a hot air balloon. So we 

looked at Pinterest and found directions on how to make a basket out of paper. I 

made the basket for her, but she came up with the idea for the rest of it and put it 

together. She really loved it and still has it in her room (over a month later).

On the 12th (when they were doing their Valentine's party) the 4th grade had their 

Pioneer day and performed their dances for the parents. It was fun to watch her 

dance, and I was able to get some fun pictures, all thanks to my telephoto lens!!

At the end the kids came and grabbed their parent and taught them the dance, but Mara 

didn't want to dance anymore, so we sat on the sidelines and watched. I love this girl 

so much and am happy that she's involved with school and loves to learn.

The Rest Of January

This was the day of Jaina's accident, we had gone to McDonald's for lunch. I ordered 

Melody some nuggets, in hopes that she'd eat them (she hasn't been eating well 

lately). She saw me with my McDouble, sat on my lap and proceeded to take a 

bite of my burger. That's when I remembered that she ate some of my burger 

on New Years Eve. So I let her have the rest of my burger and I ate her nuggets.

She has also been eating tuna fish sandwiches. When Pat comes home from school late on 

Wednesdays, I usually make some food for him. This night I made a few tuna sandwiches, 

which was good, because Melody mooched off of him so much she probably ate a 

whole one by herself!! Now I make her sandwiches for lunch and she loves them!

Our Tsum Tsum obsession has grown lately. We knew that there were little vinyl toys that 

were at Target, Walmart & Toys R Us, but I had been avoiding them because I knew I didn't 

need to get into another collection. But a few weeks ago, Pat came home from Walmart and 

had bought me a pack. Each pack has a small, medium and large tsum of different characters. 

I kept them in my sewing room on the windowsill. Melody would sneak into that room, climb on 

my table to get to the tsums. So, when we were shopping one night, we saw the packs and the 

girls just went wild over them. Mara got a set of all cats (figaro, marie & cheshire). Jaina got 

some with minnie & cinderella, and this is what I bought. Melody was so happy to play with 

them. So now I keep them in my room by my legos so she can play with them easily. Sadly 

I have opened a can of worms and have bought many more since that day. And series 

2 is coming out soon and I want some of those too. Ugh. 

One morning while I was cleaning the kitchen Melody decided that she wanted to play in the sink. 

It was really cute to see her little naked self playing in the water like I used to when I was a kid.

We didn't have a Tolman family dessert night the first Sunday of January, so we 

decided to have everyone to our house on the 3rd Sunday for dessert. And of 

course, when these boys get together at our house, it always turns into a Smash 

Bros Night! I just love how Jaina cuddled up with Jacob to play with all the boys.

Every day when Melody wakes up, weather it be in the morning or her nap, she never 

yells for me, but she jumps and jumps and jumps in her bed. We can always hear it and 

know she is awake. When I go in to get her, she says to me "I jumping". She loves it. 

This crib has already been through 3 kids prior to her, and we bought it used, so it's been a 

well used crib. So if she breaks it, it's alright, cause we won't need it once she's done with it.

One Saturday morning Jaina came up to ask us if she could play the computer to play Minecraft. 

We told her that she needed Xander to help her, which he did. He made her a little house and gave 

her a bunch of cats too. She loves that she can do things like Xander and Mara.  Later that night she 

told Xander that she was sorry, because she accidentally let all the cats out of the house and they 

ran away. She was almost in tears about it, which was so cute. She thought he would be mad, which 

he wasn't. He told her that it was okay and that he could help her get more cats again.

Mara and her best friend Aurora Hawkins. This picture was sent to me 

after they had played around with makeup and were so proud of themselves.

On the 23rd, the Saturday before Lana's birthday, I was able to take her out for a pedicure and 

lunch. It was so nice to be able to relax, talk and not have to worry about our kids for a few hours. 

Pat was so great and watched all the kids at her house while we did our thing. I am so thankful to 

have an amazing sister in law. She has been through so many hard trials in her life, but still manages 

to have a positive glow about her. I really look up to her and strive to be more like her.

Just another cute sleeping Melody picture. I can't seem to get any toys 

out of her bed. If I do, she will search for them and put them back in.

Here's Melody's entourage. Pooh Bear, Tigger, Sulley, Mike, Daisy and Minnie. She loves 

these toys so much. But currently, she calls Minnie Mickey and Daisy Donald. So we've 

been working on correcting her, but it's so cute, so I don't worry too much about it.

Friday January 29th. Xander's first Young Men's campout. They stayed in cabins, which he 

said were really nice. He had a great time playing in the snow and hanging out with the other 

boys in the ward. I love that he is getting to know more boys and gaining more friends.

Jaina's Stitches - Warning Graphic Picture

January 11th started out like a normal Monday. I ran errands while Jaina was at school and was feeling very accomplished. Until I got out to my car and my phone started going crazy with texts from Pat. It made me nervous because it seemed really urgent. So I called him and he told me that the school called and said that Jaina fell and hit her head and needed stitches. Apparently where I was shopping was a dead spot for my phone, because the school called me but couldn't get to me, so they called Pat. He was in frantic mode trying to get a hold of me. So on my way home from errands, I called the school to tell them that I was on my way, but that I needed to take my milk home first. They said that was fine because the bleeding had stopped, but to come as soon as I could. After taking my groceries home, I ran over to the school. I couldn't get a straight answer as to what happened, but she was holding a paper towel to her head. When I pulled it away, my stomach flipped and made me even more worried/panicked. I didn't know what to do. Luckily one of my neighbors was at the school and offered to help me, which was great because I had Leisy Greer today too. Tawni followed me to the clinic and sat in the waiting room with Melody and Leisy while I was in with Jaina. She was really nervous, but luckily her Baby Minnie was in the car and it helped calm her. She did a lot better than I thought she would, but it was probably because she couldn't see what was happening. After it was all said and done, we went to McDonald's for lunch and Jaina acted like nothing had even happened. It's been a month now and I still can't believe that it happened.

WARNING: GRAPHIC PICTURE AHEAD

That night Mara was nice and read her a few books.

And she even got books read to her by dad.

Later that week, at SEP's I was able to see where she had her 

accident. She was playing in the kitched area of her classroom, 

dropped something, picked it up, then dropped it again.When she went 

to pick it up again, she went really fast and hit her head on the play fridge.

The following Monday was a holiday, which means no school, and that 

is when we went to get the stitches out. It had been a full week. 

Here's how it scabbed over while she had the steri strips on her head.

It took about 10 minutes of talking, asking and convincing to get her 

to lay down for the doctor to take them out. She was really nervous,

 but we finally had to force her down and held onto her so he could do it.

This picture is from later that day. She's going to have a 

pretty big scar, 

which makes me so sad, but it will just add to her spunky personality.