Catching UP

I've got quite of bit of catching up to do so I hope you don't mind the picture overload!

This is from the first snow storm (hopefully not only snow storm) of the season. Brooklyn was dying to go out and build a snowman so we got dressed in our snow clothes and headed out. Unfortunaly the snow was not snowman making material :( But she decided making snow angels would be fun too. It was so cute to watch Stetson follow her as she made a path with the shovel.

We took Brooklyn & Stetson bowling for the first time to Fat Cats. She was a little hesitant at first, but after we watched the other people for a minute she was like "I'll give it a try! Lets go tell dad we want to do it!" Haha She had a blast and everytime she would knock down a pin she'd say "I just keep winning!" It was so cute! Stetson had fun watching everyone and playing with the balls as they'd come up the ball roller.

While Brett is out of town, on one of his many trips lately, we have to keep busy :) so one day we went to my parents. My dad saddled up the horses and my mom and I went on a beautiful ride up in North Fork. When we got back we gave the kids a little ride. They both loved it! It sure made my dad proud!

Then, another day I decided it would be fun to finger paint the bathroom mirror. The kids thought I was pretty awesome that day. Haha Turns out the tub markers are funner than finger paints for this sort of job.

I had to share this picture of Stetson trying to be independant and get his own milk like his sister cause I just LOVE it!

Last week Brett got to go pheasant hunting in South Dakota with some of the guys from Post Paving Company. He had a great time and the weather wasn't too bad :) Started out around 7 degrees and got to about 21.

Last Saturday was a busy day! We got invited by a friend to go to her office where they were having pictures with santa, pancakes, & cookie decorating. Brooklyn was super excited to sit on santa's lap and ask him for "lots of Elsa things". Stetson was hesitant for a second then was totally cool after they told him he'd get a candy cane after. (He is our favorite santa, this is the second year the kids have sat on his lap)

...then we dropped Stetson off at my brothers so he could watch him while us girls went to lunch at Kneaders then to the Nutcracker. Brooklyn loved all of it! I love how she's sitting with her legs crossed in the one picture!

...then we went to a Christmas party on my mom's side. A lot of her cousins and aunts and uncles came that we haven't gotten to see for a long time so it was really fun to catch up with them! We had a blast playing some games, doing the chimes, and eating yummy food. Then after that we headed straight to the airport to pick Brett up. It was a the perfect ending to a fun and pefect day.

 On Sunday Brett's parent had us over for dinner and cake and ice cream to celebrate Lance's birthday. Mark Set up the train for the kids and they LOVED it. He even taught Brooklyn how to drive it and Stetson derailed it a few times even though he was trying really hard to be soft. 

Fall/Birthday Festivities

The last couple of weeks we have been trying to get in as much fall and birthday fun as we can before Brooklyn turned 4 and the weather turns cold.

Brett has a friend who works at J&J Garden Center and he also buys alot of products from them so we were able to go on a private hayride to a pumpkin patch with our family and Brett's friend Rob's. (the saturday before we went there were 5,000 people waiting in line to do it!!!) Stetson of coarse LOVED the tractor that was pulling us and playing in the dirt and Brooklyn had fun picking out the perfect pumpkins.

Every year we have to go up to my parents and play in the leaves. Their neighbor has cotton trees surrounding almost their entire house and man do they let down alot of leaves. My brothers and I always had a blast raking them up and jumping in the piles...now Brooklyn and Stetson get to do it.

The Tuesday before Brooklyn's birthday she picked a friend and we took them to the Kangaroo Zoo. In the past Brooklyn has been hesitant to try any of the slides, but this time she did it! Then we went and got pizza at Pizzeria and some of the employees sang Happy Birthday to her, which she loved, and brought the kids an ice cream cone.

Her little friend Kole is just the sweetest thing. As you can see here, sharing his ice cream cone with Stetson even though he already had one. Haha

Brooklyn and I made birthday treats to take to pre-school. We took them the day before her actual birthday because they were going to have a halloween carnival on her actual birthday.They sang happy birthday to her and she got a new coloring book from her teacher and got to wear a birthday crown.

On Friday Brooklyn had a fun day at school, they all got to dress up, play games and do a little trick or treating in the play house. Later my parents came to pick up the kids and took them to IHOP with Chase and Taylor to decorate their own halloween pancakes. When they got home we headed out out trick or treating. Brooklyn was the pink Auroa and she wanted me to be the blue Auroa (so that's what I was :) Stet was a shark and Brett was a shark bite victim. Brett brought home his kabota so we rode around the neighborhood on that. It was kind of nice to be able to drive right up to the door. We went around our neigborhood then met up with some neighbor friends (Kole and his family) who had a 4-wheeler with a trailer and drove the dirt road over to the other neighborhood. 

The kids had a blast riding in the trailer. Kole wasn't too excited to go trick-or-treating. His mom had to talk him into it....what!!! Brooklyn LOVED it this year. It was so fun to see her excited about it. She kept saying, "can we go to 5 more houses" I took Stetson home and Brett stayed out with Brookie for a little bit longer until Grandma Jeanie came over to visit and brought her a present.

On Saturday we had Brooklyn's birthday party with both of our families. She loves mac & cheese so I made two different kinds of home made mac and cheese and pulled chicken sandwiches. Mark and Jeanie brought a yummy salad and my parents brought some fruit. She got spoiled with presents, that consisted mostly of princess stuff :) Then we had some "Little Mermaid" cake. 

She was yelling "STOP IT!" at the beginning of this video because she thought Brett was lighting her mermaid figurines on fire. Haha

All in all I think she loved her birthday week, which if she's happy I consider it a success. We love her so so much and are so greatful that she's in our family. And even though its hard to watch her grow up its been fun to watch and enjoy each stage.

Happy Birthday Granddad!

On the 21'st we gathered at Javiers and celebrated my Granddad's 76th birthday. If you,ve known him at all you'd know that he hasn't aged a bit! I have always been really close to him and I like to think that I'm his favorite since I was his first Granddaughter. I was lucky enough to travel to the East Coast with him twice to go to New York and to the Miss America Pageant. Now I love that my kids are getting to know him.
He's a great Granddad and I wish him the Happiest Birthday ever!!

Girls Weekend

I'm pretty sure I have the best friends. Once a year we go to Park City for the weekend to catch up, eat, shop, & talk. It was exactly the kind of get-a-way that I needed to get rejuvinated and be a better mom and wife!
We got there Friday night and those who arrived earlier went and got a pedicure (I missed that part, dang it!) We met up at Cafe Rio and got our food to go and went back to the condo so we could relax and talk while we ate. We of coarse talked till 2:30 in the morning and slept in until about 8:30. We talked some more, ate a yummy breakfast that we all brought something to contribute to then headed out shopping. We shopped till lunch then shopped some more until we were pooped! We went back to the condo to relax while we waited for some other girls that had come up later. We went to dinner at Sammy's Bistro then I headed home, cause Brett had to work in the moring. Some of the girls went home as well and some stayed over another night.

These are only some of the girls and some of the pictures that were taken. The funny thing was there were 4 girls who were nursing, so we had a freezer full of pumpted milk by the end of the trip and 3  that were pregnant. It was kind of nice not to be one of them, but next year I'm sure there will be a whole nother batch of pregnant and nursing mama's!

Fish Farm Fieldtrip

Today we went to the fish farm and corn maze with Brooklyn's pre-school class and I caught this sweet brother-sister moment.

Final Camping Trip of the Season

This past weekend we met up with our friends who live in Idaho and went on our last camping trip of the year before we put the trailer away for the winter. Lauren and I were in charge of finding a place to go and basically I did all the decision making becasue Lauren WILL NOT make a decision and I am horrible at making them so, we got off to a rough start because we were planning on going to a campground called "The Lodge" in Logan Canyon that my other friend told me about. We got there before Lauren and Royce so we were going to find a spot and meet them there, but (long story short) we couldn't find the campground and had to drive all the way back up the canyon to where we had service so we could tell them that we couldn't find it. They were still an hour and a half away so we parked at a day use area and let the kids watch the ducks and play on the grass. We ended up going to Hyrum Resevoir State Campground, which was still way fun, but crowded. The kids had fun playing by the lake, Stetson fell in the lake, and they had fun collecting pinecones and nuts, which Brooklyn called cococuts :)

After breakfast we decided that we'd go find another campground in Logan Canyon since Brett and I have been wanting to camp there. We found a beautiful campground called Malibu and found two perfect spots that were right next to each other, away from the road, and next to a river. It seriously was SO pretty with all the leaves on the ground and everythingb(I should have just gotten a picture of the campground.)

In this picture Stetson decided to have a seat on the ground and Lila came and sat right next to him...

 ...and even gave him some love. So sweet!

Don't mind Stetson socks and flip flops, his shoes were still wet from the lake.

 P.S. I love wearing socks and flip flops so if you ever see me wearing them don't judge ;)

Brooklyn and Addy had fun climbing on the rocks and finding sticks for fishing poles and fishing in the river...we did see a few fish.

This is the cute family we got to go with. So greatful to call them our friends. Brooklyn decided that she was close enough to them that she should be in their family picture.