Merry Christmas 2019!

It's been a few years since I updated this little family blog of ours. I've tried other ways to document our family life, mostly by way of Instagram, but as my boys get older it becomes more and more fun to look up old posts on here and let them read about what life was like "way back when..."

This was our Christmas card this year. We moved in November and are slowly settling into life in our new house. It's been a fairly smooth transition but I know it will take several months before we feel at home in our new neighborhood. The kids are staying at their old school through the rest of the school year. Ryan is in sixth grade and in the ALL program and has been looking forward to having his particular teacher since he was in fourth grade. Brady has an excellent teacher and is enjoying this school year and Camden has a teacher that is such a good fit for him. Where he was kind of stalled in reading last year in Kindergarten, he is excelling at reading and keeps progressing at an impressive rate with his first grade teacher. I wanted to keep things as consistent for the kids as possible, and keeping them at their familiar elementary school seemed like a good way to help with that.

There seem to be lots of kids in the new neighborhood for my boys to play with. I'm sure we will see more of them as the weather warms up in the Spring. We have had a couple of neighbor boys come and ask Ryan and Brady to play a handful of times. I have been so touched at their willingness to include my boys. I hope I can remember the thoughtful things people have done to help us feel welcome so that I can do that for anyone else who may move into our neighborhood in the future.

In the past when I have let a lot of time go between updates I have tried to fill in the missing posts. I am not going to do that this time around (because ain't nobody got time for that!) Instead I will occasionally check in and post when I have time (haha, don't hold your breath).

For now I will try to update some of these pictures on the side bar. My infant baby son is now a walking, talking, peeing and pooping in the potty three year old!

Merry Christmas!

I Love My Family Day- February 2016

A couple years ago we started a tradition called "I love my Family Day". We pick a Saturday, usually in February or early March, and plan several fun activities to do together as a family. I make a little chart and the kids take turns unveiling the next activity. The boys love it and it has become something they look forward to with excitement each year. I like it because you can make it as simple or elaborate as you want. Seeing as I was 8+ months pregnant, we kept things pretty simple this year. 

We started our day with breakfast out with donuts from the Lehi Bakery!

Donuts were followed by a group hug, writing love notes to grandparents and making paper airplanes and racing them.

I bought a croquet set and the kids had fun learning how to play. We played at the park and had a picnic lunch afterward.

That nose scrunch though!

Isn't it awful that I don't remember what we did after that!? I should have waited to take the picture until after we had completed all the activities!

Nursery Makeover

February 2016 / March 2016:

With this being my last baby, I really wanted to decorate a nursery for him. I had never had the chance to decorate a room just for the baby with any of my other kids: Ryan because we were in a one bedroom apartment, Brady because his bedroom doubled as the guest room and Camden because I knew we would only be living in Orem for a few more weeks after he was born. So with baby #4 I let my nesting instincts run wild! And it was fun. 

Just like every good room makeover we started with the walls. 

Before

After watching me paint the big boy room, Ryan expressed interest in helping me paint the nursery. If anyone knows me at all they know I am liiiiiiiiiiittle bit of a control freak. Letting him help paint was hard, like physically painful. But I did it. and it was worth it. and he didn't spill paint or get any on the baseboards. #hallelujah

All my neurotic mothering aside, it was super sweet to watch him paint his baby brother's room and to see how excited he was to help out. And like most tasks that kids think will be fun and have the potential of being really helpful, he was bored of it fairly quickly and left to go over to a friends' house. And I breathed a huge sigh of relief and and repainted over everything he had done. Enter my neurotic mothering.

We painted a base coat before installing the board and batten.

And then I fell in love with Zach all over again when he spent one evening building me this:

And when it was all painted it was glorious!

Here is a progression shot. I painted the ceilings and all the walls and installed new (beautiful!) curtains.

I wanted a woodland theme. I saw those antlers like two years ago at Smith's Marketplace and knew I had to have them. I just never had a good place for them. Until now. They were my favorite purchase (and they were on sale! Holla!) I knew I wanted to incorporate foxes but couldn't settle on a print I loved (not to mention they all cost more than I was willing to pay) so I took a 12x12 canvas I already had and painted my own. Free is fun and I love how it turned out. I also love the pop of color it adds to the room.

Foxes are the cutest. When I saw this mom and baby at Ikea I couldn't help myself.

These drawers give me life. They were gifted to me by my mother in law and not only are they gorgeous, but they are super functional too. I can fit literally everything I need for the baby. Burp cloths, bibs, blankets, toys, bottles, clothes and I even have a couple drawers to spare!

Final "Ta Da!" picture. What you can't see is the rocker in the corner by the window and some floating shelves above the rocking chair. Also, the double doors to the closet on the wall opposite of the crib.

I completed the nursery on March 9th and realized that I had nothing to do but wait until the baby was born from there on out. The nursery had been my outlet and my distraction to get me through the last few weeks of pregnancy. It was a long last month twiddling my thumbs waiting on baby boy!

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*We had a "B" name in mind for the baby and were pretty sure we were going to use it, hence the "B" on the wall. A trip to Hobby Lobby for a replacement "C" was one of my first errands I ran after Connor was born! 

Midway Ice Castles

February 2016:

We went to the Midway Ice Castles with our friends, the Andersons. We got a deal on Groupon that was too good to pass up. Both Loraleigh and I were pregnant at the time and we let most of the season pass by before we finally decided to go. I think we may have gone on one of the very last weekends that it was open. Pregnancy induced procrastination at its finest. 

It wasn't super crowded but there were enough people there to make it interesting to try and keep track of all the kids- when everyone is wearing winter hats and coats it makes it kind of tricky!

One new feature from the last time we did the Ice Castles was this fun ice slide. The kids got to crawl through a few tunnels and then it spit you out at the slide. Camden loved it so much he went back for a second slide down darting into the tunnels before we could catch him, pushing by people standing in line until he got to the top of the slide. I wasn't about to try and go after him with my 8 month pregnant body so I just pretended I didn't know him. Whose kid is that anyway?!

 Ice couch because, why not?

Sooo comfy.

It was fun to go with another family if not just for the fact that we could get a family picture without having to talk to strangers.

The Bellows

The Andersons

It was fun. and cold. and we don't need to do it again for another few years. ;)

Big Boys' Bedroom Makeover

February 2016:

We knew with the new baby coming we would have to do some rearranging when it came to bedrooms. I was excited to "do" a nursery for this baby and since I was already in the DIY decorating mood I decided to "do" the big boy's room too. The plan was to move all three boys into the same room. 

First up, paint: 

Before 

After

Up until this point Camden had been sleeping in the Lightning McQueen toddler bed. We sold that and reassembled the twin bed that we had from Ryan's mini crib when he was a newborn. I took Camden to Ross and let him pick out his own comforter and new sheets. He was pretty excited. The first night went great. The transition was a piece of cake.

I was pretty excited about doing the boys' initials by their beds. It's hard to share a room with siblings and I hoped the initials would give them some ownership to their room.

Ryan taped a bunch of papers on his wall in his old room so I gave him an upgrade and installed a bulletin board by his bed. I painted it white so it would blend in with the wall.

I found the large initial letters at Hobby Lobby and just spray painted them. I didn't want to give the room a theme that they would grow out of so I just coordinated the colors and left it at that.
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....(November 2016)  Nine months into The Great Room Share and things are going fairly well. Camden gave us a run for our money there for a while. It was just too exciting to have the other kids in the same room as him while he was trying to fall asleep. It was too tempting to annoy Brady or turn on the lights or just generally be naughty. He would come out of his room several times after we put him down which he had never done when he had his own room. The younger boys still complain about Ryan's reading light keeping them awake at times, but most of the time they do pretty well. I think in my dream house I would have one more bedroom upstairs and I would just always have Camden in his own room. Eventually we may try to put Connor and Brady in the same room and give Camden the lower bunk (maybe with no one in his line of sight to annoy he will just go to sleep?) But we need to get Connor sleeping through the night before that can happen (and that's another post in and of itself)

Snow Tubing at Gorgoza Park

January 2016

Zach's work hosted an event at Gorgoza Park again this year. It was so much fun. Camden was finally big enough to go on the smaller hill so we went down the hill together as a family a few times and then Zach and I took turns taking Ryan and Brady down the biggest hill. Hot chocolate and donuts were a highlight. 

January 2016 Randoms

This just might be the most random month of pictures I have ever blogged. 

Exhibit A: Ryan cooking popcorn in a Darth Vader mask. 

He didn't want butter to splatter in his face while he was making his after school snack. Safety first, you know.

Exhibit B: My living room. 

We bought a new sofa. It was bigger and softer and you didn't have springs poking your bum when you sat down- so you could say it was better than our old one. We love it!

Exhibit C: Camden's baby quilt. 

I've made baby quilts for all my boys. I finally buckled down and finished Camden's just 4 months before adding another baby to our family- I was only like what? 3 years too late. 

Exhibit D: Pirate Brady

Brady came home from preschool with some pretty sweet pirate gear. I especially loved the candy cane hook. Looking good!

Exhibit E: Hello Third Trimester!

Self explanatory. I wasted no time getting huge this pregnancy and crazy to boot!

Exhibit F: Camden's first teeth cleaning.

Camden went to the dentist for the first time! No cavities. Our dentist plays a movie on a TV that is mounted in the ceiling during the teeth cleaning, so it was just business as usual for Camden. ;)

Exhibit G: Camden using Zach's head as a drum.

Camden was so proud of himself for climbing onto Zach's shoulders all by himself. Zach never even looked up from his phone. Parenting level expert.

Exhibit H: This text exchange with my sister.

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...............wait for it.......

Isn't she the cutest thing EVER?!


*Today (August 15, 2016) is Lindsey's due date. I think it's safe to say that now you have a bump Linds. :)

Post Christmas December 2015

Brady was thrilled to get a "mining set" for Christmas. He busted that bad boy out as soon as he could convince me to let him make a giant mess of the dining room. The goggles were just too awesome not to photograph. Word to the wise: maybe think about purchasing "mining sets" for your kids in the summer months when they can chisel to their heart's desire OUTSIDE. Seriously, there was dust everywhere!

Zach's work has a holiday shut down period between Christmas and New Years. It's kind of the best thing ever. While he was home we tried to make the most of the time we had together as a family. One day we went to the nickel arcade down in Orem (one of the boys' most favorite places). Zach, Brady and Camden played a pretty intense game of Transformers while we were there.

Camden had more presents than he could play with on Christmas morning. Over the next week he had fun discovering his new toys each day. He was especially pleased with this track from Zach's mom.

We decided to take advantage of the time Zach had off work and go on a little Salt Lake overnighter. The boys were so excited to spend the night in a hotel. While we were checking out our room Ryan stumbled upon the coffee maker. There was a label on the coffee maker drawer that read, "Brew Basket". Ryan and Brady had been playing a video game where you make different potions. Upon reading the label on the coffee machine, Ryan got excitedly said, "Oooo a brew basket! Brady, what potion should we brew?!" #mormonkid

Our hotel room was right across the street from the Vivint Arena where the Utah Jazz play. There was a basketball game the night we were there and it was fun to watch all the fans leaving the game as we were getting ready for bed.

First stop on our trip was the hotel pool. These kids love the water and were so excited to be swimming in December!

We took the Trax to Temple Square to look at the lights and walk around City Creek mall. It was a long, cold wait for the train, but we survived. After a cold walk around the lights it was nice to go inside and play at the kids area in the mall and have some ice cream- you'd think we would have gone for the hot chocolate, but ice cream always sounds good!

The boys slept three to a bed!

The next morning Ryan was sleeping long after the younger two woke up. They were happy to watch cartoons on the hotel TV until Ryan finally woke up.

The plan was to go out to breakfast as a family. Brady decided he was starving and threw an epic fit in the hotel room so we just went to a nearby donut shop instead. You don't want to mess with a hungry Brady, that's for sure.

I bought Roxy a dog bed from Costco. It was/is huge. She loves it.

We took a family trip to the Thanksgiving Point Dino Museum. To be quite honest I remember nothing from this trip. That's the trouble with updating a blog 9 months late- thank goodness for pictures though!