Happy 23rd Uncle Chris!

I remember when my little brother Chris was born.  I was almost 10 (his due date was my birthday I think).  And it was a Sunday night when my dad came into our room and told that mom was having the baby.  We all went to the hospital, including our foreign exchange student, and got to watch him be born.  It was totally awesome.  And now he just turned 23!  Our kids love their uncle Chris, and who wouldn't?  He is so cute with the kids and is always willing to be their entertainment. We all got together Sunday after church for a birthday dinner.  Chris brought his two roommates, Jeff and Trac.  They are all great men and will make the best dads someday!  While we finished dinner they played with the kids.  My parents and Matt's family were also able to be there to help us celebrate.

Dinner was a special request from Chris and included turkey roast, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, rolls, and salad.  We also had his favorite pudding and whip cream cake for dessert.  Natalie brought a yummy jello salad that my kids loved and grandma also spoiled us with a yummy pan of cookie bars.  Needless to say, there was plenty of food.  

 After dinner there was some more play time with the kids and a quick game of Knock your Neighbor.  Followed by some birthday cake and present opening.  Carson and Kaylee had both made him a home made card and present.  Carson's mr. potato head was pretty comical and I think Chris got a kick out of it.

I sure love Chris.  He has always been so kind to me and my family and I love any chance we have to get together with him.  Even though I wish he lived closer, I feel pretty lucky that I live the closest to him out of our family.  Orem isn't too far away and I am grateful for his efforts in spending time with us.  I think that this year will be his year.  I am so proud of how hard he is working in school and in the church.  I am excited to see where this next year will take him.  Love ya bud!!

Weekend Review

We had a fun weekend and busy weekend.  It started with a busy Friday.  Kaylee had spent the morning making these cute bracelets for her friends Kalie and Ashlyn.  She did them all by herself with no help.  She even put a little charm on them and everything.  Then she found some new pencils and wrapped them up special with paper and tags.  I thought it was so cute.  Between early out, cleaning bathrooms, and normal mom duties, Fridays prove to always be a bit crazy.  After the kids got home from school, I took Kaylee to dance while the rest of us went to a dental appointment for cleanings and exams.  The plan was to have Nick pick up Kaylee from dance on his way home at 3:45 and meet us there so he and Kaylee could also get their exams done.  It was a bit crazy but we managed to get everyone seen and home before 5.  We had a sitter coming at 5 to watch the kids so Nick and I could go out.  We signed up to take a fun date night class at the Weber State University West Campus, as part of Utah State Extension office about Love Languages.  It was a fun night. We went through the drive through at Arby's and grabbed some dinner to eat on the way up to Roy.  We met Matt & Natalie there and enjoyed the evening with them.  Even though we had learned about the love languages before, it was nice to review them and to see what each other's love languages are.  I think mine have changed.  Mine used to be mainly Acts of Service, but this time my Words of Affirmation were higher.  Nick's was no surprise of his being Physical Touch.  It was a great night and it is always nice to get some time away from the kids, even for just a few hours.  Saturday morning I was able to attend the Stake RS Conference.  The Theme was Finding Happiness, and like always, I feel like their messages were just for me.  It was wonderful.  They served a yummy soup lunch and it was great to just enjoy some time with my friends from the ward.  After that, I made a quick run to costco, picked up a hockey stick and puck from one of my piano students to help with Sunday's singing time, and then came home and finished my singing time before Kaylee and I left for the U of U Gymnastics meet with Erin and her girls.  Nick was amazing that day.  Not only did he watch the kids ALL day, but he also framed in and sheet rocked a new closet downstairs in our family room.  I was impressed what he was able to get done!  Carson enjoyed Saturday evening as well.  He was invited to go to the BYU Basketball game with his friend Christopher and his dad.  He was so excited and was so cute when he told us all about it when he got home late that night.  It was just a fun day for everyone!  Sunday, I did an Olympics theme for Singing time, and it was a lot of fun.  We came home and got dinner all ready to celebrate Uncle Chris's birthday.  (See future Post).  Overall, it was busy, but super fun!

Blue & Gold

We had a busy Tuesday today.  Carson and I got an early start to the day with making cupcakes before school for the Blue & Gold Scouts activity we went to tonight.  We had a plan to get together with our friends, the Yospe's, to make wizard hats out of the cupcakes after school, which we did.  We got them put together very quickly and I was able to make it back home to teach two lessons before we had dinner and headed to the church.  I also got the chance to visit my friend Lindsey B. and her cute new baby boy.  Alivia loved playing with her neighbor friends and Kaylee even had a chance to make brownie bites and took some to her piano teacher when she went to her lesson today.  It was just busy and fun.  Here are some pictures of our fun night.  The theme was Harry Potter and Carson received his Chess belt loop tonight.  The kids enjoyed it quite a bit!

Sunday Best

Just wanted to share these pictures I took of the kids before we went to church yesterday.  I tried getting them to sit all together, but that just wasn't going to happen.   Oh well!  I still think they are pretty cute all dressed up.  Alivia LOVES her pink dress that matches Kaylee's dress.  She insisted that she wear that dress even though she had worn it last week.  Then she went to Kaylee's room and got Kaylee's dress out herself to make sure Kaylee wore it too.  It was so cute!  

President's Day

We enjoyed our President's day!  I was able to do an outside run since Nick was home.  It was my first run outside for 5 months.  I have been running on my treadmill a few times a week for the past 5 weeks since getting confirmation that my stress fracture is healed.  So it was fun to go and the weather was chilly but great!  I did 3 miles in just over 29 minutes which felt great.  My lungs were a little on fire when I got done, and I think it was because they weren't used to the cold weather.  We then got everyone ready and Carson went to piano while I taught piano myself.  When Carson got back, Nick took the three older kids to the new Lego Movie while I finished teaching piano and Preston napped.  They loved the movie!  I was glad to hear Alivia sat so still through the whole thing too!  After lunch, since Preston was still asleep Nick took the kids to Orange Leaf with some money that Grandma Karen had sent us for Valentines.  The kids were in heaven!  They spent the afternoon playing with friends while I went grocery shopping with Alivia.  We had french dip for dinner and watched the Olympics and got some reading in before putting the kids to bed early.  One cute thing to share is that when you ask Preston what does a doggy say, he will ruff like a dog.  It is so cute!  He also loves to nod or shake his head when you ask him a question.  He is getting so smart and can understand so much which makes things so much easier.  It was just such a great day!

Super Saturday!

We had a super Saturday!  We got up early and worked out got chores done while Nick worked a half day.  He was home by 10 and we had lunch and our plan was to head to the zoo.  So we loaded everyone up in the van and headed south.  When we got to the zoo we could tell it was busy since the parking lot was full, so we drove by and decided to maybe head towards park city and take a drive up immigration canyon.  We had never been up that road and since half of the kids were asleep, we thought we would keep driving and give them a chance to nap a bit.  It was a beautiful day and we saw a ton of cyclists going up the canyon as we drove.  We made it to I-80 and decided to head back to SLC and go to the Gateway Museum since we have a pass there and then I could also use my Victoria Secret Gift Card while we are there.  So we headed back to SLC (we were only a few miles out of SLC so it wasn't that far away).  Soon after we headed back west, I looked back and saw all of the kids alseep, but the funniest was to see how Carson had crashed out.  He was laying on top of the kleenex box.  It was so funny!!!  They did wake up by the time we made it to the museum to play.  We spent the next couple hours playing and enjoying the activities there, especially the helicopter since it was so nice outside.  It was such a beautiful day that we enjoyed walking around the Gateway and the kids loved playing around the fountain while I did my shopping.  We decided to stay at the mall for dinner and enjoyed some Panda Express for dinner.  We then got home and all went to bed early since we were all up super late on Friday.  Here are some pictures from our day on Saturday.

We had a easy going Sunday.  We had leftovers for dinner and then enjoyed movie night in the trailer (Despicable Me 2).  Since we didn't have school today, the older kids and Nick stayed in the trailer, which they loved!  It was a fun weekend followed by a super fun Monday to make it an extended fun weekend!