Aaaaand... I turned 30!

Sunday (12/27) we celebrated my birthday at my parents house. My mom cooked such a yummy Mexican (Café Rio styled) dinner. Everyone gobbled it up.

 

Opening gifts wasn't too exciting because everyone gave me money for a Garmin Triathlon watch that I want to get. I'm holding off for a little bit because I am hoping to find a sale on it.

 Jesse cooked Apple Crisp in his Dutch oven for my birthday dessert. It was scrumptious, as usual. Then the rest of the evening was spent talking and playing games.

 On my actual birthday I was anxious to find out what Jesse had planned for me. He said he had plans but he wouldn't tell me. Only thing he did tell me was that he was going to make me breakfast that morning. Which was very yummy.

After that I got ready and headed downtown to see Sandea. I had a follow up appointment for my IUD.

When I got home we just hung out for a bit. Then started cleaning up the house. Ryker and Cyrus were such good little helpers. One of the of the things I wanted for my birthday was a clean house. So they were helping give that to me. I even got most of the laundry folded and put away. It feels so good when the house is in order. I feel like a weight is lifted off my shoulders for a brief moment.

As he night was nearing I finally got some info from Jesse about plans that night. He told me he wanted to take me to Taggart's for dinner and then go Snow Shoeing. So Fun!

After Chan arrived to babysit the 3 boys, we headed up to Taggart's (which is up by
Morgan). Actually we stopped at SkiNsee to rent the snow shoes, and then we headed up to dinner.

I'm such a foodie. I always love a yummy meal. Especially when we go out to eat. Not always do I enjoy restaurant food because I'd prefer to eat a home cooked meal. So when it's actually cooked yummy I really appreciate it. This was my meal....

 ...and this was Jesse's.

 Trying to take a picture of ourselves at dinner.

 After dinner we drove back to Bountiful and we picked up some hot chocolate at 7-11 so we could have warm hot chocolate during our snow shoeing event. Yum.

The plan was to go hike the back side of Elephant Rock, which I believe is called Canyon Creek. To access it you have to go on a dirt road once the paved road ends. Well since it's the end of December it's no longer a dirt road, it's now a snow road. You could see that other vehicles had been on it before so Jesse started up it. I felt a little nervous about it, but over the years I have learned to just trust Jesse's off-roading skills.

About a 1/2 mile up, the snow started to feel softer and Jesse was kinda getting stuck. So he decided he better go back and we could just walk up that part. He started to reverse and got a little bit stuck, but not bad enough that he couldn't get out. Once he got out of that his rear driver side tire got sucked into the soft snow bank. And before we know it the truck is totally stuck. That rear driver side tire was buried.

 Trying to come up with a solution to get us out, Jesse gave up and decided we needed to call someone. And that someone ended up being my dad. Mind you it was around 9:30pm when we called him. He didn't answer, but called back within 10 minutes. When we told him what had happened he came up as quick as he could.

Nervous his suburban would get stuck in the snow as well, they ended up parking at the bottom and walking up to us (my mom came along too). Dad brought 2 snow shovels and we got to digging. It wasn't until 11pm that we were free.

 At this point we couldn't go Snow Shoeing anymore (frowny face). But we walked away from it with quite the memorable birthday date. The whole time we were trying to get out of the snow, we were just laughing about the whole thing. It was reminding us of the time when we were dating that he got us stuck in the mud while Jeeping. Good times.

So now I can say in the future "Remember that one time you took me Snow Shoeing, but got us stuck in the snow instead? Yup good times." Haha

It was kinda a bummer that we paid for the snow shoes but didn't even get to use them. I had never done that before, so I was really excited to try it. I hope I can get a rain check and we can try and go again.

Despite the opposition that night, we had a great date night. Jesse made turning 30 fun and adventurous.

Turning 30 seems crazy. But looking at my life right now I'm very happy and feel accomplished at where I am in life. I have the BEST husband any girl could ask for, 3 healthy, beautiful boys, a successful career, a nice big home with a great ward/neighborhood..... I could keep going. I'm very happy and grateful to Heavenly Father for all my many blessing.

Now lets start these 30s! I hear they are the best years!

Post Christmas

I am so mad at myself for not getting pictures of our post Christmas day. Reason is because we went to visit both my Grandma Goodrich and my Grandparents Schrader. Its hard to find the time needed to go visit them. So I thought since Saturday was a free day we could go see them.

 

Our plan was an hour for each and it never seems to be enough time. I always feel so bad that we don't get to see them all that often. And then when we do go they would love us to stay all day. And I wish we could.

 

It was so nice to visit with them for the hour-ish that we had with each of them.

 

The rest of the afternoon was spent running errands. Mostly for the party we were invited to. Ugly Sweater Party. Between the DI and the Dollar Store I'd say we nailed our ugly sweaters. It took people a little bit to get Jesse's sweater. I found the idea on Pinterest. Glue a mirror on the front so when people look into the mirror, WaLaa, instant Ugly Sweater. I thought it was clever and original. 

 

 

 

We had a White Elephant Gift exchange (where my newly acquired "Crafting with Cat Hair" book came in handy). It was a fun night with lots of laughter. The party was held by a family in our ward who invited a bunch of ward and neighborhood friends. It was great to go and be able to get to know more people in our new neighborhood.

"Christ"mas {2015}

Christmas morning had arrived. Hooray!

To be honest, I was having mixed feelings about it. The past week or so Cyrus has been SO naughty. I honestly haven't even known what or how to handle it. I'm sure the build up to Christmas day had a lot to do with it. But still, I have never had such a desire to take a kids Christmas away and truly give him Coal. No joke.

But I thought once Christmas morning came everyone be happy and everything will be okay. Ha! In all my history of Christmas mornings, this was by far the worst. He most certainly woke up on the wrong side of the bed. I can't even recall what made him so upset, but he just was ONERY! Jesse threatened to take away one of his gifts (keep in mind that we hadn't even started opening anything yet, he had been awake for all of 10 minutes before we got into a fight with him).

Oh, I remember now what was bothering him. He didn't want to put his underwear and jammies on. Something so simple was causing such a problem. Well after much deliberation, Jesse took a gift from Cy's stocking and put it outside.

Oh boy, not only was Cy upset, now Ryker was crying too. What a morning. I just sat back in complete disbelief that this was how our Christmas morning was starting out.

Finally things calmed down and we said a prayer to help change to tone that morning. Which seemed to do the trick. From that point on we didn't have any problems from Cy.

We then read from Luke the Nativity Story. While we read I had the boys set up a nativity scene as each member was mentioned.

We then had a great morning.

They were very excited  and happy.

Especially Fynn. Haha. He's always happy though. Even though he looks worried in this picture.

Sweet little Ryker had made this card for us and wrote us this note. It reads...

"Dear, Mom and Dad
Merry Christmas I Love
you with all me heart!
I hope you have
a good Christmas
and I hope you have a
good life.
Love Ryker"

It was accompanied with a little gift that had $1.15 in cins. He's cute!

I just love this little baby. Oh I could just eat him up.

And this face. Oh, so happy that we could have him around that morning.

Around 9am, Mom & Dad and S. A. G. E. (Sterling, Andrew, Genevieve and Emily) arrived. It was snowing pretty hard, but everyone made it. It truly was a white Christmas.

My little Fynnick. Growing up WAY too fast.

Now that's a great Grandparent picture!

These 3 always have the greatest time together. Cousins are the best!

And these 2 will eventually have a great time together. For now we get excited when they finally make eye contact with each other and smile.

Jesse built THE coolest Lego/Toy Table for the boy's toy room. He's spent several days secretly working on it. They just love it! And it turned out so cool.

Isn't it awesome? I love that we have the extra storage for their toys. Plus they have half the take to use to play on the table top with. Jesse is genius!

After Jesse left for work at 11:30am, everyone else hung out until 1:30. By that point I had to get the boys ready, myself ready and bake cookies before we went up to the station to eat dinner with the Firemen. They were starting at 4:00, so my goal was to leave the house no later than 3:30pm. Well between all of those things and feeding Fynn, I didn't leave unlit 4:00pm. Sometimes I wonder why getting out the door take so much freaking time.

Before we left, I HAD to get a picture of all three of these handsome boys in their new Christmas sweaters. Again, such a struggle. I took several pictures and FINALLY a Christmas miracle occurred.... All 3 of them were looking at the camera and smiled! AHHH! This is a new favorite of mine.

When we finally arrived at the station we ate dinner. Because we were late, the guys ate without us. But that's ok. We were just happy to be there so we could hang out with Daddy.

Jesse took the boys out in the garage to play a little Ping-Pong with them while we waited for the Fire engine to get back from a call.

Our first family photo with our new addition in front of the fire truck. (The lighting was weird so I don't love how it turned out. But that's alright).

We hung out for a couple of hours and then it was time to go home. I let the boys stay up a little later than normal to watch a Christmas Show. Then it was time to call it a night. I was exhausted and ready to go to bed myself.

Most Definitely a White Week!

Ever since that first big snow storm a couple of weeks ago, it just hasn't stopped. Just about every day this week we have had snow fall everyday. And not just a little, it comes down in inches. I'm sure we are getting more because we are higher up on the hill now. But either way it has just been dumping. It's kind of exciting.

 

I love when Jesse is here so he can snow blow the driveway for me. 

 But when he's not, I'm left to do it alone. Yes I should be using the snow blower, because that was one of the biggest factors that went into buying it. But I still am nervous to use it. I need more practice. And besides, I couldn't get to the gym in time so I counted shoveling as my workout.

 Cute little Ryker wants to help out so bad. I love that about him. 

 I left a little patch on the flatter part of the driveway for him to do all by himself. He did a very good job.

The boys have been begging Jesse and I to build a snowman with them, but it just never was good timing. So I was so happy to see this picture that Heidi had sent me on Saturday (12/19) while they were watching the kids. They sure are lucky to have such fun grandparents. 

 

Christmas Eve

After work on Wednesday I was so excited to finish up work and have a whole week before I had to go back. Yay!!! I have needed this so bad.

 

Christmas Eve day I had purchased matinee tickets for the new Star Wars movie that had just come out that weekend. The boys were beyond excited to see it. And so were we. It had been 2 months since we had the opportunity to see a movie. 

 Once the movie was over we rushed home grabbed the dough for the bread and headed out to Mike and Heidi's for dinner.

We gathered around the table for turkey dinner. T&T are in Puerto Rico with her family, so we were a bit incomplete. But that's alright.

We ate and then had to hurry and practice our songs for the Old Folks Home. Usually we go caroling to those who don't get very many visits, but this year the Home wanted us to gather them and perform on front of them. Much more pressure, but still fun.

The whole Smith family is very musically talented. Me, on the other hand, not so much. I can pick up an alto line on songs that I'm familiar with, but I'm not that great. Thankfully the cute old people don't seem to mind too much.

When it came time for the three older boys to sing "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer" this one lady got up and started dancing and singing along with them. It was so cute. I loved seeing her get so excited about it.

After our mini concert we all went back to mom and dad's to hang out. Of course we always have to get a picture of these two whenever they are together (All of the old people were so in love with little Evie).

We had a quiet moment that night to reflect on things we were grateful for. It's something we do every Christmas Eve night. It's a little problematic with 3 rambunctious boys. Unless they are watching a show, sitting still and quiet for 5 minutes truly is a challenge. But they managed.

I am and always will be grateful told have family close by. It's a blessing!

Grateful for the tradition we have to go visit those who are lonely on Christmas Eve to bring them some good cheer and hopefully brighten up their Holiday!


I gave the boys all matching jammies that night and took their picture by the Christmas tree. I get a crack out of trying to get a picture with all three of them together. Ryker and Cyrus both can't get enough of Fynn. I feel like this picture says it all.

 The Love of my Life. My other Half. Any of those cheesy sayings don't hold a candle to how much he means to me. I am BEYOND grateful for him.

While Jesse was at work on Saturday (12/19) a guy from A-shift (Dennis Crezee) went up to Jesse and handed him a piece of paper. It was paperwork for a trade. He looked at Jesse and told him "I'm going to work for you for the first 4 hours on Christmas Day".

When Jesse called to tell me this later that afternoon, I was so shocked. What a Christ-like thing to do! Oh it just made me SO happy. When I told the Smith family about it Emily suggested that we give Dennis a gift basket. Why didn't I think of that? It's brilliant. I still can't get over how thoughtful and generous that was for us. What a man.

The original plan on Christmas Day was to wake the boys up early to have our Christmas morning before he left for work at 7:00am.  Then the boys and I would go down to the Smith's by 9am. But with the new allotted time that we had, Jesse didn't want to waste a lot of it driving to Cottonwood Heights and then back up to Ogden.

So after discussing what we should do, it was then decided that everyone would come to our house that morning so we could have more time together. It was going to be perfect.

Pre-Christmas 2015

With Jesse being on duty Christmas day, my parents wanted to find a time that worked with everyone's schedules to celebrate Christmas. And that ended up being {12/20/15}. Gave us 5 less days to prepare, but it still worked out. It was actually really nice to be able to spend a whole evening feeling unrushed to be to the next place. And then that way Christmas Day could be less hectic.

 

After church we hustled down to my parents. I was in charge of a green salad so I hurried and made that and we headed there. My mom had the table all decorated for Christmas and we ate a very delicious dinner.

After that we had a spiritual thought from T&J and then mom brought out these chimes for us to play Christmas songs. Lets just say we should all keep our day jobs. We weren't very good. But that's ok it was still fun.

 Once that was done, the unwrapping commenced.

Every year we draw names. Secretly. And every year whoever Tyson has gets a gag gift. I try to emphasis that he shouldn't give a gag gift. And because he had me (without me knowing that he had me) he made sure to pay me back for emphasizing "No GAG Gifts".

He hands me a gift to open and it's a book titled "Crafting with Cat Hair" Haha, alright. Thanks Ty, You're real funny. But before I know it he comes back into the room with a cat box and as he's carrying it over to me the box is shaking. I couldn't tell if he was doing it or if there REALLY was a cat inside. But then we hear from inside a quiet "MEOW". I look at him in disbelief and thinking to myself "How on earth am I going to hide the fact that I'm pissed he bought me a cat?"

I sat there for a good minute very hesitant to open it. But when I finally did I found his phone in there making the cat noises and my real gift inside. Haha. Man he got me good.

We all laughed about it for a really long time. Jessica especially. The after thought of recording it would have been awesome. I guess Tyson didn't expect it to go that well.

So thankful for my family. I love these people and couldn't raise my family if they weren't around. They are a great help and support to us.

Biggest Snow Storm

 Monday morning (12/14/15) we woke up to some serious snowfall. There was over a foot of snow out there and it was still coming down like crazy. Jesse went out to shovel the driveway and it took him almost 2 hours to get it and the cars all cleared off. And when he was done there was at least 4 more inches that was on the driveway.

The ENTIRE day it snowed. Not once did it stop. The snow plows could hardly keep the streets clear. Driving anywhere took double the amount of time. Little cars were stuck in the snow everywhere we turned.

Ryker's school called us and postponed school to start at 9:30 instead of 8:00. But I think they should have just cancelled it all together.

Any of the errands that I needed to make that day turned into a family outing, There was no way our little car could make it out in the snow and I didn't dare drive in it.

By the time we were done running errands the thought of shoveling the driveway again didn't appeal to Jesse. So we broke down and bought a snow blower. Ugh. That is just something that you don't really want to spend money on. And we hope that we will really need it. I'm sure living higher on the mountain and having such a steep driveway it'll come in handy quite often.

By that evening the snow finally slowed down. Jesse had measured during the middle of the day that we had 16 inches. I would bet by the time it stopped we had close to 24 inches of snow at our house. Crazy huh?

The boys were dying to go play in it. Every night this week they have gone outside to play in the snow. They have had such a blast.

Yesterday while they were with Mike and Heidi while Jesse and I worked, they were finally able to build a snowman. They had been begging us to build one with them. Glad they have such great grandparents who are willing to play with them.