The Holidays

It has been a long time… You ready for picture overload?
We went to Washington for Kathy and Ron’s mission farewell. It was so great to see Ron’s kids and get to know them, as well as spend some time as a family in such a beautiful place.




We were able to go crab hunting in the rain, and the kids did not even care that it was freezing and wet. They had a bawl.

We had our family pictures the next weekend. I am so glad Maren was able to take them, and they turned out better than I could have imagined.



Looking at these almost make me cry. I feel so lucky to have the amazing family that I do.

October was such a great month, ending it with a fun and festive Halloween. The first holiday William has really been able to understand and get into.



We taught William how to jump in the leaves this year!!

In November, we got our first big snow storm. William couldn’t wait to get out in it. He ran to the door in his underwear and rain boots, all ready to play!!
He wasn’t happy that I made him wait while we all got our snow clothes on. But it was well worth it when we got out in the fluffy white stuff!


But that was nothing compared to our next snow storm!!


We even made a slide for William!


We are now in to December, and I can not wait for what Christmas has to offer. William is already calling or facetimeing with Santa every day, and reminding me what he wants for Christmas any chance he has. Oh the joys of a toddler!!!

Labor Day Swimming Party

Today we started out riding bikes…like we do most days. I couldn’t help but take a video of them.



With the weekend being as tough as it was, we didn’t really get a chance to have a “party” for William’s birthday. So when Lynette invited us to a swim party at her Dad’s house, we jumped at it. He loves anything to do with water, so we knew he would have a blast.

Boy am I glad that we did. It was such a great day. After more than 2 hours in the pool, and then a few more having a BBQ and chasing his cousins and friends in circles…the kid crashed on the drive home and didn’t even flinch when we brought him in and put him to bed for the night!

Here’s some fun pictures from our day.















And of course….some AWESOME videos!



William kept jumping, then yelling “cannon ball” after coming up!! lol





The guys kept doing synchronized jumping!!



And last the definite best of all the game…..BILL!

Eye Opener!

Wow, talk about an incredible eye opener. Last week I got a horrible virus on my laptop, and it completely wiped out my documents. Sean took it to a friend who took a look at it, but all was lost. So he reset it to the factory settings, getting rid of the virus, but this left me bawling for hours over my lost photos. I had our whole lives on that laptop. Every picture I had taken in the past 2 years was on there. B-day parties, pregnancies, dates, and even Gracie's birth. I still tear up thinking about it. I put the comment on facebook that I've never been so happy to be a "Facebook Picture Whore" before. I sometimes going into picture overload, but at least I knew those ones were safe and I could find them again.
Well, last night my old visiting teacher, who has moved away but is still apparently looking out for me, sent her husband over to double check. He did incredible things to both of my computers, and may actually be able to recover some of my pictures!!! HOOOOORAAAAAAYY! I seriously could have kissed him (I didn't just for Nancy and Sean's sake!).

But all of that made me realize that I need to start sharing my pictures and stories on our family blog more often. I not only need to keep everyone up to date with our incredibly crazy lives, but have the pictures documented. I will be printing the blog every few months for our own hard copy, and would love to have current, and up to date pictures!!

So, here we go!

2 nights ago, William helped me make brownies. They actually didn't turn out very well because as we were making them (at 8:30 at night) we ran out of sugar (about 1/4 cup short), and cocoa (about 1/4 cup short). Hmmm, guess I need to check the ingredients BEFORE starting a recipe huh?! Oh well, he loved to lick the spatula and bowl!

Yesterday we went and parked on one end of main street and walked up and down it. We went to see if there were any kids shows playing that I may take William to this weekend. He's never been to a theater before, and I think it would be a fun Mommy date to go to the little theater in kaysville! Anywho, we walked up to one end where there was a snow cone shack. Of course, we couldn't pass up a $2 snow cone. So we all shared one. I have a feeling we may be riding out bike there quite a bit this summer!

Viva Las Vegas

Most of my posts here on the blog are about the kiddos, even though the title states otherwise. So, we are going to change that!! This one's about ME!

Last month, I got a very unexpected invite on Facebook for a random trip to...Las Vegas! Seriously, I wouldn't have cared who was inviting me at the time, I probably would have jumped on board with just about anyone. Can you say "Mommy Break"? But to make the sound of vacation even better, it was with my amazing girlfriends from high school. 

I haven't seen most of these girls in almost 8 years (Wow, I'm old!) and mainly just keep in touch thru facebook and blogs. Although I feel like I know everything about them, thanks to technology, I was frightened things might be awkward with the time that had passed. Senior year was a rough year for me, and I was scared that this trip may take me back to that hard time in my life.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

The weekend should have started with a blunt warning that we would not be mature nor ladylike all weekend long!

We got there late on Friday night, and stayed until Tuesday morning. Unfortunately AmyLyn and Kim weren't able to stay til Tuesday, but did convince their husbands into letting them stay until Monday!
We crammed as much as we could into that short amount of time. Temple Saturday afternoon followed by lunch and then an AMAZING opportunity to see The Phantom of the Opera that night.

After dinner we walked thru the shops at the Venetian and ate dinner at a little cafe. These pictures prove our immaturity!

I'm truely in love with our group pictures from the weekend!

We also went to the aquarium, shopping, ate A LOT, and watched the water shows at the Belagio. But most of all, we just laughed, cried, and had the time of our lives.

Is it February 2013 yet?!