A Look Back On 2019

2019 was a year full of growing, learning, and making memories as the Baugher Six.

January
- Elisabeth restarted dance classes after a semester break
- Nathan started basketball for his second season
- We dealt with a bit of minor sickness
- Angela took all three big kids on one on one dates

February
- The kids attended several birthday parties for their friends
- We celebrated Valentine's Day as a family with our treasure hunt/fondue tradition
- Angela turned 34
- We made a weekend trip to Iowa to meet our newest niece/cousin
- Samuel celebrated the 100th day of school dressed as a 100 year old man

March
- Samuel turned SIX and had a fun roller skating party
- Matt traveled to Memphis for work
- The kids and I made a quick trip to Weatherford during Spring Break
- Samuel and Elisabeth both caught a stomach virus at the end of Spring Break
- We had a fun family night at the circus.

April
- Samuel started soccer at Soccer City
- The Evetts stayed with us for a fun weekend and day at the Gathering Place
- Samuel and Elisabeth took field trips to the zoo on the same day
- Samuel lost his first tooth
- We celebrated Easter as a family
- Nathan celebrated his eighth birthday with a fun birthday party with an all boy/no family/friend party at our house

May
- We went to DISNEY WORLD and made so many amazing, magical memories- It was the best week of 2019
- Nathan turned EIGHT at the Happiest Place on Earth
- Elisabeth had her second dance recital. She danced to Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows and did awesome!
- Elisabeth graduated from Pre-K at our church
- Samuel finished Kindergarten and Nathan completed second grade
- Matt and I celebrated THIRTEEN years of marriage
- Matt turned 36
- Elisabeth lost her first tooth at Walmart!
- We spent Memorial Day weekend in Kansas City with Matt's family
- Nathan cut his ear and had to get stitches- a first for any of our kids
- Elisabeth started a summer session of gymnastics

June
- We attended Bible School at FBC Weatherford for the seventh year in a row and had a great week spending time with family and friends
- Matt built a pergola on our back porch
- We spent lots of quality time with friends and at the pool
- I went on my third annual girls' weekend with Erica and Mindy
- Nathan, Samuel, and Elisabeth started swimming lessons

July
- We hosted Fourth of July at our house with our best friends
- The kids finished swim lessons
- We had fun family days at the zoo and the Gathering Place
- We took the kids to Frontier City on the hottest day of the summer!
- We went to several library summer programs and redeemed several library coupons from the summer reading program
- Nathan, Samuel and Elisabeth participated in a Karate summer camp
- Nathan went to first and second grade camp at our church while Samuel and Elisabeth played at a soccer summer camp

August
- Elisabeth turned FIVE and had an awesome BounceU party with all her friends
- We made it to a Tulsa Drillers Game
- We squeezed in as many play dates with friends as we could before school started
- We had an end of summer fun day at the Safari Joes Waterpark
- Nathan started third grade, Samuel started first grade, and Elisabeth started a (victory lap) pre-k year
- Katherine started gymnastics
- Elisabeth started her third year of dance

September
- The Evetts came to visit for Labor Day weekend. We had fun playing games, going to the pool and going to the Gathering Place
- Katherine started attending our church's Community Preschool one day a week
- Katherine turned TWO and had a fun princess party
- We spent a day at the Tulsa State Fair

October
- We had a fun Fall morning at Pumpkin Town
- Matt and I got away to celebrate our 13th anniversary (a few months late). We had a fun week in Branson with friends
- We had a great Fall Break playing with friends, baking an apple pie, and resting at home
- We met our newest niece/cousin Abigail!
- We celebrated Halloween with friends as Harry Potter, Lego Ninjago, Elsa, and Anna

November
- Nathan performed at his Veteran's Day assembly at school
- Nathan tested for his yellow belt at Karate and passed!
- Samuel's class acted out a fun Thanksgiving play at school
- We hosted Thanksgiving at our house with my parents, Granny and Grandaddy and Aunt Sydney
- The kids rode the Polar Express in OKC with Grammy and Papa Joe

December
- Katherine performed in her first Preschool Christmas program
- We had all the Christmas fun- parties, movies, cookie and gingerbread house decorating, and gift exchanges
- We had a special Christmas morning full of love and surprises
- We celebrated Christmas with extended family

We had a really wonderful year watching our kids grow. I know that I'm going to look back on these years with Little Kids and remember them as some of the best years of our life. I'm so grateful for all the blessings we have and things we get to experience together as a family.

More Christmas Celebrations

Christmas morning was the best with the six of us, but we still had plenty more celebrating to do with family.

We spent Christmas afternoon with my parents opening more gifts, playing, and eating.

My mom always gets the kids new pajamas and robes as one of their presents.

Matt and I had fun watching the kids open their gifts and were spoiled with some fun ones too.

Elisabeth has been asking for a Magic Tears Unicorn Cry Baby since she impulsively saw one at Wal Mart and had to have one. She wasn't too disappointed to not open one at our house on Christmas morning. I think she had a feeling she'd get one from Grammy and Papa Joe.



Nathan asked for a bike from my parents this year, and he knew he was getting one, but he still got a few other surprises too.

Katherine also got a Cry Baby Magic Tears doll and also a new yellow kindle so she can feel like the big kids.

And Samuel had a Mario themed Christmas. He got Mario and Luigi remote control cars, Luigi's mansion for the Switch and a really fun Mario Kart Hot Wheels set. I don't think he even knew they made one of those, so he was really surprised!


After presents we spent the afternoon eating a late steak lunch and playing with new toys and playing some new card games. It was a fun relaxing afternoon. I know some people were disappointed it wasn't colder or snowier, but I loved the 70 degree Christmas so the kids could jump on the trampoline and Nathan could test out his new bike. He feels so big since this bike has gears.

The Saturday after Christmas we drove down to Edmond to celebrate Christmas with Matt's family. The kids were ready for even more presents.

Nathan was pumped for his new Harry Potter Lego set. He's been asking for it for a long time, and Matt and I worried a little since we didn't get it for him for Christmas because of the trampoline, so I'm glad Grandma and Grandpa came through for him. He couldn't wait to start building it.

Samuel is turning into our little bookworm. He's always in his room listening to audio books, and he gets hooked on book series to read too. He'll be busy for awhile with all his new books.

We spent Saturday and Sunday morning relaxing, cuddling cousin Abigail and watching football

Sunday afternoon, Matt went back home and the kids and I continued West to celebrate Christmas with my grandparents and cousins.

We stopped at Momoo's first on Sunday afternoon for dinner and chocolate cake, of course! Elisabeth had been talking about Momoo's special chocolate cake all weekend, ha!

We got a picture of some of the great grandkids. We're still missing several though! It's so hard to get everyone together at the same time.

We took a big group picture with the granddaughters too. We had a fun afternoon/evening eating pizza opening new toys, playing and visiting.

Sunday evening we made it to Granny and Grandaddy's house for a visit. Monday morning my cousin Lindsey and her family came to visit. They moved to New Mexico a couple of years ago, and we've missed seeing them, so it was fun to play with cousins and celebrate Christmas at Granny's house like we did as kids.

Granny served brunch and the kids waited in line to get their pancakes.

Sweet Baby Hayden is the youngest of the nine Flaming great grandchildren. Maybe someday we can get all nine of them together at the same time.

The kids had a fun morning playing in the backyard and in the basement with their cousins. It's always nostalgic for me watching my kids playing in the basement that held so many fond memories from my childhood and especially playing with their cousins in that basement just like I did.

They created a crazy Ninja Warrior course and were running and jumping all over.

We came home Monday afternoon with thankful hearts, special memories, and anticipation of another week of winter break.

Christmas Morning

As expected, Christmas morning started EARLY! We told Nathan that he couldn't get up before 6:00am, but I naively thought that he'd sleep later. Nope! He said he'd been awake since 5:00 watching the clock until he could get up and wake up everyone else, ha! We joke about hating to get up so early, but really I love how excited he is about Christmas. I know he'll always remember these early, special mornings- I will too. So at 6:01am, this was the scene in my bedroom :)

The kids opened their stockings first. They mostly get useful things in their stockings- bandaids, underwear, and toothbrushes but also their favorite candy and one or two small toys.

Then they started on the gifts under the tree. They had one joint gift which they opened together first- it was a photo book from our Disney World vacation. They'd been asking for one for months, and I finally had the time to make it and decided to keep it for a Christmas surprise.

The next half hour was spent ripping open packages, oohing and awwing and occasionally some happy screams. I love the magic of Christmas morning. This year especially was fun, because Katherine is old enough now to really get the joy of opening presents. She couldn't wait to open more and was always so excited about her gifts.

I had also wrapped several puzzle pieces for the kids to open for our BIG Christmas surprise. I thought they might be confused or a little disappointed to open them, but they were excited to have a mystery to solve.

Katherine's wrapped presents from us this year were play makeup, unicorn purse, Frozen jewelery, and bug catching puzzle.

Elisabeth's wrapped presents from us were a rice sensory bin and a nail stamping set.

Nathan's wrapped presents from us were a Star Wars Lego set and a Snap circuits/Lego kit

Samuel's wrapped presents from us were Mario Maker 2 Switch game and a remote control car that drives on walls.

After they finished opening the presents under the tree, they worked on assembling the puzzle, but they were still missing six pieces... hmmm... So they went on a search for the missing pieces.

Their search led them upstairs to another big surprise for the girls.

The kids were all pretty distracted with finding those missing pieces to enjoy the playhouse, but Katherine jumped right in and started playing. She and Elisabeth always play in those houses at any store that displays them, so I was excited to get them one for Christmas- my one requirement was that it had a doorbell since that's Katherine's favorite part :)

The big kids ran straight downstairs to finish their puzzle and figure out their Christmas surprise.

It took the kids a little while to figure out where to look, but after a little nudge from Dad, they headed to the backyard for a giant surprise!

The kids have asked for a  trampoline for years. They are their favorite toys at their friends' houses, but Matt has always said no for a variety of reasons- price, injuries, yard issues, but I guess the five of us finally wore him down and he agreed this year. The kids were shocked since they always assumed we'd never have one. It was such a fun surprise and one of my all time favorite Christmas memories. There's nothing like the magic and excitement of Christmas through a child's eyes.

They jumped for a little bit and decided to come inside and warm up for a bit and play with their other new toys while I cooked breakfast.

Being in the kitchen cooking a special breakfast and seeing the joy of all of them playing with their new toys is one of my favorite parts of Christmas morning.

We had our traditional Christmas morning waffles.

After breakfast, Matt cleaned up the kitchen and I took my turn playing with all the new toys. The girls painted their nails with Elisabeth's new nail art kit.

And the boys tried out Mario Maker 2.

Elisabeth and I also played her new game Spot It.

When the sun came up, the kids were back outside on the trampoline, and Matt spent most of the morning finishing assembling it.

Then we got ready and headed over to my parents that afternoon for more Christmas fun!