April....SPRING BREAK! part 1

I mentioned in the last post we surprised the kids on Easter with the news of a big Spring Break trip to San Diego! April arrived and we packed up the family and headed west! I think Jack and I were just as excited for this Spring Break trip as the kids were. The drive was going to be LONG...but the end prize was worth the wait, the kids were actually really good on the drive! Entertainment was brought to us by way of iPad, Wii, DVD player, silly puddy, search and find cars/signs/license plates/animals, audio books, food, fruit snacks, suckers, candy....and the list could go on....

Our first stop on the drive was in Cedar City, UT. We stopped by a friends house who used to live in CO for dinner and let the kids get the wiggles out from being stuck in the car all day long. It was great to see old friends, even if just for a few hours!

Taking long car trips helps you appreciate the beautiful landscape of the country we live in! Plains, mountains, desert, awesome rock formations, beaches...we've got it all and it is gorgeous.

After our overnight stop in Cedar City we did the second leg of the trip and headed to Sea World first! The kids were so excited for the surprise bunk beds we got in our hotel room! There was also a nice pool and a great breakfast buffet at the hotel- it was great! 

We made it there in time to see the Shamu Rocks night show- it was awesome. 

 When Tyler was a baby we came to San Diego for a vacation, while we were visiting Sea World we got him a Shamu whale...Katy and Jacob were so excited to finally get one of their own on this trip!

We went back to Sea World the next day and enjoyed some more shows from dolphins, seals, dogs/cats, we got to see flamingos being taken on a walk, and even got to touch some dolphins! 

After a few days in the Sea World area of San Diego we had another surprise for the kids! They knew we were going to Lego land, and we were changing hotels but.....

They didn't know we would be staying at the brand new Legoland Hotel! This place, simply put, was AWESOME! We had SO MUCH FUN staying at it. Everything is made out of legos- okay, except the beds. There's a big pit of legos in the foyer, big smoke blowing dragon out front, surprises in the elevators, whoopie cushion in the floor by the elevator, themed floors, legos for the kids in the room, scavenger hunt for the kids in the room, bunk beds....need I go on?! It was awesome. What was even better was it was just outside the gates to Legoland! 

 We were at LegoLand for two days and had so much fun, thankfully LegoLand is made for the younger child, so their was something for everyone- rides that Katy could enjoy,  and rides and activities for the boys too! We also toured the Lego City and Lego Star Wars models...wow. The weather was perfect both days too!

Everything is made of real Legos! The lines for the more popular rides had fenced in areas with tons of Lego's and Duplo blocks for kids to play with while waiting- it was quite nice! We had such a great time there- the boys are constantly asking to back. 

I think that's enough pictures for this post....part 2 to come soon!

March 2013...and Easter!

In March we decided to take a weekend trip and check out the Mountain town of Glenwood Springs. Well, it ended up that there really wasn't a whole lot for us to do with our little kids.....lesson learned haha! We did enjoy finding some fun restaurants, some relaxing in the hotel room and the beautiful scenery of God's creations! There is a great pizza place in Glenwood that was delicious! We go a gigantic cheese pizza and an amazing PB&J pizza...it was SO sweet, we could barely finish one (big) slice!

We had a wonderful Easter! The kids were as handsome and cute as ever! We surprised the kids with a trip to San Diego- Legoland and Sea World for spring break as their Easter presents- they were so excited to find out! I made some travel activity books, some new books and a set of children's headphones for our long road trip. I didn't get any pictures of Katy because she was napping when we took pictures, oh well!

February 2013

Not a whole lot went on in February except wonderful winter weather (dripping in sarcasm). Jack took the boys to their first Hockey game and they loved it! We had a pretty big snowstorm, and as always, the kids enjoyed helping daddy clear the driveway and play in the snow!

January 2013

January 2013! Early in January I went with the Young Woman at church to a weekend retreat in Estes park. It ended up being my last big activity before I was release...which was one of the hardest things for me, since over the last 5 years I had come to love the youth of this church so much, and pray that I'll be back in there serving them again soon!

Next up in the pictures, Jacob had a preschool concert at the school! We invited our favorite friend and babysitter Catie to join us since she was going to be leaving for her mission just shortly after that. We sure love her!

The last picture was just too cute to pass up- 1pm church is so hard on little toddlers. Katy falls asleep in the evenings quite often on sundays!

Let's start this over....

So, I'm an ENTIRE year behind updating this blog...but I still want to keep it going. I've decided to just do a few quick (mostly picture) updates from the year 2013 and try to stay on track for 2014....wish me luck:)

The Oldest kiddo's Birthday!

Tyler turned 7 this year...one year away from being baptized...he can't wait! We had a fun time celebrating his birthday. We went out to eat at Cheddars, got some frozen yogurt at our favorite place (frozen yogurt is our family's favorite dessert of choice!), and later celebrated with donuts (his choice!- my kinda kid)! We also were able to go over to our favorite family's house, the Ellis's, and join in on their joint birthday party!

Here's another collage of Random pictures from December that I left off the last post!
Jacobs class had a field trip to a local pizza place, Top That, it was lots of fun....and snowing so hard that day! Our family went to a Nuggets game- so fun! Jack took the boys to meet Eric Decker from the broncos. And the last two pictures were of the fun I have trying new designs on my nails :)

And with that I've caught up to 2013!!! Yipee!

December 2012 Hapennings!

I'm going to attempt to begin catching up on this blog...I'm 9 months behind, but I feel it is important to do...so slowly but surely I will do it! Here goes...let's finish off 2012 first!

At the start of December is my favorite time! I get to put up all our Christmas decorations, and Christmas parties begin! Jack's work had a family Christmas Party, Jacob was the only one who wanted to see Santa.... Our ward had their Christmas party breakfast. The primary children sang a song, and I had the privilege of singing Silent Night. There were many wonderful musical presentations depiciting the First Christmas. 

Here's a collage of a few other December pictures I liked, before we head into Christmas pictures!

Now on to Christmas....my sister Valeriane and her family came to spend Christmas with us this year again! We have so much fun with the Wilson family. The kids love having their cousins around to play with.
Here was our Christmas "card" for the season-

 Christmas was wonderful, as usual, this year. The kids loved their gifts...which included new scooters for each of the boys, a Super Hero cape I made Katy (to match the ones the boys got last Christmas), walkie talkie's, dinosaur building sets, I'm sure there was more but thats all I can remember. I LOVE the bottom middle picture below...such a classic Christmas reaction from children!! We loved having the Wilson' around to celebrate the holiday with us- lots of memories made.

Knowing Sean is Mr.Handy I asked him to help us build some shelves in the garage....well, he got right up, grabbed a measuring tape and got to work! This guy loves building things, and is good at it. Since then, I've had a few neighbors ask for him to build shelves in their garage next time he comes...he could have a small little business going here just doing that alone:) We are lucky that our neighborhood is still building so there were many dumpsters with plenty of usable scrap wood he could use, so we hardly had to buy any wood for the project and we love it! Thanks again Sean for spending your time off building shelves for us!!!

Thanksgiving 2012

For Thanksgiving we headed south to Santa Fe to spend the holiday with my sister and her awesome family. The kids always love playing with the Wilson's and are sad when we have to go! (Ok, they are sad whenever we have to leave any cousins house...they just have too much fun!)

My sister is in charge of their Elementary school's Turkey Trot (she does an awesome job and it was fun to help out a bit!) that has a 5 k and a 1mile fun run. Jack and Tyler did the 5k, this was Tyler's first 5 k...and as you can tell from the picture above it was quite challenging. They are above 7000 ft and even Jack said it was super challenging for him because of the cold and elevation. I was so proud of Tyler for finishing it!! I did the 1 mile fun run with Katy and Jacob...lets just say I ended up being LAST, and had to carry Jacob the majority of the mile. It was fun. The kids made play dough with Aunt Valeriane (she's a superstar...it was even scented!). Of course we also enjoyed delicious food and made gingerbread houses with all the kids. It is so fun being close to them again and being able to see them a few times each year!

November 2012

 Jack took the boys to a Denver Nuggets game- they had a blast!

Let's see...the top two left pictures were from Jacob's Fall Soccer league party, his first trophy! The top right- I took the kids bowling along with one of their friends, Kendall. The rest of the pictures are just cute pictures I had to share!

Halloween 2012

Okay, here are a couple more picture collages from the end of October, including Halloween.

 The main picture is when we went to a local pumpkin farm with Jacob's preschool class. It was SO.COLD.AND.WINDY!!! But despite the ridiculous wind, we did our best to enjoy ourselves! Some of the other pictures are part of my typical day as a mom. Jacob and Katy sure enjoy each other's company when they are in a good mood, they can be pretty goofy and cute. I love the bottom left picture because I know time is quickly slipping away from me of me being able to hold my sweet sleeping little ones in my arms when the fall asleep while reading books.

Good ol' Halloween. I decided Jack and I should join in on the costume festivities and we were Waldo and Wenda from Where's Waldo....it was mostly adults who actually got it....since when did Where's Waldo stop being an essential childhood book??
The middle left picture is Katy with one of her best bud's Nicky- his mom and I would swap childcare each week so we could volunteer at the elementary school.
Bottom left- I volunteered to help hand out the Republican party Presidential vote flyer's, it felt good doing a little part in my community's political scene...small as it was.
The bottom middle- it snowed and the boys and our neighbor came in for a little hot chocolate!
Bottom right- when the kids get along they sure have fun together, and show how much they love each other.

10 years later....

When I arrived at BYU I had no clue what the future held for me.....

I will always love visiting Bridal Vail Falls in Provo Canyon, UT...not only is it absolutely beautiful...especially in the fall...its a place we went to often when we were dating, and where he proposed to me. The first picture is in early Fall of 2002 when we first met and first began dating.....10 years later a picture of us, and the family we have become.

Here are some other pictures I have taken of Bridal Vail Falls....

October 2012

Ok, I'm not really going to try very hard to WRITE a whole lot about the last 9 months...I'll do recaps to go along with a bunch of pictures...Here goes the photo dump....

OCTOBER 2012:

I actually got my Mormon mommy act together and put stuff together for General Conference so the kids would actually sit and pay attention, it was a success too!

The elementary school had a Fall Festival Chili Cook off. Jack made his delicious Sweet Chili and I made some AMAZING Cinnamon Chip Cranberry bars. We heard a lot of people talking about the dishes we entered, but we didn't win:( Oh well, hearing people talk about how good they both were was good enough for me....but we'll win next year for sure. haha! They had some fun activities, like Angry Birds, and stacking cups.

The boys participated in Fall Soccer League...and it was cold. The end.

We went on our Annual Fall Break trip to Utah and saw some AMAZING views....The top two are from our drive...on our way home as we were approaching the main part of the Rockies we were greeted with a looming snowstorm...always exciting when you are heading in to the Rockies......not. Utah was pretty chilly and gloomy almost the whole time. The bottom left picture was an amazing view of the Oquirrh Mountain LDS Temple while were at a pumpkin patch with some friends. The bottom right is at Bridal Veil Falls park, my favorite place when we were at BYU...the fall colors are stunning.

 We went down to Provo and took one of our favorite people, Catie out to eat to The Brick Oven. Yum.

 We met up with my sister and her family and all took the train down to Salt Lake City and spent the day exploring Temple Square and the new City Creek Mall area.

We also met up with our good friends from Omaha, the Fillmore's. We took all the kids to a pumpkin patch that was nearby their house and had a little fun exploring cornfields, climbing hay bail mountains, and taking pictures. Love this family and miss my best friend Sherrie!

One more big collage from our Utah trip (on this post at least). A couple more from our train trip to SLC, and some fun pictures just hanging out with the cousins....my favorite being the dog pile on Anakha-Marie! The bottom left picture is our kids with a couple of our good friends kids, the Messervy's. We were good friends (used to play games with them all the time!) in Tucson, then we parted ways...they now live in Provo and were gracious enough to let us stay with them for a few days. Our kids had a grand ol' time with their two younger kids.

September Randoms

Here's a few pictures from the month of September!

1. and 7.- it rained! it finally rained! I never thought I'd be so excited for a rainy day, it had been a LONG time since we had seen rain

2. The boys school had a fundraiser night at Dairy Queen...yummy!

3. This is what happens when you let a young 4 year old get ready for church completely on his own....he has learned how to properly button shirts now though :)

4. I love my cuddle book time with my littlest each night...this particular night she insisted on reading the book herself...if you can't tell, she's holding it upside down

5. I LOVE having a little girl to get all prettied up for church!

6. the boys had a sticker chart they were working on FOREVER, they finally finished up, were rewarded the amount of $ they earned and we all headed to Target...the boys were so sweet to use some of their money to buy Katy a My Little Pony because she lost hers....then we found it two days after this

8. Just some sibling love

9. Katy and her neighbor friend who's a year older than her. When we first moved here Katy was so mean to this cute little girl, at the beginning of the fall Katy changed her tune and they have lots of fun playing together now

Here's a few more-

The first on the left is from one of our weekly Young Womens mutual activities, these are some of the girls I teach each Sunday. This activity they were learning how to make bread! The other pictures were just a few random ones from our iPod

Fitness day of fun!

We were able to start off September in a fun way the weekend after Labor Day! The school district here participates in a Fitness Festival each year. Over the summer the kids at the elementary school logged their physical activity each week and turned it in at the beginning of the school year. They ended the challenge by participating in a 5k/1k race here in Denver. Jack did the 5k, while the rest of us did the 1k. It was a lot of fun, the kids were super excited about it!  Our neighbors were at the race as well, the boys loved running with their friends and teachers from the school! After the Fitness Festival they even had a food festival where lots of different restaurants were giving out samples.

Our day that Saturday was a very busy one! We went straight from the race to their first soccer games of the season! Needless to say we were all very tired by the end of the day!







Lakers vs. Nuggets 2012 Playoffs

This is out of order too....

One of the many things we were really excited about when we moved to Denver were the professional sports teams we could go watch and enjoy! In May Jack was able to go with a friend to a NBA playoff game- he was so excited....and I was jealous...someone had to watch the kids...phewy. Thank goodness I've been able to go to a game this season, and we hope to go to more!