Hey You. It's been a while.

I realize that my last decent post was in October. Wow, those holiday months really get away from me. A brief recap:

Thanksgiving: Was spent with the Palmers and Olsens. It was relaxed and good and also spent in sickness... those nasty colds!

Black Friday: Was spent in Bear Lake having a last photo shoot with the Wright family before my little brother left for his mission. The pictures turned out great even though my little family was so sick we wanted to die. For reals though.

Saturday after Black Friday: Was spent in the Preston area. It's tradition to go up the canyon and cut down our Christmas trees on that day. Fortunately for my lazy out of shape side, Leland is too small to hike up a mountain so we sent Daddy while we played in the snow with Tenley. Uncle Tyler made a snow slide and Leland though that was pretty great. After we got our trees we headed to the bed races down Main St. and then had lunch at Arctic Circle. We were thankfully feeling much better today.

First of December: Was full of Usborne booths for me.

Middle of December: Was full of lights, Christmas merriment, shopping, and you know, regular December type activities.

Christmas:

• Christmas Eve Eve: Went to the Olsen's for dinner, Santa, games, and gift exchange. Leland was too scared to sit on Santa's lap, so he made sure that Grandma Palmer was with him.
• Christmas Eve Morning: Breakfast with the Palmers and opening lots of presents.
• Christmas Eve: Drove to Bear Lake to meet the Wrights. We got our Christmas pajamas and watched Frozen while I did some assembly work for Santa
• Christmas Day: Had an absolute lovely day at the cabin in Bear Lake. We played games, ate food, laughed, exchanged presents, told stories. It was a grand sort of day. Christmas spent in a cabin is MAGICAL by the way!

New Years Eve: Was spent at the Palmers eating pizza, playing games, and watching the ball drop while throwing confetti and blowing horns. Not everyone made it to midnight but Leland and Tenley sure did! They were troopers!!

New Years Day: Was lazy. 

Beginning of January: All I could think about was how my little brother was leaving me for two years. It sucked. I spent five days at my parents house to soak up as much Zach time as I possibly could. The farewell went really well, he gave an amazing talk that made me bawl my eyes out. Dropping him off at the MTC was seriously SO MUCH HARDER than I thought it was going to be. My eyes ached from crying so much. Not fun! Not fun at all!!!!!!

Currently: Getting a letter from Brother was very exciting and he is doing very well! I took Leland to his first movie in the theater. We went and saw Penguins of Madagascar. He didn't make it though the whole thing but he lasted an hour, loved the big bucket of popcorn, and laughed out loud twice- I would call that a success! I had a booth in Malad today. I threw my SIL a wedding shower that I think turned out really good. I always get nervous for those kinds of things but I think it was a success. She is getting married in less than a week so I am sure this week will be full of preparations for the big day! I also have an Usborne conference in SLC this Saturday that I am really looking forward to!

Other: Leland started nursery and I am way happy about that. He has some separation anxiety but for the most part he does okay. I am suffering from the winter blues...grrrrr... I hate January. Is it over yet? We are talking about taking a REAL vacation this summer and we are having fun exploring our possibilities and deciding where to go. Thoughts? I am loving my calling as an activity leader... THE BEST CALLING EVER!!! I have also decided to join my wards book club and my first meeting is this Tuesday. I can't wait because I am in need of some SERIOUS girl time. When was the last time I did something with a friend??? Um.... (crickets chirping) ... oh that's right I can't remember cause it was so freaking long ago! Friends? Hello? Are you out there??? Girl time? Anyone? ... Anyone? (Damn those crickets!) haha... but not really. Call me. 

I applaud you if you made it to the end of this. Stay Awesome!

Cutting down the tree day

Christmas Eve Morning

Christmas Eve PJ's

I just love his Mickey slippers on him

Christmas Day

Cabin Magic

The Wright Gang

The Palmer Gang

Grandma and Grandpa

Siblings

MTC drop off

First Movie

World Travelers (just kidding)

For our third anniversary Justin and I went on a mini family vay-cay to Mesquite, Nevada. My grandparents were able to get us some free rooms at the Casablanca so that was really fun to stay at a nice hotel and swim in the seriously fabulous pool. My grandparents, who live in Beaver Dam, were kind enough to babysit Little Man for us and we went to the Little Mermaid at the Tuacahn. It was amazingly awesome, as all shows at the Tuacahn are! (Next year they are doing Beauty and the Beast! *gasp - Excitement!)We were only down there for three days, and it was kind of a long drive for Little Man, but we had a blast. I mean, how can you not in 90 degree weather am I right?! We spent two days at my parents house in Fruit Heights, one night before and one night after. And it is always fun for me to return to my roots (and my mom's cooking). Have you been to Station Park in Farmington? It is is FAB-U-LOUS guys! But like really. Better than City Creek and Gateway combined! And only two minutes away from Mom and Dad's house. I'm in LOVE!

The day after we got home we went to meet the boys in my family in Idaho at the annual Deer Camp, which is a BIG DEAL every year. Leland and I just went up for the day and it was fun to hang out with extended family members, sit around the campfire, have some good camping food, and be in some of God's most beautiful nature. Sadly I didn't even think about taking pictures there, I wish I would have. The only bummer part of this day trip was that Leland got his first bee, well wasp, sting. That sure can break a mama's heart! I hate when my baby is in pain and I can't do anything about it, it sucks hardcore!

This last weekend I spent in Bear Lake with Leland, my mom, and my older sister. We drove up Friday night and came home on Monday. It was a very relaxing sort of weekend eating junk food, watching movies, laying out in the sun, and playing on the beach. We saw deer on our property up there and that was pretty cool too. We couldn't have asked for better weather, I swear it was warmer than September and August!

So today I am home and it's back to the daily grind. Did I mention I got a part time job? Turns out we could really use a little extra doe so I found a job cleaning offices two nights a week. It is about 2 to 3 hours a night and you can go in whenever you want after six, so it seems like the perfect job for a stay at home mom like myself. So anyway, this week I work two nights, have two Usborne book parties scheduled, am in charge of my first activity days (church calling), and am working a booth for Usborne for a few hours- and there is talk about going to the Pumpkin Walk too- so wow. It's gonna be a freaking busy week I tell you what!

To end this post I would just like to tell you all how I am completely and hopelessly in love with the month of October, but if you follow me on Instagram you already know that with my endless hashtags of #octoberisthebestmonth. We are having the perfect weather, all of the trees in Cache Valley are full of yellows, oranges, and reds, my house is decorated from top to bottom in pumpkins, witches, ghosts, and skeletons, we've been drinking apple cider by the gallons (literally) and Halloween...(HALLOWEEN guys!) is just around the corner! HOORAY for OCTOBER! I just wish it wasn't going so fast. I think that in God's infinite wisdom, he knew how important of a month October would be, so that's why he gave us 31 days of it. Thank you God. Thank you for this beautiful month.

Our Summer in Review

I haven't blogged all summer long, and lots has been going on. We had a great summer! We had trips to Panguitch Lake, Fish Lake, and Bear Lake (obviously we are lake people). We had a great Independence Day and Pioneer Day with all of the usual patriotic goings on. We celebrated Leland's first birthday with a teddy bear picnic. I celebrated my 27'th birthday at the end of summer and Justin celebrated his 29'th birthday at the beginning of it. We took Leland to Willow Park Zoo for the first time and he absolutely loved it, he liked the foxes and the ducks the best. We had a successful garage sale and went to many of them all summer long, cause you know, that's our thing. We played with friends and family, had BBQ's, soaked up some sun, enjoyed fresh veggies from our garden, and just so many little adventures it's hard to keep track of them all. Summer was good to us.

I am in no way ready for it to be over, I don't feel like I quite got enough Bear Lake hours in (but then again I never do), but I do love fall. Fall means HALLOWEEN! Oh my goodness gracious I do love me some Halloween! And I love the changing leaves, our anniversary, General Conference, the pumpkin walk, corn mazes, and all that jazz. Yes, there is a lot to look forward to in the fall. So goodbye summer. See you next year my dearest of friends. Hello fall. And welcome.

Easter Day!

Leland got the flu on Thursday. Justin got it on Friday. And I got it on Saturday. I was kind of worried that Easter was going to be a bust this year, but it actually turned out to be a pretty good day. We woke up and found our baskets that the bunny had left us. That Easter Bunny sure does spoil us I tell you what! I let Leland chomp on his first chocolate bunny and he was in heaven- it was pretty much adorable. Grandma and  Grandpa Olsen had the entire family over for lunch and an Easter egg hunt and then we went to my in-laws and had a relaxing day snacking on candy and watching the movie HOP. For more pictures check out Facebook (I seriously took a million) but here is a small tid bit of our day. I hope you all had an amazing Easter! 

Long Weekend

We had a great four day weekend. On Friday we drove to Panguitch Lake to spend some time with the extended Wright family. My grandpa drew out on a turkey and it was my grandma's birthday. It was pretty chill- we played games, I read my book, we ate yummy food, and of course enjoyed the beautiful nature that was all around us. It was a super long drive with a baby, but I am glad we went- we had a lot of fun. It was a nice little get a-way. Just not long enough!

Monday night I was able to go to Les Miserables at the Hale theater with Justin, my siblings, and some of their friends. Oh. My. Gosh. It was AHHHH-mazing! The guy who plays Jean Val Jean was in my homeward growing up and seriously- he rocked it! One of the best I've ever seen actually (I've seen it live four times). I am in love, I mean in LOVE, with Les Miserables! I think I cried like five times last night. It just pulls at my heart strings and wow. In. Love.

As for other news, this week is national library week, so you should all go to your local libraries to see if there are any special programs going on. Yay books! At our library we have our regular story time going on, showing two movies, and have a special story time on Friday (which I'm in charge of... gasp). Our library is decorated with banners, balloons, and we are all wearing matchy matchy t-shirts so it's pretty exciting. Going to be a busy week, but boy do I love every single minute of it!!

I think that's all for now. Have a happy happy Easter!