Welcome to our World

What a treat it was to see every single member of my husband’s family for Christmas!  I am so grateful that all of my spouse’s siblings are people I want to be around and they all married great people too.  I love the fact we got a picture of all 24 grandchildren with their grandparents.  This is a picture from a phone and I can’t wait to see the ones Jordan took with his fancy camera.  And, I must brag, after 10 years of being married I can tell you I finally got someone a good draw name present.  Thanks for crying, Mark.  We love you guys! Before all that excitement, we were able to see Dan’s grandmother and many of his aunts, uncles, cousins, and their children at a church held Christmas party.  It was so strange to see people I haven’t seen for years.  It was hard to talk because although we are all pretty heavy on the social media so I kind of know what is going on in their lives, I don’t have conversations with them!  I deci...

This year brought us travel, settling into our new house more, and some surprises to make sure we didn’t get bored.   Vacations Our biggest trip was to Walt Disney World and was Natalie’s first time doing anything Disney and we all had a wonderful time.  I cannot say enough about staying at a value WDW resort vs. staying in an off sight hotel.  It must have been the easiest trip we’ve ever taken with the children.  We are already looking forward to when we can visit another Disney resort in 2016. Another adventure we had was renting a pop up camping trailer for the first time and camping our way to Utah for a big family reunion.  We had a blast being around extended family and meeting people we’ve never met before.  We even found a cousin of Dan’s who was married in the same place as us the same year and adopted a baby the same year we did and have children similar in age to our.  I think two of our boys even had the same sneakers.  I m...

The ward Christmas party had the same plans as last year, but this year was one to be remembered.  Toward the end of the program, someone tripped on the show shovels by one of the entrance’s double doors.  When the shovels fell they knocked the fire alarm box off the wall, causing the alarm to go off.  Good thing it wasn’t a really fire because no one reacted the way you do in school fire drills.  lol.  Even though Brother R, a local firefighter, was at the party, he couldn’t get the alarm to turn off.  The fire trucks left the city parade to come rescue us.  The kids got to have a good look at the truck’s lights and hear the sirens, and then we left for home.  After all my years of going to church every week and attending decades of ward activities, this was still a new experience for me and might have been my favorite part. Hubby and I got to go on a date to eat sushi and watch Mockingjay Part 1 together.  We couldn’t remember going on...

We doubled our contributions to the school's biggest fundraiser of the year.  D was amazing -- I kept asking him if he wanted to take a break for a drink of water and he just keep on running, even with a bright red face that made his momma feel protective but proud.  When K ran it was much more crowded, which I think influenced her lack of desire to push herself.  She still ran two more laps than her brother, though, which is all that mattered to her.  (Last year she ran 17 laps & this year 15.)  It was great to have my dad and M & N along to watch them run.  After we watched D, we went to the park, where the wind started to blow & the children decided it was best to hide in the tunnel for a while.  When K got home she relaxed by drawing beautiful pictures of things like mermen & mermaids.  The PTO didn't make their goal, but made enough to make a big difference in the classrooms.  Snow!  November brought u...

The week of parties was kicked off by our ward's chili cook off and trunk or treat.  I promised the children I would buy the costumes they wanted for school & trick or treating if they wore things I picked out for the church party.  So off to Neverland we went!  You would never believe how much our 18 month old loved her pirate costume.  The hat, the sword, the ghost goody bag.  Pretty amazing that I only paid $4 for it at a consignment sale.  M, N, K's and mine all were purchased used.  Danny already had is from back when Peter Pan was his favorite movie.  So I only had to run to Party City the night before and buy Dan a costume.  I liked teasing him that his cost as much as all the others put together.  Our neighbor, Mike, took this picture for us.  It's gotten over 160 likes on Facebook.  Wowzers. Our neighbor had a birthday party and the culminating event after the party cake was bringing out the toilet paper and ma...

 One Monday I realized the weather was beautiful and our calendar was crowded so I made the difficult decision to go to the pumpkin patch before K was home from school.  We missed her but since her days are so long in first grade now, she just likes to be at home as much as possible in the afternoons.  She didn't mind one bit.  My oldest sure is getting older!  Our chalk drawing pumpkin patch and N looking like a pumpkin with all the rocks she decided to put down her onsie while we were drawing.  lol.  M studied the letter P in her at home preschool and N loved joining in.  I love how she is excited to see Tigger in this picture.  Add her fondness of Tigger to the list of a thousand reasons "why I'm a girl clone of my big brother."  (: Our neighbors had the wonderful idea to carve pumpkins together on a warm Saturday morning.  I was super grateful because my hubby had to work overtime that week and our nei...