Just like that... I turned 31!

Woke up this morning a year older and feeling younger then ever. Jesse was coming off of a shift this morning so I let the boys sleep in while I went to the gym. It's been nice now that Ryker is at an age where I trust him for an hour or 2 to be in charge. I went early and got a nice workout with my friends Tara and Cand. 

When I do leave the boys at home I will usually call them on my way home just to check in with them. When Ryker answered the phone he seemed a little suspicious asking me where I was exactly. I told him that I had just left the gym and would be home in 8 mins.

Well much to my surprise when I walked through the door I was greeted with these 2 boys (in their unders) holding a homemade birthday banner and singing Happy Birthday to me. Oh they sure know how to make me feel so loved on my birthday. While they were singing I felt like my heart was going to burst and I wanted to sob. But I couldn't because I had the biggest smile on my face. When they were done I had to hurry and snap a picture of them. Ryker said "No, I'm in my underwear" but I didn't care. I had to capture this moment.

Then Ryker took me into the kitchen to show me that he had made pancakes for me. They were all ready on the table waiting for me to eat them. Oh I was so tickled by how thoughtful he was. They had NO HELP from anyone. Matter of fact Ryker manned the whole thing (Cyrus got distracted he told me haha). I even asked Ryker if Grandma Heidi or Daddy gave him the idea. But Nope. It was all his idea. This is what I call a Pay Day Moment for a mother. So awesome. I just felt so special that he would go to all this effort for me. I guess the minute I left this morning he got up and started working on the banner and cooking the pancakes. Makes sense why he was acting so suspicious on the phone. He was frantic to have everything ready for me. And he did a great job!

I went to work at 11 and was feeling TOTALLY BUMMED that I had scheduled clients. I was only going to work until 4pm. But still, I was really wanting to stay home with my family.

But when I was coming home I drove up our street to find that Jesse had rented this 4-wheeler for the snow. Date night was looking to be a good time.

I came in the house and he said "Surprise!!!" Haha. He had a sitter there ready to go and he told me to go change into warm clothes and we were leaving. He had hot chocolate ready to go in thermos mugs and we were going to pick up soup on our way out from Parsen's Bakery. Mmmm. And a yummy birthday treat.

He took me up above the "B" and we rode around as far as we could go. Pretty much until the trail ended. We found a spot to chill and we ate our soup, hot chocolate and cookies under the starry cold night.

We headed back down the hill and Jesse let me drive. Hehe. I liked driving because the backseat was very bumpy. And I got to get some paybacks for giving me such a bumpy ride. Haha.

When we made it back down I was feeling very cold by that point. But we were done so that worked out. We loaded it back up on the trailer and took it back to the rental place.
It was only 8:00ish by this point and I wasn't feeling ready for my birthday to be over. So we decided to go and get 2nd dinner since our soup wasn't holding us over so well.

Pei Wei was the stop. And I just loved talking and hanging out with my man a little while longer. Every year he goes out of his way to make my day so special and me feel so loved. I'm a lucky girl. I have all these boys surrounding me with so much love.

Christmas 2016

We woke up to a White Christmas and it didn't stop all day. Since Jesse was working I got up and spent an hour snow blowing the driveway so Chantel and Tyler could get out and go do Christmas with Tyler's family. 

Since Jesse gets off work at 8am we were expecting him around 8:45. But he didn't make it home until after 9am. And he got stuck several times and was surprised that he even made it home in the Suzuki. He told us when he got home that he was able to leave the station around 7am and it took him that long to get home because of how snow packed the roads were. And it was still coming down. 

We ate breakfast together and then had to hustle and get ready for 10am church. I thought we would just open Christmas gifts after church since Jesse got home so late. But I wanted the boys to open up one gift before we left because it was an out fit to wear for Christmas Sacrament.

We were getting a kick out of Fynnie's funny little sqinty smiles. He sure does make us laugh quite often.

Cy opening his Christmas sweater.

All ready to go to church.

I feel grateful for this Christmas Day that we can reflect on the birth of Christ. Especially it being on the Sabbath Day. It felt good to step away from the hustle and bustle of the day and worship Him, partake of the sacrament and to listen to and sing Christmas Songs. The spirit touched my heart and I felt Happy.

And seeing these boys all dressed up to worship in their new Christmas attire makes my heart swell. I love these 3 so much.

After church Jesse went out to snowblow. The whole neighborhood and the church needed to be cleared. He was out there for about an hour and the boys were inside just dying to open their gifts. So when I finally gave them the go-ahead, they were thrilled. By this point Fynn was napping so we just started without him.

We surprised them with a Lagoon Season Pass and some Legos.

When Fynn finally woke up we let him open up his  gifts.

He was actually really good at opening the gifts.

The boys played with their new legos and some of the stuff from the stockings for a few hours, but the it was time to go to my parents house.

Thankfully by this point the snow had finally stopped. We all arrived safely. Mom started out the night with opening gifts. We got a kick out of these 2 grandkids and their new rides they got from Grandma and Grandpa.

Ryker is always so good to give thank you hugs.

So is Cy. I thought this was a cute picture of my mom too.

My mom loves Christmas and this year she had all of these gifts to open for a game that we played with some dice. By the end we were all "stealing" each others gifts and laughing about it all.

We had a yummy dinner and yummy desserts to the point that we were all stuffed. We played games until we were all too tired to think. Even to the point that we forgot to take a group picture. Dang it. Oh well. The memories will have to be good enough.

I loved how relaxing this day was. It was so nice to only have one place to worry about going to. Makes for one good day with family.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve 2016

After going to bed at 4am last night (well this morning) Jesse had to wake up for work at 6:30am. Ugh. I was feeling so bad for him that he only got 2.5 hours before going and working a 24 hour shift. 

I didn't know if I would be up to doing a bunch of stuff with the boys with only getting 4 hours of sleep myself. But as we got up and was feeling pretty good I decided to go to a movie. I made arrangements with my mom to go to dinner with her and dad. We decided that I would take the boys to go see a movie (up in Ogden)  and afterwards I would drop by the station to visit Jesse. Then Mom and Dad would meet me at Sanora Grill for dinner.

While we were waiting to leave we were all soaking up our time with Fynn who we all missed so much. The boys were so excited to be with him again. We were getting a kick out of the fact that he would bring me his snow suit and sign please for me to put it on him. Then he would just walk around the house with it on. Haha. He's such cute kid. Our family is so complete with him. 

Then it was time to go. We got in the truck and were on our way. We were cutting it close to leave so we were a little bit late when we got there. I was going to stop by somewhere to pickup some lunch. But didn't have time and decided to just get stuff for the boys at the concessions. While I was waiting for the food to be done I sent the boys into the theater so they could start watching the show.

I got the food and was carrying it on a tray with it in one hand, Fynn in the other and the diaper bag over my shoulder. Then the food slid off the tray all over the dirty ground. A sweet lady stopped to help me and told me I could probably go and get a new one for free. So I went back to the workers who gladly made me new ones.

I got the new ones and made my way into the theater and right as I was about to sit down, the food spills again. Gaaaaa. This time I just picked it up without the boys knowing and just gave it to them. Shhh, don't tell them. Haha.

The rest of the movie I spent following Fynn around the theater trying to keep him calm and quiet. He's definitely in the worst stage for movies. What I caught of the movie I thought was really cute.

Then we made our way over to the Fire Station to visit daddy. We were all so happy to be together as a family. It was the first time in over a week.

We hung out for an hour or so talking and playing ping pong. When Jesse got a call we all decided to leave too.

I drove around for a little bit hoping to get Fynn to fall asleep. But no luck. By that point it was time to meet mom and dad for dinner. Which I was super excited about. It is one of the best Mexican Restaurants around and I hadn't had it since I was pregnant with Fynn.

I'm sad I didn't get a picture of us together at dinner, but at this point I was having troubles with Fynn and Cy behaving in the restaurant and was feeling ready to get out of there. So as soon as we were done we left. Mom and Dad went to go see the new Star Wars Movie and I drove home with the boys.

The drive home was white knuckle for me. It has been raining all day and as the night came it turned into snow and it made for very slippery conditions. While we were on the freeway I saw a car on the oncoming traffic side spin out of control hopping up on top of the median (which was right by me at this point) and it fell off the median and kept going the other way. Oh it freaked me out. I was fine in the truck but I get nervous with all the people around me. Anything could happen at any moment. Life can change so fast if we got in a bad accident. I was feeling bad for that person in their car.

Thank the Lord we made it all home safely and the boys were all passed out in the back.

I put them to bed and stayed up watching 2 Christmas Movies while I wrapped Christmas presents. Haha. Talk about waiting until the last min to do it huh? I really had no time before we left on our trip to get them wrapped. At least I had everything ready to be wrapped right?

Last Day-Headed Home

Cant believe we are doing this already. Is it really time to go home? Yes we miss Fynnie and it feels right to be going home, but the week just went by so quickly. After breakfast we were all trying to get our last taste of the ocean before we had to really say goodbye to it. 

I wanted to get the last feel of the sand between my toes. Because it'll be awhile before I get to do this again.

Really our agenda for the day was to get packed, checked out of the resort and get our last and final pictures together.

The huge Christmas tree right in the middle of the resort that we got to see everyday we were here to remind us that it really was Christmas. Being in the warm sun it didn't really make me think that it was December. 

We made it to the airport just fine and through security. Mom had noticed that back at home it was stormy and it was causing alot of delays on flights. Our flight got pushed back an hour and we had a 5 hour layover in LA.

Taking off and looking over the bay where we stayed and thinking about how all the memories over the past week were going to be never forgotten. Audios Puerto Vallarta. It has been a great vacation!!!

When we landed in LA we all got out luggage to take through customs. Which is all audomated with computers. Crazy. Then we had to go through security again. And for some random reason Jesse and Andrew had to be searched like crazy. Which took forever. And my carry-on bags going through security  both needed to be checked. But there wasn't anyone around to check it. So I had to stand there forever waiting for someone to go through them. With that and Jesse's pat down it took us forever to get through security. Thank goodness our layover was 5 hours and we had time to kill or else we all would have been stressed to catch our next flight.

Once we found our gate we all went and got some food. And then just chilled until we boarded the plane.

Then time came to board. Everyone was settled with their baggage in the over head compartments when the pilot came over the com to tell us they didn't have a Co-pilot. Um ok. Now what? They acted like it would only take a little bit to figure it out. Apparently the Co-pilot that was suppose to get on our plane was on another plane that got redirected to another city and they were waiting for her to come over to LA.

I set a timer to see how long "a little bit" would take. 2 hours and 54 mins later we were finally pulling off of the runway. Thankfully I had a book to read, the boys handled it like champs and Fynn wasn't with us or else that 3 hour wait would have been miserable.

We landed in SLC around 2 am. Got our bags and Chantel came to get us in our truck. Well when she pulls up Jesse notices that the gas light is on and remembers that it was like that when we got dropped off at the airport last week. Well we don't make it out of the airport before we totally run out of gas.  Thankfully an airport cop pulled up and called  a sevice truck to bring us 2 gallons of gas to get us to where we could fill up. 

We drove to the nearest gas station to fill up. Its 3:00am and we are just laughing how this whole trip home has just been miserable. Haha. 

We get home. Get the boys in bed and then we hear Fynn talking in his bed. My mom had put him to bed in his bed so he would be home when we got home. Jesse and I went in there to see him and he just giggled to see us. We took him in to see Ryker and he continued to giggle. Oh what a sweet reunion to end on this long day. 

Jesse and I showered and went to bed at 4am. Haha. What a day!

Day 7-Last Full Day

Sadly our last full day on the beach is today. Its unreal how fast the whole week has gone by. But that's how it goes when you're having fun right?

I could sit and watch these boys play in the ocean all day. They just love it.

This picture is a fun one of Emily and Ryker boogie boarding. They caught the wave just right and the both rode next to each other. I went out several times to Boogie Board as well and it was really fun. That's the bummer thing about being the photographer is no one got a picture of me catching the waves. But that's ok. I'm happy to capture all the memories.

Andrew started to bury Emily and she wanted to be turned into an octopus. Andrew did most of it but I did help. It turned out way cool though.

The brains behind it all and we had to get a picture with him and his final product.

As the day went on we were feeling sick of the sun, so we found some shade up by the pool. I got a kick out of these 2. They were both passed out but snuggled on the same chair.

One of the favorite things the boys loved to order was a "Winnie the Pooh". It was a mango and strawberry smoothie. And take note of his cheesy tshirt that he got from the Kids Zone. Haha.

Right before going to dinner we tried skyping my mom to talk and see Fynn. But she didn't answer, but at the end of dinner she called us back so Jesse and I left the table to go and talk to them. The connection wasn't very good at first and we could only hear each other but not see us. I could hear Fynn's sweet little noises and I couldn't wait to see him. But as soon as the video started working and he saw us, he started to cry and roll around on the ground.  He eventually calmed down but he wouldn't even look at the camera. It made me feel so homesick to see him. I guess it's a good thing we are headed home tomorrow so I can see him.

After dinner we walked over to the marina to the flea market to do a little last minute shopping.

Had to love seeing these 2 getting shoulder rides on Andrew and Grandpa.

The market was huge but we found what we needed. As we walked back to the resort we were feeling sleepy and ready for bed, but dad requested a quick gathering in their room. I was giving him a hard time that it needed to be fast. He agreed.

We walk into the room to find a Birthday Surprise for me. Then I was feeling really bad that I was giving Dad a hard time about making it a quick gathering. He was doing it for me. Sorry Dad.

They all sang Happy Birthday to me in Spanish. Even though my birthday isn't until next week but they sure know how to make me feel special.

Day 6- More Beach Time

I promised Ryker and Cyrus that they could have a little bit of spending money while we were here. So today they spent a little bit of their money on these little parasailer toys. It was the perfect windiness so they were just loving them.

And back to the beach today like the usual. There is nothing more therapeutic than soaking up some sun on the beach.

The inner child in Andrew and Tyson hasn't faded because they were more than willing to dig in the sand and play in the ocean with the littles. They were so proud of their pool that they had created.

Mom had purchased jammies for all of us so we could get a family picture by the beach. So our little attempt at a self photo shoot had it's ups and downs. When we started the sun was still too bright and it was difficult to find someone to take good pictures for us. But luck had I our second attempt at finding a stand in photographer was fantastic. I originally I was trying to use my Canon camera. But decided my Samsung phone was doing a better job. The stand-in photographer had a Samsung phone as well so she was familiar with it and did a fantastic job. And she was so patient with us and our struggles.

So when I mentioned her being so patient with us I'm mostly referring to this picture. I think we had over 20 attempts at this picture and this is the only one that really turned out. But I love it!

Before the sun went completely down I wanted to get a picture with Jesse.

That was that. Our little photoshoot turned out really well.