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12/26/2015

Christmas

This Christmas really felt like Colton's first. He was 4 months old last year and we were at Jared's parent's house, so we really didn't do a whole lot. Since then we decided that we wouldn't travel during Christmas anymore. Too expensive, too hectic, and too unpredictable with the crazy weather. Plus shipping presents somewhere just to pay to check them in a bag to fly home doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Even though Jared and Colton were both sick with bad colds this year, we were so excited to celebrate at our own home. Even though we didn't have any decor up in the new house, we made sure to make the house feel Christmas-y. We hung lights outside and put up the tree inside.
The week before Christmas we were able to have Jared's sister Vanessa's family over for a whole Sunday. They were in Utah visiting Mike's parent's for Christmas. Colton and Owen had a great time playing and we had a great time visiting.
The day before Christmas eve we hosted a big Christmas party for a bunch of our friends. Man we have missed entertaining! Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures, but we had delicious food, we did a white elephant exchange, all the kids ran around having a blast, and I made these Buttermilk Syrup jars as favors. We had such a good time!
Christmas eve Vanessa's in-laws invited us over for their family dinner and festivities. The food was delicious, and the company was so fun! Colton had an absolute blast.
That night we got poor sicky Colton to bed and we filled the stockings and I set up the presents after poor sicky Jared went to sleep.
Christmas morning we had delicious casserole and when Colton got up he went right over to check out his kitchen and chair. He also loved opening the rest of his presents! He is so loved!
We like keeping our Christmas small. It is wonderful to see Colton get excited (and the older he gets, the more fun it will be), but spending time as a family, eating good food, and thinking about our Savior are the best parts of Christmas!


Colton opening one of his 12 days of Christmas presents from Grandma, a Barney DVD! he was excited

"Ho Ho Hats" of all shapes and sizes"

12/15/2015

All the Sudden it's Winter!

On December 11th is was in the low 60s and Colton and I had fun exploring our new backyard.
Then on the 14th we got about a foot of snow! Jared had to stay home from work, branches were falling on our roof, and there was a downed power line on our street so we had policemen and firemen at the end of our driveway all day!
Of course we had to dress up and play in the snow. A fireman even brought Colton a hat. He tried to be brave, but he was absolutely terrified of the man haha
I absolutely love the snow, now it really feels like Christmas!


12/06/2015

Uncle Sky is Home!

On December 2nd we packed up and flew to Denver for a quick trip for Skyler's homecoming. He didn't know we were coming out, so we were excited to surprise him.
We got up so excited on Thursday and drove to the airport. Damon and I had made posters and waited anxiously at the top of the escalators. Everyone was so anxious and excited and FINALLY he came up and Damon and I yelled "SKYLER!!!" super loud. He was so tired after travelling for two days but it was so good to see him! We went right out to lunch and it honestly felt like he was never gone. We spent all day Friday together and we had to pack up and head home on Saturday. So happy we were able to be there for this special time with my family, and it feels so good to have Skyler home!!





11/30/2015

November

Quick recap of November!
I was able to go to Pinner's Conference as a VIP and had an absolutely awesome couple kid-free days taking cool classes and meeting some of my all time favorite bloggers. My faves? Our Best Bites, Maskcara, Jordan from the Fun Cheap or Free Queen, and Melissa Esplin from calligraphy.org. I will definitely go again in the future, and am hoping to make a Bunch Girls Weekend out of the 2016 pinner's conference.
Colton and I survived a week without Dad while Jared was in New York for work. I finished packing up the apartment and we spent a lot of time at the park!
We also found out the gender of our baby, another boy!!! We are so excited. I was so surprised because I was convinced this one was a girl! Goes to show that every pregnancy is different! Baby Boy Thomas looks absolutely perfect and is still due April 24th.
On the same day we found out baby's gender, we closed on our new house in West Bountiful. Long story short, we had several issues with the sellers and were extremely unhappy with our realtor. Despite the issues we moved forward with the closing and proceeded to do some big projects. The whole week of Thanksgiving we juggled Colton, while sleeping and eating at the apartment, but painting and ripping up carpet at the house. My awesome aunt Laurie had us over for Thanksgiving dinner, and that was our only break all week. We finished prepping downstairs just in time for carpet to be installed on the 30th. Finally the house was starting to feel a little more like ours! We still didn't have the fridge though, and had been waiting for the carpet to be installed, so we hadn't moved anything in yet. This was a tough week for everyone, mostly Colton, as we were so uprooted!! I did get my brand new beautiful washer and dryer installed though and I am in love with them!







11/03/2015

Life.

Sometimes it is good just to get online and TYPE. It has been a whirlwind 3 months and it's not going to settle down until the new year.
Since we found out I was pregnant in August, we knew I'd be down and out for a little while. Little did we realize how emotional I would be this time around. I was never this bad with Colton, but with this pregnancy my ups and downs have been hard for our whole family, and it's been going on from the very beginning. It is so hard to logically understand why people are doing things, or logically brush things off, but emotionally hold on to words and actions that hurt my feelings, that make me cry at the literal drop of a hat. I have never felt so out of control! Luckily I've hit 15 weeks and have been physically feeling a bit better. I've thrown up regularly with this baby, when with Colton it was more a devastating 24 hour dizziness and nausea. It's been such a different experience already.
I've been feeling kicks and flutters for a few weeks now, and am so excited to find out if it's a boy or a girl in just 3 weeks, and hopefully with the morning sickness subsiding a little I can emotionally get a little more under control too!
A month after we found out our family was growing, we decided to start looking for houses. We knew it would be hard, since the housing market in Salt Lake is CRAZY, homes are expensive and selling hours after hitting the market, but we are both so ready to move. Our temporary basement apartment has worked well enough in the interim, but having a crazy-active 15 month old in a place that is stuffed with our stuff, and can get into something that is harmful to him in pretty much every square foot of the apartment has been quite a challenge for me since he started walking almost 6 months ago! He just needs room to BE and run and play, and I need room to shut away things he shouldn't get into. We looked at tons and tons of listings online and everything was yucky or overpriced. I was really discouraged, and we looked seriously into building new. I fell in love with a floorplan, but Jared and I HATED the tiny yard and communal driveway that accompanied the new builds. So we looked and looked at existing homes. We went and saw several in person and they were all terrible. These gems included a homeless squater in one garage, a smoking Indian man cooking curry in another, a house whose addition on the back still showed the original siding of the home on one entire wall, one who's backyard was literally feet from the back of a brightly lit shipping warehouse, and one who shared a backyard with both a refinery and the Front Runner train. There was just NOTHING. That's when we FINALLY went to a home in West Bountiful which I had found in the MLS listings. It was big, and had a big yard, and was in a great location. BUT it was a split level, which I really thought I would hate. That was on my list of NOOO's
We walked in though, and I had to smile, it was so...nice! The outside needs a little love, but the kitchen and main bathroom have been recently remodeled and are beautiful. I immediately pictured our growing family in the home and knew that it would work for us for a long time. Then we looked outside and fell in love, several huge trees shade the backyard, and it is 1/4 acre of beautiful grass. There's SPACE and it's fenced! My kids can play and explore back there and I can watch them from the kitchen window. With 5 bedrooms both kids can have their own rooms plus we can have both a designated office and guestroom, which is important with our family living so far away. The house isn't perfect, but we fell in love, and put in an offer and went under contract the next day. We are set to close the same day we find out the gender of the baby, November 23rd. Then we have a lot of work to do that week, since we are painting all the bedrooms (the sellers are big Utah Utes fans...think firetruck RED in three bedrooms), and will be replacing all the carpet right after. Then Jared is going to build us a huge master closet and a vanity area for me to get ready in, so we will kind of wait to fully move in until that is all finished. We are so excited for this adventure. It has been such a different experience since our first house was brand new, nothing was wrong with it and escrow was a piece of cake. This house was built in 1970 and has quite a few things that need repairing, but we were finally able to finangle the sellers to repair almost everything, which will be a huge relief. We are so ready! Here are just a few pictures. Iwill definitely be getting some when we move in as before pictures too
We are also getting so excited to go to Denver for Skyler's homecoming. We head out there on December 2nd, and Skyler gets in the next day from Brazil. He thinks we aren't coming too! So the surprise will be so fun. We found out we were pregnant with Colton a week after Skyler left on his mission, so he REALLY has never met him. I am so excited for Colton to fall in love with Uncle Sky, and it will be so fun since Skyler will be going to BYU-I in January, he will be able to come down and visit us often, and we will have room for him to stay with us!
So many fun things to look forward to. Now that I'm caught up I will really try to stay on top of our goings on!

11/01/2015

Halloween

Since I have been tired and ill beyond measure I knew Halloween this year would be a little uninspired. I found a wolf costume on Amazon that I knew Colton would look darling in. Then I considered making myself a little Red Riding Hood cape for about 3 minutes before I found one at the costume store. and Voila, our costumes. We got to go to the ward party, where I made some MEAN white chicken chili (bring on the chili cookoff!!) and then we went to Jared's office to trick or treat. The night of Halloween we took Colton trick or treating at several houses, then came home and put him to bed, then we went upstairs and shared some delicious fondue I made with our dear friends Jeff and Kailey. We are looking forward to moving and having our own house again, but we sure will miss those guys.





10/20/2015

The great CO

Colton and I went to Colorado by ourselves for probably the last time ever. With the new baby coming, my belly getting bigger, and lots of things changing, this was probably it! We had a relaxing week hanging out. We had a great time at the pumpkin patch. Grandma and Grandpa are two of Colton's all time favorite people and he always remembers them due to our weekly skype dates. So grateful they are his grandparents! I always think I need to get more pictures when we visit Colorado, but what you see is what you get