January 2018

Birthdays

Lori January 16th

The Fordham’s had an awesome holiday season! It was busy as usual. Some of the events that we had were Zoo Lights with Eli’s family, Piano Guys Christmas concert, Christmas Village in Ogden, Corbin’s choir concerts, a Jazz Game in the suite, and lots of fun with the Lundell’s at our home. We also had a great Christmas lunch at Mike and Jamie’s house.

                Eli is back in school with a growing light at the end of the tunnel. He really feels like he’s in the home stretch with plans of graduating in December of this year. He really enjoyed the Christmas break after such a hard semester. His Grandma Fordham passed away in the week between Christmas and New Year’s where he was able to go to his hometown of Lyman for the funeral and see old friends and family. He’s happy that his grandma doesn’t need to suffer anymore and gets to return home to his grandpa and all her family. 

               Colleen continues to keep everything steady in the home. She is an amazing example of faith and fortitude. She is continually listening to conference talks and uplifting music. She always strives to fill her life with the good and uplifting. She also feels the weight of Eli’s school as she continues her life as a “single mom”. She continues to battle her health demons, but always tries to be positive through it all.

                Corbin received the Aaronic Priesthood and loves serving as a deacon. He is always willing to help with any of the assignments that are asked of him. He’s really growing into quite a young man. His poem is moving on in the reflections contest where he won at the District level. To win at this level, he needed to be chosen over 60 other schools in his age group. The age groups are broken up into 3 year increments, so this is really quite the accomplishment. Now he moves onto State! We’ll find out how he did there in March. Also, he’s back at it in indoor soccer. We’re excited for another season.

                Luke continues to live his life in “Lukeland”. He moved onto Senior Primary this year. He always has a huge smile and loves the little things in life. His favorite things are food, Pizza Pie Café, ice cream, food, playing with his friends, food, playing family games, food, eating out at any restaurant, and food. He’s always making us laugh.

                Reagan is our little princess. She loves having Colleen straighten her hair, and constantly begs her to do it. They are best of buddies. She is becoming more stingy with kisses. Whenever Eli wants to give her a kiss, she’ll say, “I don’t have any”. Then to prove it, she’ll open her mouth as big as she can so you can see that she’s all out of kisses.

                We wish you all a happy New Year and hope that you can live up to the dreams you aspire to.

Colleen and Elijah


Where to start? I can't believe Christmas was only a few weeks ago, seems like forever! 

We started off the Month of December with a surprise to trip to Disney Land with a few close friends. The kids and Adults had a total blast. The lines were short and we used a new fast pass called  the "Max Pass"  that you use on your phone.  This helped to cut down on running around the park to grab fast passes. Kylee learned to love roller coasters and Jake cried because he wanted to go on the big kid roller coasters. The new Guardians of the Galaxy ride was probably the scariest ride of the whole trip. 

Dan and I hosted our annual adult only Ugly sweater party and we were totally caught off guard when one couple showed up with our faces plastered on their sweaters! The hot item for the white elephant gifts was a huge bag of homemade beef jerky.

We went home for a few days for a quick Christmas with family members and a baby shower for Jamie. We stayed in Moab on our way down and went to sleep with no snow and woke up to 6 inches of snow! It took us quite a bit longer to get to our destination then planned and I felt bad because it was Hadley's birthday.  However, she didn't seem to mind.  She was pretty excited to throw snow balls at everyone! We celebrated Hadley's birthday with a chocolate chocolate chip cake from Nothin' Bundt Cake with my family.  Hadley likes everything chocolate.  Both Hadley and Kylee got some mini hatchimals and beanie babies that they are in love with. 

We also got to visit my Mothers grave and my Dad fixed up a tree near by her grave. He edged that area around the tree and planted a bunch of flowers and re-arranged a cute little bench that sits in the shade of the tree. The kids loved running around the open spaces and playing in  and around the ice covered stream that is just behind mom's resting spot.

Jamie had a lot of support from friends and family at her baby sprinkle. We went to El Matador. We had a huge table full of people!  We spent a lot of time opening presents.  It was fun to see all the baby girl stuff! Kinda made me jealous! 

We also got to meet up with some of the Lundell extended family.  Dave and Tara Keyes put on a friends and family breakfast which was a perfect opportunity to see some cousin and lots of Aunts and Uncles I haven't seen in a long time. After that breakfast we headed over to the Ogden Pizzeria with the Rudd's and enjoyed some more yummy food.  We ended up at Bruce and Cindy's and let all cousins play together! It was fun to call Bruce and Cindy and have them watch their grandkids open their presents. That night we went and celebrated Christmas Eve with the Lundell's. We had a cousins concert, opened presents, and went to look at Christmas lights. 

We went home for Christmas and it was magical having a Christmas at home!  Hayden's favorite gift was his Nintendo switch.  Hadley's was all her makeup.  Kylee loved all her markers and paint brushes.  Jake's favorite gift was the remote control car Grandpa Lundell gave him. 

We also headed out to Baltimore to visit Bruce and Cindy.  It was such an awesome experience. Our layover was delayed so we didn't get into Grandmas until 4:30 AM!!!  I was surprised how well our kids did with such a rough start!  We went to a dinner theater that had horses and sword fighting.  The kids really enjoyed it.  We also went to the Baltimore Aquarium and the kids loved.  Jake got a stuffed animal Nemo that he now is obsessed with. We got to meet a lot of the people that Bruce and Cindy are working with on a daily basis and it makes me so happy that they are around such amazing people! Their ward was very welcoming.  By the way, it was FREAKING COLD!  The whole trip we were freezing our buns off.  I think Hayden loved the couple days we spent in D.C.  We learned a lot of history and had small crowds because of the cold.  We got to see the Declaration of Independence and Constitution at the National archives.  At the Museum of National History we saw all of the inauguration dresses of the presidents' wives.  We also saw the Lincoln Memorial, Ford's Theater and the Air and Space Museum. We just kept going and everyone did pretty well.  Kylee struggled some but not as bad as I excepted.

After returning from Baltimore we still had a few days of Christmas vacation left (3 week break!!).  During the remaining time we had a chance to relax and play with friends and also went to the trampoline park. 

Daniel and Holly

December was a fun month we started by a ugly sweater party with friends from the neighborhood and Ward. Then Mike’s work hosted breakfast with Santa and we got to see the movie Coco which we loved. Then on a Monday night we did a traveling FHE night where we went to a different houses and experienced the sites sounds and smells of Christmas it was a blast. Gibsons Kindergarten class had a gingerbread party where they were hoping the gingerbread man would return so they each made houses for him and he did come back and talked about all his adventures it was so much fun. Right before Christmas Holly and Colleen through me a wonderful baby sprinkle at EL Matador where I got spoiled by family and friends. Christmas was fun having family in town and as always we love seeing our cousins and aunts and uncles yes. Gibson had a wonderful Christmas and got all the things his heart could imagine for Christmas. We normally go to a friends cabin for New Year’s weekend this year I wasn’t feeling up to staying the night being 36 weeks pregnant so we went up for just the day and still had fun playing games and sledding. We love you all and so glad to have family!!!

Jamie and Mike