January 2025

Spencer's parents came to visit for a week for Michael's baby blessing and Jacob's priesthood ordination. They brought the kids all sorts of fun things to play with

Br. Orr took a picture of everyone who was here for the baby blessing. 

Back: Spencer, James, Jacob holding Michael, Mom Jeanne, Kristin, Dad Scott Hess, Mom Sandra Hess, Stephen

Front: Devin, Daniel, Aaron, Charlotte, Marie, Lydia, Nicole holding Samantha

Michael is a very calm baby. He grunts a lot. Up to this point, he doesn't really cry

Devin with the air 'soccer' ball from Scott and Sandra

The girls and Devin put on a fashion show and took turns putting on different costumes and walking down the carpet to show them off. 

Devin was a little grumpy this month. Lots of changes

So was Charlotte. 

With baby here now, when the kids are at school, I try to do things where Devin is close by and has something to do while I take care of Michael, do housework, or exercise. He builds, crawls in things, colors, and loves time with Grandma

and this time, while I wasn't looking, he unrolled the entire roll of receipt paper all over the basement. Second time he's done it. 

Charlotte got a weekend where she took home the class stuffie, Mildred the cow. We took pictures of what they did and then she wrote about it. It snowed a little, so she and Devin built a tiny snowman after school. 

They did homework, had a snack of banana muffins and hot chocolate

held Michael

and read her library book

Jacob adores Michael and loves to hold him 

the Mitchells gave the kids a bunch of activities for Christmas including kinetic sand and coloring activities. Devin loves this

and the girls love coloring with some fun markers that Grandma King gave them for Christmas

Sometimes Devin likes to be with Michael and encourage him during tummy time. Michael doesn't love it, but sometimes just lays there

More of the activities and kinetic sand from the Mitchells.

Charlotte's results from the oxygen study. It was low. They are going to try putting her on oxygen and try a C-pap machine. 

I got a BYU Pathways class this semester. This is the story of one of my students - from Nigeria, the bishop, SIS supervisor, and pathways missionary and . He has a family and kids and can't find a job. He does odd jobs. 

This is a message from Jacob's teacher. I was happy to hear he was doing better socially in school. He made twix bars and took some to her. 

Charlotte got the Norovirus and missed school for a week. One day, Spencer turned on a movie in hopes that Devin would take a nap. Devin is done with naps now. Anyway, Charlotte fell asleep, not Devin. It was a pretty miserable week. One night she was up 2-3 times throwing up, then diarrhea the next day. For the first two days, she didn't eat anything - just drank Gatorade. Then she had a couple days where she ate only one serving of plain chex cereal that day. Then some toast. Then she had a day where she ate 3 meals of bland things like noodles and more cereal. It was a rough week!

Jacob had his first youth temple trip. Spencer was sick and couldn't go with him, so per his request, I drove him and waited with Michael in the annex. After, they went to Krispy Kream doughnuts. He loved them and loves seeing how they were made. He had a wonderful experience. The temple president counselor took Jacob and the 4 other new deacons and talked to them in a different room in the temple about the temple and baptisms. He had a very special experience and said he wanted to go again, even if there were no doughnuts! Above - Jacob, Jack, Cal, Austin, Beckett.