More fun....

Just a few more fun pictures from Thanksgiving. Here is Cooper after he enjoyed cleaning off one of the beaters. I think that boy has a whole mouth full of sweet teeth. I am going to have to watch him or he will have a mouthful of cavities.

Matt was trying to take a picture of me, but Michelle or Nick kept getting in the background and making crazy faces. Here is a lovely picture of Michelle in the background.

I just thought this was a cute picture of TJ as we were heading up to go tree hunting.

As you can tell, Cooper didn't really care for Santa too much. TJ liked him this year and said he wanted a Red Rider BB gun....just kidding, he wants a bike. :-) (Not sure why this is underlining)

Goin' on a Tree hunt!

The day after Thanksgiving we went on our annual Christmas tree hunt. We were able to leave Cooper home with Michelle and so that made it much easier. It was Matt, TJ and I, my parents, Denny and Anne and their two oldest. And of coarse I had to wear my oh so lovely hairy boots and yellow snow pants. I have worn those same boots for the last 15ish years and my feet have NEVER gotten cold. Love em! We were going to go up to the Bowery but a spot in the road was too slippery so by default we just looked around there. We only had to get 2 trees, one for my parents and one for us since pretty much every one else has fake trees. We looked for a while and didn't find anything, and then we went back to the van and as we were trying to decide what to do we saw a pretty tree about 10-15 feet from the road so my parents got that one. We enjoyed our cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate and then Anne and the kids went home and Matt, me, Denny and my parents went on the hunt again for a tree for us. We were going to go a few miles up the road to a different place, but as we started driving back to the main road, we saw some potential trees on the side of the road about 100 yards from where we had been so we got out. We started climbing around, and before we knew it we had climbed almost to the top of the mountain but we did find a beautiful tree. It was HUGE on the mountain so I knew it would be even more huge in our house, but we liked it and had been searching for a few hours, so we chopped it down and made our way back to the van. The next day as we were heading back up north, Nick and Michelle said they would bring our tree up since they have a rack on the top of their van and the tree was so huge. Well, needless to say, we're lucky to have a tree after the ride up. The rope broke and the tree fell off the van TWICE on the freeway. It's a miracle there wasn't an accident or that no one hit it. We got it up a few days ago and it's a very full but very beautiful Christmas tree, and the first tree in our new house!

Family

Just thought I would take a shot of all the couples that were there this year (although I somehow missed taking a picture of my mom and dad). I have the best family ever! Everyone fits in, there are no tense moments, no black sheep, and we just plain love to be with each other! How lucky can a girl be? We missed the other three siblings that weren't there this year.

Denny and Anne

Nick and Michelle

Ammon and Chalise

Matt and I

Food!

The food this year was awesome, and I am happy to say that I did my fair share. :-) I made 4 salads, 4 pies, and these fun little turkey cupcakes. We ate in my parents garage again this year (just like last year) but you would never know it was a garage. We put quilts up that my mom has made over the years all over the walls and there is carpet on the floor, so it looks quite nice. There were only 21 people there this year, which seemed like kind of a small group. There were 4 siblings there, but three of us only have 2 kids (well, I guess Chalise has 2 1/2) and I think this is one of the first years that we haven't had anyone other than family there. We had a great time and ate until we couldn't fit another bite in. I didn't eat any lunch and we ate dinner about 3:00 so I was pretty hungry. I couldn't stop saying "YUM!" through my whole first plate. After our stomachs had a little time to rest (although not quite enough time for me) we broke out the pies. We had 13 different types: Chocolate cream, banana cream, coconut cream, pink lemonade, candy bar, holiday mint, key lime, pumpkin, pecan, black bottom, lemon meringue, apple, and banana caramel. I think I had a small slice of 3 of them and figured I would taste the others over the next 2 days. Well, since there were so many pies, so little fridge space, and it was cold outside, we decided to just cover the pies and leave them on the table. Well, that would have been a fine idea if the dogs hadn't of got in to the garage. We went out the next day and there were at least 4 pies on the floor that they had pulled down, and I hadn't had a few of those. A few others on the table we could tell they had nibbled on as well, so we had to throw those away too. Luckily a few had been pushed back far enough that they couldn't reach those. I was pretty mad for a minute, but I guess it will be a fun memory (and a lesson not to leave pies within a dogs reach).

TJ turns 4

For some reason it's not letting me move the pictures around so they are a little out of order, but I thought I would just put a few pics up of TJ's birthday. When I was growing up we got to choose our favorite cereal for our birthday breakfast, so the night before TJ's birthday I took him to the store to pick out whatever cereal he wanted. He chose Cocoa Puffs, and it about killed me to pay full price for a box of cereal, but I figured once a year won't empty my wallet. :-) That night after he went to sleep I put streamers and balloons up all over the house, including in his room and I was so excited for him to wake up on his birthday, but that night he happened to come into our bed in the middle of the night, so after he woke up I had to send him into his room to see it all decorated. It got me so excited for the holidays with kids - I was just so giddy. :-) That night we did the family celebration with the cake, and I made him a cake with music on it since he started taking a music class a few months ago. I don't
think he was super crazy about it (I think he wanted a dragon fly for some reason) but oh well. After cake and ice cream, I let TJ choose if he wanted to take a bath by himself or with Cooper and his response was "Whatever" so we threw them both in. We gave them a bath in our bathroom and the jets in our bathtub made the bubbles go crazy!!! It was really fun, but Matt and I were really hoping that Cooper wouldn't poop in the bathtub (as he has a habit of doing) since there is NO way we would have seen it with all those bubbles. :-) The next day TJ had a joint party with his cousin Seth since they share the same birthday and some of the same friends. There were 13 boys there between the ages of almost 4 and 6 (that was even with 2 not showing up) so it was a little crazy but it was fun. My camera died party way through so I didn't really get too many pictures, but hopefully my sister got a few.
TJ is such a good boy and we love him so much. He has been pretty close to the perfect child, but recently he has started to test his limits a bit more, I guess he is just starting to be "normal". He is such a good brother to Cooper and so loving. He is a very smart boy (according to his pediatrician, not just me) :-) and he LOVES to read books together and count. We feel very blessed to have him as part of our family! We love you TJ!

A few pics

Matt and I in front of the Nauvoo temple. When we were in Chicago a few weeks ago my in-laws watched the boys so we could go down to Nauvoo by ourselves and we had a great time. This picture is a selt-portrait, which I was pretty happy with since I got the temple centered in the picture. :-)

I think we only had 1 nice day of weather while we were in Chicago (most of the time it was rainy and freezing) and so the boys and I were able to go to our old park that day and we had a lot of fun. It was weird but nice being back in our old neighborhood.

Matt and the boys on Halloween. Matt was a really cute Clark Kent, TJ was Batman and Cooper was a dinosaur. We enjoyed finally having trick-or-treaters since we we have always lived in an apartment/condo where we didn't get any.

Things here are going well for us. We have been enjoying the fall and it's starting to feel like winter with the few snow storms we've gotten and the cold weather. We had a wonderful trip to Chicago and were able to see quite a few friends while we were there, although there were a few dear friends we missed due to them being out of town. Last week TJ turned 4 (I need to download those pictures) and he had his first party with friends. It was a little chaotic with 13 kids ages 3-6 (he had a joint party with is cousin Seth since they share a birthday) but it was fun. Matt is still really enjoying his job, and for the most part I love being home with the boys, although today isn't my favorite day of all. :-) Overall we are doing great and have so much to be grateful for. We are looking forward to the holidays and spending a lot of family time.

Finally an update

Ya know, it seems like I am always saying I am FINALLY doing an update....guess that means I should blog a little more often, huh? I just noticed that it put my pictures on here in reverse order, so I guess I will be starting with the present and going back to the past. This week has been a fairly fun one. On Monday we had a Family Home Evening lesson about service, and then we took cookies that TJ and I had made earlier in the day to some of our neighbors here in our new neighborhood who have made us feel welcome since we've been here. On Tuesday, Matt got home and we ate dinner, then we headed up Payson Canyon to look at the leaves and they were absolutely beautiful. The weather wasn't very good cause a storm was blowing in, and it was getting a little dark so this picture doesn't do it justice at all, but here is a picture that I took out my window as we were driving. We stopped at a little park/campground area up the canyon and got out and walked around a bit, and it totally brought me back to my childhood of going up the canyon for dinners, parties, etc. I am so glad that my mom made the effort to help us make fun memories by occasionally packing up dinner after it was ready and bringing us all up the canyon. Now that I am an adult I realize how much work it is to go anywhere with kids, let alone 7 of them, and bringing a whole dinner along. :-) But I love the smells, the sounds, and pretty much everything about nature. I hear Provo canyon is just breathtaking, so I am hoping to get up there sometime the next few days. Fall is my absolute FAVORITE time of year, so I want to make sure I get as much as possible of these beautiful colors.Wednesday was a fun day, or rather a fun evening. Here is Matt and the boys chillin' on our new front porch (minus the front door which we should be getting next week - we SO need it!). After dinner on Wednesday Matt told me that he had heard a fun song on the way home and so he looked it up on youtube to show me. We proceeded to move all the chairs out of the way in the kitchen and had a dance party for about 15 minutes with the music blasting and us just spazzing out. It was so much fun, and we even taught TJ how to do the "sprinker". He looks pretty dang cute when he does it. This morning I turned the music on and we had another little dance party after breakfast. Sometimes I forget how much I love to dance! It makes me so happy.
This picture was taken at the Parade on Labor day in Parowan. Parowan is always the place to be on Labor Day, cause it's the Iron County Fair and just tons of fun. The carnival is in town and it just seems like you run into people on that weekend more than any other time cause so many people go home for Labor Day. I haven't been home for many Labor days the past 9 years since I was living in Chicago, but now that I am living in the state, I wouldn't miss it. :-) I love Cooper's total cheeser grin in this picture.
Here's a cute brother picture of TJ sharing his sucker with Coop at the parade. He is such a wonderful brother to Cooper and for the most part does a great job sharing and giving him lots of love. I feel blessed to have two wonderful boys! They are as different as night and day, but both wonderful in their own ways.
We have been in our home now 2 weeks and are starting to get settled, although the place is still a disaster. I can't wait until everything has a place, and is in it's place. I've unpacked the major boxes with the stuff that we use on a daily basis, so now I am just down to all those boxes of things that you don't really want to throw away but you have no idea where to put them. I really despise unpacking - it is NOT a strong point of mine, but I guess we all have to do things that we don't enjoy occasionally, right? We really enjoy our ward and have some really nice neighbors who have made us feel very welcome so far. It's a bit of a commute for Matt to work, but we feel like we are in the right place. Hopefully soon my house will be in a state where I feel like I could take pictures and not die of embarrassment, and then I will get them posted on here. :-)

A reunion to remember

We have had a wonderful past few weeks so I wanted to get it documented. It's getting a little late so I will write more about our adventures soon, but I thought I would at least get some new pictures up. I have the best family ever!

TJ and I at Bryce Canyon - truly God's country. It's SO beautiful there, with so many wonderful memories.

Matt and Cooper chillin in my parents back yard. What cute boys, huh?

We took family pictures at Kolob Canyon while we were all together, so here is a shot of my and my boys.

My darling niece Haley holding Cooper. She was so good with him and he just adores her. If ever I didn't know where Cooper was, I would just look for Haley and she would have him propped up on her hip, carrying him around wherever she was going. A lot of the time, he preferred her to me, which is pretty rare for Cooper. He calls her "Lala" and he misses her since coming home.

The family out in the paddle boat. TJ is behind me but you can't see him. This lake provided HOURS of entertainment for everyone
Matt and Cooper ready to out for a morning walk in the mountains.

Matt and I on our way up the ski lift to go down the Alpine slide in Park City, celebrating our 7 year anniversary.

Not sure why......

In my last post, I put a bunch of pictures up, and they showed up for the first day or so, and then for some weird reason, they just disappeared, so I decided to put a few pictures up. Below is a picture of the house that we are under contract on. Just FYI - it is a side entrance garage, so that front part of the house on the right is the garage. It makes it looks like there's a lot more house then there really is........

Here's Cooper and I at Liberty Land. TJ and Cooper both had their first roller coaster ride that day and we had a fun time as a family there.

Family Picture on the 4th of July

TJ going down the monsterous slip-n-slide at my brother's house on the 4th. He LOVED it and spent over and hour straight going down again and again.

Summer Fun

Okay, it's been a month and a half since my last post, so I think it's official that I am a slacker blogger. Ever since I've been on Facebook I don't update nearly as much as I should. So here's a bit of an update on what we've been doing recently.
A few weeks ago I participated in a Relay for Life, which is a cancer walk. I was on the committee so I got to the track to help set up about 10:30 a.m. on Friday and was there until about 7:00pm on Saturday, so I was there for about 34 hours, and I only got about 3 hours of sleep on Friday night. We had a huge storm come through Friday evening which broke my tent and left about an inch or two of rain in my tent, drenching my sleeping bag. Luckily the army had brought some cots, so I slept on one of those, and there was a dryer in the concession stands area so I was able to dry my sleeping bag off. It was a great experience and because of the generosity of friends and family, I was able to raise about $600 to go toward cancer, and our Relay was able to raise over $30,000 to go toward cancer research.

For the 4th of July we had some good times with friends and family. For lunch we met up with one of Matt's friends from work at a park and had a picnic and let our kids play for a
while. Then we headed over to my brother Denny's house for a BBQ and some good times with the fam. They had a monsterous slip and slide down the hill into their neighbors yard, as well as a dunk tank, so we had a lot of fun. TJ LOVED the slide and was going down it for HOURS! I had brought my swim suit and I went down it, and then Matt was a great sport and joined me in his regular clothes. Since he was already wet, he said that he would give my brother's in law a chance to dunk him in the dunk tank, but if they missed then he could dunk them. My brother-in-law Jason was up first and he missed, and then Nick got up. Matt said "I've seen Nick throw before, I'm not worried". About 2 seconds later he was in the water after Nick hit the target. We had a really fun time there and are grateful for such a wonderful family.

Recently we went to Liberty Land, which is a small amusement park type place and TJ rode his first Roller Coaster, so I figured I would get that documented. I also took Cooper on it and just held him on my lap. It was a pretty fast moving coaster and he wasn't sure if he liked it or not. It was fun to go as a family, and hopefully that was just a taste of many fun days like that to come.

Another BIG thing going on in our lives right now is our housing situation. We have been here in Utah for 3 1/2 months now, living in my sister's basement waiting for our condo to either sell or be rented out. We found some great people who are moving up to Chicago from Florida who were looking for a place to live, and they are planning on renting our condo. The only thing is they are waiting for a call to get a start date for his job, so hopefully it will be soon. So we finally went out looking at homes here, and we found one that we really like. It's a bank owned house so we are able to get a pretty good deal on it. It will take some work (new paint, carpet, tons of cleaning, etc) but I love the layout and think it will be a good home for us. We will hopefully be going under contract this week and then closing the end of August. It's so weird to think that we might finally have a house of our own after all these years.

New pics of the boys

I finally uploaded my pictures today so I thought I would hurry and put some on the blog while I was on the computer. In this first picture, notice the tatoo's on the boys arms. My sister was putting the little sticker tatoo's on her boys and I had never done them before so we decided to do one on each of my boys too. My sister and I both did a little tatoo on our ankles, she did a rose and I did a fairy. The funny part is a few days later I was walking out the door to go to church at the rest home (luckily it wasn't my ward) and my sister pointed out to me that I still had the tatoo on my ankle. I didn't have enough time to go take my nylons off, scrub it off, and get out the door and still be on time, so I just had to go with it on and then take it off after that church before I went to our real ward. I felt so rebelious to have a tatoo on at church, even if it was just a little fake one. :-)

Here is TJ and Cooper in the dryer. TJ always loves to climb in the dryer when I am switching the clothes over and then it's always a little tricky getting him out when there's a ton of clothes piled on him, but if it's making a fun memory, why not? This time Cooper joined him in there before I put the clothes in and they were having a really fun time.

This is just a random shot of TJ today. I wanted to make sure the flash was working so I shot a quick picture of him, but I thought it was cute so I stuck it on here.

Another random picture of Cooper. Whenever I got to put pictures on the blog I realize that I really need to take more pictures of Cooper by himself. I have quite a few of the boys together, but not a ton of him by himself. Already suffering from the second child syndrome. :-) Cooper has really taken off with his walking the past few days and walks most of the time. It's fun to see him really taking off like this. Last night I dreampt that he was running around the house and I'm sure it won't be long before he is.