So so very behind on documenting! 2021 was so good to our family and I feel grateful every day for what we have together. . Chad: Chad had a crazy year from the start. In February we made the difficult decision to leave the company he worked for and start a new job with PCI. It was hard to leave but it has proven to be a perfect new road for our family. Chad loves his job, and our family loves seeing him more. He has survived a almost complete remodel of it downstairs and spent loads of time installing floors, shiplap and texture. He’s also been working on our camping trailer, to make millions of more memories in it this year! He went hunting, played way too much golf (by my standards) and spent a lot of time camping with the boys and I. Chad got covid...from me...because i cant help but kiss his beautiful face like a wreckless selfish person. he kicked it to the curb after just a day or two. The bishopric got moved around but Chad is the 1st councilor now and loves working with Bishop Hatch and Bro.Clegg. He has lost a lot of weight and is killing it at Keto. He's also learned to love pickleball and wrestling is a nightly ritual with the boys. . Liam:Liam had a huge year of changes, this was his first full year of school, he loves his teacher and has enjoyed all the new spots he's learned. He was a rockstar on the football field and he was the most improved runner for his track season. even when he started the season coming in 8th every time, he always had a smile on his faces and was exited after each practice about the new friends he made. I love and envy his ability to truely enjoy things even if he's not the best at them, its such a beautiful trait to have and I believe it will serve him his whole life through.Liam loved soccer camp this summer and hangng out with his cousins in Utah and Northern Arizona to beat the heat. Stratton and him really lyer the ground work for a great relationship and it was been the joy of y heart to watch them become better friends this year. they love being with eachother and are starting to understand the importance of bing thier for eachother. In Hawaii, Liam was in awe at his cool cousins home and thier paradicial life style. He loved learning from them and really apprecites aloha. Lim worked hard this year at preparing to be baptized. He doesnt like bearing his testimony but he loves building it and has memorized and understands 7 out of the 13 articles of faith. I love his desire to not just check stuff off his list but fully achieve understanding. He loves his family so much and i think this year we all learned that when Liam says cheese lovey dovey stuff...its not cheesey, its genuine, he is just so genuiney grateful and obssessed with his family, it refreshingy honest. I love being around him and love that he always want to have a converstion with someone. Matix:Matix had a great year of bug bites, urgent care visits and loads and loads of laughs. H broke his fingr while on vacation in park city and we got to spend some quality mother/son time in the urgent care getting it cast. He found dozens of new bugs and we installed a indentifyer app that tells us all about the bugs he finds with just a picture.He has 4 bug cages and they are never vacant. He Has loved kindergarten, after missing a ew weeks at the beginning of the yer he struggled getting caught up with his work and socially, it was a big hurdle for him and we're so proud of how hard he has worked to regulate his feelings and be open to his teachers, friends and family who want to help him. He's alwys been full of passion but this yer it all bubbled over, we became very aware of the power Matix has. He's got so muvh to offer and we had a hard tie this year figure out how to help him channel his feelings to productivly solve the problems he faces. Matix has an incrdibel behavior aid at school named "my friend, Mr. Cook" we're so grateful for people like him who keep showing up for Matix. This year Matix really learned that we'll never give up on him, he might feel defeated but we're there to squeeze him tight until the anger and frustration leave so that we can celebrate when the happiness and good choices prevail. Matix love soccer camp so much that we had him play again in the winter, he really became a team player by the end of the season. IN Hawaii, Matix tried absolutely everything, this boy oved being outside all year long.He's still obsessed with Space and will still teach anyone he meets all about it. Easton: Can I say anything but JOY? He is aabsolute JOY. I feel like being the third has already at the age of 2 given him this beautiful perspective of what family is all about. He just gets it. He gets brotherhood, he gets peacmaker, he just understands what it means to be a part of a family, better than all of us I would say. If someone is sad, he is the first to check on them and kiss them better, if he has something great he knows the first thing to do is share it with all of us and he never hesistates to tell people how much he loves them. He always brings the peace back into our home and his brothers admit that he is teaching them how to be patint and kind. He is obsessed with his brothers, he calls Matix Macken and it cracks us up...Matix doesnt mind it at all but if anyone else calls him macken besides Easton, he corrects them quickly and reminds then they are not a baby and need to use his correct name. Every time the boys get out of the car for school he say "you guys have a good day?" and you guys be kind, make good choice?", brothers love it so much and they always answer yes and give him hugs before getting out at the drop off line.He greet them similarly after they get in the car at the end of the school day, but more anxiously, as he's missed them all day. He is a fixer. if soethings broken, he liek to tal through what happened an figure out how to peice it back together. if mom or brothers have a problem he does the same thing. Most of the time if brothers get an owie, no matter where they are hurt he'll run up to then rub thier back nd say, i kiss it better? After which he will kiss thier feet...even if they bonked thier head, he kisses everyones feet. I wasnt feeling well the other day and he just brought me his favorite blanket and a cup of water. He loves taking care of people and he's good at it. He loves fast cars and annything with wheels. He has a great memory and is so grateful all the time. And since its my blog, mines a little longer, skip over if I'm boring you Kayla: I spent much of my year with my earbuds in listening to books! Books about resilience, about grief and shame, books about LGBTQ, about history, politics, the environment, social trends, gender differences, the race to space, the atomic bomb, holocaust survivors, self improvement, the power of stillness and a grumpy old man names Ove’. 23 books. really a big improvement from the one or two i read the year before. This year I became very aware of how much I have to learn, it was sobering and motivating. I made a lot of cookies and created a better network of creators like me who I can learn and grow from. I took my kids all over the place, we traveled without Chad quite a bit, which is not my favorite but with his new job, I felt it was my responsibility to give the boys a great summer without chads help so he could focus on immersing himself in his new work.We went up north a couple times to visit great grand parents, We did park city on our own and most of the summer adventuring every mountain surrounding the valley. It was good for us to be together so much, we missed Chad but it was fun to have so much quality mother/son time! I survived Covid, prayed about covid, helped others with covid, read about covid, talked with doctors about covid and hated covid. I made new friends and grew closer to old friends. I also had a few falling outs with friends. It tested my confidence and self worth as I watched people I love like family and would do anything for, decide to discontinue our relationship. I cried and mourned this loss more than I ever could have anticipated. It hurt like hell and still does. But I love who I am, sincrely I would love a friend like me so I’m hopeful that this year will bring many more friends who need a Kayla in their life and less people who don’t appreciate what I have to give. I rekindled my love for the desert this year, I embraced my surroundings and was greeted with the best monsoon season I have seen in years. I camped a lot! Its my favorite thing to do with my family so buying the RV was a no brainer. We took it to the ward campout and beach camping in California twice. We have so much work to do on it but I'm excited for the projects we'll get to design together. However, I am all tapped out on house projects. Remodeling the house has been difficult for chad and I. We rarely see eye to eye and the miscommunications and priority differencs have driven us batty. I'm ready for a year of enjoying the changes that drove us wild this year. I faced new and challenging obsticles as a mother. Advocating more persistently for my children has become nessicary this year and its something I'll keep working on as I've learned absolutley no one knows and loves these boys like I do!