President's Day Weekend of Fun

Wow, I can not even express how fun our weekend was.  I was blessed to have my kids and we made the most of it.  How else would you describe a weekend with pajama parties, movies, popcorn, playing with the cousins, birthday party, going to the parks, and even church was a little fun.

But before I go into the weekend, I will address last week's events.  The kid's activities keep us busy on Tuesday and Thursday.  Aspen is still loving gymnastics and Colt is getting better at karate.  He will even come home and share a couple of things that he has learned.  Last Wednesday, the kids and I were able to spend a little time with Issy while Justyn and Rachel went out for an early celebration of Valentine's Day.  Issy helped Aspen get the candy ready for all of her valentines for school.  Then Grandma had asked us to frost the heart shaped cookies for her to give to people.  Word of advice, never leave a 5 year old and a 7 year old with a knife and frosting to frost cookies.  We had quite the mess to clean up and quite a few cookies with extra extra frosting.  But the girls had fun playing together.  I think Issy finally let Colt play on her ipad so he was content sitting in the recliner.  After I got the kids to bed, I got to work on their Valentine's presents.  I had decided to heart attack their room.  So once I got permission from my mom to put tape on their door, I spent the next hour taping hearts to their room door.  I think that the kids loved it.  But unfortunately I wasn't there when they woke up.  I did call them and had them open one of their presents that morning.  It was their own copy of the blog book from last year.  Since I consider this their journal, I like to print it out for each of them.

When I got home, I let them open their other present.  It was a Broncos piggy bank.  We then transferred all of their money from their individual banks into this one big piggy bank.  I thought that they would enjoy transferring the money over.  They did good for the first little bit but then money started flying and I had to help.  Aspen told me that I had gotten some purple flowers from Grandpa.  And when Grandpa woke up, he said that the roses were from him and my kids.  So I gave them each a hug for thinking about me.  Side note:  My mom told me that when my dad came in with the flowers, yes he got some for my mom, Aspen asked who the flowers were for.  He said "Your mom".  To which she replied "I want someone to give me purple flowers".  My mom said it was really cute.  I had also gotten a gift left for me that morning with some perfume and a hand sanitizer carrier.  Thank you to my parents for providing me with a reason for liking Valentine's Day this year.

My Aunt Terri had invited me to dinner that night.  We had quite a gathering there at Mongolian BBQ.  My grandparents, my parents, Terri, Tom, Hollee, Jonah, my kids and I were all there.  It was a great way to spend the evening.  My Uncle Tom also gave me a valentine :)  A great big kiss!!!!!  Ok, it was a hershey kiss so no it wasn't gross.  We went over to Darcee's for a little bit after dinner.  Rachel and Issy were there so we had a good time talking.

On Friday, I had invited Terri and Tom over for a party.  When my dad woke up, he told me that he had just gotten called off of work and was excited for the party that night.  He told me to invite my Darcee and her family.  Well the night didn't go as planned.  There was a lady in the ward that needed to get moved out of her house that night, so everyone but Terri, Tom, Darcee and I went to go pack her up.  The rest of us tackled the kids for the rest of the night.  We played a little Disney Scene It, made cheese popcorn, and the kids watched a movie while the adults talked.

Saturday, the kids and I headed over to the gym before heading over to Darcee's house.  Hollee was doing a DoTerra essential oils party so the kids got to play with their cousins.  Then we headed over to a park to celebrate Jayden's birthday.  After the party, Darcee and I headed out to look at a couple of houses for the Parade of Homes.  While we looked at the houses, the kids headed to a different park to play.  After all of that, the kids and I headed home to relax.

Sunday brought church and more relaxation.  I did go look at some houses with Darcee but once I got home from that, I didn't do much.  My mom's college roommate stopped by and we chatted with her for a little bit.  The kids had fun playing outside, watching a movie and playing video games.

Monday was another fun filled day.  The kids and I started it off by going to Denny's for breakfast.  Aspen had received a free kids meal for doing her reading.  I was surprised that both kids ate all of their food.  After Denny's we headed to the gym because I knew I would need a good workout after the activities we would be doing.  After the gym, we headed over to the Dixie rock.  Aspen had been begging me to go climb on the Dixie rock for a good two weeks and I was finally able to take her.  Both kids had a lot of fun.  Aspen would run around the rock singing "Everyone likes me because I am beautiful".  I was just laughing.  Then the kids wanted to climb up on the high rocks.  I told them they would have to ask Uncle Justyn or Uncle Jay because I was not going to take them up there.

After they had their fill of climbing around on the rocks, we headed over to Del Taco to grab a quick bite before the movie.  We ran into Grandma and Grandpa just as we finished up our tacos.  So it was fun for the kids to tell them what we had been doing.  After lunch, we went to see the movie "Rise of the Guardians".  It was a great movie and the kids watched it intensely.  Aspen did not like the black guy, aka The Bogey Man.  But Colt loved Jack Frost.  Colt ate like half of the bucket of popcorn even though it was Aspen who asked for it.

After the movies, we took a quick trip to Wal-Mart because I needed socks.  But I found a very handsome Sunday outfit for Colt that I just had to get.  Well I asked him first if he wanted new church clothes and he said no.  Then after we moved on he started saying, "I want new church clothes".  So we went back and took a closer look at the sizes.  Well the only outfit that was size 4 had a purple shirt and tie.  When I told Colt that would be his new church outfit, he said "Um I think that is a girl's outfit".  I finally convinced him that it was a boy's outfit and that boys can wear purple.

After Wal-Mart, we made one last stop before heading back home.  That was at Carl's Jr to get an ice cream sandwich.  Yes I spoiled my kids today.  It doesn't happen very often but the kids took full advantage of it.

Once we got home we relaxed for a little bit before heading out one more time for our Monday night gathering with Great Grandma and Grandpa at McDonald's.  It was great to see them.   So all in all we have had a great couple of days.  It has been so nice to spend more time with my family since I have moved and the kids just love spending time with their cousins.  They ask me all the time if they can hang out with the cousins.  I love that I get to see my kids and spend time with them.  I am truly blessed to have them in my life.

I will be adding pictures when I get back home :)

 On top of the Dixie Rock

 The many faces of Aspen

 Trying to get Colt to touch his nose with his tongue

 My kids love to wrestle with Grandpa.

Family is what it is all about

This past week has been crazy busy.  Monday night at McDonald's we spent time with Great Grandma and Grandpa Chris cherishing every moment.  They were handling the loss of their daughter really well.  We were still in a state of shock over her sudden departure from this earth.  Tuesday my dad and Jay came back up to my house to finish the last move to storage and move my piano.  I don't know what I would have done without those two.  Sad thing is that they will be doing it again here soon.  I signed the closing papers on Tuesday afternoon, Doug signed them on Wednesday morning.  I went and did one last run through the house to make sure that everything was taken care of and said good bye to it.  It was bitter sweet because there were quite a few happy memories in that house.  Thursday afternoon my parents and I left for Bountiful to attend my aunt's viewing.  It was so nice.  We saw some family members that we hadn't seen in 10+ years.  Hard when it is a funeral that had to bring us all together but enjoyed it.

The funeral on Friday was beautiful.  Stephanie gave a beautiful life sketch of my Aunt Carol.  My Aunt Lynda, my dad and Aunt Terri all spoke trying to clear their names on every other siblings memory of their little sister.  My Uncle Bob sang "How Great Thou Art".  It was absolutely beautiful and I think my aunt was pleased.  Carol was also watching out for us because it didn't start snowing until after we went to the grave site.

After the luncheon, my parents and I headed out to Tooele to visit Bob and Marilyn.  It was great catching up with them and hearing about all the fun things going on in their family.  After Tooele, we headed back into Salt Lake to go visit my mom's Aunt Carol.  This great lady is 86 years old and still as feisty as ever.  She still lives on her own and can move around.  I loved hearing about all of the treasures she had in her house.  I learned a few things about my Grandma.  It was great talking with her.  After Carol's we headed down to Spanish Fork for the night at Hollee's.  Her and Jonah have bought a cute little house and besides the dogs, I love going to visit.  Although I was a little disappointed that she didn't have the picture frame hanging up that I gave her for Christmas.

On Saturday, my parents, Hollee and I headed back up to Salt Lake to go shopping and to visit Keith and Leslie.  The visit with Keith and Leslie was great.  Leslie introduced us to pretzel rolls and chicken salad.  Yummy :)  And I got to go to a real mall :)  After shopping we headed back down towards Hollee's but not before stopping by the T-Bone for dinner.  That place is yummy too.  I am definitely going to have to get back into the gym.

Sunday we went to church with Hollee.  My mom and I helped her with her primary class due to Jonah being on call for work.  Good thing we were there to because nothing that Hollee had planned went right.  She had found some videos online and they couldn't be pulled up on the church's internet.  I found her a different video that worked out.  Then the lesson didn't take as long as she had thought so I found an interactive puzzle that the kids enjoyed doing.

All in all, it was a great weekend with lots of family time.  The only thing that would have made it better would have been if my kids were there.  But it sounds like they had a fun time with their dad.  Aspen told me that they went for a ride and she saw lots and lots of deer.  She saw a baby deer and a daddy deer with the horns and a mommy deer with no horns.  And apparently Colt had some trouble getting out of the car and smashed his head with the door.  But that is expected of him anymore.

I hope that now life can start to settle down but I know it won't.  So until the next big adventure.

Oh what a week

The week started off to be a normal week except for the lack of sleep on my part.  I didn't sleep well on Sunday night so I was struggling at work on Monday.  We went to McDonald's on Monday night with Grandma, Grandpa, Great Grandpa and Grandma.  My Aunt Carol had come back down again due to the pollution up in Salt Lake.  Tuesday was busier than ever.  It started in the wee hours of the morning when Aspen woke me up to tell me that she had spit up.  So I got up and luckily she had thrown up on the tile and it wasn't much.  I got it cleaned up and got her dressed and back to bed.  Ten minutes later she came back in and said she spit up in bed.  This time she had it in her hair and all over her face.  I got my mom out of bed to give Aspen a bath while I changed the sheets on the bed and got a load of laundry going.  I ended up rocking with Aspen until my alarm clock went off but never got back to sleep.  My dad was able to stay home and watch the kids.  She didn't have any problems throughout the day so my guess is that it was an upset stomach.  It was a rough day for me having two nights of little sleep.  I had a training after school and then met my mom at Aspen's gymnastics.  Then Colt had karate.  We ended up meeting my parents at Del Taco for dinner.

I did get an offer on my house and have been waiting for everything to get approved and get the ok to start moving my stuff out.  Well on Thursday night we got all the approvals that we needed and the buyer wants to close on the house next week.  Agh I have to move out asap.  Friday night I had made arrangements to have the kids and I sleep over at Darcee's house.  Justyn and Rachel brought their kids over and we had a small little party.  But we decided that I should probably move the next day and get my stuff into a storage unit up in Cedar.

So Saturday we spent the ENTIRE day up in Cedar.  Well the adults did, the kids played at Darcee's house all day.  Darcee, Jay, and my mom were up there helping me pack boxes because I had absolutely nothing packed.  I was able to get Mark Wilcock to come help Jay move the big stuff out of the house and then Wendy Godfrey helped us pack up boxes.  My dad made it up a little later in the afternoon.  It was a long day of packing.  I didn't get back home until 10:30 that night.  Colt fell asleep less than a minute into the car ride and Aspen took a little nap after we filled up the gas tank.

Our church is now at 9am.  We have yet to make it to church when they start the meeting.  We are usually there before the opening song but still not on time.  But we got some bad news shortly after sacrament meeting started.  My Aunt Carol had passed away that morning.  It is a huge shock to all of us.  I am glad that I was able to see her the past couple of weeks.  My heart goes out to her husband and three daughters.  But now we know that deciding to move me yesterday was a blessing in disguise because we will most likely be up north this up coming weekend.

After learning the news of my aunt, I have reflected a lot on just how precious our life is and that it can come to a quick sudden end.  I just hope that I can continue to live my life the way that I need to in order to be prepared for anything.