February 2015-Part 2

A little more February fun! I took Beckett all by himself to the farm one morning while Talia was at school. He loved getting to walk around and look at whatever he wanted. We even got to see the peacock with his feathers open and watch one of the Clydesdale horses getting shooed. Pretty cool!

Talia's hair is finally long enough for big piggy tails. They looked so so cute.

Davin is my little kitchen buddy. He always wants to help me cook. I was making veggie bars for my friend's baby shower I was helping host. Davin was a good helped and had fun using the chopper. :)

My friend and across the street neighbor and the RS president I had worked with, Marcie, moved away pretty suddenly. Her house sold super fast and her and her hubby got jobs in AZ and they headed out within the month. Our old RS presidency decided we wanted to throw her a baby shower before she left even though she was only 15 weeks pregnant. This is her first baby and she has been trying for several years to have a baby. We were all so excited for her. We had fun Disney themed shower. Lots of sisters from our ward came to show their love for Marcie and to say goodbye. It was fun to gift her with lots of baby essentials! 

The same day of Marcie's shower was Weston's last basketball game of the season. He had so much fun playing Jr. Jazz with his cute friends, Arron and Grant! I'm so glad it was a positive thing for him. I was really proud of him practicing at home and watching him improve each week. Good work Weston!

Next up in February was a trip to the zoo! In the winter the zoo does a free admission day the last Wednesday of the month. It happened to coincide with Mel's birthday! And the weather has been so great I couldn't pass up a free trip to the zoo. We brought my friend, Lorie with us. Mel and Wilson and Becky Green and her boys met us there. We had a blast seeing all the animals! Beckett still loves animals so much. Talia was better this trip and didn't whine to move on quite so quickly. She was so funny chatting with Lincoln. Beckett's favorites were the elephants (surprise surprise) and the giraffes. We all really liked watching the seals. It was so fun having Lorie with us. She was awesome helping out with the kids! I'm glad we got to do something fun for Mel's birthday too!

Later that night after the zoo was education night at the boys' school. Ian couldn't leave work early to come with us and I didn't really want to go, but the lure of free pizza and not having to cook dinner won. I'm glad we went though. It was fun to visit the boys' classrooms and do some math activities. The kids were really well behaved too. Plus, not having to cook!

Even later that night after the zoo and education night I hosted book club at my house. It was pretty low key though. I always love discussing books and then discussing whatever we want. Friend time is always good. Needless to say I slept very well that night!

My mom flew in that same night (Mel's birthday) to attend a conference in Salt Lake. She was busy conferencing and playing with baby Wilson her first couple of days here, but Friday night Mel and I met up with her after her conference stuff and had a super fun girls' night! We had dinner together at Blue Lemon. Then we walked over to Temple Square and watched Meet the Mormons in the Joseph Smith Building. It was really good! We finished off the night with delicious gelato at Settebello. Good times! 

I brought Mom home with me after our girls' night. Saturday morning we just hung around and snuggled up and watched The Lego Movie. Mom and I got to go do some shopping in the afternoon. She got me some new clothes for my birthday. Thanks Mom! When we got home Mel and Wilson came over and we visited until it was time to go out for the night. We all went to the new McDonald's by our house to eat and let the kids play. Then we loaded up and drove down to Provo and went to a BYU volleyball game. We had so much fun! I love volleyball. Talia just kept waiting to see Cosmo. Luckily we saw him pretty early on. Beckett was a big Cosmo fan. It was adorable. After that the pressure was off and we watched the game and ate Cougar tails.

Weston was super into it. Talia and Beckett got bored after the second set and I took them down to the track to burn off some energy. They ran the Smith Fieldhouse track for awhile. Finally Talia went back to sit and I passed Beckett off to Ian. Talia got tired and layed down on the bench, but managed to rally to watch the very end of the game. BYU swept 3-0! Unfortunately poor baby Wilson was not a fan of the noise and Mel left with Wilson about 15 minutes into the game. Overall though a very fun night!

Sunday morning was nice and lazy then we went to church and finished off our visit with Grandma with a family dinner of grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, salad, and Mel's yummy veggies! We celebrated Mel's birthday with a few presents and salted caramel brownies. I love my family so much. Thanks for the fun visit Mom!

Last but not least . . . our random February fun pics!

Beckett loves to take baths. A bath without his sister is even better! He can do whatever he wants with the toys! 

This is how I find Beckett after his naps pretty much every day. He is surrounded by books and toys. A lot of the time I lay down with him and read a few books before he really gets up from nap time. 

Rediscovering their headphones!

This is a girl after my own heart. She asked to change into her jammies at 2:30 in the afternoon. Sometimes she asks even earlier. Today I couldn't convince her to change out of her jammies until 4pm. I can't blame her since I love to wear my jammmies too!

February 2015-Part 1

This month was a little crazy with the pictures, so I'm splitting our monthly post into two. :) It's my blog. I can do that. 

February was another beautiful winter weather month. We played outside and went to Farm Country a couple of times. Having such a mild winter makes me even more sure I want to live somewhere without winter. I don't miss it one bit.

A big change in February was that I got released from my calling as 1st Counselor in the Relief Society Presidency (my church's organization for women). My new calling is 1st Counselor in the Primary Presidency (my church's organization for children). A big part of my new calling is being over the Cubscout program in our ward. There is a lot to learn and do, especially since Cubscouts have been really struggling in the last year. It has been a tough transition for me because I really really loved Relief Society. I loved the spiritual uplift I got from learning together with the sisters every Sunday and being aware of their needs and serving them. Being in Primary I spend all three hours of church every Sunday with lots of kids. We have over 150 kids in our Primary, so it's a chaotic, busy couple of hours. After that I go to our main meeting and wrangle my own four tired kids. Sigh. I'm trying to hold off passing judgement on being in Primary until I have my feet under me a little bit and things are running smoothly with Cubscouts, but let's just say I already really miss Relief Society!

I was called into Primary the week of the Cubscouts big Blue and Gold dinner, so I helped put that together (set up in the morning, picked up the food in the afternoon and attended with my family and my cute scout). I didn't have any hand in the planning stage, but I have to say it turned out super cute! They did a Great Outdoors theme. The scouts are always in charge of bringing a cake decorated around the theme, which then serve as our dessert (and it's a contest). Since I was going to be busy getting things ready for the dinner I didn't have a lot of time for cake decorating. Weston and I put together a really yummy Smore's pudding cake the night before. It had a graham cracker crust with a chocolate cake baked on top of it. Then I poked holes in the cake and poured pudding over it. Once that set we frosted it with a whipped cream and marshmallow fluff frosting. The final touch was crushed graham cracker crumbs and chopped chocolate bars sprinkled on top. It was delicious!

Next up in February was Valentine's Day! Weston and Ian spent a few hours on the Saturday before making Weston's Valentine box for school. They made Domo. It was pretty cool. It even had a red LED light in it's mouth. Weston was SO excited to take it to school. The Sunday before Valentine's I finally put Beckett in the little boy suit that Weston wore to Auntie Mel's wedding a long time ago. Beckett was so excited about the suit and Weston wore his to match. I had to get a few pictures. Love my little rascals!

Valentine's Day was on a Saturday this year. It was pretty low key. I got up early and made a fun Valentine's Day breakfast and gave the kids the cute coupon books I made for them as their gift this year. They included coupons for staying up half an hour past bedtime, skipping a Saturday job, a date with Mom or Dad, a trip to the Dollar store (for Tal and Beck), and, of course, snuggles and loves. :) Ian brought me and Talia roses on Friday night. They were beautiful!

Weston had a basketball game that morning. Auntie Mel and birthday boy Uncle Brad brought Wilson and came to watch! It was fun to hang with them and watch Weston play. He even scored a basket!

That night we had a nice dinner together then Ian went and picked up a big boy bed for Beckett. We spent the evening taking down the crib and getting Beckett's room set up with the big bed. It was bittersweet taking down the crib for the last time. No more babies in our house! We sold the crib later that week. Beckett was so excited about his big new bed and had no problems sleeping in it. It has been a few weeks now and he still does great. He only fell out of the bed a few times at the very beginning. We lock his door so he will stay in and sleep. Sometimes he won't go to sleep at nap time because he is playing, but for the most part I would say it has been a good transition. I can't believe how grown up Beckett is getting!

Ian went out of town for a few days the next week. We missed him. It was a rough few days with the kids. Not sure why, but everyone was kind of grouchy. My saving grace was the nice weather so we could go play outside. We did have one fun outing while Ian was gone. I didn't want to cook so we went to dinner at In N Out. The kids were so good. We had a little extra time after dinner so we went and ran through the dino museum. It was a good night. We were all happy to have Dad home late the next night!

Random Fun . . .
Snuggling at home

Building an epic tunnel fort

Hanging out with cutie Wilson

The kids had Valentine parties at school. Talia dressed up for hers in her tutu!

Super low gas prices . . . what?!?

Weston brought home this New Year's Resolution paper from school. He wrote that his resolution was to grow facial hair. Weirdo.

We had parent teacher conferences while Ian was out of town. The boys both had glowing reports from their teachers. We went to The Sweet Tooth Fairy and got some treats to celebrate. Weston had a gift certificate and cookies and cupcakes from his birthday that he used. He was a good sharer. Love my big boys!