Once there was a snowman

I say "Once there was a snowman" because he is long gone. The kids and I built a snowman in February and I haven't yet gotten around to posting the photos. They had such a wonderful time running back and forth from the yard to the house gathering carrots, hats, and rocks. They loved the finished product and named him Petri.

Valentine's Day

Another Valentine's Day has come and gone. And although I am a little behind in posting about it I still wanted to share some photos of my kids for those of you who are interested.
This year with Valentine's Day falling on a Saturday we were able to take the whole day and do some things that the kids wanted to do. It was a really fun day. Jason had some things that he had to do in the morning and so I got to spend some quality time with my kids. We read stories and did a little baking (Hallie's favorite!). Jason got home at 11:30 bearing gifts; a bouquet of roses for me and a single rose for each of the girls. They were thrilled to have flowers of their own and we promptly put them in little vases in their rooms.
After a very hurried lunch we decided to take the kids to see a movie. We tried to go see "Bolt" but found that is was sold out. The only other kids movie playing was "Coraline" which we didn't really know anything about but Sage said she had seen commercials for it and really wanted to see it. Well that was kind of a mistake for our little kids. Sage thought it was pretty fun since it was in 3-D, but as the movie got into the plot and it started getting pretty scary I knew I would pay for our decision later. Hallie spent the better part of the end of the movie hiding her head in Jason's shoulder. It wasn't that scary of a movie just a little creepy as it was about this lady that uses dolls to spy on kids and tries to steal them away from their real parents. WELL, Sage has had nightmares for the last week and says every night that she can't go to sleep because she just keeps thinking about Coraline. Now we know.
When we came out of the movie it was a blizzard. We had a kind of treacherous drive up Provo Canyon and then another snowy drive up Daniel's canyon to Daniel's Summit. Jason's parents and Matt met us at Daniel's Summit for dinner. We had a great dinner together and enjoyed visiting with Jason's family kind of one on one.
After dinner we drove home and got things prepared for our annual Treasure Hunt. Ever since I was little my mom would do a Valentine's treasure hunt for us. She was so amazing and I really don't know how she thought up so many clues for 5 kids (and they all rhymed). My clues weren't that fabulous but it got the job done. The girls were so excited and they were darling running through the house to find each of their clues. Sage was such a big helper to Hallie lifting her up to reach a clue or giving her hints as to where her next clue might be hiding.



In the end they were both successful in finding all 5 clues and their grand prize at the end. Hallie found her prize next to her Big Girl Potty (far enough away that it was sanitary) and Sage found hers in the dryer.



It was a fun Valentine's day doing fun things with the people that we love most in this whole world. We are so blessed to be a family and have each other.
Love you!

Girl's Weekend

The first weekend in February I had the fun fun opportunity to go to St. George with some of the ladies in my ward (Thanks to Wes for giving us the idea).
I went with Angela Ritchie, Meagan Webster, Debbie Chappell, Mandy Berg, Kim Jensen, and Julie Schofield (we really missed Jessica R. who couldn't come because she is too pregnant). On Friday morning six of us piled into Meagan's brand new car ready to go. I got to sit up front with Meagan on the way down (and it wasn't because I couldn't sit by anyone else without picking a fight like the old days). It was a great drive down with lots of visiting.
We got down to St. George around lunch time and went to the Olive Garden where we met up with Julie. Lunch was great but then it was onto some serious shopping. We quickly dropped our stuff off at the house we stayed at and then we were off. We hit the outlets and I was pleased to find quite a few good buys. We just spent the day shopping and browsing. Friday night we went to Chili's for a quick dinner. We were in a hurry because we were trying to make it to a movie. We went and saw a movie called "He's just not that into you." If you haven't seen it don't bother, It was not good! After our late movie we just went home and headed right to bed.
On Saturday morning we woke up and got right back to shopping. We went to Tai Pan Trading and we all managed to pick out some darling things for our homes.


After shopping we went to lunch at Bajio (I actually went to the Pizza Factory and ate my pizza at Bajio). After lunch some of us went and had a pedicure. It was my first pedicure and although the massage chair I sat in was quite nice I found that my feet are quite ticklish.




After our fabulous pedicures we ran over to the mall and picked up a couple of things then we got some dinner at a Mongolian BBQ place. It was pretty good food since you got to pick everything that went into your stir fry dish. After dinner we took in another movie, "New in Town." It was a surprisingly cute movie. After the movie we ran to Target because Angela had to make a couple of returns. We all managed to find something we needed. I picked up a couple of sticker books for my girls and after trying on every pair of sunglasses in the store, my friends decided that I just don't have a sunglass face. The ones that fit me best had Batman on the side of them. Needless to say I am still on the lookout for the perfect pair of sunglasses for my narrow face.
Saturday night we stayed up way too late just telling stories and talking. We were a little foolish staying up that late because we had to leave early the next morning to get back to Heber in time for church. I did notice during church on Sunday that there were quite a few nodding heads.
I have such amazing friends who are very good examples to me.

Flakes

We have had a ton of snow this January. The other day we bundled up the kids and sent them outside to catch snowflakes on their tongues. Hallie quickly abandoned that idea for just picking up big handfuls of snow and stuffing it into her mouth.

On Santa's Lap

I know Christmas was over a month ago but I never got any Christmas photos posted. These two are of our kids on Santa's knee. This was the first year that Hallie didn't cry and reach for me the whole time.

More Photos for Dad

Dad has been bugging me to get some pictures of the kids up on the blog so I am going to be a good daughter and obey him. I took a couple of pictures yesterday of the girls that I am going to hang in some frames in their room. These are a couple of the out takes but still pretty cute.

Halloween Fun

It was kind of a CRAZY Halloween but we got through it just fine. We moved into our new house on Halloween. So we had to fit all the traditional Halloween fun in between moving boxes and cleaning houses. Sage got to wear her Halloween costume to school. She decided to dress up as Princess Leah since she is obsessed with Star Wars. They did a cute little Halloween parade to the "Monster Mash." Then she and all the kids in her class sang about 5 Halloween songs that they had learned. It was really cute!

We got all moved into our house (with a lot of help from Jason's family!)and it left us enough time in the evening to do some Halloween things. We went down to our friend's the Bergs house for dinner. They had a soup buffet and we grabbed a bowl full before we went around trick-or-treating. Sage was still dressed as Princess Leah and Hallie went as a chicken (after about 15 minutes of Jason and I holding her down while she kicked and screamed and pulled feathers off the costume, but we finally got it on her and then she looked in the mirror and said "cute".)





Our kids were serious trick-or-treaters! We went out with a group of about 5 families and slowly families started dropping off as their kids tired out. But not our kids we were the last ones standing and I think they could have kept going if their parents legs hadn't gotten too tired. We all had a great Halloween. The kids loved dressing up and getting candy and Jason and I love being in our new home.