Easter

Fun Day! Unfortunately our entire family had the stomach flu the day before so we didn't get to fully enjoy the day and no one got to wear their new Easter clothes. :( But we still had a fun time with Robert's family.

Daddy Week

Every year at the end of March, Robert is basically forced to take 5 consecutive days off work. This year we wanted to go somewhere. But we only wanted to go for a day or two and not spend a ton of money. So we decided Vernal!

 

We left on Sunday morning. As we were at the stop light in front of the hotel, our car died. Luckily we were able to start it again and get it into the parking lot. Our friends Lars and Kate recently moved to Vernal so we called them to see where the nearest car repair place was. Lars is pretty much Mr. Fix-it and can fix anything. He came over and instantly knew the problem. There was an auto parts store across the parking lot so they went to get the part and we all headed to their house so the men could fix it. Lars and Kate were so kind to feed us dinner and entertain us for ya know, like 5 or 6 hours! We had planned to go to their house that night for dinner anyway but we certainly didn't anticipate taking up their Sunday with car repairs. We're so grateful for awesome friends! Anyway, they were able to fix it, saving us hundreds of dollars in the process, and we were back to our little getaway.  

 

 

The kids were rockstars and everyone slept without a peep. Here they are watching cartoons at the hotel.

 The next morning we went to the dinosaur museum. It has an official name but I can't remember. The kids loved it and it was fun. Except for Carly screaming through the 10 minute movie they show.

Chase likes to pretend he's a dinosaur.

Virtually impossible to get a picture with all three of them looking.

Cute little t-rexes!

I think their favorite thing were the goldfish in the pond outside. Go figure.

Bright sun.

Lots of time in the car

Vernal Temple

Robert thought the location of the temple's mailbox was a little odd.

After the museum we started to drive home. There was apparently a gigantic car accident and the on and off ramps were closed at the mouth of Parley's Canyon. So we thought hey, let's stop at the zoo!

We have multiple family photos next to the rhino and I think I'm pregnant in just about every one.

Chase has developed a recent love of snakes. I dislike this very much.

Emily loved the baby whatever that is. Lion?

We did other fun stuff on Tuesday and Wednesday but obviously didn't take any pictures of it. :) Thursday morning Emily had an Easter egg hunt and party at Wheeler Farm for preschool. The night before Carly started throwing up so Robert took Chase and Emily.

The next day the rest of us started throwing up. So that was the end of Daddy Week!

Better Late Than Never?

I figured I should probably post some Christmas pictures before it's Christmas again....

This Christmas season was...different? I still haven't been able to figure out why but it just felt different. When I look back we didn't really do much. Robert worked a TON, including Sundays, and went weeks without a day off (which is probably why we didn't do much). I was done Christmas shopping by the end of November so we didn't have much stress at all. It was really nice.

We started the Elf on the Shelf this year. Probably the highlight of the Christmas season for all of us. The kids named him Elfie (super creative kids we have) and boy do they love him. Just this morning Emily asked if he could come back for a visit.  We introduced him with a big breakfast on November 30th which is also when we gave the kids their ornaments for the year. Emily got her first dance ornament, Chase got Lightning McQueen, and Carly got an Elmo ornament.

 After our breakfast we went to Gardner Village to see the creepy elves. It was FREEZING cold and windy so it kind of put a damper on the fun but we had lunch there and also saw David Osmond. Haha! Notice my mailman husband in shorts.

 Totally unrelated to Christmas but here's Carly's first full pigtails. :)

Every year we go to Festival of Trees. Chase loved this Cars tree so much he wouldn't even turn around to take a picture with it.

 Nativity play. Chase was the shepherd, Emily was Mary, and Carly was the angel.

 Emily took her part very seriously.

 Joseph wasn't feeling it! Luke was actually really sick and a trooper for even getting dressed up and participating. The whole thing was really cute.

One of our goals this year was to try and do some service with our kids. Try and teach them to appreciate what they have. Not sure if it worked but we enjoyed it. Emily's preschool class collected spare change to buy food for needy families. Her preschool collected over $300 and Emily had just over $50. I was proud of how excited she got when someone would put change in her jar. Here's Elfie putting a penny in her can. :)

 

We also donated two garbage bags full of stuffed animals to children who have been victims of abuse or crime. I was surprised to see how willing the kids were to donate some of their own animals. Even ones they loved. It was fun to take them with me to drop them off and see how excited the kids were to help me carry them and add them to the pile. I was proud of them. We also did a few other things anonymously for families in our area. 

Sunday before Christmas we got together with Robert's family. It was a lot of fun. We had an awesome ham dinner, played the candy bar game, gotta have a spiritual message, opened presents, had a dance party, kids fashion show in their new pjs, and all around craziness. His parents always give the kids pajamas and then we take a picture all together. The picture always turns out the same. Kids laughing and looking all over the place. Sadly this is the only picture we took all night!

On Christmas Eve the kids woke up to find a goodbye letter from Elfie and some north pole treats. Emily cried. She was so sad that Elfie had to go back to the North Pole. It was the sweetest thing ever. She would talk to him everyday and she was genuinely going to miss him. :( I wasn't going to miss hiding him every night but I was definitely going to miss how excited the kids got every morning. Finding Elfie was priority number 1 every morning. It was fun.

 Sugar cookies for Santa.

 Chase had been talking for months about how Santa was going to bring him a McQueen bike. Thankfully Santa got the memo.

 Opening presents....

 Playing with all his new cars....

Her fantasy. She got a wedding dress up set from my dad and stepmom. Pure heaven to a 5 year old wedding obsessed girl.

 My sister-in-law gave us this little Wolverine for our new baby Logan coming in May. Because ya know, Wolverine's name is Logan. :) So cute! 

 Well, that's probably enough. I was terrible at picture taking and we really didn't do much but we had a wonderful Christmas season with our family. Hope everyone else did too!

Our new addition

It has come time to venture into the realm of bunk beds.So far, no injuries!