Hubbard Happenings: Happy New Year

It feels like winter finally decided to come. We have been dipping into the 20’s at night and most days we haven’t gotten over 50. The last few days it has been cloudy and gray. I guess it is good we are getting some winter weather. Last Wednesday when I took the kids to the library it was very cool. There was a puddle iced over next to the walk way. The kids all stopped to look at the ice. They thought it was amazing that there was ice outside! I thought it was funny that they were so amazed.

Our school break is going well most days. The kids are enjoying playing with their new things. Friday morning the kids were a bit grumpy and just not playing nice. Spencer suggested we do centers, after all he does it at school. So we made three “centers” play dough, lincoln logs and blocks. The kids got to play at their center for 15 minutes then they rotated. We only did three because Caleb doesn’t understand the concept, he just played. It worked so well and the kids had so much fun creating things without having to share with someone else! I will have to remember and do it again if needed.

Friday afternoon we went to the children’s museum. We spent about three hours there and had time to see all the activity rooms. About half way through our time Neal joined us. It was fun to have him with us. We then went to the electric train display and had fun with the trains. They also had some model helicopters there that they were playing with. It was fun to watch them fly around the room.

Saturday we were able to rake up most the leaves in our yard. Neal was able to finish with that project yesterday. The lawn looks so much better with them moved. We have piled them all up by the garden. We decided that instead of expanding the garden right now we would just do the new compost pile on the outside of the wood boarder, the grass has died there and that way we will have more space in the actual garden area. It will be fun to see what we can plant and grow this year. Only one more month and we can start planting. I have decided that Texas has two short growing seasons and it can be a bit tricky to get things to grow well.

Sunday Neal and I gave talks in Sacrament meeting. I think that it went well. We were talking with a recent returned missionary so we kept our talks short so he could have more time. I enjoyed being at church. I taught my primary class for the last time. They have been a nice group of kids and I have enjoyed spending time with them. I had told the Primary people that I would teach until the end of the year, even though I was released and put into the Relief Society Presidency. They were short teachers and I was available. Caleb didn’t want to go to church this week. He was fighting getting dressed. I managed to get pants and shirt on, but shoes were impossible. I got one sock on, but by the time I got another sock on the first one was off. I gave up and just brought them with me. He also wouldn’t let me comb his hair. So I just took him the way he was. Neal was able to get his shoes on when we met him at church but I did feel a little silly carrying him into the building with his hair all crazy and no shoes on.

Monday Spencer got sick to his stomach. Thankfully it was short lived. Andrew is finally getting over his cough. I think I can say everyone is healthy today! Monday evening we had a little party time with the kids. I enjoyed reading to them and doing puzzles. Neal and I stayed up watching a movie. About 11:30 Neal left to go to the church to help serve the youth a breakfast at midnight. He said the young people had a fun party and he enjoyed a good breakfast too.

Yesterday we had a fun day together. It was nice to have Neal home all day! We did our ginger bread houses together. That has been our tradition to do it on the 1^st. The kids had so much fun decorating and trying to get as much candy as they could on it. It was nice we still had so much Halloween candy to decorate with.

Yesterday I cooked a turkey. It smelled so good as it was in the oven. It was done and I turned off the oven. I was making rolls but they weren’t ready yet. About an hour later I was ready to bake my rolls, I went to turn on the oven but noticed it wasn’t getting hot! It seems the element is burned out. So I had two pans of rolls all ready to bake and no oven working. I couldn’t even try out my new Sun Oven because it was cloudy outside. Neal helped me out. He went over to our neighbor, Archie, and asked if we could use his oven. So thankfully Archie was home and had a working oven. Now that is another thing on the list of things to fix around here. It is hard to keep a house up in working order!

We hope that everyone can enjoy a beautiful new year and have lots of fun memories with your loved ones.

The boys playing at the museum, with the drums and with the trains.