Houseboat maintenance and Goblin Valley

Every March a crew from the "Getaway" houseboat timeshare head to Lake Powell to do maintenance on the houseboat. BS and the boys spent the weekend working with Grandmpa Jim.

But all work didn't mean no play...

They spent the next day in Goblin Valley hiking and exploring around.  They loved it!

Love my boys

One year older and wiser too!

We just love this guy so much. 10 years ago a brilliant little man was born. 

He has always been an old soul in a little boy's body. 

Grandma Judy likes to call him Benjamin Button, and it seems that "Wilbur" fits him too :)

What ten year old boy is more interested in getting a credit card than having a birthday party or getting presents?  Who else notices and wants a green suit jacket than an old man is wearing at church? A jacket that looks like the ones from the Masters golf tournament. Who else clips coupons and saves his money to buy a king mattress for himself?  And who else saves a root beer glass bottle so he can refill it with other various drinks using a funnel just so he can drink out of a glass bottle over and over? 

 Nobody but our cute little Will, that's who!

We love his inquiring mind, his quirky ways, his adorable smile, his good manners, and his kind heart.

Happy birthday baby boy! 

He requested a Reece's Peanut Butter Cup cake:

Tearing into his present...

And he scores! A tablet and a $100 Visa card!

And just for fun we threw in the "Frozen" movie. We love that show!

That night Sambo posted this on his Instagram. It made my heart so happy. 

A Great Green Day

St. Patrick's Day came and went so quickly that we almost missed it!

This year the holiday entailed green waffles and green milk for breakfast; 

and green rice, jello, peas, punch for dinner. I kept the pork chops normal color ;)

Let's not forget the green nails:

And green Swig sugar cookies! Yum.

Heidi sent me a picture text of these cute little leprecauns. 

These shirts look familiar - we made these a few years ago and passed them down :

Dance Comps!

2014 was such a great dance year!  How fun to have both my daughters dancing together at the same studio! Quincy is so luscious in her dance clothes and costumes and just marches right on stage with confidence and sass!  

Millie, as usual danced her heart out and it paid off...

Her dance company (Firelights) won the best award possible AND....

SHE MADE THE TIMBERLINE DANCE COMPANY!

Seems like just yesterday she was performing at her first dance recital:

Qute Quinny turns 7!

 Quincy Lu had a birthday and I can hardly stand that she is another year older! 

I really wish I could freeze time for at least five more years!

For her birthday, she wanted to go to the new Living Planet Aquarium which was due to open in February, but they had some delays so it didn't happen.  I promised her I will take her friends when they open up.  So her second choice was to go to Airborne which is a huge gym O'fun!

We went as a family and had a terrific time!  It was really great having just us! I love our cute family!

For her birthday she wanted yet another stuffed animal.  I was at Costco and saw this and knew it would be perfect: big, soft, cute, and a bunny - which is pefect because her nickname is "Bunny."

She LOVES it and calls it Fluffy.

For her cake, she wanted Red Velvet and nobody does that flavor better than Nothing Bundt Cakes. 

We threw in a number "7" sparkler which really topped it off!  

Fun day with a super fun girl!  We love you Quincess!

DONUT you want to be my Valentine?

Enjoying a Dizzie Izzie at Dear Lizzie

I'm pretty sure I dig Valentine's Day more than most.  Every year I find myself getting excited to find ideas and make cute valentines with & for the kids.  This year did not disappoint and we had a fabulous heart day!  Millie didn't have a "special" Valentine at the moment, but both of boys did! Sambo even gave a stuffed animal, a flower, and some chocolate to his.  Her name rhymes with Madison :)

Will had his eye on somebody and was planning to ask her to be his Valentine, but a different girl beat him and asked him to be her Valentine first.  Of course he couldn't say no!  As a 4th grader he wasn't quite ready to give her a gift but he did give her an extra donut.  

This was the first year that Millie didn't put together and hand out Valentines, so we only had 3 kid's classes. They unanimously voted on donuts.  Lucky for me Krispy Kreme makes really cute and scrumptious donuts for Valentines day. And lucky for the kids, assembling the valentines only required folding boxes, throwing in a donut, and slapping on a sticker!

The boys have sleepy eyes because they are putting theirs together at 6:30 a.m. They procrastinated.

But there was still enough time for pink pancakes

And here they are looking adorable and ready for Cupid to strike:

I gave them these cute mugs filled with goodies along with their favorite hot cocoa:

And of course BS and I went out on a date. We love Tepanyaki and going to the movies. It was hot in more ways than one ;)  Yep, still madly in LOVE!

BS and I gave ourselves one of these packages that came straight from heaven - a mix of homemade chocolate dipped strawberries, oreos, cinnamon bears, pretzels, and marshmallows.  The Young Women in our ward {mosly us leaders} made these and sold them for a fund raiser. It was super successful and we will probably do this every year! So Good!

2014 Winter Olympics at Island Park

 What better way to watch the Winter Olympics than to snuggle up by a cozy fire in a cozy cabin in beautiful Island Park with people you love?!

We went the week before Valentine's Day and we enjoyed every minute. We left later in the evening so the kids slept most of the way and when we arrived at midnight, it was -34 degrees!  Brrr!

For the next 5 days we watched did lot of snowmobiling, a lot of olympic watching, a lot of playing in the snow, a lot of relaxing, and a lot of eating delicious food like homemade corn dogs :)

A few high lights:

-Millie and Sambo are official pros at driving their own snowmobiles and they did a great job keeping    up with the bunch! Will did some driving too, in fact he and Sambo traded off.

 -The kids {with the help of BS} dug/built an enormous awesome snow cave.

- We snowmobiled to West Yellowstone and celebrated the Jan/Feb birthdays at a party at Wild West.

- Watching the skiing, figure skating, and snowboarding Olympic events in our jammies!

1.Snow fort  2.Quinny & Grandpa  3.Lots of snow&blue skies!  4.The gang

 1.Chilly!  2.The trail to Yellowstone  3.Will  4.Millie & Alix  5.Quin & Bode 

 1. Grandma & Grandpa  2.Holly & Heidi  3.Sleeping Quin & BS  4.Sam & Holly

5.Mills & Grandma  6.Sambo & Millie

 1.Inside the fort  2.Wild West Pizza party  3.Chops {LOVES going}  4.Big Springs bridge

Some indoor fun:

Making donuts and corn dogs!  

Opening Valentines from Grandma

Boy to Man

My cute little guy is quickly growing into a handsome young man!

He recently hit some exciting milestones that go along with growing up -

Going to the Temple:

Becoming a Deacon:

Getting braces:

And advancing to be an official Boy Scout!

We love you Sam...stop growing so quick!

Ski Bus

In our cute little town we have awesome moms that coordinate a ski bus for the kids. It picks them up every Saturday at 7:45, takes them to a ski resort {this year it was Park City}, then brings them home at 5:00. It is fabulous!  Millie and Sambo LOVED skiing with their friends every week and I'm sure they thought being on their own was pretty cool. Despite my begging them to take pictures, they only took a couple. Oh well, I'm just glad they are loving to ski!  Sambo even chose not to play basketball this year so he could go skiing. He couldn't do both because the games are on Saturdays.

Skye and Millie

Millie checking out the valley

Kennedie and Millie

 

It's a fancy bus too