February 2016

February was a short month but it was packed full! We kicked off the month with a biggie--the Blue and Gold dinner! Even though I'm just the primary counselor over Cub Scouts I ended up in charge this year. The cubmaster and the committee chair are both pretty new and had never attended much less planned a Blue and Gold. It was a lot of work and there were definitely people helping. It came together nicely and was a fun night for the boys and their families. I spent all day out running errands and getting things ready. 

The theme was One in a Minion. It was super cute and easy to work with and just the right colors! Weston did an awesome job decorating minion cupcakes for the cake contest. The food was sub sandwiches, chip, fruit and drinks. There were these cute minion posters with each cub scout's name on one and the leaders names too.







We ate, gave out awards. Weston got his Bear! Go Weston! There were also fun games for the kids to play. Each den planned a game. We had pin the tail on the wolf, pin the eyes on the Minion, and a Minion bean bag toss. There was also the cake decorating contest. I love seeing how creative the boys are. Then we ate their cakes for dessert. Umm...just now as I'm typing this (a whole month plus later) I just remembered I left my cookie sheet and the extra minion cupcakes at the church on top of the fridge. I wonder if they are still there! Haha! Anyway, it was a success and I'm glad it's done!





The next big, fun thing was hosting a mini 30th birthday party for Brad! His birthday is on Valentine's day, so a couple days before we got together with the Curnow's for pizza and cake and dance party fun. We love Uncle Brad so much and were so glad we got to celebrate his new decade with him!



Later that weekend was Valentine's Day. It was low key but a nice day. Ian and I hearted the kids' doors the night before, so they woke up to read all the things we love about them. I made french toast for breakfast, which was fun. We all went to church. I had sharing time all month, so that kept me kind of busy too. Sharing time went well and we came home to relax. I made a "fancy" dinner for everyone. We had spaghetti with mizithra, salad, and fruit and Martinelli's to drink! I had gotten the kids each a little gift (a book) and a treat bag. After dinner they got their gifts and we had treats and then put littles to bed. Ian and I curled up and watched a movie. Oh and Ian and I ended up hearting each other's mirror space and other places around the house with things we love about each other. It's good to really take some time to think about each other now and then. Happy Valentine's Day!




The next day was President's Day. Since Ian was off and the kids were off school we decided to take the frontrunner train up to Salt Lake and go see a movie at the Planetarium! Beckett had been asking to take the train by our house forever. He was super excited and had a great day! When we got home the sun was out and it was pretty warm! The kids rode scooters in the back loop and Ian decided we should BBQ. We had a very impromptu BBQ with a couple neighbor families that night. It was really fun. Hooray for a long weekend!



The boys' school had Education Night the next week. Ian was working late, but I took the kids and we played math games in the boys' classrooms and ate free pizza and cookies. It was great! I got to see some of the boys' art work hanging in the halls too. Love my cute, smart, fun kids!

I taught joy school again that next week. My letter was T. Talia was SO excited we got to teach T! Haha. We had a lot of fun playing with trains and making T's out of masking tape. We also had an alphabet snowball fight. The kids had to throw their snowball at the letter I called out. They loved it and played for awhile! I'm so glad we have such a cute little joy school group!

Davin had a loose tooth he had tried to pull out one night, but he didn't quite get it out. The next day he came home from school all excited and asked me to guess what was different about him while smiling with his mouth closed. :) I guessed right and he had lost his tooth at school. Pretty exciting!

This month Davin got to do his first belt test for karate. He moved up from the white belt to yellow! It was fun to see some of the things he has learned and to mark his progress. Way to go Dav!



I also took the kids to the Provo City Center Temple Open House one afternoon. I hadn't ever managed to get tickets, but our ward had a group ticket one afternoon, so I went then. It was beautiful and I'm glad we got to see it. I told the kids all about how the Provo Tabernacle used to be our stake center when we were first married. One stake conference we got to hear President Monson speak there when he showed up to support his son becoming a high counselor. I loved the spiral staircase, all the dark wood and the intricate hinges. Beckett loved the baptismal font and asked if we could go back and swim next time. :)




The next day was the last free zoo day of the winter and the weather was great! I took Talia and Beckett right when it opened and we met up with the Curnow's. We had so much fun seeing all the animals (well the ones that weren't hiding from the cold). We were the first ones on the carousel so the kids got to pick their favorite animals. Talia picked the dolphin and Beckett finally got to ride the elephant! So exciting! My other favorite was seeing the polar bear so active and up close! I guess he appreciates the winter. The zoo filled up pretty fast and it was packed by the time we left a little before noon. We got back just in time for Talia to go to preschool and Beckett to take a good nap.










The littles and I got to go to Weston's drama performance at school. His group wrote a fractured fairy tale and performed it. Weston was the narrator. Tal and Beck were excited to go and do a mime exercise with him at the end. :)



Later that night I took my big boys out on a date. We ate dinner at Pizza Pie Cafe, where Davin's favorite thing was the canned peaches from the salad bar. That boy cracks me up. The boys both got dragon balloon animals, which was pretty fun. After dinner we headed to Trafalga. We had a great time! We played laser tag, but we also used up an arcade card I had playing the Jurassic World game, skee ball, air hockey and a couple other random games. I also had a food card so we got dippin' dots for our treat! We had a blast and I'm so glad I got to spend some time hanging with my boys!



The last Saturday in February was Weston's last Jr. Jazz game. He had such a fun season playing ball with his friends. He really did improve and play well. Now we have one month of free Saturdays before soccer starts back up!


After Weston's game I got to go out with Mel for some girl time to celebrate her birthday! We had lunch at Red Robin and then I took her shopping at Sam's Club kid free! We are officially adults with that kind of celebration. Haha. We also took a detour to the outlets on our way back and Mel got Wilson a cute Easter outfit. I found long sleeve nightgowns on clearance for Tal. I love hanging out with my sister! I'm so glad that we live close enough to get together a lot. Happy Birthday Mel!

The next day was Oscar Sunday! I taught my last sharing time of the month and then came home to relax, eat good food, and watch the Oscars! Unfortunately we recorded it and watched it delayed and it went over so we missed the last few awards. Oh well. I found out who won and was happy about it.

Whew! What a busy February. In addition to the big stuff here are a few random fun moments:
A writing sample from Weston's parent teacher conference. He got a glowing review from his teacher and I'm proud of all his hard work this year! His writing cracks me up. Davin also had a great conference and we got to see his whale report that he worked so hard on. His writing was perfect and he loved drawing whales!

On February 1st Talia took a tumble off her toy box and conked her head on her bookshelf. It was a sad afternoon. Luckily the cut wasn't very deep and didn't need stitches. It's looking like she's going to have a scar though. :( You can see it in the other pics of her after. Both of these pics are after trips to the dollar store. In the first one she's playing with her pompoms. In the second she's showing off the awesome blue necklace she found with a "teacup" attached! lol



Beckett sure loves his brothers. Davin and his buddy, James had curled up to watch a show one afternoon and Beckett just snuggled right in.

I was so excited to get my blog books printed for 2011-2014! Joy had an awesome 50% off coupon code so I finally bit the bullet and printed my books. They arrived a couple of weeks later and I spent a few days doing nothing but read through them. While I sat on the couch reading the blog books, this was my view. Weston and his friends set up a Mip robot obstacle course in the kitchen. This is how we roll when it's too cold outside to play.


I had to document some fun Daddy moments. Ian has been so busy with his MBA program classes twice a week and work that he is gone in the evenings a lot. He has been trying to be up in time to see the kids in the morning. One morning Beckett asked him to play football and within a minute or two everyone had joined in. Pretty cute. He also taught the kids a sweet FHE lesson about kindness after he read them Horton Hears a Who. I made the fancy pudding dessert!



I got to volunteer in Davin's classroom and help with his Valentine's party. It was so fun to play with the kids and get to know them a little bit better. I think Davin liked having me there. :)

Also we really did get to enjoy some Springy weather. There were some nicer sunny days this month! It rained and melted most of the snow and we scootered and even went to the park! Hooray!!!

January 2016

January is always a tough month for me. The excitement of the holidays is over, there's tons of snow, it's freezing and the days are short. This year was no exception. We did manage to get ourselves out of the house a little bit and have some fun though! 

Every year on New Year's Day we switch the boys' beds. This year they agreed to not switch. Weston likes the top and Davin likes the bottom. I still washed all the bedding and had them do a full scale bedroom clean up. I am always amazed at how much random stuff and trash they pull out of the their room. Sigh. They did an awesome job though and were good about getting rid of stuff. Their room looked SO good! For about a week. Haha.

That first Sunday in January Beckett went into the Sunbeam class in primary! I can't believe I'm done having kids in nursery. Beckett did awesome and loves being in primary. :) He is lucky and has fantastic teachers and his friend, Lexi in his class. The other kids all moved up a primary class too. I now have two kids in senior primary and two in junior!

I finally got to have a reunion with Melanie! She and her little family spent two weeks at Mom and Dad's house over the holidays. I sure missed her! Plus she brought me a whole bunch of stuff from home! One of the things she brought was my Samantha American Girl doll and a little suitcase full of her clothes and accessories. I had a fun, nostalgic afternoon showing Talia my doll and her stuff.

One afternoon the kids were begging me to take them to the soccer pit to sled, but the snow was almost melted! We still managed to slide down the hill. Weston practiced riding the snow skate that Mel and Brad gave him. It's pretty awesome and he is getting good! It was perfect timing too since Weston had a ski/snowboarding field trip the next week and he felt more prepared to snowboard for the first time. Everyone else went on the sled.

January meant the beginning of Jr. Jazz basketball for Weston! He had a fun team and a good season learning and improving. I had to laugh when at one of his first games he was guarding this huge kid. He did his best and had fun anyway.

The Wilson's, some of our good friends from Kearns, started a new business making wooden bow ties. They had an open house so we took the fam up and checked out the operation. The kids had fun playing and dressing up for the photo booth. They also got to make a bow tie craft and eat mustache cookies! Weston decided he wanted a bow tie for his birthday so he picked on out and we ordered it for him.

Our ward had our Great to be 8 program in January where the kids who are turning eight this year learn about baptism, activity days, and cub scouts. Davin was so excited it was his year to go. I made these cute little posters about each kid too. At the end they had donuts and chocolate milk and guessed who was who on the posters. It was a fun night and I'm so excited for my cute Davin to turn 8 this year!

We finally made it to one of the kids' school PTA sponsored free skate nights. They do them once a quarter. It was really fun. Lots of neighbor friends were there and the kids were all anxious to try out their new Christmas scooters for real. They had a blast. I was surprised how much Beckett liked it. He scootered for two hours straight!

I took the little ones on a mall outing one morning. We hadn't played at the dino playground there in forever. They were so good and had so much fun! Beckett was finally big enough to climb on everything and do the blue slide.

We got plenty of snow in January and one Saturday the Elder's Quorum had a family sledding activity at the soccer pit near our house. We all had fun sledding with friends and taking turns getting pulled on the tubes by a four wheeler! Gotta make the best of the winter weather!

Seriously how cute is my Davin in his winter gear?!?

I taught joy school in January and got to do the letter P! We had so much fun making popcorn and playing potato heads! It was by far my favorite letter so far. Joy school has been such a great thing for Beckett. He loves his preschool friends and going to their houses most weeks. I love it too.

We went on a couple fun BYU outings in January. We all (except Weston) went to a BYU gymnastics meet one Friday night. The kids loved the freedom of climbing around the bleachers. I wished I could have paid a little more attention to the meet and that we could have stayed until the end to watch BYU do the floor, but the kids were all pretty tired and done by 8:30. I love to watch gymnastics! I also took Talia and Beckett to the Bean Museum one morning. The last time we went the fun play area was being renovated, so we were excited to come back when it was open!

Hanging around the house fun! I love that my new house plant got flowers in January! The pretty bright blossoms brightened my days.

I also stayed nice and cozy in my LuLaRoe leggings. They are my new go-to stay at home mom outfit. Me curled up in leggings reading a book is pretty much my ideal winter afternoon!

I bought myself fun, cozy pajamas on clearance at Sam's Club and they are the best! I had to send my mom and sisters a PJ selfie and mourn that we couldn't have a sleepover. Haha. I also got my hair done by a new person. She lives in my neighborhood and has a little basement salon. It was perfect and affordable!

I also managed to squeeze in a fun girls night dinner at Brio for my friend, Heather's birthday!