A Year in Review

 January

-January was a good month for us. We rang in the new year AND got some real good snow so early in the year/month. We had lots of fun playing in that. We did some fun date days this month. And got some good purging and cleaning done. I wish that purging motivation had stuck around for more of the year haha.

February

- February we had fun at our Family Date Place that Larry chose. I really started to enjoy the Superbowl and all the food that day means. We actually had a fun Valentine's Day morning. I really started to get into vacation planning for the year (one of my most favorite parts of taking a trip). I started doing our bucket list planning (still a work in progress though).

March

- March was easy, but great. I really feel like I went all out for St. Patrick's Day this year. It was a really fun one! We also had a lot of fun at our Activity Days this month

April

-April started with so many mixed emotions. For one, we celebrated Pierce's first birthday with a party and got some really cute family pictures done. Unfortunately, that was the day after we lost Oscar (our first fur baby...I still miss him and baby girl terribly). We found a way to move on with that and changed how our rooms were set up (I still love how it is now and the girls really like to flip flop which room they sleep in. I like that they have options).

This month got busy with a first little trip for us. We went up to Idaho for Donovan's wedding and also decided to visit Stace for a small visit. We extended that trip by also visiting Marie and having her show us around her new home area. Doing that trip, meant Easter got delayed a weekend. It was late, but so much fun still.

One of the biggest things, was the girls started soccer for their first sport/activity. I absolutely loved this and look forward to future soccer seasons.

May

- May started with Cara's sixth birthday. I gave an update on my new sleep habits (I'm proud to say I still do this and still love it). I really enjoyed my Mother's Day Weekend. I'm really learning what I love for that day. We also had a great little mini vacation going up to Bear World (one of my favorite this year). We also started our Summer Break from school.

June

- In June we continued our birthday season by celebrating Lucy turning 3 (that little cutie!). We sent Larry away for Father's Day while I went to the zoo with mom and Stace. We also had a lot of fun mini moments for the month (a parade, a summer pedi, and Pierce's first haircut)

July

- We ended our household birthday season with Larry's birthday (a very fun one, I feel at least). We had a fun, spontaneous Independence Day. We even had a fun 24th of July with Mom and Will and some small fireworks. We did so many mini activities throughout this month (including a lot of fun home projects and organizing. We celebrated 7/11 day and went to a friend's wedding). I'd say this was one of our busiest months.

August

- In August, we had a fun family reunion. I haven't had one in so long and it was so nice seeing everyone. We got Cara and Gwen both going back to school (Cara in 1st and Gwen in preschool). We went to the Utah County Fair and the Aquarium with the kids throughout the month. I ended the month getting some surgery that I was, funnily enough, very nervous for. But I'm glad I got it done.

September

- I survived that surgery and we had an interesting Labor Day Weekend (where nothing went according to what I planned haha). We had a family date at Tracy Aviary. We really kicked off Fall with spooky movies, fall scents, and football season. I ended the month with an amazing trip to Boston (that I really hope to go back to one day with my family).

October

- October was so great! We went to Legoland as a family vacation and it turned out so so so so so much fun! We added a new kitty to the Family. I had my spouse appreciation day (I love doing those), and we celebrated Halloween time.

November

- November started our mini birthday season with Gwen turning 5. Even though sickness started to take over, we had a fun Thanksgiving. I got a nice early start on my Christmas shopping and prep. We also got Gwen's bangs cut and she is even more adorable now that her face isn't covered in hair.

December 

- December was quite the roller coaster month. We started it saying goodbye to Larry during the day with his new job. We also had so much fun doing the Friends Experience at City Creek. I took Nana and the older girls to the Frozen concert (which was a blast). We celebrated Christmas and surprised the kids with fun news. While we also had my birthday, we mostly just hunkered down with everyone being sick at one point or another. 

We had a great 2023 and I so look forward to what 2024 will bring. Hopefully I can keep up with everything we have planned.

December Activities

-My work incentivized us to start a "12 days of Christmas workout" series. Each day you'd add a workout, ending with 12 total. I started doing them right after lunch (before nap) with the kids and discovered that  I like doing it enough to keep it up (I did alter which workout for which number based on my skills and what felt like I could do more reps with, but I still love doing it). I also added reading a book before nap time so I get more time with the kids. It's been great having those moments with them.

-We decided on Frozen Hot Chocolate as our treat and it was a huge hit! Definitely worth a repeat, I'll be adding it to my recipes.

-This one is silly,  but we got our IRA Deposits made and I always feel like such an adult when we do that. I accidentally did way more than I meant to, but luckily I have the money for it so hopefully that just helps us a lot come tax filing season.

-The flu hit the family, and HARD. It started with Cara, she had to miss almost a whole week of school. One day she slept the ENTIRE day. The only time she was out of her room was when I took her to the doctor's (who confirmed it was the flu) and at dinner time when we dragged her down to eat with us. I tried to get her to drink throughout the day, but she just wanted to sleep. It broke my heart. By the next day everyone but Pierce and I had all the same symptoms. I had assumed since I had it around Thanksgiving I would be in the clear, but as everyone was getting better, I started getting it. And then pink eye hit our home (we're still in the middle of that) so it's just been one thing after another. I've started implementing regular hand washing and immune vitamins for everyone!

-We celebrated Christmas with Larry's family on the 17th. We always have such fun with them. We started in the community center in his Grandma's neighborhood for food and visiting. His grandma bought a bunch of craft kits for the kids to do and we set up a couple tables for that. That part was a HUGE hit and the kids had so much fun with it. We then went over to her house and did our gift exchange. There were a lot of good gifts, his mom MADE us a new welcome mat with our last name on it (so amazing!), his grandma got us soap (so needed and fitting and it smells so good), and we got lots of good new books, movies, games, the whole lot! I really do enjoy spending time with his family.

-Unfortunately, towards the end of our visit with them I started to feel a little off. By the next day (my birthday) I was a goner! Larry had to go into the office so I was doing what I could to take care of the kids, nurse my sickness, and still work 8 hours each day. It wasn't easy, but you do what you have to. Luckily, Larry had the following week off and would let me relax at night once he got home so it wasn't as bad as it could've been. Plus I had a lot of people reaching out so that was nice.

-Cara had her Christmas concert on the 20th. I wasn't sure if I would be able to go (since Larry was in the office and I didn't want to drag ALL the kids with me), but I realized how important it was so I put my big girl pants on, loaded all the kids up, and we headed over. I absolutely love watching these things. They are SO cute and fun. Especially when I saw her looking through the crowd and then finally spot me and she got the BIGGEST smile on her face. They had to wear winter gear for it so that made it even cuter. The kids actually liked listening to the songs and watching all the performances. Unfortunately, they didn't go in any sort of grade order so we had no idea when Cara's grade would be up and the kids kind of got bored in between grades, but I still enjoyed it and am glad I went.

It was a good month this month. VERY busy, but so good!

2023 Goals revisted

2023 is now done and I just LOVE looking back at my goals. I will say I had plans to check on them every few months to remind myself of what they were in case I had forgotten any, but the year kind of took off and I don't think I ever actually looked over my list. So, with that, let's see how I did:

• Purge the house: Luckily I did get the closets done this year, but the basement still needs help. I'm not sure why this didn't get as done as it should have. It's my new one that's always on my list, it seems.
• Read all the books: Done! I got this done quickly and I even started to read some of Larry's books since I ran out of mine close to Christmas and knew I couldn't just buy more when it's too close to the holidays. I'm also finding a lot to add to my list for reading next year (I've really found a love of reading this year)
• Clear off my movies to watch list: A good chunk done. Not EVERYTHING, but enough that I can say I accomplished this goal. Most of the DVDs were Hallmark Christmas ones so I only had so many days I could watch them. But the DVD stacks are very small now and my lists on streaming have only grown from things I've added recently, but I did cross a lot off!
• Start my coding learning again: I started this, but other things got in my way. I actually decided to start waking up early so I could do this, but, again, other things started to take priority during those early hours. I'm hoping to pick this up again, at some point. I'm not sure if that'll be this year or not.
• Meal planning and organizing recipes: I have enjoyed my new meal planning method, writing down a chunk of recipes and how long they take and then just picking new ones once those are done have saved a lot of my sanity! The recipe organization hasn't happened as well as I had hoped. I have been going through my recipes to see what I wanted to keep to write down, and I'm still on that phase. I did buy a recipe keeper so I have a place for the recipes, but I do need to still write them down.
• Cut down on waste: We did officially switch to block cheese (instead of individually wrapped slices). It's been an adjustment, but it's worked out well. We also have loved having the compost. We had to get TWO outdoor ones to empty the small indoor one into since we were eating SO much produce and it would be full almost daily. We're excited to get our garden stuff going next summer to use all of it. I'd still like to work more on this though.
• Bring back 1:1 dates with the kids: this one we did, but it kind of faltered. I try and give the kids two 1:1 dates throughout the year (one during their birthday month and one a little later). I had to alter what we did for 1:1s though as it felt like what we'd do before would take up SO much time. Now we just take them out for a treat and call it good. It's been good though.
• New budgeting: This one was good. I feel I did good with my savings and spending. I want to keep this a top priority because financial wellness is so important. Luckily, this one isn't hard for me to achieve, I've officially gotten to the point that it just comes natural to me.
• Me Time nights and NFL learning: I did keep up with my "me time" nights. Puzzles were hit and miss, just depending on my mood, but I definitely kept with the skin care, working out, reading, bath, and movie nights. Game nights we stopped due to Larry starting school, but we plan to pick it back up once he's done. I didn't learn as much about NFL stuff, but still thoroughly enjoy watching the games!
• Monthly challenges: this one I failed entirely. I wasn't sure I was even going to do them, but other things just took priority and I never got around to it. Maybe next year, maybe 2025, maybe just some day?
• Celebrate and holiday traditions: I did okay with this. I always feel I could've done better. I figured out a new holidays, bucket list, and activities tracker I'd like to keep, but we'll see if it works. This one is just something I'm still playing with and trying to figure out.
• Family Vacations: We definitely accomplished this! We did Legoland, Bear World, and a few little mini-getaways for long weekends this year. I absolutely loved this one and hope we can keep it up for all future years!

So I'd say I did fairly well. I think the theme of the year was just organizing, decluttering, and minimizing. I cleared a lot out, but I know I have more. I like having those items though, there's always ways to life cleaner and with less clutter so I hope this next year I'll be able to say I accomplished more of that stuff. I feel I'm ending the year on a successful note. 

Surprise!

So I knew I wanted to take the kids to Disneyland a long time ago (like years ago). Larry and I talked about it and we decided next year was the year to do it. I was planning on keeping the whole thing a secret until the day we left and do the whole "you're not going to school today!" surprise. Unfortunately, I'm TERRIBLE at keeping secrets, especially when it's secrets I'm excited about. I also decided to invite my mom along to kind of help us keep the kids wrangled. Granted, Legoland was our little test vacation and it worked out really well, I thought it still might be nice to have an extra set of hands (especially if we have as many bathroom trips at Disney as we did in LL). So because I feel like I kept spilling the beans in small ways, I told Larry I think it might be best if we make it a Christmas surprise. 

I decided to get them backpacks, matching family vacation shirts, ear scrunchies (instead of the headbands), autograph books with pens, and neck pillows for the drive. I figured I'd put it all in a pile for them to find, somehow, and a scroll with the words "We Are Going To Disneyland!" they'd have to roll out.

Unfortunately, about 2 days before Christmas my mom mentioned going to Disneyland with us in front of Cara and Gwen. I had to totally play dumb and mom kind of caught on and stopped talking, but then she kept apologizing and I wanted to just be like "shhh!" haha. Luckily, I don't think they heard because they didn't say anything at all. I will admit that almost made me push back when we'd surprise them so that they didn't know, but I knew I really couldn't hold it in and needed to just have Christmas come already haha. I had to make the scroll sign completely last minute (and without a completely working printer, so the letters had to be in pink haha), but it worked out. 

So I told Larry that I wanted to give them the surprise after nap time, in the afternoon, so that they could enjoy their presents for a while and not get too overloaded with everything. I spent all night thinking of how I'd have them "discover" the goodies. After a while I thought a scavenger hunt would be fun and have the items be the last part and then I remembered they have a scavenger hunt-themed treasure hunt game and thought PERFECT! I put the scroll in the treasure box that came with the game and put that on top of their goodies that were covered in a blanket on our bed.

I ended up NOT waiting until the afternoon, mostly because my parents planned on coming over at that time and I didn't want it to interfere with that. So we let them play with new toys for a little bit and then I announced "hey! Why don't we play the treasure hunt game? I have an idea for an awesome treasure!" They were all immediately excited for it. I sent them downstairs to stay while I "hid" the clue cards.

About halfway through the game Gwen wanted to abandon ship and I had to make her finish haha. In her defense I did a lot of "go upstairs" clues then "go downstairs" clues and then "go back upstairs" clues (and so on) so they were sick of doing so many stairs, I think.

Finally, after about 10 clues, they made it to our room and saw the treasure box. I had Cara open it and try and unroll the sign to read. She kind of ripped it so I had to help a little. She read the sign out loud and then they all yelled out "today?!" I had to tell them it wouldn't be until after school was out and now Lucy keeps thinking we're going tomorrow because the girls don't have school (for winter break) right now haha.

While I'm bummed the surprise didn't work out EXACTLY like I wanted, I'm so glad the cat is out of the bag and we can finally talk about it and get excited about it (and boy are we EXCITED about it). I've been looking forward to this trip for so long that it still feels like it's not really happening quite yet,  but hopefully once we start booking things it'll be more real.

Wish us luck! I'm pretty hopeful it'll be one of our funnest vacations, but I've heard Disney can be hard with kids, so we'll see. 

Christmas 2023

Christmas was a great one this year, as usual. I was happy to get my shopping done early, but I was definitely wrapping things completely last minute, but it was fine (it gave me an excuse to watch more movies to wrap to, I actually squeezed in a few more Hallmark ones than I had planned).

This year we had Christmas Eve breakfast at Mom's. It was really good and it was so nice to visit with them. Luckily, my mom said she'd have everything so we didn't need to bring anything. We could just come and eat their food and visit haha. After nap time we did Bingo for the Christmas Eve gifts at our house. Cara got her Giga Pet and said "that's all I wanted for Christmas and I already got it" haha. Gwen got a color by number picture (which I wasn't sure how she'd feel about it, but she ended up loving it), Lucy got some Bluey stuffed animals, Pierce got a busy board that he loves. I got Larry a Switch Game, and Larry got me a thing that helps hold drinks on the couch. After dinner we drove around the neighborhood to check out decorations. I absolutely love that tradition and look forward to it every year..

Doing some Christmas shopping at Traverse

Anyways, we got the kids down for bed and then Larry and I watched a movie and waited for them to fall asleep. We started grabbing the gifts out and then I found a whole bag of things I forgot to wrap...whoops! Luckily, we had enough for the kids to be happy. We also put out the stair slide we got so they could have fun with that in the morning. I was excited to put out the stockings since I felt I got a lot of fun things for them, then I realized I didn't do stockings for Larry and me haha. I got Larry some beef sticks and some masks for myself, but that was it. So ours were pathetic haha.

I just love getting our Santa picture each year!

What's funny is once we put the gifts out I started to wonder if I got them enough. I know I did, I saw it. I also know I get VERY overwhelmed VERY easily with too many gifts so I felt like I was being good this year, but seeing everything out it just felt like it wasn't enough.

Cara's school concert was so cute!
I just love her!

Then came Christmas morning. I made sure to get up before the kids, put some Christmas music on Alexa, and then let the kids down to see it all (I don't think they noticed the slide we put out haha). I love starting the morning with our stockings and the kids seemed to love things they got in those so we let them play with that stuff for a little bit while Larry made us some waffles for breakfast (that turned out SO good).

After breakfast we started on gifts. So much wrapping was thrown around, there were so many "oohs and ahhs", and such big messes. But so many smiles at the same time! We let the kids just play at that point. That was when my overwhelming feelings took over and I was NOT about ready to try and clean or contain any of the toys. I planned to just let the kids go crazy. After nap time, Nana and Boomer came down to bring their gifts. The kids got LOTS of great things. Larry and I got some good gifts too, mom likes being creative with gifts and it shows. 

The rest of the day was playing and relaxing. I'd get moments of wanting to clean up, but would do it for about 5 minutes and then give up for a couple hours, clean for 5 minutes and then give up...and so on, and so forth haha. I have no idea when we'll get it all cleaned up, but for now we'll let the kids have their fun. That's what Christmas is all about....kind of. I'm just glad the day is done, we all had fun, got some good gifts, and now Larry and the kids have a couple weeks off to do whatever while I get some much needed work done.

And on that note, Happy Holidays to anyone reading this!! 

Frozen in Concert

Sometimes social media isn't too evil. For example, one day I was on Facebook and saw an ad for the Utah Symphony and it was talking about their Christmas shows. I saw they were doing a Frozen concert online and knew the girls would like it. My mom wanted to do the Nutcracker (but tickets are expensive) so I asked her if she wanted to join us and she said yes. I'd never been to a movie concert like this before so I wasn't fully sure what to expect. I also didn't know if Lucy would be able to hang (the show STARTED at 7 so it would keep them up late) so I just took the older girls.

Since it  started at 7 we left around 5:15 to get Nana and head to Abravenel hall. I don't love being downtown and so when we had to drive a bit to find parking it got a bit stressful. Luckily we found a lot at City Creek and it was an easy walk to the Hall. The best part was when we ran into the drummer in the orchestra (I was telling Mom the story of Frozen since she hadn't seen it and he mentioned it sounded like that move. I told him we were headed to the concert and he said "yeah, I'm playing it actually"). SO cool!

We got there with plenty of time to spare so we found our seats (which were actually pretty close, but we kind of had a wall in front of us so we had to turn a bit to really see the stage/screen). When it started the conductor came out and told us it's good to cheer and boo during the movie so no need to worry about being quiet. This definitely made it SO much more fun. 

Surprisingly there was an intermission in the middle of the movie, but it was good to stretch and wiggle a bit. Gwen was complaining a bit, but I think it was because she was getting tired. By the end the girls said they loved it, mom said the movie was cute, and I was actually really happy we went. Seeing the musicians and hearing the live music gave me the chills. It's amazing how they can make the music pop so much more and now I want to find so many more events like this to take the family to!

We left around 9:30 so after driving a bit through mom's neighborhood to look at some of the decorations and then dropping her off, the girls just passed right out.

Overall, this was one of my favorite experiences. I know usually they do a Santa Claus show so I think I may want to try and do that next year because that one seems to have a reputation for being a really good family show. Either way, I highly recommend checking out this symphony!

Friends Experience

So I heard about THE Friends Experience coming to Salt Lake and KNEW I had to get tickets. I knew I wanted Larry to see it and my mom is the reason I ever heard of the show so I figured she would love it so I got us all tickets. I decided to get it them for the weekend around my birthday because...well I'm treating so why not? Haha

For the day of I knew I had to wear my Friends Christmas sweater, I was pretty stoked. We made our way to the Gateway, walked through the pretty Christmas decor that was put up since we got there a little early. I wasn't sure how easy it would be to find, but luckily they had a VERY obvious door so you can find it. Gwen yelled out "Lok! The frame from Friends Show!" (it's funny that she was the first one to find it).

Unfortunately, about a month before this Mom got Bells Palsy and so she wasn't too excited to take pictures. We did our best to find good poses that didn't make it so obvious (we joked she could wear the Monica eye patch haha). Overall, the experience was pretty quick, not as big as the one Stace and I did in New York, but there were still lots of fun picture opportunities. They had so many good props and even a wall with Rachels 18 page letter. Mom and I started to read it, but by page 3 even we were done (no wonder Ross fell asleep!)

In the morning, before we left, I put on a few of the best episodes to watch with the kids so they could see how exciting it is to see the stuff in real life. Unfortunately they didn't care that much. BUT they are familiar with the show and Gwen loved finding the frame and purple door.

We made sure to take our time with the experience (which the kids kept calling experiment haha), but once we were done we visited gift shop and got some cute items (Mom got a big Friends mug and I got a cute snow globe). Once we left we felt that we got through it so quickly so we played around outside. The fountain was on for some reason (the water appeared warm, but the air was so cold I don't know what they were expecting people to do to stay warm once they were OUT of the water). They had such fun things right outside that we got a few more cute pictures there too. I know Mom loved being around the kids and hanging out with them. We knew we couldn't stay TOO long (she had to get back to Grandma), but we made the most of the outing.

Larry starts a new job...OUT of the house

Well we have reached a huge shift in our lives recently. I know I've kind of hinted about it in past posts, but back in May? June? Sometime around there, Larry got an interesting job offer. It was for a big defense company and it would require him to get a secret security clearance. The pay was amazing, and it sounded like it was something he'd really enjoy doing. The only issue (we saw): the job was in Roy and was NOT remote. So about an hour up North. When he told me he had someone reach out to him about it, I told him he could at least go for it and if he got it we could discuss what we wanted to do. The pay was enough to cover my income so I could leave my job and become a Stay at Home Mom. While this isn't something I'm actively looking to become, it is a nice incentive, for sure. 

He applied, went through the interview, and found out he got the job (his first non-remote job in about a decade!). This became very real and we discussed our options. We talked about how this clearly meant we needed to move. Having him drive an hour each way was just a silly thing to even think about (right?). So we knew we wanted to build again and found a few builders to go check out. I mentioned to Larry a couple days before we went up that all that time he saw the billboards showing the mortgage interest rates and he'd comment "who'd be stupid enough to pay that?" that we were now one of those people. It was something we didn't love, but we couldn't have him driving an hour each way for work....right? Right?

So we took that weekend and went up to go visit as many builders as we could. We only were able to talk to about 3 of them (such a disappointing fact, you make appointments with 5+ companies, you'll only actually see 2-3 of them). We found a builder that we liked the models they had. The lots weren't great, but they had some that were bigger than what we currently had AND were on a cul-de-sac (a huge win for us, we always talk about how we'd love to live on one). The only downside: no basement. We'd have to seriously re-arrange how we live. BUT We could have it so all the kids had their own rooms AND we'd have two bathrooms on their level. I figured we could finally add the 3rd car garage and have the gym out there. The lot would be big enough we could add a shed and use that for the storage space we'd lose, and there was this amazing open play area upstairs we could turn into our movie room (or just leave it as the play area and just use our living room as the theater area...like most normal people do). After MUCH back and forth with the builders about getting pricing I told Larry that I was just feeling more and more anxious. I knew we had to make this move, and I was sure it would feel fine once we actually started it, but the thought of leaving our current home, this area we have loved living in so much, and going from a 2% interest rate to a 7% PLUS all the changes coming was just.so much! He mentioned "what if we didn't move?" I kind of scoffed, like that wasn't a realistic idea. We talked back and forth and he said he also didn't love the idea of moving, paying SO much more, and could see it was stressing me out (another issue is we talked about I'd have to keep working throughout this school year to meet some savings goals we had and moving and dealing with the new school schedules up there wasn't as easy as it is down here. I had NO idea how I was going to make it work with working full time, taking care of the kids, and dealing with the scheduling shifts of their school). We told the builders that we were sorry for so much time wasted, but we'd have to put a pin in building for now (they were extremely nice and understanding about it).

Flash forward, we thought Larry would be starting in October, but October came and went. November almost came and went. Finally at the end of the month, they said he passed the Security Clearance check and could finally have him pick a start date. He chose December 4th. We went out shopping for some new business clothes for him, we got everything set up, ready for him to start this new job. This week has been...harder than I expected. I knew it would be a change (and I am NOT great with changes, historically), but it's been hard not having him here to talk to every day. The kids seem to miss having him home too. AND taking all the kids out for pick up and drop off has been SO much more work. I lost one of Pierce's shoes one day so I clearly need to get used to this still. It's also hard that he doesn't get as much time with the kids as he's used to (and forget working out as often as he was). Once he gets home it's rush to eat dinner then it's just about time to get the kids ready for bed. I bombard him with all my stories that it just all feels rushed. I think we'll have to adjust what time he works to make that part easier. Luckily, we have a good first month adjustment schedule. He has the week of Christmas off and then a few days the first week of January off. He has every other Friday off AND his boss said he could work from home next week (since he's just watching videos for training right now). So the second week of January will probably be tough (he'll actually HAVE to go in office at that point and have to work the whole week), but I'm hoping this slow adjustment period will help me get used to it. Before he started I kept telling him "I love you, but I don't think I'll miss [X, Y, Z things]", but I do miss them, I miss them all. I guess we're one of those couples that work better being around each other all day long...who would have thought?

Anyways, wish us luck, because this could be a really great change for us, we just need to get used to it. Keep you posted!

November notes

-This month we FINALLY took Gwen to get her first haircut: Bangs! You see, the problem is, she has hair that just always is IN her face. No matter how much we brush it to the side, or to the back, it just ends up in her face. Whenever she eats it gets her hair so matted. She tends to drool and is a bit snotty so that also gets it all gross. I finally had the realization that if this hair is going to go forward, it needs to be short so we need to cut it. I took her to Sharkey's and it ended up SO cute! I really hope she loves them because she looks like such a freaking doll with them and I just love them on her. The other girls decided they needed bangs as well so we took them to get theirs done. They don't seem to love their so that probably won't be a common thing for them.

-The kids are obsessed with Charlie! I mean, how can you not be? He's a cutie (yes, he's a he for sure...hasn't been confirmed, but we can definitely tell) and he loves to snuggle. He does get a bit rowdy and sometimes that makes the kids nervous, but when he wants to relax he'll do it anywhere and he doesn't mind the kids coming up to him and petting or pulling on him haha. He's been a good new addition.

-Speaking of Charlie, him and Otto seem to be bffs. They love to play around with each other and I think it's nice for Otto to finally have that. He always gave Minnie such a hard time that he needed an active outlet and Charlie definitely steps up to the plate! I just hope Otto can keep up with him at this point haha.

-I got to hit up the Christmas show with Mom and Rachel. We all found a few good items for our Christmas shopping. I think I might have found more food than anything, but I did find some good items for the kids there so I'm pretty happy with how my shopping is going.

-We had our time change this month. Honestly, the kids adjusted perfectly, but for me it took about a week (maybe a day or two longer) to really feel adjusted. I was fine in the mornings, but having the energy to stay up after putting the kids down has kicked my butt. I guess I'm just getting too old for that now haha.

-We had moments of Cara wearing my shoes this month and my heart just swells! I remember very vividly wearing my mom's heels growing up and thinking I couldn't wait to be big enough to fit into them and wear them all the time. I thought heels were the ultimate feminine shoe and I couldn't imagine wearing anything else. I hardly wear heels at all now (funny how that works out, huh?), but it's still fun to see Cara getting into mine. I wonder what goes through her mind when she does it.

-Pierce LOVES jumping. Oh boy will this boy jump anytime, anywhere. He doesn't do a full jump, yet, but he practices MULTIPLE times a day. He's so freaking cute, I just don't know how I handle it haha.

-Cara is the sweetest little girl, she loves to leave little messages for people. I constantly find little messages in her backpack that are clearly ones that went back and forth between her and one other girl in her class (it changes, but the messages always say "I love you" either from her to the girl or from the girl to Cara). I was doing laundry and found this sweet one from her in the dust:

-Oh boy has the flu hit us HARD! I got it SO bad after Gwen's birthday. Larry got it a bit for a few days and was down. Gwen just had a headache so I'm nervous she's going to get it. It's so unfortunate to get sick around the holidays, but I'm hoping it's at the end for us now (fingers crossed).

Christmas Starts Early

Oh man am I just so pumped for Christmas this year! I did my absolute best to not do a single Christmas thing until Thanksgiving had it's time. That is now! I have already started shopping (and got most of it done, even!), Christmas music is already on the radio (sweet! Sure made shopping that much more fun) and we are planning on putting our décor up today.

Really quick, I have to say how happy I am with my shopping already. I just went to the strip mall place near us and crossed off SO many items! I am making sure to go lighter with our family (I always overdo it and forget about how others ALSO have gifts for the kids and so it just gets so overwhelming) and I feel I got a good chunk for the kids crossed off. I think I just have a few more things to get others (as in, those not living in my house) and then just stockings and maybe some online stuff and I'm done! Like, really done! I think I might even be able to start wrapping this week and I'm just feeling so head of the game.

So I hope you all were able to enjoy your Thanksgiving and got a good head start on Christmas. It'll be here before we know it, it always is!

Thanksgiving 2023

Thanksgiving this year was definitely one of the top ones for me. The only bad part was I was still feeling a little iffy. Not enough that we had to stay home, but enough that I wasn't going to get dressed until the very last moment haha (mostly just a stupid little cough at this point)

We started the day with relaxing and watching the parade. Luckily, we only needed to bring cheesecake and carrots to dinner. Larry is the king of making cheesecakes and we grabbed carrots at the store on Sunday so I got to sit and relax while Larry did all of the cooking. The kids all came to snuggle with me at some point during the parade so that was nice. We also watched the Packers DOMINATE and just kill it. It was definitely the first win that I was very proud of this season. 

It finally got to be time to get ready, so I did real quick and we quickly got the kids ready as well. We headed over to Marie's (our year with them this year) while "watching" the Cowboys on my phone (they also killed it). Dinner was so yummy and I just love holidays where you visit with family and just eat so much amazing food haha.

Marie decided to do a Bingo game for some treat bags for the kids (she's seriously the best mother-in-law!) and the kids all had so much fun with that. Gwen also got more birthday gifts from that side (she seriously got spoiled this week...not sure how she's going to go back to normal haha).

Once we were done, it was early enough that I decided we should stop by my mom's (I wasn't sure if anyone was able to make it to hers and I knew she shouldn't be alone for Thanksgiving...it is about being with family after all). We got there and it turns out Andy and Rachel were able to go so it was all of us on that side there and it was actually really nice. We had some dessert, visited with each other, the kids got to play with the dogs. I think my mom really enjoyed having us there.

We did decide we're going to do our own Thanksgiving today. We decided to make it small so that we don't have leftovers for a couple weeks (like normal) so we didn't load up on too much. I did have to do the homemade mashed potatoes (my favorite), but I forgot to get the right gravy so that was a bummer. Other than that it was all delicious. I am thinking this might be our last year doing our own though. It's so much work and I don't actually enjoy too many of the leftovers like I used to. I love the smells of the dinner, but it's just SO much. We'll see how I'm feeling next year though.

Anyways, a very successful Thanksgiving in the books and now onto Christmas. Happy Holidays and Thanksgiving to anyone reading this.

Gwen is 5

Gwen-Gwen is officially 5 now! Five is such a crazy age, it's the age I saw up to when we started talking about having kids. I didn't know what to expect after that point and thought that's when they are like little people. So to have two kids at this age (or older) is so surreal for me. We had a great time celebrating our sweet little crazy girl. We did her "party" on Saturday. We went to Airborne in Lindon because she decided she wanted to go to a trampoline place. We stayed there for about an hour and a half and had SO much fun doing ALL the things. We came back and did cake, ice cream, and presents at our house. She got a lot of good things and even though she clearly hates being center of attention, you could tell she was happy it was her day. We didn't have a lot of people come, but I don't mind. I just care that we had fun as a family and maybe next year we can do a friend party.

Sunday, she said she wanted donuts and watermelon for breakfast, so that's what she got. We also had her birthday table set up for her with some more presents and some treats. I unfortunately, started feeling a little iffy that morning so it was a low-key day.

Monday, we had to do her birthday dinner because she wanted Leatherby's and it's closed on Sundays. By this point I was feeling dead to the world. I started my work day, but about halfway through I stopped and just went upstairs to sleep for as long as I could. I mentioned to Larry that I wasn't sure I'd be able to make it to dinner and he'd have to take the kids by himself. He said he was okay with that, but after sleeping a good portion of the day I knew I couldn't miss out on her birthday inner (I didn't care that we spent the whole weekend celebrating her, this was important too). I dragged myself to dinner and, even though I was extremely miserable and didn't eat much of my food and definitely didn't order ice cream (which is a sure sign I'm not doing great), it was good I was there as the girls needed to go to the bathroom multiple times and I'm not sure how Larry would've done that with Pierce and all them. 

On Tuesday she got to do her classroom treat at school since that was her first day back at school after her birthday. I also had another present show up so she got another present.

So while she didn't have a HUGE party, she got a whole week where she was celebrated and she seemed to enjoy every bit of it. I'm so glad it was good. I'm still a little under the weather, but getting better so I'm glad I survived all of it as well haha.

Gwen is so silly! She loves being a goofball, she always has to be right (she's SO stubborn!), she loves to draw stick figures with shirts with hearts on them, and she loves being active or messy. She can't sit still for anything. She still loves being naked as much as she can be and groans when we tell her to put clothes on (and she loves saying "hey! I'm in my birthday suit!"). She likes to do things that Cara likes to do, so I've been trying to push her to be her own person. She's extremely shy and hates to ask for help, even her teacher says she doesn't talk much to her.

She loves Charlie and giving cuddles and protecting him from Pierce. She is a gentle giant for sure, she's strong, but she'll be cautious with him. She loves being loud and fast (running is her favorite thing). She loves laughing and doing goofy stuff to make us laugh. She also still loves Spiderman, but is also starting to get into her unicorn phase.

Our lives are definitely better with her in them and she makes us laugh on a daily basis with either silly questions or thoughts or random things she's figured out how to do. I am so excited to see the kind of person she grows up to be and I hope she's always as happy as she is now (just a little more vocal when she needs help and a little less stubborn when she thinks she's right even though we've shown her the truth). Gwen, please always know we love you so very much and we hope you continue to be as great as you are!

Happy Halloween

Halloween this year was such a fun one! We did a lot of good things to get ready for it:

-I love this time of year as it's the start of my spooky movie season. I decided to put what I was watching or have a recommendation on my stories each night. It was fun (most of the time) finding a new one. A couple weeks I did a theme (90s, family, and Stephen King ones). 

My newest favorite one!

-We, of course, put up our decorations. Not all of them as Lucy got scared pretty easily with them, but we had a good amount up and the girls really got into putting up some bloody handprints on the window. We also had fun doing the countdown every day. Unfortunately, Pierce broke a huge chunk of the countdown one of the days, so I'll have to try and fix that (it's one I got at Disneyland many years ago so I love it), but otherwise no issues. I did end up finding the cutest little mummy cutout stand for pictures to put up, I was really hoping a lot of kids would want to take a silly picture. It was a little cold so Larry said only a couple kids did, but that's worth it enough for me (maybe more next year?)

-We went out in September to look at costumes at the Spirit store (that's where we learned Lucy is VERY terrified about a lot of the things for Halloween) and we found some really cute, fun ones for the kids. Then we went out in October to actually get them. Cara wanted to be a zombie nurse, Gwen wanted to be a Sally, but decided she wanted to be a zombie nurse too (my brother and I dressed as the same thing a couple Halloweens so it was kind of fun and funny that two of my girls did that). Lucy wanted to be a rainbow fairy. For Pierce, we found the cutest Ooggie Boogie costume that I knew he just HAD to be. When Gwen changed her mind on her costume, I decided to be Sally (I also decided I'm only doing a costume if it goes with someone else, otherwise I'm just sticking to one of my Halloween shirts). Larry had gotten a blow up costume of a man riding a snail early one so his was definitely the silliest. 

Cara loved being scary

While Lucy would NOT get further than this
From me and my face

-We definitely carved pumpkins. This was almost done last minute and I wasn't feeling up to roasting the seeds, this year, so it wasn't AS exciting, but it was still fun to do.

-We did our usual tradition of driving around to look at decorations and at the end the kids said that was their favorite part of the day and they love doing that. They didn't want to stop and wanted to go everywhere. I love that they like it so much. It was one of my favorite things as a kid and I love passing it down to them.

-The kids got to dress up for school. Unfortunately, Cara couldn't wear her zombie nurse costume because of the blood, so we were able to throw together a Misty from Pokemon costume for her (it actually turned out really cute). Gwen could wear hers, she didn't want to at the last minute, but I told her we didn't have any other options. Cara loved her Misty costume so much she decided to wear it for trick-or-treating. We were going to do another costume party this weekend that I told her she had to wear it for that, but then that got cancelled. Luckily, they both wore it at Legoland so we did get some use out of it, at least.

This isn't a costume, but I unintentionally 
Dressed him like Kreuger

-We got to do a LOT of extra trick or treating. There was Brick or Treat two nights at Legoland, we did our neighborhood trick or treating, AND Andy and Rachel invited us to their trunk or treat at their ward. So the kids LOADED up on candy (we even went around our block almost two full turns, normally we only do 1 so it was a ton more!). I actually learned, this year, that going zig zag up your street and around your block seems to be more effective. Normally we stay on our side of the street and do a "small circle" around our "block", but I told the girls we should start across the street and do the big circle and then when we hit our house, do the small circle. We did the big one about 1/3 of the way, and then started zig-zagging and I thought "man we should've done it this way the whole time." By the time we reached our home, the girls didn't want to do the houses we missed initially (in their defense it was really cold at this point). Either way, they loaded up, had fun, and they are happy with their holiday. They love coming back to hand out candy, start eating what they got, and get out of their costumes and into their cozy, warm pajamas.

Anyways, we had a great Halloween, I am very happy with how it turned out this year. I really need to stop planning vacations in October, it makes it so much more difficult to really get to everything we want to do. But I'm glad at the end of the day everyone was happy. Happy Halloween to anyone reading this! We hope you had a great holiday.

October Happenings

- I had my Spouse Appreciation Day on the 14th this month and it was lovely. Nothing big, but Larry brought me my French Toast (from Kneaders) in bed (but this time he remembered to have everyone stay haha). I had also told Larry that I think a hike sounded nice since we didn't do too many this year and I gave him a list of a few that sounded like they'd be good for us for him to pick from. While on the hike (he chose Cascade Springs) I told him I was craving Cafe Rio, so we stopped there for lunch on the way back (YUM!). During nap time I watched Scream 7 (I knew it would be bad, but I just have to watch those movies, I'm stuck in them haha....and it was pretty bad). After nap time, we went to Maurices and I picked a couple cute shirts out and then we went to Denny's because I knew the kids would actually eat that food so it wouldn't be a fight haha). It was a nice day.

LOOK at the colors! It looked better in person.

-This one is silly, but I got a new cleaning toy (a Tineco wet/dry cordless vacuum). I wasn't going to get anything on the Amazon Deals page, but I was reading a review on cordless vacuums and I was hoping to get a new one soon (my last one just wasn't cutting it). This one had great reviews, is a cordless wet/dry vacuum that self cleans and is a kind of smart device. So I decided to get it and I'm just SO excited to use it. Larry said I really don't need two so I'm giving our Crosswave to Andy and Rachel (it's a great cleaner, I just really don't need two).

-Since it's starting to get darker earlier, we brought back doing activities for kids after dinner. I was doing them a lot last winter just to fill up that time slot and then, once it got warmer, we just spent all our nights out front playing. I'm excited to bring back activities, but now I'll have to start thinking of them and planning them a little better. So far I've found some good ones the kids like though.

Oobleck...Gwen's favorite activity

-Pierce had his 18 month checkup this month. Everything is looking good and he's growing very big. They still say they hear the heart murmur so they think it would be good if we took him to a cardiologist to get a second opinion. I'm leaning more towards waiting till he's 2 to see since I've heard it's actually pretty common and does tend to go away on it's own. If he still has it at that point then that will be almost a year he's had it so it might be good to get another opinion at that point, we'll see.

Meet Charlie

So about a month ago, Larry started mentioning that he thinks we're ready for a new kitty and thought it would be a fun Christmas gift for the kids. I was hesitant though. For one, I just didn't feel like we NEEDED another cat (sure, if one needed a home I was willing to give it one, but to go out and look for another cat? It just wasn't on my radar). And second, with Larry starting a new job out of the house I didn't like the idea of me being alone, working full time, getting kids to school, keeping the other kids entertained, AND trying to keep a new kitty alive with young kids. That was a lot. I told him, maybe next Christmas when I'd be a stay at home mom, then it would be easier (and maybe I'd actually want one at that point). Well, a day, or so, ago, Tracy sent me a text that they were staying at a farm and there was a cat that was abandoned at it. The farmer was trying to turn it into a farm cat, but it just wasn't taking to it and they felt bad it was outside in the cold when it clearly didn't want to be (it seemed desperate for human contact). She asked if we were looking to get another cat and would want to take this. I told Larry and he said it was my call since I was the one who wanted to push it off a bit. I figured since he was still at home, maybe we could take it in and just see how we all adjust (I also was a bit worried since Minnie is getting older, how would she handle another cat...she didn't take too well to the last cat we brought home).

Originally we weren't going to take the cat in until early November, but then Tracy was just heartbroken at the idea of it getting colder and this cat being outside. I keep saying "it" and "this cat" since they weren't sure gender or age. She sent me a couple pics and it seemed cute enough. Well, we ended up moving taking the cat in to tonight. Luckily, it was movie night so we knew we'd be staying in and could acclimate to the change easily enough. I told the girls a surprise would be coming and so as we were finishing up dinner, we heard a knock at the door, and I said "oh, sounds like our surprise is here!" When Don and Tracy came in with the cat they all "awwwww'd" so loudly. They were so excited. 

We talked about picking out a name that was gender neutral. I wanted to name it bonkers, but Larry and Cara didn't like that name so much. We looked up gender neutral names and "Charlie" won everyone over. So, meet our newest addition, Charlie:

So far we're saying she's a girl and she's very cuddly. She has absolutely no fear of any of the kids (yet) and likes to snuggle. She snuggled with us all throughout our movie night and even with me for my movie night. The other cats were so scared of having visitors they only came out a little bit to sniff her and they are okay, so far. No big hissing, more just curiosity so far. 

So that's the story of how we got our newest cat. Larry is already talking about another one haha, but I'm still just okay with these ones. Welcome Charlie!

Legoland 2023 - driving home

So I was a bit nervous about our drive home. For one, I'm usually SO ready to be home once we leave our vacation and start driving, for two I knew the kids would probably be more antsy to get out of the car, and lastly, I knew we'd be getting home late and since Utah is an hour ahead of California we would be getting home MUCH later. However, now that we're home I have to say it wasn't nearly as bad as I assumed it would be. There were tough parts, but overall it could've gone worse.

We got up this morning and had as much breakfast as we could eat or have the kids eat (as usual, but we tried to push more) and we grabbed fruit for the road too. We got as packed as possible last night so it was just last minute stuff this morning. We loaded up and left around 8:30, later than I wanted, but good enough. We were on the road for a couple hours when we heard the dreaded "I need to go potty" call from the back. It was earlier than I wanted, but I hoped if we could hit up a Subway we could get sandwiches to go and eat them later (I had planned to have our first stop in Primm, which was still a couple hours away). Luckily, we were able to find one with a bathroom so we had all the girls go while I ordered sandwiches. 

Luckily, we were able to make it to Primm for lunch. We also needed gas so we could do that and bathroom runs (again....small bladders were the theme for the trip) and get all the birds knocked out with one stone. Speaking of birds, there were TONS surrounding us when we were eating and they had NO fear of humans (they literally ate from under my shoe and walked over my foot to get to food). So, full bellies, empty bladders, and some good stretching (we also did some wiggle dance videos for the kids), we were ready to go...for a couple more hours when someone needed the bathroom again, of course!

We did drive smoothly through St. George, mostly because everyone took a nap (including myself) at that point so that part of the drive was probably my favorite.

We actually were able to make it to Fillmore, Utah when I realized we needed to stop for dinner (we had enough gas to get home, but small bellies meant we needed food), also we knew Pierce and Lucy had pooped (in fact, Lucy had pooped a couple of times, glad we put her in a pull up). She said she needed to go potty about 30 minutes after the Primm stop so I told her she'll have to go in her pull up because we had JUST stopped (and with how many times she said she had to go right after going and then saying "nothing is coming" I kind of thought she was just having one of those moments again...I was wrong). So we stopped at a Taco John's for dinner and bathroom runs (last ones of the long, long drive) and it turned out Lucy had completely EXPLODED and ruined her shorts a bit so I'm pretty glad we did stop. Unfortunately, we only had 2 wipes left so I had to wet some paper towels to help clean her off fully. We ate some food and then got right back in the car and knew we should be able to straight shoot it home. It was only 2 hours away so we should be good.

Luckily, all kids stayed awake at this point so it was easy to unload them and get them ready for bed once we got home. Once they were down, we quickly unpacked the car. I got laundry all sorted so that I can start it tomorrow morning so we're off to a good start for our return. Other than Lucy's pooping disaster (I'm a little worried she has a UTI and she definitely needs to take her pedialax more regularly, poor girlie) and a few hard times with Pierce screaming, it went better than the drive out to California. Surprisingly, the drive became part of our adventure, not just me wishing we were home already (that only happened the last like 5 hours of the drive haha).

So overall, our first family vacation with all the kids went SO well and I'm so excited we went and got a chance to try a new place. All the kids were sad that we weren't going back to Legoland and seem so excited to tell all their friends at school about this trip. I'm just glad I have tomorrow off to get the laundry done and work on the other house stuff.