It's a Marrvelous Life: Winter and Spring 2021-2

We borrowed pictures throughout from Julie, Shannon, and Tracy. Thank you for taking pictures!

Christmas at home

Christmas in San Jose

We stopped in Elko and Fallon on the way to San Jose. Dallin's family ended up getting sick, so we stayed in Fallon for an extra day or two. We got the call when we were in Reno, so we decided to visit Scheels while we were there before turning around to go back to Fallon. Ironically, after visiting San Jose we had been planning to stop in Fallon again, but the Perazzos were sick this time. We stayed at a hotel in Winnemucca on the way back. For the first time, we got two adjoining rooms because there were so many of us. We'll keep doing that - it was really nice.

For our anniversary, we went mini-golfing and walked around a local mall while Dallin's parents watched the kids. The family golfing in front of us apologized for taking a long time, and we told them to take as much time as they needed - this was our break from our kids. We all had a good laugh.

Scheels

While in San Jose we went to Christmas in the Park downtown.

Lots of fun had at the Marr's. Got to see the Beagleys and Shannon's family while there.

Christmas Day!

Whole set of Star Wars jammies. The babies got some, too. Samuel got fluffy Grogu PJs and Renee got ones with Leia and R2-D2.

For cousin Axel's birthday, went to the Oakland zoo, dropped by the temple, and partied at the Call's.

Oakland temple

Grandma took the older kids to Lego Discovery

Back in Utah

A local theater was putting on a production of Rapunzel's Very Hairy Fairy Tale. We also brought Owen and Stockton. It was very entertaining.

The kids' school did a production of the Emperor's New Clothes. Auditions, practices, and performances all happened in one week. Ev was a cobbler and Adeline one of the Royal Silkworms. Cousins were also in the play. Julie took some videos of the adorable performance. They're on her Facebook page.

Susan brought some flowers for the performers.

We made another trip out to California March 16-21. We stayed the night with Sarah again in Elko, then briefly met up with Jackie in Reno as we drove through. Dallin attended a conference in Santa Rosa while Alicia took the kids to visit the Marrs. Shannon had her baby shower and Alicia got to attend. Right after the baby shower we met at the Call's and celebrated Grandma Beagley's birthday. We got to stop in Fallon on the way back.

On the drive to San Jose after the conference ended Dallin got to go over the Golden Gate Bridge.

The babies travel well.

Cousins' birthday at a bounce place

A tragedy in two parts

Family Easter egg hunt the day before Easter.

Easter Sunday - outfits by Julie.

Tulip Festival at Ashton Gardens

Museum of Natural Curiosity at Thanksgiving Point

Various parks

North Park in Provo

Harvey Park in Cedar Hills

Meadows Park in Lindon (the kids played longer by the waterside than at the playground)

Evergreen Park in American Fork

Downtown Park in Pleasant Grove

Bean Life Sciences Museum at BYU

Reptiles at the kids' school

Ogden Nature Center- There was a birdhouse trail.

Magic show at library (You can see how excited Abram was. He's in the black shirt

Museum of Art at BYU

Pleasant Grove Strawberry days- Week long festivities. We entered the babies into the multiples category of the baby contest. They didn't win, but it was fun. There was a Kids parade and nightly concerts.

Local pond

Museum of Ancient Life at Thanksgiving Point

Visiting Great-grandma Lowe with Grandma Perazzo

Cousins at family dinner at Brandon's house

Intermission at the play Bright Star, that Alicia went to with her parents

Activity at the Library

Party after Beckham's baptism. Congratulations Beckham!

Julie's house

Visit from Dallin's cousin Devon and his family.

Domestic adventures

Snow!

Older two love EXTREME reading

Building projects galore

So blessed to have so many people visit and help and love.

Water balloon fight

Adeline and Stockton riding in the front yard

Pictures taken by kids while in the yard

P going on a bit of a ramble. I think his facial expressions are hilarious.

Matching Valentine's outfits from Julie

We had a surprise party for Jacob's birthday. Michael and his family came into town. Dallin got to be the grillmaster.

Peter and Abram both decided they want copy machines for their birthday. Not sure they know what a copy machine is.

Abram will often come up to Alicia and say, "Hi, [insert character/animal from his imaginary play here]"

Samuel

Samuel figured out crawling and walking before Renee. He was and is very fast with both modes of transportation. Even when he started walking, we joked that Renee was much more sure on her feet (she stood up first, but didn't walk for a while). We found out he has bad eczema when he wears certain fabrics of pants, so we've had to just dress him in soft fabrics. Corduroy and denim really make him break out. He joins the family trend of having inguinal hernias, so he has surgery scheduled to repair it. It's definitely not slowing him down, though. He runs everywhere now (including out the door when he sees it even slightly open).

Renee

Renee recently started walking. Renee is generally more chill about meeting new people and letting them hold her (Samuel can be a momma's boy). She is very cuddly and adorable. She's good at opening ziplock bags. She is amazing at downing baby food pouches.

Learning to crawl - kinda hops into place

Some great faces. The tongue.

Adeline trying to get Renee to blow raspberries and talk.

The wig is from Adeline's Leia costume.

Pickle?

Bonding over literature! Walking (that's the dress she wore to the Strawberry Days baby contest)!

First birthday! They were very unsure about the cupcakes, but gave them a try after some prompting. Pictures from Julie.

Double trouble

It's decently common for them to wake up this way. It's pretty cute.

Kids' sports

Gymnastics

Basketball

Ev improved a lot over the course of the season. At first, he stood around (like his daddy did). By the end he was doing great with defense and had made great improvements in every aspect of the game. He had the best coach (his uncle Jacob). His cousin was on the same team and there were a few friends from school either on his team or on the other teams.

Futsal- Adeline and Ev both played. Their games were normally one right after the other, so most weeks games were a whole family event.

Adeline also had her cousin on her team. She loved to play defense and did a great job.

Everett's team didn't have a coach, so the parents rotated serving as the coach. Dallin coached three times.

Baseball

Ev playing catcher. Ev probably did his best playing second base - he showed great awareness of the game situation (tracking the ball, knowing where to throw). He was pretty accurate in his throws and hitting too.

School

school pictures

Snippet Alicia wrote about Adeline for her spotlight day

"Adeline was born in Washington state and has also lived in Nevada and Texas before moving here. She has four brothers and a sister. Her youngest siblings are baby twins who she loves to play with. When she was a baby she liked to suck on her toes. As a toddler she enjoyed playing with boxes and dressing up, especially by wearing a tie. Now she likes to: go on little adventures, spend time with her grandparents and cousins, write notes to people, and stand on her head."

Peter's Kindergarten graduation

Everett

Adeline

Peter- With Peter being young for his grade, he started off the year a bit behind in reading, so we enrolled him in tutoring through our local library. He seemed to enjoy it (especially contrasted with how well he liked us working with him.) We are so proud of him for how much progress he's made.

He also got awarded Student of the Month once.

Dallin's grandmother passed away on March 31st. This picture was taken about a month before she passed. She was diagnosed with cancer and went down rapidly after that. Her children all came and visited before she passed. She was only on hospice for less than a week. Dallin got to go visit her the night before she passed.

Dallin- Grandma Roberta was the nicest woman I ever met. Growing up she always wanted to make our favorite meals or desserts. She loved her kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. I'm so grateful my kids got to know her (first in Spokane, then in Utah this past year). One of the reasons we named Samuel Samuel was because that was what she lovingly called all of her grandsons.

In April, Dallin's sister Shannon gave birth to a little girl, Ivy, their third child and first girl. She's a sleepy baby. We're looking forward to meeting her this summer. Picture is from her baby blessing in June.

Dallin wanted Igor bars for his birthday (from the comic Dork Tower). It's a layer of chocolate chip cookie, a layer of caramel, and a layer of rice crispy treat topped with chocolate and M&Ms. They were delicious.

On June 16, four of us tested positive and one tested negative for COVID. Adeline tested negative, but was the most sick. She was down for a few days, and did later test positive. Dallin didn't get tested, but showed symptoms and just assumed he had it. It really ended up happening at a fortuitous time - school and work were out, and we had some time until we were planning on going on our summer trip to Nevada and California. Ev, Peter, and Abram showed no symptoms. The babies had runny noses for a couple days. Alicia felt achy for a day and had some allergy-like symptoms. Dallin started with allergy-like symptoms but had a day that he was down. Adeline is still recovering but doing much better.

Kids' writings

Everett

The first several pages of Everett's vocabulary book have normal pictures to go with each word, but on the last few pages, every vocab word has a sword incorporated into its picture.