Beasty Winter

Alrighty...the final catch up! I have sat here while Marin watched Toy Story 2 and Paxton took a nap. Paxton is now awake and Toy Story has started for the 2nd time and it is 20 minutes into it...I think I have been blogging long enough! The grand finale!

We went to the festival of trees I LOVE the festival of trees and this year we had even more motivation to go since our dear friends the Jubers had a tree donated for their little boy Tyson we HAD to go. Here the kids and Mark are in front of the tree. It was dang cute, just like Tyson.
Mark's Grandpa was in the hospital with C.Diff it is NASTY I looked up the symptoms and you better believe when they told us to wear all the gear we did so in a heart beat. Plus it is a picture op if we have every had one! It was so fun and nice to visit with his Grandpa who is out of the hospital and doing great! We pretty much think it is because of our visit.

A really good friend of mine came out to Utah for a bit and we drove and drove to find snow but darn it all we found it! The boys went back to the car and the girls stayed out and played in it for a while it was fun.

Mark and I made snow angels they are pretty stinkin cute if I do say so myself.

I love this picture of Marin it melts my heart. Cutest little Eskimo!

Another one of my favorite Christmas in Utah things is the lights at temple square. Something so great about walking around the temple where every tree is covered from top to bottom. I love it and the kids get a kick out of it as you can imagine Christmas lights are always entertaining.

See entertained....right Paxton?!?!

Yep that would be a hate look from me to my Mark...I don't like getting my picture taken when I'm freezing cold.

Another Temple picture.The girls went to the bathroom and got this little beauty.......And this little beauty........

And the beauty of all beauties..... oh man alive!My favorite birthday tradition. I have gotten flowers every year on my birthday from my Dad and I love it! Makes my day! I had a nice birthday nothing super exciting but it was nice. Mark and I went and saw a movie that I could have done without seeing but hey there were no kids and it was me and Mark so it was fun. I got a lot of good stuff which is always fun!

HE CAME!!!! Santa came!! He came on the 22nd since Mark was working the weekend of Christmas so Santa came early so Mark could be there, most of the excitement is on the video camera and like I mentioned earlier I am getting to be a bit of a slacker with my pictures. Marin sitting at her old school desk with her legs crossed and playing her new game system with her school bus, just what she asked for from Santa and Paxton with his new trike, he is amazing at running over toes, it is his new found talent.

Playing with Paxton's new trike. His face cracks me up, still laughing when Marin is playing with his toy...not always the case but as far as this picture is concerned it is always this way.

Paxton LOVES Robbie hate to say he has favorites but everyone knows that if Robbie walks in the room your play time with Paxton is officially up. Not that Robbie is a baby hog which I remember calling Robbie regularly as a kid, it is the fact that Robbie walks in and Paxton is out of your arms and on his way to see Robbie. Well so long for now and I will try really hard to keep this updated more frequently. But I make no promises....

H a P p Y : N e W : Y e A r : !! I hope everyone has a safe and happy new year!

The fall out of order again...

So apparently my punishment for not blogging for so long is that I have forgotten how to make my pictures show up in the order I want and since I am posted from a lap top and don't really like dragging pictures around with no mouse out of order blog posts is what we get : )
This is the last full day we spent in California we went in September and of course the weather wasn't perfect but all we wanted was to see Steven and we did get to do that so it was well worth it.

Sleeps on 4 wheelers, in the car, at nap time, through the night....I LOVE MY SLEEPING BABIES!! Well I would love them if they didn't sleep too but I love that they do.

Paxton in the hotel (one of his many "owies" on his face...I have another good one coming up.) This little face just makes my day.
Yes this little face makes my day too. Nothing like sleeping in and heading to the beach. So fun!
Paxton rocking his boogie board. He finally got to the point that he liked sand, it was a rough go the first few times. Of course that face doesn't suggest enjoymentMark and Marin in the ocean, it was sooo cold! I certainly wasn't going to get in but Marin and Mark and every once in a while Paxton got in they loved it!
Oh my how I love this little brother of mine! Steven and I have always been close so it was such a blast getting to hang out with him again and no where better to hang out than at the beach!
The tide pools were really awesome, I wasn't expecting much but it was really fun. Then we went and drove around the coast and looked at the insanely massive homes...always entertaining. We debated going up and knocking on someones door and saying "Please Please let us just look at your house!" We never did....maybe someday....probably not....but maybe.

Oh feet and the ocean. Part of me felt 8 years old again back in Florida except that handsome man next to me and those 2 babies of mine snapped me back to this wonderful realty. I love the way the beach just makes everything else seem so small and calm. Oh the beach....
This face....that growling happy face! Marin loves that Uncle Steven of hers so much! She is so cute. She couldn't even let him eat she was so excited to see him and tell him everything that he has missed the past 4 months. Which was a lot.
Our family picture on the pier by Steven's house.
After we saw Steven we drove right to the beach. Everyone loved it!
Steven took Marin down to the beach for the first time, I love that you can see her little foot steps. She LOVED it, thought it was the greatest thing ever!

Marin and I made this chain for days til we got to see Steven! She was so excited she could hardly contain herself!

Oops bad placement. This was the morning we left. Steven came over and spent the night in our hotel and I almost didn't have the heart to wake them up and tell her we needed to get going to that boring place.... home.

So our Turkey looks like it has some funky tan lines but I tell you what it was the best turkey EVER..hear that Dad....EVER! My Dad showed us this recipe on how to cook your turkey and it was so good. Mark and I ended up cooking Thanksgiving dinner for his family and we had 2 days notice but it turned out great. I wish I had more pictures but I was a little busy with other things...if you can imagine that : ) It snowed! So instead of bundling my kids up like a good mom I went outside got a bowl and brought it inside and said look! Snow! Same thing right? They thought so!

So all kids have their little quirks but this kid takes the cake so far in our family. He growls, beats his chest and crawls around with shoes on his hands. Shoes left out you had better believe they are going to be on his hands and he is going to be crawling around. My personal favorite is when he does it with my high heels.

Speaking of quirks this boy has more scratches, bruises, and bumps than any other baby his age. If he isn't on the highest thing in the room he is unhappy. If he isn't letting his sister jump on the couch to fly him into the air something isn't right. Those 2 children of mine are turning into a dangerous pair.

That concludes our fall season. Of course with the weather being what it is it still feels like fall.

The mass of Summer

Okay since I have slacked since.... yes JUNE and it is now the very end of December I figured I should probably get my bum in gear and post about the past few seasons. I am not doing these pictures in order, we will see how fall goes!

So Paxton turned 1!! I can't even believe it has already been a year. He is so handsome and I refuse to acknowledge that he is one. Well almost 17 months now...YiKeS!! We went to the local splash pad and had hot dogs and cupcakes and played in the water. Everyone played except Paxton who you will see was pretty tired, it was a long and busy day before his birthday and after.



I love his whiteness and belly. Funny really I don't like my whiteness or my belly but he makes it look good.
If you give him a cupcake now he will be ALL over it he eats everything he loves food!

My little Marin is a dancer, a beautiful, uncoordinated, happy little dancer. I love watching her at dance class and she sure gets a kick out it. She has a dance recital in February and I'm not sure who is more excited about it!

We went to the gateway up in Salt Lake and visited with Mark's sister Frieda and her little girl Aurora and then it was off to the splash pad it was a lot of fun. Marin's goal was to try to stay out of the water while her cousin's goal was to get as wet as possible. Marin finally got the hang of it and decided it was okay if she got kind of wet.

The kiddos on the 4th of July they were the hit of the events we went to that day everyone loved their matching shirts. Yep I am that kind of mom.

We tend to go for 4 wheeling rides when we are bored and think hey it is kind of nice outside lets go up in the hills. Which I don't have pictures from some of our other adventures (I've gotten picture lazy as of late) We went up to roast hot dogs and got all the way up and had easily 10 matches and we couldn't get a single one lit....so back down we went, but that wasn't this trip. Marin and Mark working on their "Belle Flower"
Mark, Marin, and Paxton up high looking at somewhere...how was that for a description?
You know maybe another reason we like to go 4 wheeling is it puts our kids to sleep! Marin is starting to stay awake but Paxton has followed in his sisters foot steps passes out every time we go!
Marin, Aurora, Frieda, and I went to the Thanksgiving Point Princess Festival. Like most things at Thanksgiving Point I feel they are over priced and not as exciting. With that being said the girls had a BLAST!! Which is who it is all about anyway. This was my favorite picture of the day. The girls loved meeting the princesses but it was so hot the princesses and girls are red faced in all of them : ) So their backs is the best one!
Swoon. I'm going to gush for a minute. So Mark does many many things that I love. This is father's day and he took the kids to the car and then came back umbrella in hand and walked me to the car. I am sure lucky for a man that lets us do silly and fun things all summer and indulges me in all of my creative expeditions. I really am the luckiest lady around. Loves.