Anniversary 2013

On June 24th, we celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary! I know, I can't believe it either! And no, I did not get married when I was 12, but thanks for thinking I'm so young!;)

 

We actually went on TWO dates within 3 days of each other. Pretty sure that hasn't happened in the 7 years since we've had kids - especially since that's about how many dates we make it on in a year! Sad, I know! :) First, we went to a motivational speaker/concert with my favorite expert, Matt Townsend. I LOVE his insight on life and relationships and I just had to get us tickets when his "Date Night" happened to land on the one Saturday a month Chris had off! He split half of his time with musician Peter Breinholt, who is also amazing... so it really was an incredible night at the Sandy Amphitheater. I loved it and I think Chris at least liked it - and we even had Café Rio for dinner. So it was pretty perfect!

 

 We went home to a frazzled baby sitter who was ripping her hair out after Lexi cried for about 2 1/2 hours straight and didn't want to go to sleep... Pretty much why we never go out! (okay, also because of Chris' work schedule too!) Putting our kids to bed is no easy task and traumatizing 14 year girls (as well as my toddler) with the job is just not something I look forward to inflicting. Hence, it's just easier to stay home!
 

Then on Monday night ("night "is like 4 p.m. lol)we were off to a movie (which I don't remember? My mind is still not working right) and we ate at another one of our faves -the Cheesecake Factory while the Hansens watched our kids for us.

It was a great couple of nights out with my good-lookin' hubby!

 I'm a lucky girl and I know it!

 

Father's Day 2013

 

My favorite answer is that his favorite food is Otter Pops.
  That might just be true!

Chris just works one Sunday a month, and unfortunately it landed on Father's Day this year. Not a fun way to spend your holiday, but he is always a good sport. Before he scrambled out the door, we presented him with a few gifts and treats that we had put together for him, and a few more came later after work.
We are all super lucky to have this great guy in our lives! We love him so much!
Yes.... Emmie is sporting fleece Christmas pajamas in June along with her bed-head headband curls. What can I say? We don't have it together that early in the morning at our house!

June Wedding!

My Dad and Melissa got married on June 7th!

The Happy Couple!


We just love Melissa and her family and couldn't be happier!
Here they are with their adorable group of Grandkids.

My Little Fam.
I love this crew so much!

Three cuties

 

Kylie, Steven and Jack flew in from Cali and we were so glad to get to see them for a minute!

It was a beautiful day and such a pretty wedding.
Looking forward to lots of great memories!

Memorial Day 2013

For Memorial Day this year, I really wanted to go and visit all of our relative's graves. We started our trek that morning by visiting my brother at
Wasatch Lawn Memorial.
Such a beautiful cemetery.
For our second and third years of marriage, Chris and I lived up the street from this pretty place on 3300 S in Salt Lake.


Who knew that a few years later, my brother, just 30 years old, would end up here?


(this is just weeks before he passed away)

His smile, his sparkling green eyes, his confidence,
 his spunk, his determination, his drive, his soft heart.
My brother.
I miss him.


Next up, we visited my handsome Grandpa, "Papa".
We didn't have to go far.


He is buried right next to Michael.



Here he is with my cute Grandma, "Mimi" (who is still living).
I couldn't find a more current picture that is already scanned in, but honestly, he didn't change that much in his older years. He stayed super fit throughout his life, and I remember him on numerous occasions prodding me to punch  his super fit abs "as hard as I could", to show them off.  I remember his ritual of pinching my cheek and telling me I have a cute "mug" (face). He had pretty blue, friendly eyes and was kind and gentle. I also remember that he had to always wear his "house slippers", and didn't like us to go bare feet.
He had Parkinson's Disease and tragically passed away after falling down the stairs when I was 15.

Next up, we walked further down in the same cemetery to find my Great-Grandparent's grave, Nana and Gramps - Mimi's parents.

(Here they are holding my older brother, Michael, in 1978)
I remember that my Great Grandpa was a boxer, and I remember a little workshop he had out in the garage. He also smoked, and liked to smoke pipes if I remember right. He had piercing blue eyes. He survived a house fire. He passed away when I was six.
My Great Grandma had red hair and was a good cook and a great decorator, like my Grandma Mimi. Their home on the East end of 3900 S was fairly humble, but decorated pretty fancy on the inside.
Flashback to the 80's...I remember that they always had Lay's potato chips for us to munch on and that my brother and I would go upstairs to the TV room on our Sunday night visits there to watch the Disney Family movie of the night that was featured on TV. I remember that the one car they owned was this looong olive green car. A Cadillac maybe? I don't think Nana ever got her drivers license.
They only had one child, my Grandma, Faye, or was we call her, "Mimi".

I was excited to recognize other names on headstones close to theirs...


George and Florence are Nana's parents, and Betty and Earl are Nana's siblings. Earl had a twin sister...and that's all I know about them.

Next up, we headed further North to the Salt Lake City Cemetery. My Mom grew up across the street from this cemetery, on "T" Street, in the Avenues. We visited her parents, my Grandma and Grandpa.

 
I have lots of fun memories with my Grandma and Grandpa. We spent endless hours playing Skip-Bo, Rummikub, and Rummy. They had a big yard, an awesome garden and we loved to pick cherries and climb and swing around in the cherry tree. My only girl cousin would fly out from CA and we would have sleepovers for weeks in the summer at Grandma and Grandpa's house. We loved to sleep in the "front room" in our maroon sleeping bags. A&W Rootbeer, the "Little Store" on the corner as we called it, chocolate pudding, the yummiest Thanksgiving dinners, and rollerskating around their huge driveway all remind me of Grandma and Grandpa's house. I remember my Grandma's loud, but pretty singing voice at church and how she always had a peppermint tic tac to pass us from her dainty white church purse to keep us quiet. I remember how my cute Grandpa wore black rimmed glasses for reading, could likely be found reclining in his beige chair, and always had a butterscotch or peppermint candies in his pocket to share. My Grandma was very active and would get up early in the morning to go on big walks with her friends around the neighborhood. My Grandpa loved to golf and drink coffee - which he gave up in his seventies (eighties?) so that he could be sealed to my Grandma in the temple. He was such a tender hearted man and absolutely adored my Grandmother. He passed away when I was in 6th Grade, my Grandma passed away when I was barely 16 after a painful, fast moving bout of pancreatic cancer. Since things weren't digital back then, I don't have pictures of them scanned into my computer... I will have to add some later.

Next up, we were off to Midway, Utah to visit sweet Grandpa Lonczyna, who passed away in his nineties just last November.


Midway, Utah
Chris' grandparents lived here in Midway for over 30 years. Their house can be seen in this picture up on the hill there. Chris loved to go tubing here in the winter, fishing with his Grandpa, & has good memories hiking Bergy Hill.




What a pretty headstone!

I love this cute man! I was honored & blessed to know him for 12 years of my life. I couldn't always make out everything he said in that Ukranian accent of his, but nonetheless I loved to listen to his stories about life and his work in the grocery business. He was strong-willed and opinionated, but sweet, kind and purposeful. I think that he and my Grandpa Westwood probably get along great in Heaven...they have a lot in common. :) We sure miss him! How lucky he was to live such a full and well rounded life, and we are blessed to have had him for so many years.
Here he is holding Emmie at Brett and Bethany's wedding.

As our day of honoring these amazing family members came to a close, we had one final, very important member to pay our respects to, and that is precious Atticus. We talked about our sweet Angel Atticus and how much he means to us as we released some balloons into the beautiful Midway clouds in his honor.

 

Oh how we miss this cute little boy!

Words can't express how much this little four year old has touched our life. How much we miss him. How much we love him and adore him. How brave we think he is. How much our hearts ache that our kids don't get to grow up with their amazing cousin. How much we miss those gorgeous, sparkling blue eyes. How much we miss his witty comebacks and larger than life personality. How much our hearts ache for the excruciating pain and sadness his parents have to endure as a result of losing their child. It's so awful. There's just no way around it. His earthly time was far too short, yet his spirit was so far reaching you couldn't walk into the room without feeling how special he was. We are so blessed to have this chosen little spirit in our very own family. I'm grateful to know that he is still and will forever be an active part of our family. I know that his valiant little spirit is there giving us strength and cheering us on and helping us all in ways we can't comprehend.  

We love you Buddy!!!

 

Batter Batter, GOAL!, and Cartwheels

Parker played his first year of T-Ball this past Spring. 

He did a great job! We just need to work on catching! I wasn't in love with the schedule because with Chris' work times I was left to traipse all three kids by myself to games (that involved half a mile of walking from the parking lot carrying a baby, diaper bag and blanket) that started 15 minutes before bedtime, throwing off our night's routine. I highly value bedtime staying on schedule, so I wasn't a huge fan. Plus some games were three nights a week, on top of soccer practice. He had fun though & that's what counts, right? 

This was Parker's third year playing soccer - Fall and Spring. He loves it! 

I love being a soccer Mama. :)

As for Emmie, she's been taking gymnastics since last September with a few of her friends, followed by a playdate afterwards. She thinks it's pretty awesome and Lexi loves to join in on the playdates with these cute girls!

Spring Randoms

By Spring my kiddos were itching to break out one of their favorite pastimes....

Their bikes!

I was more than ready to break out the sandals....


Which meant my feet desperately needed some salon intervention with an intro-to-summer pedicure. 

My toes weren't the only thing in our house to hit the salon...

You can tell by Roxy's face she was not thrilled to be dolled up by Emmie.
Such a good little sport that dog is!

This little monkey loves to be outside & was thrilled when our snow drift finally melted.
 Our cheap-o swing set doubles as a jungle gym and still proves to be a great purchase. 

This little cutie began getting into anything and everything, leaving a trail of random whatever-she-can-get-her -hands-on all throughout the house... She is smart enough to know that she can get away with it with a few bats of those big eyes and kisses from those plump rosy lips. 
And she does!

And as for the engaged couple....

 

 Pure trouble!
Next door neighbor, Connor, proposed, yes, proposed to Miss Emmie a few months back. Emmie is smitten. & they are inseparable  Truly. She'll stomp into the house in search of finding her sunglasses, telling me that "Connor wants me to wear them". She asks me things like, "Are Connor and I going to live with YOU guys when we grow up?", and in super scary, way too pre-teen drama fashion she gets jealous when her "boyfriend" (as she refers to him) hangs out with other neighbor girls. One day Mr. Connor apparently hit one of Emmie's friends, and Emmie later asked me,
"Why did Connor hit Braylen? I'M his girlfriend!".
What?! Speechless.
I even overheard Emmie telling Parker that Connor had kissed her, on the cheek. And in true neighborhood-gossip fashion, Parker responded with,
"Yah, I know. Cole (Connor's big brother) told him to kiss you on LIPS!".
Huh?! Again, speechless.
Oh, Emmie. Like I said, TROUBLE.
Besides the hitting incident, Connor's a great little dude so we will take him!
But let's wait another 20 years or so please. :)
*I say WE, although let it be known that Chris refers to any "dude" interested in his daughter, four years old or not, as "punk".
It could get interesting in the years to come, especially with E and her jealous ways.
But hey, for now - looks like she's got a pretty sweet ride in that jeep of his, ay? ;)

The Farm

Parker only had school until 10 am on the last day (normally he goes in the afternoon but everyone went that a.m.).
In celebration, we went to Thanksgiving Point Farm for a few hours and had some fun!



Lexi loooves animals!  It was fun watching her interact with them.
 She especially loved the baby chicks and the goats.
As for Cowgirl Emmie... she loves to ride the ponies and horses, and Parker, he thought the peacock was pretty awesome.

We love this place!

 

May craze

This Spring was crazy busy! 
From the end of March through the beginning of May we spent three weeks traveling,
and we came home to 3 weeks of end-of-school year
CrAzInEsS! 
This was my first experience of public school as a mom and had no idea it would be so nuts!

Here are just a few of the events that contributed to our Spring:


First off, this cute girl graduated from Preschool! (well, kind of - this was just her Associates - going back next year for a Bachelors. :)) She went to the Elementary School preschool that is just down from our house. She had the BEST  experience there and loved it! She and P were on the afternoon schedule so I dropped them off together at 12:30-3:30.
It couldn't have worked out more perfectly!
She learned a lot and absolutely loved her class. Her favorite things were all the songs she learned (she is always singing them!), all the friends she made (it was pretty cute to see how tight her class was), and, of course, RECESS. :) Emmie is my dreamer girl and I was worried about her focusing because last year at this time I couldn't get her to sit down long enough to hold a pencil. But by the school year's end, she had soaked up all that was offered in her class and more. She's a smart little girl (just a little ADD like me;) and we're proud of all her hard work this year! She has a sharp memory and all the educational songs she learned were especially helpful for her. 

Our cute little graduate. 
She loved Mrs Chris!
 We carpooled with her friend Emily everyday (right picture). 

Parker had his Kindy 500 (actually this was in mid-April, right before our Cali trip). It started off with a small program singing patriotic songs for the parents (kept interesting by a little boy from the other class passing out!), followed by the parade of cars through the school. They then spent the rest of the day "driving" from different American landmarks they had learned about throughout the year.
Parker and Chris worked to build his cute car.  I was pretty amused and had to take a pic of the contrast between the monster truck and the tiniest car of the lot that happened to park next to each other. Is that the essence of the term "keepin' up with the Jones'" or what?! Totally made me laugh.

Parker looked forward to FINALLY celebrating his birthday at school along with all the other summer birthdays on pajama day during the last week in May.
He also went on a field trip to Thanksgiving Point during the month and had a special day of eating lunch in the lunchroom.
He came home to inform me that he wasn't interested in having hot lunch next year in first grade.
 Just took one day of trying it to figure that out.
I don't blame him. I guess we'll be cold-lunchers!
Healthier, anyways, right?!

The day before the last day of school was the annual school Dance Festival. It was the cutest thing ever! All the grades did their own dances on the back field. Kindergarten did "Lolly Pop Lolly Pop" and dressed in 50's gear. The preschoolers did "Going on a Bear Hunt" and dressed like hunters. Did I mention it was so stinkin' cute!?
What an awesome school my kids go to!
We feel so blessed that we happened to land down the street from one of the top elementary schools in Utah, not to mention we live in SUCH a great, kid-friendly neighborhood and community!
It was such a fun and busy school year.
I'm in shock that they start again in 4 weeks.
Where did the summer go?!?

Mother's Day 2013

Mother's Day was a great day!
 Unfortunately, I am writing about it too late to remember much of what went on, (ahhh! My mind these days!) but I DO know that I'm SUPER lucky to be the Mom of these amazing kids!

What's not to love?! I am one blessed Mama!

The Friday prior I got to go to Mom's and Muffins at the elementary school... TWICE! Once with this adorable preschooler, who filled out that little survey on me. Not totally accurate (I'm short, but 11 inches...not quite;), but pretty close! 

I love this cutie.
She was SO excited to have me come to her class and see her cute little program (a poem and song). She had been sick with a fever etc for two days prior, and even that actual day, but she was SO upset at the prospect of not getting to do her Mother's Day program, that I took her for that and then she skipped the rest of her school day.

Next up I (with the girls in tow) moved down the hall to P's Kindergarten class. They sang the cutest songs, gave us the sweetest decorated planted pots, and a buffet of muffins, donuts, and drinks.  I seriously love these little kids! I was able to volunteer in his class throughout the year and came to adore these little classmates of Parker's.  Okay, so there were a few hellions in there (the class was dominated by boys)...but still...what a great class Parker had for his first Elementary experience!

Funny sidenote... the cute girl in the purple shirt... throughout the year, she would attach herself to me anytime she saw me with a HUGE hug...when I came to class to help out, for this and other programs, even out by the parking lot as I was picking up carpool on a regular basis. One day at the end of the year she confessed to me with a whisper in my ear,
"The reason I love YOU so much, is because really, I  am in love with your little boy!". 
Ha ha! Oh, she melted my heart.
What a cutie that little Evie is. After her confessed crush, and after observing Parker, I realized that he was completely oblivious to the fact that he had such a smitten little fan out there. Rather than shatter his sweet Kindergartner innocence & humility and let him know of her professed love for him, I chose instead to give my little friend Evie a favor and instructed my cute little dimple blondie to be sure to say "Hi" to and smile at his classmate whenever he saw her.
 Parker has a good little heart and I'm sure he followed through, hopefully giving Evie some
  sweet first-crush satisfaction.
 I'm so glad it takes boys longer to tap in to noticing the opposite sex! 
While Parker might be oblivious to these things, his 4 year old sister is not.
She's already planning her wedding.
 For reals. Heaven help us. ;)
 Details to come....:)