Picture of the Week........

Christian LOVES to cuddle and hug Sadie!

New Past Time.......

Christian can now open the doors in the house and it seems like his favorite door to open is the pantry door. I don't blame him but it gets a little tedious dragging him out of the pantry all day long! His new favorite past time is to stack the cans. He will even bring them out of the pantry and stack them on the coffee table. He likes to see how big he can make them before they fall over and he loves to show me how big they are by saying, "Look, BIG."

Swords & Amour.....

We have had so much fun with the Book of Mormon dress up box we got for Christmas. I think the swords and the armour have been the kids favorites so far. Julia loves to put on all of the gear and try to sword fight with Christian. They ask me all the time if they can dress up especially for family home evening. Thanks Grandma Cromwell for the great gift....we LOVE it!

And Christian loves running around with one or both swords and yelling, "Hi-ya, hi-ya" at everything he hits or does with the swords. Many late night sword fights have taken place with Christian and I and I can't help but laugh, it's so much fun. He runs straight at me and moves his sword back and forth trying to hit mine and saying "hi-ya" the whole time. He sure does know how to use a sword, that's for sure!

Valentine's Day.......

It's been a fun day and week I guess you could say. We kicked off Valentine's Day a little early. We all got together to make Valentine sugar cookies and write out our appreciation hearts. It's always fun to get together, it's crazy at times but fun.

 Decorating......

 And eating! Yummy!

We always need a little music too........

Our finished hearts. Everybody has a heart with their name on it. We all pass it around and everyone takes a minute to write about something they admire, love or appreciate about that person. Then you can take them home and hang them so you can read them for the rest of the month or however long you want to keep them up!

Today the kids actually slept in a little bit which always makes my day! They got new Valentine's shirts and a few other fun things and of course the most coveted thing of all.....CHOCOLATE! I decorated everybody's bedroom door with paper hearts to let them know I loved them and told them why I loved them. I got a cool poem from Layne (he wrote all by himself...impressive) and some beautiful roses! For dinner we had pizza with heart shaped peperoni's(to cute!) and rice krispie treats for our Valentine's dessert.

The best part of my day was that I got to go in and do Julia's Valentine's Party for her at school. I was reminded last week that I had signed up to do the party and about freaked out because I totally forgot but it was so fun and the kids loved it! I had to come up with a couple of games, a craft, and a treat. Pressure was on but with a little help from my family and of course the help of the Internet I had some cute ideas. We did a ball toss. You had to knock down a wall of red cups for a prize. The other game was to see how many big conversation hearts you could stack before time was up for a prize. We frosted sugar cookies for the snack and the craft turned out super cute! We made pipe cleaner Valentine glasses. The kids loved them and they had a great time at their party. I was glad I was able to spend the day with Julia!

Things I LOVE.......

Day 4 of things that I LOVE and it falls on Valentine's Day.....

I LOVE anything hazelnut. I love nuts anyway but this nut in particular. It's good all by itself and even better in chocolate! I love Nutella, hazelnut creamer(for my hot cocoa), a good Ritter Sport bar, Rerrero Rocher with that whole hazelnut in the middle. Oh, they are soooo good!

 
I LOVE my family. Both my own and my extended family! I get along with everyone and I could ask any of them for the shirt off their back and they would give it to me. Every single member of each family is special and unique and I love that about them. Everyone offers a different point of view, a different opinion, a unique style, a testimony! Thank you all for being a part of my family!



I LOVE my husband and kids! They are my world and without them I have nothing! Layne is my best friend and he is such a great dad! My kids light up my life and they are always making me laugh!

I LOVE this movie. Probably one of my favorites, if not the most favorite movie of mine. I love the message it has and it holds true no matter where you are in life. It has so many great parts! Here are some of my favorite quotes....
"Carpe Diem,Cease the day boys, make your lives extrodinary."
"No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world."
"I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constant look at things in a different way."
"Now, we all have a great need for acceptance but you must trust that your beliefs are unique and your own, even though others may think them odd or unpopular."

I LOVE this picture! It's probably one of my favorites. It's magical to me and not because it's Valentine's day or that it was taken at my wedding. It was a magical moment that was captured so I could be reminded of my fairytale! I married the handsome prince and he swept me off my feet! ♥♥♥

Day 3 of Things I LOVE.......

I LOVE it when Layne has the kids in his chair, in his lap. They are usually watching something like Curious George or Bubble Guppies. It makes my heart melt. He is such a great dad!

I LOVE the Indigo Girls. Especially this album, it's my all time favorite. It's my go to CD if I'm just sick of everything else at the moment. I first heard these 2 ladies singing as a sophomore in my college apartment. My roommate would play this CD every chance she got and I thank her for it! I love their harmonies the best and I wish I could play the guitar as well as they can, maybe someday!

Staying with music for a moment here.....I LOVE Simon and Garfunkel! Probably one of my all time favorite bands. My dad had gotten my mom all of their music in a compilation set and so I had to find out for myself why they loved them so much. I grew up listening to my parents music but not a lot of S&G. They both had told me that they had gone out on their first (blind) date together to see them in concert. I first popped in a CD back in high school and followed along with the lyrics and just fell in love. I probably know all or close to all of their songs. Even the stuff people don't usually know like, 'Baby Driver', 'Keep the Customer Satisfied', 'Punky's Dilema', & 'Dangling Conversation', just to name a few. My sisters and I can sing all the words without the music and it's probably the first thing we pop in the CD player on  a road trip. I can't remember what year it was but Simon and Garfunkel had gotten back together for one last concert tour and we got tickets for my mom. So all my sisters and mom went to their concert. It was probably one of the best concerts I've been to. And we sang every single song. An older guy next to us just keep staring at us, probably because he had never seen someone so young singing every single song or maybe he was impressed or maybe shocked, I don't know but it was priceless!

I LOVE project runway! This show amazes me and I just can't believe some of things these people can make in one day! Everyone is so talented, some more than others and I love the catch phrases they all have from Heidi's "Auf Wiedersehen" and Tim's "Make it Work." You get some pretty weird and kooky characters on this show but one of my all time favorites was Christian Siriano......He was FIERCE!

I'm not gonna lie, I LOVE me time! I usually get at least 90 mins a day all to myself. It's the time when Christian is down for his nap right after Julia goes off to school. It's the only time I get to actually sit down for 10 minutes without being interrupted 50 times. And sometimes, if I'm lucky, I get 2 whole hours to do whatever it is I want. Most of the time it's just me sitting down to blog, read, or catch up on a few TV shows I've recorded. I may even get a quick 20 minute power nap in before I'm tossed back in the throng of mommy-hood!

Day 2 of Things I LOVE.........

I LOVE pizza. I could eat it every day. We make a lot of homemade pizza at our house and we can't get enough, well, I know I can't. I have had some great pizza and some not so great pizza, all through trial and error of course. I tend to stay away from frozen pizza because it's so much cheaper to make your own and you can't put whatever you want on it. My favorite toppings are pepperoni, onions, peppers, Italian sausage, pineapple, green olives and even fresh tomatoes, maybe not all together on one pizza but those are just a few things I like on pizza! I hope to one day try some authentic Chicago and/or New York styles of pizza!

 I LOVE the beach! When I think of vacation I think of the beach. Growing up in Michigan we always were at the beach, we vacationed at the beach. Each summer we would visit the local lakes and make a day of it. Pack a picnic lunch and play in the water all day! Up-north is my all time favorite place to be. We would spend the whole week at the beach. Crystal Lake and Lake Michigan.
 It was always my dream to go to Hawaii and see the beaches you see in photographs. Well, I made it to Maui and words can't describe their beauty. It really is just like the pictures you see. So blue and beautiful!

Last year was my first time going to Bear Lake and boy that brought back memories of Michigan. It was the perfect day and the water was just right. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and was sad to leave. I hope we can make more trips to Bear Lake! To this day, Julia is always talking about Bear Lake and wanting to go back!

 

I LOVE Calvin and Hobbs. I grew up reading about Calvin and his silly antics and all his adventures with his beloved friend, Hobbs, the tiger! The first 2 comics remind me of my kids. The many faces of Julia and both my kids love to dance! The colored comic made me laugh so hard. Oh, so funny. Gotta love a good, laugh out loud, comic like Calvin and Hobbs! (I made them extra big so you could read them.)

I LOVE the Michigan fight song! Every time I hear it I can't help but sing the words and think of football. I even have it as a ring tone on my phone. It makes me smile every time I see Christian pump his fist in the air and say 'go blue' when he hears it!

I LOVE tulips. Probably my favorite flower. I grew these last year in our little rental we had in Alpine. They were so huge and everybody commented on them. First time I have ever planed tulips on my own. I can't wait to plant some in my new yard. They also remind me of my grandma. I always remember her having them all over her yard. 

Pictures of the week.......

Christian eating his brownie

 Protective head gear is a must

 Notice the perched position on which he is sitting on his chair not in his chair

Silly, silly boy!

Things I LOVE......

Posting for January has been so slow. Things finally die down after the holidays and there just seems like nothing is going on in our lives. It's been almost a month and I haven't posted anything. So since this week is Valentine's day I thought I would post things that I "love" each day leading up to Valentine's Day. They are probably just random things, things you may already know about me or maybe something new about me. I hope I can come up with a few things that I really "love" so I can share with you!

Day 1 of things that I LOVE.................

"Here's to the birds,

The feathered people!

Birds!

Here's to the who-o-oo ones,

The cock-a-doodle doo ones,

Their breasts as red as fire ones,

The sitting on the wire ones. 

Oh, I LOVE the birds!

Just a line from a book I read to the kids, one of our favorites. I have loved to watch the birds ever since I was little and would visit my grandma and grandpa's house, eventually becoming our own house in Michigan. I remember watching my grandpa going out to feed the birds and tap the big coffee can on the metal pole to let the birds know the food was ready. I also remember him hanging up the suet from the trees. I remember it was the first time I saw cardinals and blue jays....and I miss seeing them. They are not the kind of birds you can see in Utah. I always remember riding the bus and seeing the red-winged black birds and occasionally I see them here too. I love their song. But eve now I still love to go over to my mom's house and just sit in the kitchen and watch all the birds gather in her yard. I love the quail and how they all come in flocks and scurry around with their heads bobbing around. I love watching the little chickadees eat and seeing all types of birds gather and eat till their hearts are content. I hope to someday have a place to sit and watch the birds come visit my yard!

 

I LOVE these trees! They use to be right outside my window when we lived in our condo in Eagle Mountain. They have the most gorgeous blooms in the spring, starting with a dark pink bud that opens up into all this little pink flowers. I loved putting Julia up in the tree to get pictures. I never knew what they were but with all the research I have done and looking forward to putting in a yard and wanting some trees of my own I have found out what this mysterious tree it. It's a Flowering Crab apple tree. They are so pretty and hopefully I can find one to put in my new yard somewhere!

This may seem like a weird picture. But it's not because I have a secret drinking habit it's because I LOVE the smell of coffee. I think it just reminds me of my grandparents. They always drank it in the mornings with breakfast or for my grandma's afternoon cookies and coffee. My grandma and grandpa use to take the grand kids out for breakfast at Andrico's in Fenton, MI and as soon as you walked into the place it smelled like coffee and breakfast. The smell of syrup and coffee.....aaahhh can't get any better than that!

 

If I could have any dog, a dream dog if you will it would be this dog. I LOVE Great Danes! I just think they are awesome. They are such big teddy bears, mellow, loyal and friendly. Also very big but cute! I have always wanted a couple of them, I don't know why, just do. I don't think Layne would ever let me get one but here's to hoping. Maybe when I'm all old and gray...someone to keep me company after the kids leave! Anyway, I am just a dog person in general and have always had dogs growing up as a kid. I don't remember a time when we didn't have a dog or dogs for that matter. And I certainly remember going to so many dog shows with my parents when I was younger. The obedience classes were always my favorite but we also would sit for hours and just watch the different breeds prance around in circles. We always got to walk around and see all the dogs getting groomed and primped for their big chance to win best in class and then go off to best in breed and then finally best in show. It made for some pretty long days but it was something we liked to do as a family. I learned to know a lot of dog breeds by going to all those dog shows, I'm not quite as good at naming all the dog breeds as my parents but I could hang with them, I think :)

I love this little mouse. Always have and always will. He is my all time favorite Disney character. With so many versions of Mickey I prefer the old fashioned one, the steamboat Willie style or the style you see all that the vintage Mickey shirts are patterned after. I can't wait to go visit him in May!

100th Day.......

Today Julia celebrated her 100th day of school with a party! She was so excited to bring in her 100 pieces of food to add to the 100th day soup they were going to make in school. She did a great job at counting them all out.

She came home with a crown on her head that says, Julia is 100 days smarter! She showed me all the different things they did at school. They did a lot of things related to 100 and played games and did school work based around it. She had a great day and was excited to share her 100th day soup with us, which contained things like marshmallows, m&m's, Swedish fish, chocolate chips, popcorn, and cheese balls.

She brought home this paper that she filled out about 100 things. I thought it was cute what she came up with. In case you can't read it here is what is said.....
I wish I had 100.......ice creams
I wouldn't want 100.....snakes
I can make 100......cookies
I can eat 100.....cakes
I could never eat 100....fish
Having 100...dogs...could really be a problem.
In 100 years I hope I can .......walk. (I laughed when I read this one, it was my favorite!)
If I had 100 dollars I do....nothing?