12.31.23

12.31.23

We had our annual Forsyth Family Christmas Party on New Years Eve!

Josh and Marissa were here from Philadelphia and Jake was on his way through, moving from Texas to California so all the siblings got to be there. Happy Birthday Josh!

This year Mom and Dad catered Costa Vida to reduce the stress of making food and it worked out great.

We recreated our Christmas Eve sibling pyramid and then the grandkids tried their own version too.

2001

2008

The cousins all had a snowball fight and opened presents, but my favorite game we played was a Christmas Carol game! All of us stood in a circle and drew out a Christmas song. 2 people had the same song and everyone sang at the same time to find who was singing the same song. The last pair to find their match loses. Kasen found me, singing Frosty the Snowman pretty quick!

Kasen was especially excited about this Harry Potter clue game!

Kohen kept hiding to open up more candy. He LOVES candy. It makes him "super happy". I don't know how he doesn't get sick.

Josh left his own birthday party at like 6:30, which was too late to make other New Years Eve plans. But we went home and had our own party with Kasen and Tai! We played his new Harry Potter Clue game, and poor Tai was not understanding. She made a guess with 3 cards in her hand and when nobody could prove her wrong she said, "Now what?!" We were all very confused. Haha

 The day before the family party we all went to Janica's wedding, in Bountiful together. That morning Kyle got a black eye from being hit during basketball. It turned purple fast!

On Friday we went over to Emma's house with Grammy Tammy to let the kids make gingerbread houses! We hadn't done those since 2020, so it's been a few years!

Of course, Kohen mostly just ate his "ganems"

Besides that we've just been doing lots of Perler Beads! Tai made 11 things the day after Christmas. And I've been making the Marvel ones that Kasen doesn't have the patience for, but that Kohen wants to be made. lol

Kolt pulled the hot iron off of the counter and he was just inches away from scarring his face for life! So that was fun...

Kasen also got to go to a birthday party at Airborne and when I went to pick him up he got courage to go on one of the big slides! He laid on a mat on his tummy, to go down head first and then shoot off the edge at the bottom. I wish I had filmed it! You're supposed to keep your elbows in, but as soon as Kasen started going he flung his arms out like a scared cat and was screaming the whole way down. His face was terrified, but then we both laughed about it at the bottom! 

Christmas time is just the best.

Whoever doesn't like Christmas time is doing it all wrong. Don't let doing so many things stress you out. You don't have to do all the things. Just do the things that you love and make you happy! (Which is why our house doesn't have an elf and why we don't usually go stand in lines to see Santa.)

You don't have to do all the same things every year either. This year we didn't frost sugar cookies, act out the nativity or go see a live nativity. We didn't make snowflakes, go caroling, ice skating or visit a giving machine. 

But we did a lot of other super fun things that made Christmas magical for me. We made memories together and hopefully my kids will remember the good feelings around this time and forget the times I still got after them for the constant whining and fighting, in spite of the magic I tried to create for them.

I love Christmas and I love Jesus Christ.

What 2023 Taught Me

"If you stop learning, you stop growing. The moment you stop learning is the moment you start dying."

So what have you learned this year?! Some things that 2023 has taught me are that:

1. Costco will give you a full refund for a broken electric fireplace 4 years later.
2. It takes 4 hours for one person to put a Home Depot fireplace together. Thanks Kyle!
3. Only after your vehicle dies in their car wash parking lot, will Nissan believe that your car doesn't just need the battery to be charged.
4. It takes the Nissan dealership 3 weeks to replace an alternator.
5. Skull King is the same game as Rooke...
6. It's not even raw egg that supposedly makes eating raw cookie dough dangerous. It's uncooked flour? Never knew
7. Having elevated blood pressure will not allow an induction date to be moved up by 2 days, but will require 5 hours of musical doctors offices to get various labs done.
8. Portable oxygen tanks, using a .2L flow rate, last about 8 days, the oximeter battery can last up to 4 hours if you turn the screen brightness down and the tubing cannot reach past our front room chair.
9. Oximeters are $16.50 a night to rent and if you put it on Kohen's finger or toe then the results will be inconclusive. It takes 4x to find out that Kohen doesn't not qualify to have his tonsils removed.
10. You only have 30 days to enroll a new dependent with PEHP health insurance, but adding a new dependent during open enrollment doesn't add said new dependent to you current health insurance plan and they don't tell you that until day 32...
11. Kasen can finish an entire King Kong Kone from Maceys all by himself.
12. Eagle Mountain Utah West Stake will not give you a baptism time until 2 weeks before the baptism date and shipping baptism invitations priority costs double the amount of the invitations themselves.
13. If you have a ladder then it only takes 2 people to put a gazebo together instead of the recommended 6-8 people.
14. 5 days in the NICU costs $40,000, but if you have health insurance it's only $152. The total cost to bring Kolt home was $5,489.08. Thanks to Unified HR getting Kolt added to our insurance after the 30 days.
15. We paid $674 more than our $6,000 out of pocket max for the year... Still don't know how that works.
16. It is possible for Kolt to stay asleep during an entire Flaming Gorge lightning storm, while the rest of us get pelted with hail stones and the boat makes a mad dash back to dock
17. Nobody actually knows which campsite to cut through to hike down to Lion King. Or what a Chalet is.
18. The reason I look like I am drowning when I try to swim is because I actually have no idea how to put my face in the water and breathe in order to swim.
19. Don't lick the cinnamon sugar off of a Costa Vida table unless you want to get strep throat and then pass it on to your mom. 
20. Moms with strep throat are still capable of getting up in the middle of the night to nurse, while simultaneously helping a second child throw up in the toilet.
21. Walmart will not give you your groceries if you are even 3 minutes later than 10pm to pick them up. They will send an employee outside to tell you that though.
22. If your power goes out and trips a GFCI outlet, while you are out of town, then you will come home to a melty meat mess dripping out of the bottom of your deep freezer. Otter Pops can survive that. 228 ounces of breastmilk cannot. 
23. A beta fish can live 10 days without food, but then only about 2 more months after that.
24. Campgrounds in Utah close in September, even though there is hunting going on all throughout October.
25. Seeing an annular solar eclipse is worth a 2 hour drive.
26. It takes roughly 4 years of 3 kids jumping on the arm of a couch for it to totally and completely break off inside of the couch.
27. I can pack 6 people, for 2 nights, into 1 suitcase.
28. Students are not allowed to wait for 45 minutes at the school while their siblings participate in Chess Club.
29. What homemade pumpkin pie tastes like and how to make homemade cinnamon rolls.
30. Target will exchange Cat and Jack pants when they get holes, within a year of buying them, but conveniently for Target, the numbers on the pants don't actually match the numbers on your receipt.
31. How to make the fancy homemade ice cream, over the stove with eggs etc. but that I prefer the simple chocolate recipe better.
32. The bumps on Kohen's belly, that are like warts, but that are not warts and are more contagious than warts, take 2x and counting to get rid of at the dermatologist.
33. Apparently getting Christmas pajamas through customs is impossible, so even if you have them shipped twice since November 15th, they will not arrive before the new year.

My Top9 for the year!

We had a pretty rocking 2023 and reached all of the goals I set last year. We've been reading scriptures together before bed most nights and have made it all the way to Alma this year!

-Kolt arrived and is happy, healthy and oxygen free.

-Kohen is potty trained with near zero accidents. I loved making his Halloween costume this year.

-Tai got to try playing basketball and cheering this year, she had her very first ever haircut and tried cliff jumping.

-Kasen got to be baptized, accepted to the A.L.L. class at school, win the Reflections Award of Excellence, play flag football and win the playoff game, do Chess Club and run his first 5K race.

-Kyle got to go fishing in Texas, to a GreenBay game in Denver, had a vasectomy and PAID OFF the truck! Only took 2 and a half years. Debt free Par-tee!!

-and I got to go on a fun girls trip to Idaho before Kolt arrived and read 39 books this year!

2023 Stats:

10th tooth lost for Kasen

8 temple trips (The Saratoga Springs Temple was dedicated!) and 8 basketball games 

7 hikes and Tai lost her 7th tooth

6 flag football games

5 nights in the NICU and 32 days on oxygen

5 movie theater dates

4th baby born and 4th baby quilt made

3 camping trips

2 5k races

1 annular solar eclipse

My hopes for 2024 include:

-Convincing Kolt to sleep through the night, 

-Convincing Kohen to keep underwear on at home, keep a seatbelt on in the car and get him excited and ready to go to Preschool, Primary and start him in swimming lessons, 

-Start Kasen and Tai learning to play the piano,

-Help Tai prepare for her baptism,

-and to try real hard to stop yelling at my kids, make them more full balanced meals and say more personal prayers.

I also want to go on a trip to Oregon, read more books, run more races, hike more hikes, camp at more camps and take Kyle on more dates. Maybe be able to do 50 pushups?...

Pretty much just keep loving life and experiencing it all with my family!

Cheers to 2023!

Eight Months

 This last month has been full of all sorts of exciting changes for baby Kolt!

Earlier this month, while I was making Tai's birthday cake, I looked over and saw Kolt sitting up all by himself for the first time! Right before he tipped over and hit the back of his head on the tile floor. But he's been sitting up ever since! So he got to ride in the shopping cart seat for the first time, sat in the highchair at a couple restaurants and we have his crib mattress lowered now too. He tries SO hard to pull himself up everywhere.

Then the morning of our wedding anniversary we saw that his first little tooth had come through on the bottom! He's already bit me with it. And used it to chomp on a fully wrapped chocolate kiss that he found on the floor... He nearly had it all gone before I fished the tin foil wrapper out of his mouth.

This week the second one came in right next to it. So he has been super grumpy.

He has still been waking up 3, sometimes 2 times per night and does not like letting us change his diaper. He is in the full alligator rolling phase and flings himself off the changing table backwards, hits his head on the edge of it and then cries.

I love when I am nursing him to sleep and he pats his little head with his little baby hand though. It is the sweetest.

He likes to rub the back of his head on stuff, splash his heart out in the tub and try to grab everything everyone else is eating.

We sure love our cute little baby Kolt!

Kolt's First Christmas

We got to use our candy cane jammies for the 3rd year in a row because the new jammies I ordered back on November 15th still aren't here. Luckily I was able to find some jammies for Kolt on Facebook Marketplace for $3, in Saratoga Springs, that matched pretty well! And you can't even tell that Kohen's are WAY too small.

Christmas Eve was on a Sunday this year so we got to go to Sacrament Meeting and watch Kasen and Tai sing "If I Were a Shepherd" with the primary children. Kohen was even singing it some more when we got home. I can't believe he will be in Primary in just 2 weeks!

We have so many wonderful neighbors surrounding us that brought us all sorts of gifts too.

Kyle was in charge of Christmas Eve dinner again this year and it really is the best arrangement ever. It helps me not feel nearly so stressed. He smoked try tip to make sandwiches and cheese fries and Grammy Tammy came down to have dinner with us.

After dinner we all played Tai's new Nutts About Mutts game and then made cookies before watching the Santa Clause.

The kids slept till almost 7am before we got up to read Luke II with them and go see what Santa brought!

The little piano is from Mom and Dad though. We got it so that Kasen and Tai can start piano lessons next year! Tai already wrote a song about snowflakes that she sang for us while she played it.

Back when the book fair was at the kid's school, Tai found a Gabby's Dollhouse book, WITH cat ears, that she really wanted. Even though she hid it, by the time she went back with some money the next day, it was gone. I checked another book fair and couldn't find it.

But Santa came through!

Kasen got the drone that he asked for, and Kohen was excited for his Spiderman book that he wanted too!

He also got his very own tablet, just like Kasen Tai, more magnetic tiles and a glow in the dark fort building kit!

The kids also all got scooters that we can take camping with us!

And Kyle asked for socks, so we got him some custom made socks with the kids faces on them. They are my favorite! lol He also got some new sweaters and I got slippers and a new hand mixer.

Mostly we're just getting excited and saving for another cruise in June.

Kasen and Tai made us the sweetest gifts at school. Tai's is a calendar that she drew a picture for on every month and Kasen made us a cool stained glass picture. He even wrote Mom and Dad on it. Tai wrote Amber and Kyle on hers. Haha I always forget that other people think that is so odd.

Then Kolt finally woke up to join us for his first Christmas.

The kids all drew names to buy gifts for each other and Tai requested to have Kolt. She picked out the cutest hedgehog toy for him.

I love how much they all love to read and get excited about books. Kasen got the rest of the Last Kids on Earth books, the entire Harry Potter collection and some Tuttle Twins books from Grammy Tammy. He couldn't stop reading them long enough to watch the Santa Clause with us on Christmas Eve.

Kohen and Kolt both got comfy Spiderman chairs from Grammy.

In years past, I have always done cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas morning, but this year I started a new Christmas breakfast tradition of Christmas Casserole. A much better option before a day full of treats and sugar! And everyone actually ate it!! Best gift ever.

Later we went to visit Grandpa Kelly, where Kasen ended up throwing up all over his kitchen! Fitting since Tai threw up on Thanksgiving. So we came home to wait for everyone else to leave Melanie's and see how Kasen was feeling before going up to visit Melanie and Jack.

Tai got more Perler Beads and we have been doing them all day today!

And Kasen and Kohen were both excited to have crabs. We got not one, but two musical crabs that move around the floor and Kohen is hilarious when he does his own crab walk to chase them.

We definitely had a very Merry Christmas and are so blessed to have the gift of a Savior, his life and his love for each of us.