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!