Valentines Day in Pictures

I think these are self-explanatory...! :)

Winter 2014

FINALLY moving on from Christmas. I must be a little OCD about moving out of chronological order with blogging our life events...it's now JUNE and I'm just getting to January... which is super lame and uneventful and really I should just skip to the present but I just can't do it. I am way too ritualistic with way too many things but I just can't help it! & I still feel blogging is the best way to journal for me, or I would have given it up long ago! Luckily, our winter was quite uneventful so I should be done with it within a few posts. And even if it wasn't I don't really remember it too well... so there isn't a whole lot to tell! :)

Here it is!

 The kiddos were SO excited to look out one winter day to find that Roxy had drawn a perfect bow (or according to E a butterfly) in the powder with her little paws. :)

Parker and Emmie off to school... & little sis not quite ready for the day yet. My bed head looks quite similar to hers... (not nearly as cute)

Chris turned the big 36 in January! & of course I don't remember a thing about what we did for his birthday or what he got.... 

This little one cracks us all up. She is so full of sass and personality... we never know what she's going to do next!

This happy girl was a little obsessed with scarves over the winter. 

Parker and his buddy, Cole, having a read-a-thon. Yep, read-a-thon. So cute. They took the Jazz Reading contest for their school super seriously. The schools with the most minutes had a Jazz player come to an assembly, and their school did it! Parker ended up reading over 3000 minutes in just a 3 week period of time! This boy loves a challenge (especially with prizes and weekly drawings involved) and he really worked hard to read all he could! He did awesome!!

More school days!

This little girl loves to "read" herself! She especially loves Look and Find books, and will yell to me, "Read Mom! READ!" if I pause for a second. 

On a side note, this chair is so not in great condition... especially considering that Lexi has colored on it... not to mention it's too bulky for our Living Room...but it was my brother's and I just can't bring myself to get rid of it! 

Happy Trio! Emmie was in love with her Hello Kitty hat that Mimi (my Grandma) gave her for Christmas!

Emmie only had preschool 2 days a week this year, so these two had a lot of time to hang out. They have definitely turned into the best of friends!

As for me... some might call it frumpy, I call it smart.... but I spent much of my winter in these pups...and savored every second of the coziness! I bought these at Christmas time for someone else but ended up keeping them when I found that person another gift... BEST MOVE EVER! :)Thank you Ann Taylor Loft. These were a definite highlight of this year's hibernation! :)

Christmas Day continued 2013....

Our crazy Christmas afternoon at Mimi's with Dad & Melissa.

 I think I've spent every Christmas afternoon of my life at my cute Grandma's house. She is such the hostess and goes above and beyond in making holidays special. It's obviously hereditary because my Dad takes on the same role. Between the two of them, my kiddos are spoiled beyond measure....

Did I mention that they are professional shoppers? 
That mountain of presents? All for my kiddos...!

Ca-Razy. But so fun for the munchkins. 

Later that day we headed to our next stop, the Hansens where we had a yummy Christmas dinner and more gifts. I obviously was done with taking pictures by then since all I have are these four....but since I took a ton on Christmas Eve over there it all evens out! The movie Frozen came out in November (we went to it the day after Thanksgiving), so the girls were super excited to get Ana and Elsa (in different forms from both my Dad and the Hansens) as gifts this year. That movie and it's soundtrack have become staples in our home and the girls are slightly obsessed! SUCH a great movie!! Cute Cousin Isaac is obsessed with knights and got this darling knight's tent and dragon from Santa, and Chris' Dad surprised him by refurbishing an old bike Chris had used on his mission in Louisiana that had been sitting in their garage. Now he and Parker & Emmie can go on bike rides together! 

And that was our Christmas! It really was a great month and I was so, SO thankful that my kiddos stayed healthy all of December! I quarantined them a bit from friends (besides school) and religiously used On Guard Doterra oil on them and it worked! Although I was finally just coming out of my inner ear problem and my other medical issues I had experienced earlier in the year, I had some big time issues with kidney and UTI infections from Nov-end of Dec and random bleeding (TMI but really I think maybe two people read this and I want to document) that kept me in a lot of pain and running to the Dr and even over the hospital for testing... but by Christmas Day thankfully I was feeling much better. 

Honestly, I think my favorite thing that we did leading up to Christmas was an advent Christmas tree calendar that I printed off, that had scriptures from the New Testament of the story of the birth of the Savior. Each night the kids were so excited to read one and color in another ornament on their advent tree. It was a really great way to keep the focus on what Christmas is truly about - all throughout the month! We will definitely make that a tradition! 

Christmas Morning 2013

Christmas Morning!

Waiting to go down to see if all their Christmas dreams came true...

....What was awaiting them...

I don't think they were disappointed!

From Santa: Lexi got her baby dolll, Emmie her coveted camera, and Parker got a new DS (actually for he and the girls but lets be real) and the Super Mario Wii game he wanted, and they all were surprised with their very own grocery store!

Happy faces make for happy parents on Christmas morning!

Then we proceeded to open the rest of the gifts.,,, Which we did all day as we floated from stop to stop. I'm a little gifted out by the end of Christmas, I have to say. I always feel as though I have run a marathon by the end of the day...I think in the near future we'll have to start spreading out the Christmas celebrations with extended fam so we can just enjoy some home time on December 25th with our kids! I've never, ever just stayed home on Christmas, and I'm not gonna lie, it sounds kinda nice!

Regardless, we love family, we love Christmas and we love this holiday season! We had a great day and I couldn't help but feeling overwhelmed with gratitude for my good husband and sweet kids and for the many blessings we have been given. Having just come out of four plus months of having a crazy, horrible sickness that really debilitated me, I was especially filled with gratitude to see another Christmas with my kids and yet another new appreciation for this life and how precious it is.  So grateful for the Savior, for his life and example and so grateful for the knowledge of the gospel in my life and for the power of prayer which I feel played a huge role in my finally getting better. Throughout the hardships I faced in 2013 I could feel the hand of the Lord in helping me through, as I have many times in my life, and for that I am eternally grateful!

Christmas Eve 2013

Christmas Eve 2013

Christmas Eve at the Hansens!

 We missed Dustin and Sarai who were back in Washington for the holidays. 

Isaac and Lexi's hello to each other...

Some good old fashioned cousin love!

Cousin Crew! 

A few more are currently being processed for next year's Christmas. 

Hansen Clan (minus Dustin and Sarai)

 The Festivities were hosted by Becky's brother and sis-in-law this year - Uncle Lonnie and Aunt Marsha (even though it was at the Hansen home). As tradition, we sang the Danish (shoot or is it Welsh?)song Jimmy Boker (sp ?) - Lance's props included (bottom left pic), had a parachute drop that went along with the story told by an apostle (of course I can't remember which one..??) of the kids in East Germany, candy bar game that included cash and gift cards courtesy of super generous Uncle Eric, sang Christmas carols to bells played by us, and the sweetest manger scene put together by Aunt Marsha. Very fun night and perfect build up to Christmas and the true meaning of the season!

December 2013

 So it's April, and I just uploaded our Christmas pictures onto my dying laptop. Awesome, I know. I was sure doing so would crash it but this is proof that the laptop lives on... for now! I feel like we have to get a new one every two years... am I wrong to think that $1000 computer should last longer than that?? So irritating! So there it is... my lack of blogging is explained! :)

Here is a little bit about how we spent our December....

Chris and I have been married for a long time. I cringe at the actual number because it makes me feel old. :) Like really old. But in 10 (okay plus 3) years we have never bought our own Christmas tree. (Except for the first year we were married and actually bought a real one....which died, and we had to tie the stiff spruce back on our car to return to Home Depot for a new one. We've gone artificial ever since. Which I totally prefer:)) 

Anyhow, for all those years we had this silly little 5 ft artificial hand-me-down tree that was probably at least 25 plus years old -  that my mom and Reed had so kindly given us our second year of marriage. They also later gave us a much better one, but that one is for our basement. 
This little Charlie Brown piece of work sat upstairs in our Living Room, year after year, for all to see. I was fine with it, really, and just grateful to have something, but in my heart I've wanted to get a nice, taller, prelit tree for years. 
Well, turns out 2013 was my lucky year! 
With the help of a $150 Visa gift card I'd been saving (for something real good), and with the rest of the money coming from our good old bank account, and the help of an enticing 20% off sale at Taipan, I was able to talk Chris into purchasing our first tree, that we ourselves, picked out and paid for. 

Aaaand, of course, somehow I didn't even take a picture of the whole glorious tree... but you can see the bottom of it in the pics above...so you get the idea. :)  As for the ornaments, they are still our humble ones that we've had for years... so, maybe better ornaments will come another year, but hey, one thing at a time. :) Finally getting this symbol of Christmas made me SO happy.

I got my tree!! 
From that point, we could move on with all Christmas festivities...& they went a little like this...

  We had to visit our favorite Thanksgiving Point to see the lights, give our regards to the Reindeer, and to have some hot chocolate. Love that place!

Emmie had her preschool Christmas performance. She did a fabulous job! 

(She's right in the middle by the candy cane...)

Love this cute girl!

After Parker got home from school that day, since Emmie was already spruced up, we thought it was a great time to visit Old St. Nick. I have the THIRTY DOLLAR "professional" picture somewhere downstairs (which I am too lazy to get at the moment), but I'll have to add it later. Love that in order to get any sort of picture, (which in my mind equates to any future memory of the day) you have to first buy their crazy expensive one. Yes, I'll whine about it....again... this year.

 Parker asked for the new Super Mario Wii game, Lexi wanted a baby doll, and Emmie a camera. 

 Random pic of this cute girl after church one Sunday...

If you look closely you can see Emmie's earrings.... oh wait- I mean, the ornaments that she kept taking off of her baby christmas tree and hanging from her ear all month long. By the end of December, most of her ornaments were somehow mysteriously missing from her tree....and strewn all over the house...on a sidenote, this is the chosen spot where Emmie likes to "teach" Lexi school. :)

PRESCHOOL PLAYGROUP

This cute little foursome had an exciting day at preschool  and went on the Polar Express (for pretend) - hence their jams. Afterwards it was our turn to host playgroup, and we had our own little Christmas celebration by decorating  sugar cookies and playing Christmas Bingo while listening to some Christmas tunes. Love this time of year! &. I'm tellin' ya, these kids loooooove Bingo! :)

Parker's school has a 'Christmas Sing' every year. Call us bad parents, but we lucked out and first grade was FIRST, so we were only there for about 15 minutes (opposed to an hour and a half - yay for us!), but he did great! He's on the back row middle, in the dark blue, gray and white striped sweater. Awesome pic, I know. :)

Even though it must have been 0 degrees out, we had to visit Temple Square! We froze our little rear ends off & it  was so cold it hurt but so worth the trip! (In my eyes anyways. Chris might have a different opinion on that.;))We randomly ran into Steven and Kylie while eating dinner  in the food court at City Creek. It was a fun surprise to see them for a minute! Somehow however, we managed to lose them before heading across to Temple Square while I took Emmie to the restroom. It was so freezing we just never met up again. We of course had to stop and see Uncle Mark's fountains at City Creek. I have to say they are pretty awesome and I love that they dance to Christmas music. The peaceful feeling on the temple grounds is one that I just cherish and helps me to feel the true meaning of Christmas and what the season is truly all about. Being there makes me feel inspired and in awe and there is just no denying was a special place it is. I LOVE going there!! 

And... finally it arrived! Christmas Eve... oh the anticipation!! :)

How blessed are we to have this cute little trio in our lives?!

More blessed than we deserve, that is for sure!