The Weekend (The Bad)

Sunday was not our best day. It was raining all day in Utah and our tires were a little bald so we were skating for a few miles down the freeway until we stopped for some new ones. Two hours and four new tires later we were finally heading home. Two hours from home we discovered that the road was closed due to a crash. We waited for a little while before deciding to go around rather than wait for the road to open. It added two more hours to the drive but we finally made it home. Yay! or so we thought. Luke was taking Jax inside while I got the mail when I hear a little panicked "Courtnie! Grab Jax!" There is about an inch of standing water in the laundry room and kitchen. Water is pouring from the fridge and its cascading down into the crawl space. Luke turned off the water then we went to work sopping up all the water. Jax was walking around on his toes saying "All wet! All wet!" He thought it was pretty fun to have a swimming pool in the house. We tried the shop vac which didn't work that well then went to towels. 

 The waterfall into the crawl space. There was a couple of inches down there.

 Every towel we own (plus some of the Howell's) went into soaking up the mess. Here's Luke squeezing out the super wet ones.

 Trying to figure out what to do with the crawl space. 

The water is all cleaned up from upstairs, our hot water circulator isn't circulating, and we are still trying to clean up underneath the house. Oh the joys of being a homeowner! Hopefully this week will get much, much better. 

The Weekend (The Good)

Last weekend we were supposed to go to my family Christmas party in Utah but a storm kept us in town. That was a bummer but this weekend my family was there again so we went to go to the Piano Guys concert. Apparently the Piano Guys are actually one piano and a cello. Who knew? It was pretty fun :)

 After the concert we stopped at the Draper city park to check out the tree of life. It was super cold but the tree looked awesome. I have been watching way too much Tinkerbell with Jax because it looked like a pixie dust tree to me.

 Since Luke has to work the day before and after Christmas and we are staying in Wyoming, we did the family gift exchange. Jax was really into opening the presents. He was helping everyone as he said "Open it, open it." 

We will miss everyone at Christmas but some family time and beautiful music was a great pre-Christmas celebration!

20 Months

This little boy loves to dance! His favorite song right now is Taylor Swift's "Shake it Off." Watching him makes me smile.

The other day I had thrown away a mostly empty can of frosting mostly so I would quit eating it. A little later I hear a "Mmmm" coming from behind the couch and this is what I find. Jax decided to share his treat with Baxter. I loved that he thought he was being so sneaky.

Later I hear more "Mmmm"s this time coming from underneath the dining room table. 

Loving the swings.

He loves watching the Tinkerbell movies, the number two, chocolate, jumping on the trampoline, reading books, the moon, giving knuckles, being a big boy in nursery, bubbles, washing his "hands", airplanes, and piggyback rides. I feel so blessed to have this happy little guy in my life. Every day is an adventure with him!

Family Festivities

Luke had to work the day after Thanksgiving so Jax and I headed to Idaho to catch the end of my family's Thanksgiving/Christmas party. There was tons of food, we played lots of games, six puzzles were done, and fun was had by all :) A group went and saw Mockingjay one night. Jax was trying to be helpful with one of the puzzles so I took him in another room and turned on some music for him to dance to and pretty soon we were having an impromptu dance party. It was probably the first and last extended family dance party. How can you resist dancing along with our cute Jax? 

 Here are some of us playing the largest game of Phase Ten ever.

 The family Turkey Bowl was short and sweet. It was a super windy day. All three touchdowns were from interceptions. The ball wouldn't fly straight on the long passes.  We lasted about ten minutes before the old guys packed it in. 

The Christmas party gift exchange game. We all draw a number which decides the order we pick presents. You can open a wrapped present or steal someone's opened one. 

 Grayson, Claire, and Jax were really excited by the pile of presents. They were a little less so when we wouldn't let them tear them all open. It's so fun to have babies around.

 Coincidentally my parents both opened cat presents.

 We have so much fun when we all get together. I look forward to this weekend all year!

 Jax was really happy to get his picture taken. Poor Claire was wondering why we were torturing her.

 Glad to be home with Daddy. We missed him! 

The Tale of Three Thanksgivings

This year we had three Thanksgivings. Towards the end of October our friends Brandon and Emily invited us and some other friends over for a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving. Lots of food and fun. Next, for the week of Thanksgiving, Zach, Jayme, James, and Hayden came to play with us and we loved it. Poor James was sick pretty much the whole time he was here and even had a trip to the ER. I'm not sure he had a great time. One day Luke, Zach, Jayme, and Hayden went hunting and to find mountain sheep while I stayed home and watched the boys. They saw a couple big rams and maybe a dozen 4-point mule deer bucks, they said one was huge.

We all went for a couple walks because James seemed happiest outside. Jaxon decided to try going superman style down the slide (not prompted) and he liked it so much he did it several more times.

  I decided that we should have Thanksgiving on Monday so we could have leftovers all week and there would be less cooking. Jayme made some delicious pies, Luke and Zach cooked a mean turkey, and my rolls turned out halfway decent. Yay for us! 

 On actual Thanksgiving we went over to a friend's house. There was a normal turkey, a deep fried turkey, and a smoked chicken. Eight pies... So much food. Poor James was having a rough day so he and Jayme stayed home and we brought them leftovers.

We are thankful for family and glad Zach and co. came to visit. We hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving. We look forward now to the Christmas season. Time to change the decorations and put up the lights.

It's My Birthday

I had a birthday shout hooray. One year older and wiser too...Since we had just had friends over for a Halloween party we kept my birthday pretty low key. Luke took me out to dinner at the casino (grilled cheese and creme brule) then we came home and opened presents. I got a warm scarf and a flash for my camera. Jax was pretty excited about the scarf. This was my first year without a rainbow chip frosting cake since they discontinued it but Luke made me an awesome better than anything cake that was delicious. Look close and you can see how old I am :) My brother Eric's birthday is the day before mine so everybody went to my parents house to celebrate and have a birthday weekend. The girls got some shopping in while the boys went shooting. Lots of family, fun, and cake to be had. 

Happy Halloween/Harvest Party

Happy Halloween party. Our ward party this year ended up being a Harvest party so we decided to throw our own party so we could wear our costumes. The theme this year was Peter Pan. Can you tell how excited Baxter is to be a crocodile?

I always feel awkward taking pictures of other people so I don't have many from the party. We played movie title charades, ate lots of treats, and had a great time. Our friends the Howells came as black eyed peas and Brooke came as Tinkerbell. 

Jax helping Luke get ready for work. He loves brushing his teeth. Can you tell?

"Yee-haw!" Jax was having a much better time than Baxter while we were waiting for trick-or-treaters. I was trying to get a picture of them sitting next to each other but Jax jumped right on to wrestle that croc. 

Jax was fascinated by all the dressed up kids coming to the door. He kept watching out the window waiting for more to come. 

When Luke got home we headed to the church for some trunk-or-treating.

Mmm. Candy still in the wrapper is the best :)

We came home and let Captain Hook finally get some dinner and continued our tradition of watching the movie Clue to end our Halloween. 

The next night was our ward Harvest party. Enjoying cornbread and chili.

Having fun on a hayride and playing games and enjoying treats. We had a busy, crazy, fun few days. Its the kick off to the holiday season and I love it!