The Rock Girls

Kaylee started a new band called The Rock Star Girls.  She recruited some music girls and got them dressed for the part.  They had lots of pink and rocked the night away.  Nathan, Owen & Kaylee had a lot of fun with this!!  

Christmas Morning 2020

 Christmas morning was magical!!  Since our remodel took over our house, we enjoyed Christmas morning in the basement.  Santa indeed came and brought stockings for all.  Nathan asked for a stuffed animal and got a cute bear from Santa.  Kaylee got roller skates and Dawson got lots of legos.  Cooper wanted a drone and Jaxton got some trendy shoes and hats.  Owen got a sleeping bag.  Of course it was a fun morning for all!! Merry Christmas!!

Opry Land Ice Skating

 We spent one day outside doing ice skating and ice tubing.  They had bears that slid on the ice that could help beginning skaters hold on while they skate.  The kids also would sit on the bears and get pushed around.  Everyone loved skating!!  There was a live band playing great music while we enjoyed the winter wonderland.  We also went ice tubing.  This was a big slide that we would go down in a big tube.  So much fun!!!  At the end of the evening, there were professional ice skating performers that put on a show for us.  What fun!!  

Opry Land Christmas Movies

 Opry Land had a huge Christmas Movie Tour.  One of our favorites was The Polar Express.  There was a pretend train with hot cocoa and dancing just like the movie!!  We also enjoyed National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation when Nate got to pretend to be the dad and turn on the Christmas Lights on the house.  It flashes with electricity and then goes bright, just like the movie!!  So fun to see life size display of the movies we love at Christmas time!!

Opry Land Tenessee

 We went to Opryland in Tennessee to get away as a family.  We drove several hours and got a couple of hotel rooms inside of Opryland.  The hotel was all enclosed but it felt like we were outside.  It was filled with plants and trees and even a river.  At this time of year, everything was decorated in Christmas!  We did some fun scavenger hunts around the hotel and enjoyed exploring everything there was to see.  Cooper and I did an Endangered Animal scavenger hunt with a fun app and photos.  We saw a kid that looked just like Nathan too!  

Oak Farm Work

 Oak Farm is our favorite school.  The kids all get opportunities to learn and work.  Owen worked by scrubbing a chair one day.  Nathan and Kaylee's classes visited the actual farm and got to see the goats, sheep, donkey, alpacas, and of course the cats.  The younger grades spend half days in Kinderforest in the back of the woods learning and exploring and cooking over the fire. The older grades dissect animals and do all kinds of hands on science.  What a fun place to learn!

Blue Fox Bottling

Rollar Skating

 We enjoyed roller skating one afternoon for fun.  Its an activity our whole family can do now!  The big kids can skate all on their own.  The youngers use the walker things, and Owen did great in Fisher Price plastic skates!  The plastic skates go over top of your shoes and they hardly roll so Owen was just walking along with skates.  He thought he was big and enjoyed it!!  Everyone had a great time!!  

Christmas Lights

 Cooper has asked every year, year after year after year, to put up Christmas lights on our house.  We have responded with no year after year because of how much work is involved.  This year, he said he would do it!  Well, we got him the supplies he needed and a tall ladder and he got to work.  He worked hard all day into the evening and got lights up all the way around the front of the house and the garages.  What a hard worker!  He had to hang clips along the gutters and then hang the lights.  When he turned them on after dark, we were all amazed to see a lit up house!!  Great effort Cooper!!

Felix's Christmas

 Felix is our employee who had an accident on a job site.  He fell and hurt his neck and ended up with some surgery.  He has been stuck at home healing for a few months.  Since he lives alone and his family is far away, we thought we would bring him some Christmas cheer.  We brought him a small Christmas Tree and set it up on a wrapped box with ribbon.  We brought him some stockings to hang and a candy dish.  It was fun! Felix enjoys seeing all the kids and we were glad to bring him Christmas!!

Gingerbread Festival

 I took the kids to see the annual Gingerbread Festival downtown at the Fort Wayne History Center.  It is always so fun to see the creativity of all the different kinds of gingerbread houses.  There were displays such as The Grinch, Santa's Wonderland, Recycling Center, Log Cabin display, Fancy Condo House.  The kids each had their favorites!  There were some creepy moving dolls on the stairway.  When Owen stood with the dolls, he kinda looked like one.  It was just too funny!!  

Escapolgoy

 Cooper and I went on a date night with Lynelle and Ben to Escapeology.  We did escape, but it was not easy!!!  

I took Kaylee, Dawson, Nathan & Owen to attempt to save Santa!!  This was definitely a challenge and we struggled to save him.  Nathan was nervous that we were going to be "locked in" the room.  He really thought that if we didn't solve the problem of Santa that we would never get out.  So he was a bit worried.  Owen kept messing up the puzzles and the order of the boxes when we were trying to keep our clues straight.  Each of us seemed to take turns figuring out different puzzles and clues.  The workers gave us hints, which definitely helped.  When we finally opened the final door to save Santa, Owen looked around to find Santa but couldn't find him!  Its because Santa was a 1 foot tall doll on the shelf.  That was a little bit of a dissapointment when we really thought we were saving the real Santa!!  All in all, it was great fun!  We did it, we saved Santa, and we got candy canes at the end!!!

Way to go team!

The Lake House

 We went in on a lake house purchase with our good friends Lucy and Greg Graham.  Lucy's uncle owned the home and lived there until he passed away last year.  It has remained vacant and is beginning to fall apart.  One of Lucy's dreams was to purchase the lake house on Blue Lake and hold on to the memories she had as a child visiting the lake with her cousins.  Going in on this purchase together obviously saves money for both of our families, and we get to build it up together!  We plan to fix it up and spend some time up at the lake!  The interior needs a lot of work.  The kitchen needs expanded.  The attic may become a loft space for bunks, and the side wall is going to get moved out several feet.  We will reside the house and repaint and re-floor and every thing else!!  It is an exciting project we hope to complete in the next year!!  

The Remodel Project

 We decided to remodel our house after 10 years of living here!! As you can imagine, with 6 kids in the house, quite a few cats and some dogs over the years, the floors and walls needed an upgrade. Nate took on the project for the most part, and hired out some friends and workers through the process.  We pretty much lived in the basement for a couple of months while the walls and floors and kitchen were all torn up or covered in plastic.  We went from a traditional dark colored home to a bright white beach looking house resembling our fun Florida rental homes!  Woohooo!  

We had scaffolding built all the way up to the ceiling and plastic covering walls and stairs.  The windows were covered so we could paint, so the house was super dark.  Photos to follow when we finally complete the project!!!  

Thanksgiving during Covid-19

 Thanksgiving was different this year.  Covid kind of messed up with everyone's plans!  Grandma and Gramps in Utah were going to come for the week, but that did not happen.  The entire Routsong family were not able to get together this time.  We sent photos of each of our table spreads and wished each other Happy Thanksgiving from afar.  

Dawson and I baked a beautiful turkey together from scratch!  We followed a recipe that he found on Alexa.  We both were not sure how it would turn out, but it certainly did!!!  It was delicious!  We had mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, salad, rolls and fruit!  We had a cozy family movie night together after our feast.  We had fun together as our own little family at Thanksgiving this year.  

Owen's Puzzle Skills

Owen loves to make puzzles with Dawson and Mom.  He was super proud when he finished this puzzle and understood how to find the right pieces and how to make them fit.  It was fun to see his little mind thinking so hard about the project.  He did not want help, but slowly figured it all out!!  Great Job Owen!

Grandma Hutchinson's Preschool

 Grandma Hutchinson has her Play-To-Learn Preschool.  They had a Thanksgiving feast and she was so proud of her cute kids that she sent over some pics.  Her entire basement is transformed into a fun preschool for all the kids.  She teaches just one class these days, the 4 year olds on Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays.  Melissa has taken on Tuesday and Thursday classes and Monday/Wednesday/Friday afternoons.  They've got a great thing going on!!  

Jaxton Turns 14!

 Happy Birthday JAX!!!  

Can't believe our biggest kid is fourteen!  Happy Birthday Big Guy!  Covid has affected everything including birthday parties.  The plan was to have a bunch of his buddies over for a party but with Covid spreading like mad, that was not possible.  We helped him have a nice day though.

We have told him for years that he gets a phone at 14 years old.  So he kinda was expecting one.  We wrapped up an old iPhone 4 as a joke and he was pleasantly surprised and humble and grateful to actually have a phone.  Then we let him open a new iPhone SE and he then understood our joke and was stoked!  Clearly that was his favorite gift.

Here are some fun things about Jaxton at 14 years old:

1. Jaxton has his first job.  He began working for a small cotton candy business.  He has learned to spin cotton candy and comes home smelling like sugar every time he works.  He loves knowing a skill that most people don't know and he enjoys working for Lucy and Greg.  He started at $8 per hour and recently got a raise for his work ethic to $9 per hour.  Yay!

2. Jaxton is a boy scout and well on his way to earning his Eagle Scout Rank in about a years time.  He is finishing up his Life Rank in the next few months and he also was recently elected to the Order of the Arrow, which is an exciting honor within Boy Scouts.

3. Jax loves to eat cereal for just about any meal.  He loves rice bowls and ramen and seems to enjoy cooking these types of foods.  We get the Hello Fresh meals weekly almost and he will take a recipe card and go to town with the recipe.  

4. Jax is almost as tall as me!  His feet are just as big as mine and at times I will use his shoes or his mud boots.

5. Jaxton enjoys creating songs on a computer program.  His songs are pretty amazing.  He is very talented!!

Owen's Walk Around the Sun

A Montessori tradition is to walk with the earth around the sun as many years as you are alive. Today Owen got to walk around the sun four times. They sing a special song and celebrate his four years of life. He also prepared a timeline which shows pictures as a newborn, age one, age two, age 3 and age 4. He was so proud to have a turn to walk around the sun.

Matt & Lora

Matt & Lora are some great friends of ours.  We meet up almost weekly for date night.  This particular evening we attempted an Escape Room downtown Fort Wayne.  We did indeed escape!  It was a fun night.  Matt & Lora are on a spiritual journey similar to our own, so we have much in common and much to relate to.  We are so grateful for these genuine friends that we can spend time with.