Cozy Heads!

Grandma Goddard bought all of the kids one of these hats for an early Christmas present and I think my kids really like them. It doesn't get cold here for very long, but I think they're going to use them as long as they can. 

Josh took these pictures of Jaedyn and Jantzen with his phone. Jaedyn is such a cheesy little girl...

**Please ignore the background mess. I was in the middle of putting together the kids' Christmas tree.**      Jaedyn loves her hat so much that she has to have it on while she's watching TV, because it's freezing in the toy room you know...      These hats really do look cozy, so maybe I should get one for me.    

LOL!!

Jaedyn seriously makes us all LOL!!! She's the funniest little girl I've ever known. We took the kids to dinner last night and instead of using her crayons to color with, she used them as ear decorations...

   Jaron and Jantzen always made us laugh too, but Jaedyn's a lot sillier than they were. Every day she does something new that makes us all laugh and smile. Man, I love this little girl!!!

Potty Talking...

Before we left St. George to go back home we decided to stop at Sportsman's Warehouse to look around. We headed upstairs to where all the tents were and while we were there the kids decided to play around inside them. As we were leaving, we noticed that Jaedyn had disappeared. No worries, we quickly found her right here...

   She had found the "potty tent" and decided that she needed to go potty and talk on her Tinkerbell cell phone at the same time. She told us to "Go Away!" because she was busy talking. We all laughed so hard, it was hilarious!              I love how she was using hand gestures as she was "talking", she cracks me up!    **I think she got this idea from a certain someone in our house, and it's NOT me!**

Thanksgiving...2012

For Thanksgiving this year we headed up to St. George to spend the holiday with Josh's family. We were excited because there was going to be several family members from out of town coming that we don't see very often and the kids were excited to spend time with their cousins. Thanksgiving morning was spent sleeping in, preparing for dinner, and a lot of playing on the iPad and Kindles for the kids...

       Josh even snuck in a nap (snuggling with Jaedyn's blanket) before dinner was ready...      Jaedyn had to sample some graham cracker sticks before dinner...       Then, her and Addison spent some time playing in the backyard. They were having so much fun!   **They had to have matching hair styles...it was cute!**          There was still time to play before dinner was ready, so Chad took the kids on a hike up this mountain. It's across the street from grandma's house and the kids hike up it every time we're there. Can you see them on the very top?       Now can you see them??       Can you see them now???       You better be able to see them now!       They all had a blast hiking this mountain.    Josh woke up from his nap just in time to make the mashed potatoes, something he's really good at. My kids don't like the way I make mashed potatoes. Josh also got to carve/taste test the turkey. I think Carson was trying to sneak in a taste of turkey too...      Jaedyn was loving playing around with cousin Amanda. She made Amanda hold her this way a lot...      Here's Jaedyn with her cousin Caleb. They are the only cousins that are the same age. I think they look a lot alike too...      It finally was time to feed these crazy monkeys their Thanksgiving dinner. We had them eat outside because, 1. the weather was perfect, and 2. they're really noisy!      After dinner I did some snuggling with my favorite little girl...      ...and my favorite guy...      Later on I went with Megan to attempt some "Black Thursday" night shopping. It didn't go as well as I was hoping. Everything I wanted was gone very quickly, but that's okay. While I was gone, Josh took a picture of the kids playing on the trampoline. Yeah, it's not very clear, but I can tell who's who...can you?      Jaedyn was already in her pj's, but she wanted to go outside and play with the big kids, so she put her own shoes on...I thought it was adorable. I see a new fashion craze coming!      Before bedtime Jantzen and grandpa Goddard played a little catch. Can you see where the ball is headed? If you can't, I'll tell you. It's headed right for grandpa's face...both times!           It was a little crazy having this many people in one house for Thanksgiving, but it was also fun. We got to have some fun conversations and a lot of laughs together. I'm so thankful for my family and for all the fun times we get to spend together. HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Cousins + Ice Cream = Fun!!

We headed up to St. George today to spend Thanksgiving with Josh's family. When we got there we all decided to go visit grandma Goddard while she was working at Tai-Pan. When we were leaving the store all the girls wanted to come with Josh and I and our boys wanted to go with their grandpa Goddard. Since we only had the girls with us, we decided to take them to Nielsen's Frozen Custard to get some yummy ice cream...they were really excited!

 All three of them had vanilla ice cream, but the best part for them was just being together. Jaedyn was having so much fun with her cousins (Addison and Raeley)...

               They were all being so giggly and cute, it really was fun to watch. Jaedyn doesn't have any sisters, so she really enjoys getting together with her girl cousins.

"Color Me Rad"...2012

My friends talked me into signing up for the "Color Me Rad 5k" this year. I'm not a big runner because I have a bad knee, but I thought it might be fun, so I did it. I tried to get my boys to do it with me, but they were being chickens. Some of us girls got together on Thursday night to make our tutu's that we were going to wear while we ran...Natalie is the goofball in the bunch...

   I was able to score a free slot for a child, but I still couldn't convince either one of my boys to join me, so I invited my super cute niece Sadie. She was so excited to run with us. Yesterday morning we got up bright and early (we had a 9:30am start time) and got dressed in our tutu's and headed over to the speedway.    We got some group pictures of us girls and the kids before we headed to the starting line...          Then, we met up with the rest of the group for an over sized group picture. That's a lot of white tutu's!      We got our "RAD" tattoo's put on...      ...took our potty breaks, then headed to the starting line to wait for our signal to start running.    There were a few people throwing around some color packets before the run started, so Sadie and I got a little dirty before we began. It was all good though, she was loving it.      Our signal went off and so did we! My knee was actually doing better than I thought it would and the running wasn't too bad.    I mostly stayed with my friends that had their kids with them. My friend Mary ended up giving her son a "piggy back ride" for most of the run and I gave Jessica's son (pictured below on the far right) one for a big chunk of the run since she's pregnant. Luckily I had some friends ahead of us that Sadie stayed with because I couldn't really run with a kid on my back. It was a good workout though.      Along the way I noticed my arm had an awesome color design going on...      I made it to the finish line without my knee giving me too many problems...yay!!      So, I did a little celebrating...      Then, we all did some celebrating...          Sadie loved the end because she got very colorful...       What a colorful bunch we are!       I didn't get a lot of color on my face, but my hands looked like I was part smurf...      This is how we rode home...we didn't want to ruin any one's car interior with our colorfulness. It was a fun, bumpy, windy ride home!      I had a lot more fun doing this 5K than I thought I would. When I got home, Sadie and I told Josh and the kids all about it and then Jaron and Jantzen said they wished they would've gone with us. Josh said next time we'll do it as a family...that will be fun, I can't wait!

"Breaking Dawn" Girls Night

Last night I went to an advanced screening of "Breaking Dawn Part 2" with my girls. 

   We were all so excited to see the final installment of the Twilight movies and to have a night away from our "mommy/wife" duties. We had dinner at Olive Garden before the movie and it was yummy.  Josh isn't a fan of that place, so that's where I go when I'm with my friends.  When we got there, the theater was packed, so we had to sit in the seats up front...they weren't too bad though.       I have mixed emotions about this movie, so here's my review of it:     I liked it, but I didn't. I thought there were a few too many cheesy parts in it that they could have made not so cheesy. There were funny parts and then there were some parts that could have been left out of the movie altogether. Let's just say that they were a little too much for younger audience members to be watching and they lasted a little too long. It's been about 4 years since I read all of the Twilight books, but there were some things that happened towards the end of the movie that I don't remember happening in the book and they upset me and some of my friends, but then it was all better.   I am a big fan of the Twilight books, so even though it wasn't my favorite movie out of them all, I'll still buy it when it comes out on DVD.  Sometimes a girl needs "cheesy" stuff in her life!   Overall, it was a fun night out with my friends. These girls really are a lot of fun to hang out with. I really look forward to getting out and not having to listen to kids yelling and screaming. I'm lucky to have a hubby that's totally cool with me having lots of girls nights.

"Donuts with Dad"

This morning was the annual "Donuts with Dad" at Jantzen's school. It's a PTO sponsored activity for the students, so that meant that I had to be there to help set up and run things, plus Josh works early in the morning so I'm the one that takes my kids. This year school starts at 7:25am, so I had to drag my kids out of bed earlier than normal and get them to the school by 6:30am. Being at the school early didn't seem to bother my kids because they got to have donuts and chocolate milk for breakfast...they don't get that at home.

Here's my Jantzen enjoying a yummy chocolate donut with his friend Jansen... 

   ...and with his big brother Jaron who no longer attends this school, but still gets to enjoy all the fun activities there...       And, here's the little princess, still in her jammies, enjoying a donut with her friend Emmy. I had to wake her up to get to the school, so I didn't have time to get her dressed or do her hair, hence the hat. She still looks cute though.       As always, the kids really enjoyed their donuts. I just hope they don't think they get to have a breakfast like this more often. I think once a year is enough.