Kids x 3

This cute boy went on a preschool field trip to Chic-fil-A Friday. Don't mind volunteering to drive the kids when there's yummy lunch in it for me, too. It was funny listening to Cole and his two buddies, Toby and Cole A., talk about baseball, sports, church, and their friends in the car. Cherishing these last few months of preschool time.

I've had a bunch of one on one time with Audrey this week, delivering cookies to our friends. A big thank you for supporting her!!! Adam is the real trooper who takes her door-to-door on our street - I'm not as good at that part. She's smoking her goal and has already sold 150 boxes in one week! I mean, how could you say no to this face at your doorstep?

Adorable.

This is the one I've been missing lately. Oh man, time stand still. Tyler turns 10 in about three weeks. We had a date today - he picked Target to spend a holiday gift card (on Legos, of course.) He was thrilled when I got him a medium-sized slurpee to drink while we shopped around. He showed me everything he wants for his birthday. I just love him so much, and dang it feels like he's growing up fast while still staying a sweet, sensitive, fun boy. Soak it in!

So lucky to have these three in my life.

Cookie Time!

Yep, it's that time again. Cookies are for sale and ready to be delivered to your door by this adorable Girl Scout.

Audrey's goal is 200 or more boxes sold, so let us know if you want her to swing by. You can also donate to her troop, or even donate a box of cookies to military overseas. I love saving a few boxes for the freezer - always fun to bust out in the summer. Proud of our little entrepreneur.

Happy 12 Years

It snowed on our wedding day, thankfully not as much as the east coast is getting now. Just enough to be pretty in pictures.

14 years ago January, we met. 12 years ago married. I'd say we're doing pretty well, and we have quite a bit to show for it. Grateful for this journey with this man.

Adam and I have been celebrating for a few days now. Wednesday he brought me flowers and we spent the evening at the temple. A nice way to start our anniversary week.

Friday while the kids were at school we got morning massages. As soon as the lady started massaging my shoulders and neck I thought, "why the heck do I not do this more often?!" $20 for 45 minute massage?! I'd still have time to run errands - this needs to happen on more of my free mornings. Then to Toppers for lunch. Hot Honey pizza, fancy coke machine, and booth seats with good company made me really happy. I hope Friday morning dates happen often while Adam is on hiatus.

Since our anniversary is on Sunday this year, we'll celebrate tonight with the kids and filet mignons from Omaha Steaks - a Christmas gift from my mom and Vernon. Mmmmmmm. Maybe some screeners after bedtime. Sounds like a good way to kick off our next year.

Saturday

Busy morning with Ladybug back in session, baseball try-outs, and girl scout activity. Quite a bit of tag-teaming (thank you girl scout leaders for helping drive.) I'm actually only teaching a few more Saturdays. I love my Saturday Ladybug families, but Adam and I have been juggling weekends for some time so it'll be nice to have two parents more available. Especially with Cole in t-ball, too. (Maybe dumb for me to work less with Adam on hiatus, but oh well...)

According to Adam, Tyler had a great try-out. It's basically just skills assessment so the minor teams are evened out, but it was his first time. Go Tyler!

After Ladybug I drove to The Gentle Barn to meet the girls. It's an animal rescue in our valley. I just love where we live - it was so peaceful and relaxing on the farm. The girls learned about the rescue animals (pigs, turkeys and chickens, emu, llama, goats, cows, horses, donkeys and more), pet and fed them, saw them do some tricks. It was a really neat outing.

 

Then Audrey and I picked up the cookies!!! They've officially invaded our home. Selling starts Monday.

Some Saturday errands, Adam coaching, and FHE tonight - we're doing good on our resolution so far!

Self Portraits

Audrey and Tyler have been taking an art class after school on Tuesdays. Today was the last class and they brought home a self portrait they drew. Here's Audrey's:

And Tyler's:

Hahaha... Is this how he sees himself these days?! He said "They said we could portray ourselves anyway we want, so this is me with a storm trooper mask on." Too funny.

Three Day Weekend

It's up! No worries, we won't leave it in the middle of the yard. This is pretty much what these guys will be doing this long weekend. They love it! When I woke up this morning Audrey was out there in her pjs.

That, and I gotta finally get my Christmas tree down! My goal is by Monday night we are back to our old, pre-holiday house - new toys and decorations all put away. We're at about 70%, so I think we can do it. Actually looking forward to these three days off. Re-entry has been hard this time around, still kinda wish we were sleeping in.

The Way Back, and Home

Driving back from Utah we stopped at Grandma and Grandpa Tait's new house in Hurricane. It's  under construction and will be done this month. It's a beautiful home. I'm sure we will spend many long weekends and holidays there. Lots of fun outdoor stuff to do. We hiked these red hills which are right out their back door, and obviously left the snow and freezing temps behind in Salt Lake City.

You can see the roof of their house right behind Tyler in this one:

We had lunch with Adam's parents, Molly and Matt, Mikey and Veronica at Brick Oven Pizza. Grabbed a bunch of Utah bread to take home, then off to Vegas for two nights with Adriana and Jason. So happy they live there now, it's the perfect stop. I did not take enough pictures! Adriana has a new, gorgeous modern home that she's decorated beautifully - seriously out of a Pottery Barn catalog. And they have this adorable dog we all fell in love with, Rupert:

Don't we look like the best dogsitters!

Adriana and Jason had to work quite a bit but we were happy with yummy food and Netflix, we crashed after our long trip. I went to work with Adriana one morning and had so much fun with her as my Top Shop personal shopper. I just love being with her - it's always like no time has passed.

Adam picked me up at the mall, we drove down the Vegas strip, then hiking at Red Rock. Felt so good to do all the hiking after lots of car time. My kids love to climb and explore. We'd never been to Red Rock - I'm so glad we went.

More catching up and Downton Abbey watching with Adriana. The next day we drove home. It was a fantastic trip, and since we've been back we've done nothing. Grocery shopping to stock our fridge, it rained a ton, watched screeners, saw Joy and loved it. The kids have been playing non-stop with Christmas toys and haven't wanted to go anywhere. Finally a play date with friends yesterday. We will be ready for back-to-life by Monday when school starts. Thankful for a great winter break.

Resolution

There's always stuff I'm working on, but this year we made one solid goal: 52 weeks of Family Home Evening. We picked this up at Deseret Book in Utah to help keep us motivated:

And chances are keeping this resolution will help take care of some of the other stuff we're working on.

More Utah

The rest of our time in Utah was filled with family outings, lazing around the house, kids playing video games, and more. Here are some highlights.

We toured around BYU which was so fun with the kids. It was neat to walk around the campus with the snow falling. Raided the school bookstore for some souvenirs. Adam showed the kids where he took music classes. Tyler and Audrey were really into the campus and it was cool to talk with them about what college is like. Lunch at Cafe Rio. Next time I'm hitting Sodalicious for dirty diet cokes!

 We all went to the movies and saw Daddy's Home which was hilarious. Thank goodness for all the teenage babysitters! 

I took Audrey to one of Lexi's gymnastics practices. Lexi is amazing, and big name schools are already offering her full scholarships her junior year in high school! Such an awesome cousin to look up to, and our not-so-secret dream is Lexi coaching Audrey someday.

 Went to Classic Fun Zone again, which is always a hit. Tyler even won his 500 ticket jackpot second year in a row! Laser tag, bounce houses - kids were in heaven.

 Best smiles I could get from the 3 and 4 year olds. These two were so cute in the bounce houses together.

 We even did super fun things like Uncle Steven helping us figure out of life insurance now that we are old and have to pay more - good times! Then ice-skating with the family. The kids skated great and I didn't even kill my back with Cole!

Waking up with cousins in the morning. Lots of cousin sleepovers.

New Year's Eve Adam and I snuck away for some sale shopping (like Old Navy and I wanted to hit a Down East.) That night we had a big ol' family party with games, kid disco dance party, we picked up pizzas and snacks. All the kids stayed up 'til midnight and we had balloons, streamers, and poppers. It was a fun happy New Year.

New Year's Day bowling:

One more time with Devin and his buddies babysitting, the grown ups went out to an awesome steak dinner at Lone Star. It was fun to hang with just Kim and Steve, Mikey and Veronica. Delicious food and so nice to connect and talk with no kid interruptions.

Grateful for a wonderful week with our far away family. Kim is the best hostess and always stocks plenty of chocolate milk and Utah bread for my kids. Fun to explore Utah in the cold and snow, and a perfect way to kick off 2016.

Utah: Elk Sleigh Ride

Grandpa Tait wanted to take the whole family to Hardware Ranch. This was one of the coolest things we did - I don't know if I've ever done anything colder (including four years in Ithaca, NY). We took a beautiful drive to Logan, Utah, twisty roads through the mountains seeing all sorts of deer, wild turkeys, partly-frozen streams, snow was falling. It was really picturesque. We got to Hardware, and you basically wait in line to take a sleigh ride through a field of elk. It was 15 degrees (maybe even less) outside while we waited for about an hour. Everyone was such good sports!

Hardware Ranch - you can see the line of people, and the elk in the distance:

Cousins bundled up, waiting in line. Emma, Audrey, and Whitney:

Carson with Jack, Tyler, Kayleigh:

The first half hour or so Cole was smiling.

More cousin piggy-backing:

Luckily there was a fire, we were able to warm ourselves up while we waited. I didn't wear thick enough socks and my toes were freezing despite thick snow boots from Jodi. I had to take them out of my boots and warm them by the fire.

Finally our turn! Elk! So close up. My hands were too frozen to take more pictures, but it was so cool, and there was a guide who told us all about them. Grandma Tait brought lots of blankets so that helped with the cold.

The drive home was gorgeous with the snow falling, through windy roads and little Utah towns. We blasted the heat and defrosted ourselves, and the kids fell asleep. Such a neat experience, I'm so glad we did it!