January 2017

We started off the year with Holly's 11th birthday. She wanted to go to Goodwood BBQ for her special day, and then we came back home for cake and presents. It's a pleasure to be Holly's parents. She has been a great kid from the start.

And of course Savannah gets a picture or two whenever we get the camera out.

A few days later was Cooper's 4th birthday. It was a little sad for him to turn 4. He's such a big kid that we would get really fun reactions when people would find out he was only 3. He's still big for 4, but it doesn't bring out quite the same response. Cooper is such a fun kid to be around. He's energetic and creative, but shy and reserved too.

He wanted to go to Scheels for his birthday, and Grandma and Grandpa joined us. We got ice cream there and Savannah was more than happy to have some.

Until it was gone. :)

For the 100th day of school Tyson had to dress like he was 100 years old.

 Cooper loves to build awesome train tracks!

I took Savannah and Cooper to the Children's Museum one day. Savannah hated the water table (which was no surprise since she's generally not a fan of being in water). Slowly she got used to it and ended up loving it.

Tyson and our neighbor Elle love to play together.

Alex and I got to go to a Jazz game with Becca and Jeff. We had awesome tickets, thanks to Jeff, and got to sit just a few rows up. It was a really fun night!

Cooper and Tyson got to go to a bunch of basketball practices with Alex. Cooper liked to join in. :)

I am admittedly a terrible snow mom, but I pulled on the boots one day and helped the kids make a snowman. And I didn't hate it. Maybe I'll try it again someday.

I didn't love my laundry room counters, so I decided to paint the cabinets and spray paint the countertops (thank you pinterest for that idea!). It actually worked!

Beautiful winter skies. We live in a pretty place!

Brynne played Jr. Jazz. She was pretty unsure about it but once she made it through her first game she loved it and even made a few baskets!

The rest of January was filled up with Skyridge basketball and the kids activities. We sure love having Alex nearby to coach. It's made it way easier to get to the games.

December 2016

December was as crazy as always. So many festivities, basketball games, school concerts and parties, family gatherings, and Christmas shopping. I got a little ambitious and created a calendar of service projects for our family to last every day of December until Christmas Eve. Turns out I didn't have the time or energy to do all of them in the midst of all the usual December activities. But we did do a bunch of them and had so much fun in the process.

Tyson played jr. jazz basketball with Alex as his coach. He had a couple friends on the team and really liked playing.

I was excited to take Savannah to meet Santa for the first time. She wasn't so sure about him, but she didn't scream so I'll take it.

I set up a little photo shoot for Savannah with a strand of Christmas lights. She was at the perfect age to enjoy the magic of the lights.

The elementary school kids had their Christmas Singalong, which is one of my favorite events of the Christmas season!

We went to Todd and Shellie Jensen's house one night and visited their neighbor's live nativity and then went back to the house for pizza. Shellie was so sweet to pick out a gift for each of the kids. We love the Jensens!

For one of our service projects we hosted a sock party open house. We had food and activities and asked everyone who came to donate new socks for the homeless shelter. We had a great turnout and lots of people brought socks for us! The only Saturday that we could do it happened to be my birthday, and it turns out that was the best way to spend the day.

Another service project we did was set up a free hot chocolate stand with the Gardners. We had so much fun chatting with people as they passed by and it was awesome to see how shocked people were that we were doing it just to be nice. It's an activity that I hope becomes an annual tradition.

Temple Square night! We do this every year anyway, but this year we added a service activity. We brought a bunch of scarves with notes attached to them and tied them to trees or light poles for people to take if they were cold. There are a lot of homeless people in that area, so we were hoping that they would be the ones to get the scarves.

Christmas Day! Savannah woke up before the other kids so Alex and I snuck her in to see her Santa present before the chaos of the other kids started.

Other fun December happenings...

 Alex and I went with a group of friends to see the Christmas special of Juanito Bandito. It was so funny and great to be with our friends.

Tyson got a build-it-yourself kit and I was proud to see the DIY skills coming alive. :)