On the 22nd Day of Christmas...

We celebrated Ryan's 37th birthday!!! Check out all those candles!
We almost burned the house down! Happy Birthday to the best husband and father ever!!!
(Poor Terek tipped over in the chair trying to see the huge fire)

Happy 36!

For Ryan's 36th birthday, he got to have a party at Jungle Jims!!!

Happy 36th birthday to the best husband and dad ever!!!

13 things I love about Ryan

In honor of our 13th anniversary, I thought I'd put 13 things I love about Ryan... 

• He's tall, dark and handsome
• He is always thinking about me before himself
• He makes me laugh (although usually I'm rolling my eyes at his sarcastic sense of humor)
• He's a do-it-yourself-er... he can fix anything
• He's smart
• He makes me feel safe and protected
• He's always warm... that comes in handy in the winter
• He's a hard worker
• He puts up with a nagging wife and doesn't complain
• He's kind and giving to everyone
• He's a great dad and his kids love him!
• He's fun to be around
• He has taught me patience (at least he has tried to)

Thanks for being such a great husband, Ryan.  It's been the best 13 years of my life!!!  I love you!

Our anniversary present to each other was 3 sick kids....

Brenner puked every 30 minutes last night.

Joren has pink eye (or something like that)

Terek has had a cold forever and I think his pink eye is back.

Thanks for the offer to baby sit so we could go out tonight, Lucas and Shellie, but I don't think you're going to want to be around our kids!

Famous (in the world of Engineers)

Ryan and Lucas (my brother) are famous.  They are going to be on the cover of CE News... an engineering magazine.  

As famous as you can get when Ryan has a large pole going through the middle of his face and you can only see the back of Lucas' head.  Anyway, still kind of exciting.  There should be more pics on the inside.  I think you can go to their website and sign up for a free magazine.  They will be in the April edition.

The 22nd Day of Christmas

After a long weekend with the kids and a long ride home from St. George, Ryan and I opted to get a babysitter for the two older boys and go out with just Terek for Ryan's birthday. I threw some brownies in the oven before we left. The boys frosted and decorated them for him and jumped out to surprise him when he got home. Happy 35th Birthday, Ryan!!!

Just enough Snow

The boys have been wanting to go sledding so badly. We got just enough snow to go sledding. Daybreak has this great hill that is a detention pond with three different levels of highness. They didn't like the really high hill, but they loved the medium hill and the little hill.

Terek and I even joined in on the fun. We didn't go sledding, but we took lots of fun pictures.

The 7th Day of Christmas

Tonight's activity was a visit to Temple Square to see the Lights.It was perfect weather and we dressed the kids extra warm after our trip to the zoo.

The only downfall was the extreme amount of people that were there because of the first presidency devotional at the conference center.

Good times with good family.

The 4th Day of Christmas

Tonight we met Ryan, Lucas, Shellie & Legacy at work and headed to dinner and then the zoo lights at Hogle Zoo. I was pretty cool. Don't expect to see live animals, but there are a lot of light displays of animals and lights in the trees. Brenner was his usual ray of light.

Terek even managed to stay warm!

The 1st day of Christmas

One of the traditions I remember most from Christmas was that my mom had an advent calendar. There were 25 pockets on the calendar with ornaments that you put on the tree. Every day, we would fight over who got to put the ornament on the tree. Inside each pocket was an activity that we got to do that day. Last year I bought an advent calender (I didn't make a cute one like my mom did) and we started this tradition. Dec. 1st was always the day when we decorated our tree. So, even though we decorated the house a couple of days ago, we saved the trees for today.

Joren was a big helper. He was so good at putting the ornaments on the bottom of the tree. Brenner was more excited about decorating his own tree (I'll post about that tomorrow). But he did put the angel on top of the tree.

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a great weekend. It was so nice to have Ryan home for 4 days. The morning of Thanksgiving, Shellie and I went to a movie. (I already posted on that). When I got home, it thought it was so nice outside so, we took the kids to the lake to throw rocks in the water and stopped at a park to play as well. (I love living in Daybreak)

We had a nice quaint Thanksgiving Dinner with Lucas and Shellie. (Apparantly I only thought it was important to take pictures of the food).Brenner wanted to be like Tom (on Tom and Jerry) and eat the Turkey leg. On Friday, we got together with Ry's family for pizza, snacks, games, and kids running around like crazy. (Again, I'm not doing so well with taking pictures right now... what is my problem?????)

On Saturday we had a shower for my soon to be sister-in-law, Sara. She is a cute girl and we're excited to have her in our family. Dane and Sara stayed at our house and had fun being attacked by my crazy boys... they are great birth control!

I really missed seeing my mom on Thanksgiving and I hope she gets well soon.

Playing with our Kids

Being pregnant all summer and very uncomfortable, I got it in my head that I wanted to take my kids places where they could play and I could sit and read a magazine. I'm feeling great now, but it didn't really dawn on me that I could play with them. Anyway, so we went to a place called Jumpin Jacks for family night. Ryan and I both went on the slides with the kids. It was tons of fun and a great workout! Joren and Brenner love places like this. Plus, you get the added bonus of wearing the kids out so they go to sleep early (or at least on time). We dragged Lucas and Legacy with us because Shellie had to work. She loved it, but I'll let them post the pics.

Terek even joined in the fun.

Pumpkin Carving

For family night last night we carved our pumpkins. The only part of this that I like is roasting the seeds, so I leave the carving to Ryan and the kids. Brenner was grossed out by the "guts" and wouldn't go near them. But he did an excellent job of carving his pumpkin and did almost the whole thing by himself.

Joren loved "helping" Daddy carve his pumpkin. Or making a bigger mess than pumpkin carving makes on its own. So, there you have it.

Lunch date with Daddy

About once a month we like to try to meet Ry for lunch. It was such a beautiful day that we thought we'd get drive through and meet Ryan at the park. Joren is the messiest boy I have ever met!!! He was trying to drink his chocolate milk with a straw, but tipped it at the same time! He ended up with a pocket full of chocolate milk!!!


The boys had a lot of fun playing hide and seek with Daddy. Ryan is such a good dad to get out there and play with his kids. We love you, Dad!

Historic Cove Fort

On our way home from St. George Ryan had to take a small detour to a job site. Right at that time, the baby decided he was hungry. We realized we were only 1 mile from Cove Fort and we thought that would be a good place to stop and feed the baby. When I was done feeding the baby, I went to find Ryan and the boys. They were done with the tour, but my curiosity got the better of me, so I decided to look around. It was pretty interesting. The Hinckley family had built the fort to protect themselves from the Native Americans. But since they made friends with the Native Americans, there was no need. So, it became more of a stopping point for the post office and stage coaches and they also had a telegraph station there.
The boys had a lot of fun looking around. They have a little garden out back, a stable, blacksmith shop, etc. This picture is of a mouse trap. The moust goes up the wooden ramp, jumps onto the cheese in the middle and falls in the bucket! This little detour got us home at 8:30, but it was pretty fun.

I can't handle the peer pressure!!!

I guess I shall join the band wagon and create a blog. I don't even know what it is, but I suppose I get to put pics of my boys (including Ryan) on a webpage for everyone to view. Don't expect to see it updated often. But I will try.