Millington Family

January:
Nathan started his second year of basketball. Dallin took Brandon ice fishing. Dallin got released as Scout Master and put in the bishopric as Executive Secretary. We found out we are having a girl! We had a really snowy winter. The girls are having a great time riding their "snow horse"!

February: We had a Porter family Valentine dinner and dance. Grandma and Grandpa showed us some dance steps. We hosted a homeschool Valentine Party. Look at the great Valentine boxes the kids made. I found the directions for Daisy's heart braids on a hair blog!

March:For Brandon's 9th birthday he chose to go to Trafalga. We got a sitter for the 2 little ones and had a great time miniature golfing. They got to do a few arcade games, and as a special treat for Brandon, he got to drive a go-cart for the first time! His birthday gift was a wave board to share with Nathan. He is always making us laugh!

Simon had his first haircut. It is coming in blonde and curly. He also has learned how to turn on the light in his bedroom! He's a great help with the broom as well.

Nathan got his Arrow of Light for cub scouts. He also performed with his Dance Class. They were knights who fought a big dragon. It was awesome to watch, and lots of fun for Natey.

Daisy can't decide which season it is! She got a hand-me-down swimsuit that she just couldn't wait to wear. Looks good with snowboots, right?

April:
Grandma and Grandpa Porter came for a couple of days and Grandma helped Sarah make Easter Dresses. The kids colored Easter eggs. We spent Spring Break in Idaho. Dallin took the kids hiking one day while Sarah went shopping with her mom. They found lots of stuff for the new baby!

We did some fun homeschooling projects. As part of our biology study, we ate vegetables from various parts of plants. For dessert, we made graham cracker treasure sleds since we had just finished the book Snow Treasure.

Simon was being fussy in the car one day. Dallin gave him the headphones to play with. Simon put them on and promptly fell asleep!

May: Our kids participate in a Homeschool Options program at a local charter school. They go once a week and take several classes. We had a student showcase night where Brandon performed in a play and Ruby and Brandon displayed their best artwork from art class.

Dallin here atop Thurston peak North of Salt Lake. One of his favorite hobbies is climbing mountains.

We all get so excited when the Clematis blooms each spring! A picture of a Tulip that we dyed blue learning about how plants work!

June:
Nathan got a special patch for earning all 20 of his Webelos pins. He had a Bakugan birthday cake. For his outing, he chose to go to Chuck A Rama with Grandma and Grandpa Porter. Since he shared the wave-board gift with Brandon, Dallin took him to Fanzz to use some free bucks they got at a Jazz game. Nathan loves his new Jazz hat. Dallin also got him a flint n steel to start out his preparedness kit for Boy Scouts. We can't believe he's 11!

That week we also got to go to the Hogle Zoo. Nathan had fun taking pictures of the crocodile on the playground. Daisy wasn't about to put a part of her body in that mouth!

Sarah's least favorite thing about pregnancy: playing the waiting game. The false alarm a couple of weeks early didn't make it any easier.
Due date: June 20.

My mom came on June 18th. She stayed until June 27th when she had to go home to my Dad who had cut his hand on a table saw and was having surgery. By then I had pretty much given up hope that this baby was going to come out. June 28th, I woke up and decided to cheer up and make myself pretty for church. I took some pictures because I am pretty sure the pregnancy thing won't be happening again. Oh, the comments I had to endure at church!

After a meltdown, a nice long talk with Dallin about the births of our other children, and a Priesthood blessing, I began to believe that this baby might come after all. Within an hour of the blessing, I had my first contraction. It was 1am on June 29th. I had to call my mom to come back from Idaho. She had only been there for about 24 hours. My labor was quite blissful. We had a kiddie pool in our bedroom closet that I used for much of the labor. I remember how neat it was to watch the sun rise through the little window in there. It was such a calm, special time. A nice reward after the intensity of Simon's birth and the long wait for this baby.

She was born at 8:15am. Grandma Porter had just arrived, but missed the birth because the other kids wanted a story. She was shocked when she heard the cries from the bedroom.

Daddy weighed her in at 8lb, 15 oz. Actually one of our smaller babies, weighing a whole pound less than Simon did!

Our whole family together for the first time!

Sweet pictures of the first days:
We called her Joy Sarah for the first month, but later changed her name to Sarajoy Faith.

July:
Getting used to this little baby who had a hard time getting used to her new body! I'm surprised I remember anything from that month. We had a 4th of July party with Grandma and Grandpa Millington and other Millington cousins. Simon was still trying to figure out what this baby thing was all about.

Ruby's 7th birthday was all about horses! She wanted a Strawberry Shortcake with the strawberries in the shape of a horse. For her outing, she wanted to go horseback riding. Sarajoy was only 10 days old, but I couldn't miss this! I sat in the shade with the baby and watched while everyone got a turn. Dallin's co-worker Karen Smith showed Ruby all about how to care for a horse and how to saddle him up. Then she took Ruby on a special ride up in the hills. Ruby's gift was Dog wash Barbie. (her other favorite is dogs)

We spent a week in Idaho at the Porter family Reunion. Dallin took the kids on a spelunking campout adventure. They rappelled into a cave and explored and camped at another. The next day everyone went to Jensen's Grove in Blackfoot. We had a lovely day at Ammon park where we set up the giant waterslides.

The following weekend we had the Millington Family Reunion. It included Boondocks, a barbecue, and a family game day.
Simon is such a dramatic little fella. I was so happy I captured this face! Sarajoy is one month old!

August:
Don't ask me how I ever let this happen, but Dallin left for a week of Scout Camp the first of August. Well, almost a week. They went to Zion's National Park and did several hikes. Angel's Landing, Subway, etc. Before he left, he let the Bishop give him a mowhawk. Then a buzz. Brandon wanted in on that fun!

I took some sweet pictures of Sarajoy in this little outfit that I wore when I was a baby. We think she looks quite a bit like my baby pictures.

We got on a pink and brown theme while buying and making stuff for the baby. I haven't bought very much of anything for my other babies. We've been fine with hand-me-downs. Since we expect her to be our last, I wanted to have a little fun. Here are all of us girls in our pink and brown Sunday clothes!

One of the best cures for thrush is Gentian Violet. Wow! is it messy!

August 15th we had a reunion with our cousins from my Dad's side of the family. It was really fun to catch up! It was our 12th wedding anniversary as well!

It got very cold at the end of August. We had to pull in our crops and put our garden to bed early. It was such a fun evening of harvesting together. We made a Veggie Man out of our harvest.

September:
The kids had their first Day of School. They're attending the Charter School on Tuesdays this year. Daisy is going to preschool at Park where Dallin works. She goes on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. We had a great month of homeschooling. We're doing Journalism and the kids will each be working on a newspaper. We're also doing Geography, and Earth Science.

My friend Elisa invited us to go swimming at her mom's pool. Sarajoy looked so sweet in her swimsuit. She actually really enjoyed the water. She's got some wonderful smiles. She slept through the night this month. It was a wonderful stage!

Sarajoy Faith Millington was blessed this month. It was a beautiful day!

We decided to try the Salt Lake Connect Pass. You can go to anything in Salt Lake during one day for one low price. We went with Roger and Earlene and Sarah's sister Kim and family. We got the buy one day get one free deal, so we spent 2 days. We hit the zoo, aquarium, thanksgiving point, tracy aviary, childrens museum, planetarium, Lion House and Red Butte Gardens. It was so much fun but very exhausting! We would definitely do it again.

October:
As a part of a study of Geography, we talk about temples around the world and going on a mission. For Family Home Evening one night, each of the kids got a "mission call" to a country that they will do a report on this year. They got passports and tickets and suitcases. We all dressed up and visited the temple and the MTC. Afterwords we had ice cream at the BYU Creamery.

We spent a day with the homeschoolers at Cornbelly's corn maze at Thanksgiving Point.

These tye-dyed shirts were made at the Mililngton family reunion. I just adore this sweet little dress Aunt Melissa bought for Sarajoy. So autumn-y! And Awesome Dallin reading to the kids.

Daisy wanted to ride an elephant for her birthday outing. Since that wasn't possible, while we were at the Hogle Zoo last month, we made sure to ride the animals on the carousel. We're so glad she was happy with that comprimise. When Nathan turned 5, he seemed like such a big kid. How come Daisy still seems so young? We had Daisy's birthday in Idaho. It was great that her cousins had fun with the fondant and made her "doggy digging in a daisy bunch" cake. It turned out really cute.

Two days later, Simon turned 2! He got some dump trucks and a bubble mower for outside. For his birthday outing, we went to a school playground and played. He loved it! All of the kids have had elephant cakes for their 2nd birthdays. I was exhausted by afternoon on Simon's birthday, and didn't want to deal with it. Luckily, Dallin brought home some giant muffins. I cut them up and frosted them and made a mini elephant!

Sarajoy was a fuzzy pink kitty!We did lots of dressing up this Halloween. We went to the school parade with Dallin, then Daisy had a party in her class the next day. Then we had a homeschool party that was Geography themed so some of us wore different costumes there. Dallin was from Jamaica, Nathan, Ruby, Simon, and Sarajoy were Hawaiian, Daisy and Sarah were Japanese, Brandon was a French artist. Then we came home and switched back to our normal Halloween costumes for Trunk or Treat and Trick or Treating. Dallin was a lumberjack, Sarah was still the Japanese lady, Nathan was a clone trooper, Brandon was a mad scientist, Ruby was a horse, Daisy was Belle, Simon was Bob the Builder, and

November:
November brought our first snowfall. Sarajoy started sitting at only 4 months. (Those thighs gave her a solid base). We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with Dallin's family. Thanksgiving weekend we decorated for Christmas and got out our Christmas Jammies!

December:
More Christmas fun! Dallin made this tree with the kids. Each kid got to make a section of the tree and then they put it together on our back door. Grandma Porter and Sarah made lots of cute matching clothes for the girls and their American Girl dolls. Grandma found the red dresses on sale. Sarajoy enjoyed her first cracker at the New Year's Eve Party!