February 2018

Dad
Dad had a very enjoyable time fishing with Corbin last Saturday. Corbin caught a few fish and was pretty excited about it.

Dad spent a lot at Doug Wilson's home remodeling his hand rail. He completely rebuilt the hand rail and put in new wood banisters and  Doug stained them. Dad even did the trim and finish work. It was his first project like this in a while and it took him a few minutes to get back in the groove but was very proud of the way it turned out.

Dad started on his framing of the basement and finished another wall with Corbin's help!

Dad Celebrated his brother Gallen's 70th birthday and a great time catching up with his siblings.

Lori

Nothing big has happened since the last newsletter.

I was called to be the Stake Single Adult Representative. This means I am over the Single adults from 30 to dead. There are over 150 of them in the stake and only about 10 active, so it should be a lot of work. Especially since some wards are over two hours away from me.

My birthday was spent grading papers, so nothing special.

Valentines day I made treats for the class I taught and we talked about the evils to cohabitation. I spent the evening with Nathan (my skeleton).

The only fun thing I have done since the last newsletter was one fun outing with Niko. He took me to see The Price Is Right Live. It is a traveling version of the TV show that came to Indiana. They have the same games and prizes with different hosts. It was really fun even though neither of us got called to be a contestant. They still had fun interaction with the audience and it was really fun to see people compete and win fun prizes. I got a fun shirt and got to wear an official contestant tag. :)

Here’s the scoop on the Fordham’s.

Eli has had a busy and eventful month. Early in the month, he went on a Klondike campout with Corbin’s scout troop. It wasn’t too bad though because he got to sleep in a toasty, warm cabin while the boys slept outside in the cold. He also had a fun “brothers’ weekend” in St. George. He was able to spend time with his sister Christie and her husband on the trip as well, and was especially grateful to use their vehicle during the trip. He was able to go golfing with his brother, Scott, and play some UFC video games. He went shed hunting with his brother, Trevor, and played a hilarious game called My Redneck Life with his and Christie’s families. He went back down to St. George to wrap up the month with three more games of golf, atv riding, zip-lining, hiking, repelling, and rock-climbing for work. School continues to loom over him. 

Colleen celebrated her 36^th birthday last month. She continues to try to hold down the fort while her husband goes out gallivanting across the state. She is just as anxious as Eli is to be done with his schooling.  

Corbin went on his first Klondike. He had a great time playing games, sleeping in the cold, and being whipped around on sleds behind a couple of four-wheelers. He had his first school dance on Valentine’s Day. He’s growing up too fast.

Luke had a “Snickel Store” and got a Spiderman puzzle. This is a little store that each of them can trade and barter with at school. He got 100% on his reading test and was extremely excited about it. He loves to read. Also, he’s always selling his toys at his “Front Yard Toy Sale”. He’s such a funny kid.

Reagan danced in her first dance appearance at the Fremont High School basketball game. Only problem is, she danced with the wrong group. This little girl is always singing the ABC song lately. We can’t get enough of her.

Daniel and Holly

We got to celebrate Hadleys baptism in January! It was wonderful to have Cindy and Travis’ family come stay a few days! Cindy gave a truly needed talk at Hadleys baptism and had me in tears. You can tell she has such a sweet spirit with her and can share the light of the Lord with others. Hadley was so nervous about the her baptism and had so many questions, but everything went very smooth and she soaked in all the attention. Grandma and grandpa S came out to along with Lori and Kent and it was nice to catch up with them.

Hayden started soccer up again. He has been loving scouts, he has an amazing Den leader that keeps all 10 bear cubs occupied and learning so much! Hayden’s teacher just raved about him at parent teacher conferences, I kept asking if we were talking about the same kid, lol. But he is doing awesome in school and is such a responsible student. He has such an imagination, he and his friend are planning a triathlon for the neighborhood kids. They have a training schedule and have been mapping out the neighborhood for all the events.

Hadley has been perfecting her handstand in gymnastics. She got to make flower arrangements in activity days for Valentine’s Day and learned about starting her own career in something she was passionate about. Another week they learned how to make bread and we all benefited from that activity! We are working a lot with Hadley at home trying to get her grades up. She has really grown to love reading but still has a few weakness we are working on, and I quite enjoy some one on one time with Hadley practicing her phonemic awareness. She loves art and doing sculptures in school. She also started soccer and will have her first game on Saturday.

Kylee is still kylee. She is tearing it up academically. She’s getting a tad better socially. Whenever all the kids are out playing she can be found inside working on an art project or workbook. We took a ski trip up to Colorado with friends and she stayed back at the rental house with all the little kids Jakes age and she went sledding non stop! We are talking hours of sledding! She surprised us all at her liking of snow and cold weather. Kylee is always the first one to say thank you for vacations!

Jake has started doing school with mom along with his joy school. Some lessons he amazes me and sometimes he really struggles to sit for ten minutes! I got to sub in his sunbeam class a few weeks ago and it seriously amazes me how many wonderful teachers my kids have in their lives! His teacher had a class of 7 sunbeams sitting in their seats, intently listening to her every word for almost the entire hour! He is obsessed with marble towers lately and has gotten really good at building them himself. He is growing like a weed and is an inch taller then any of my other kids at this age!!

Daniel is working hard. His office manager had a baby last month and she’s been on maternity leave the last 5 weeks. Dan and I are missing her like crazy at the office. She really holds the office together. Dan has been working on fixing up the motorcycles in the garage for Hayden to ride. Changing motorcycle tires can be quite the task! Dan surprised me on Valentine’s Day by putting in a pots and pan organizer under my stove top! I almost cried I was so happy!!

I’ve been busy like most moms! Scouts has been such a surprisingly fun yet stressful calling. We had our blue and gold last week with a cub master that just got called in 4 weeks earlier! It turned out wonderful except the cub master(bless her heart) is kinda a Tom boy and isn’t really a cooker. She put bags of beans into the canned chili to stretch it ..... but she didn’t cook them first! So we had crunchy chili!!! And she didn’t know how to use her huge serving crockpot so she put hot dogs in it without water so the hot dogs on the bottom were burnt and the hot dogs on top were ice cold! I was frantically heating up hot dogs in the microwave AS we were serving people! It was like a comedy show! Worse part was I was the one serving the chili!!! I had no idea it was bad until I sat down to eat my crunchy chili..... so now the whole ward thinks I made the crunchy chili, so many laughs that night!!

I’ve been occupied with early morning running the last two months training for the Phoenix half marathon. I ran it with two good friends. We all took our families out to PHX for the weekend. I ran it in 2 hrs 10 minutes which was kinda a bust for me. I ran it under 2 hrs last year, but I knew going in I didn’t have the drive this time around. But we still made wonderful memories as a family and got to hang out with great friends.

Mike and Jamie

In January we welcomed to our family a baby girl! Emme LouAnn was due January 25th but was able to come early. We arrived at the hospital on Thursday, January 18th and spent 5 days there. Jamie was in labor for 25 hours! She developed a fever and an infection our doctor decided it was time to get her here and Jamie had to have a C section. Emme was born at 11:41 am on Friday, January 19th. Friday night Emme was admitted to the NICU because her oxygen levels were low, and she had a concerning chest X-ray that needed to be monitored closer and placed on antibiotics for Chorio. After two and a half days she was released from the NICU and able to be discharged on Monday along with Jamie. Since then she has been doing well and adjusting to life at her new home. Gibson is so proud to be a big brother. He loves her so much and is being so helpful.

Gibson turned 6 years old in February and had fun with a Star Wars party. Family came and enjoyed some Darth Vader cake and play dough ice cream. This kid was spoiled with awesome gifts and was so happy to be another year older.