Bounce House

The bounce house that "Santa" brought last year has been the best gift ever! It allows the kids to get rid of their plentiful energy that seems to increase in the winter. Here are a couple pictures of Kelsey and Cole playing in it one morning.

Pics

Here are some random pictures...
Kelsey getting nebulized. She is SO good about sitting for the 10 minutes it takes to do her medicine.

Coles lego version of the Washington Monument (he added windows and doors and a metro stop)

Kelsey trying to put back on her shirt... after she took off her shirt... her new past time

Sadie pulling the girls around the house

Let It Snow!!

Yesterday morning I checked the weather and it said that there was 30% chance of rain. Imagine my surprise when I looked out the window around 3pm and snow was starting to fall! I knew the kids would be super excited! They've been praying for weeks for snow to come. By the time I got them off the bus and homework started it was almost 4:30. I decided to climb into the attic and get all the snow gear out so they could go play! What if this is the only snow we get this winter and I made them stay inside?! I would be the meanest Mom ever! So, instead, I'm the greatest Mom ever (that's what my kids said)! :) Cole, Sadie and Jayda had the best time and played outside for quite awhile, even after it got dark....making snowmen, sledding down the neighbor's hill, throwing snowballs...these kinds of memories are the best! Homework can always be done later....

Warm Weather = Park Time!

We have had some awesome weather the last few days... high 50's and into the mid 60's. Who wouldn't love that... especially in January! :) We met up with some friends and all the kids had a fabulous time!
Cole lounging

Kelsey and P

Say cheese... except for Cole, apparently :)

Kelsey Jane

The girlies

Jayda

Sadie Jo

Totes

Here are the oldest kids ready for church today. Their scripture totes that they got to choose as one of their Christmas presents arrived in the mail this week. They were all SUPER excited! Inside their totes are the hardback triple combinations that they got for Christmas, as well as the mini primary songbooks that they already had. Cole wasn't feeling so swift today and that is why he is looking like he would rather be in bed than on his way to church. :)

10 Years

10 years ago, Bart and I were married in the Idaho Falls Temple. The events bringing us together are nothing short of miraculous. Now, here we are 10 years later... we have 4 kids and are loving our crazy life. Bart is such an awesome husband... I love how he works so hard for our family, I love how he makes me feel beautiful and loved, I love how he bathes the kids, changes diapers, helps clean, sacrifices so much so that I can stay home with the kids, cooks, is a worthy priesthood holder, and is such a great Dad, etc. I'm lucky to have him and I'm proud to be his wife. Here's to many more years! I love you!

NYC-Part 3-Brooklyn Bridge/Central Park

For our final day, we slept in a little (as a parent, you need to do that whenever you can..hehe) and left to walk and walk and walk and walk and walk. Can you guess what we mostly did?! Walk!! Much more walking than we had anticipated. Using Bart's phone, we couldn't find the opening for the train we wanted to take. We finally took a taxi to the beginning of the Brooklyn Bridge. What a view! Again, tons of people, but very worth it. We had heard from several people that it was mandatory for us to go to Grimaldi's, a pizza joint on the other side of the bridge in Brooklyn. After waiting in line forever, we finally got in.... and it ended up being just ok for us. The pizza we had the day before totally trumped Grimaldi's but we are glad we went. We headed just a short distance to Jacques Torres' chocolate shop. The most DIVINE hot chocolate. It was a bit much for Bart, but I adored it. This is where so much of the walking happened. We decided to find the train to take it to Central Park, instead of going back across the bridge. Once again, following Bart's phone, we walked forever trying to find the entry to the train. Never found it. We found a bunch of cops and I asked where the metro was and one of them said "What's a metro?" Good grief. The directions she gave got us nowhere, so we ended up having to walk all the way back to the bridge before walking all the way over it again! Bart and I kept saying to each other we hadn't walked that much since our missions! :)

We finally got to Central Park and it was so pretty and peaceful. I would love to go again when the trees have their leaves. One thing we didn't do that I had wanted to was go ice skating. But, every time we tried to go, there were SO many people and the wait was hours long. Another time...
Ice skaters

Central Park




Grimaldi's Pizza

Brooklyn Bridge and views from bridge

NYC-Part 2-Temple/Ground Zero/"The Rock"/Wicked

We started our anniversary by doing sealings in the Manhattan Temple. Neither of us had been there before and it is exquisite! It was completely quiet... you would never know you were in the middle of a busy city. The Temple President told us that it is a building within a building, with lots of insulation and that is why you can't hear anything. It was a beautiful experience to be there with Bart. It is always wonderful to be in the temple on our anniversary.

Afterward, we had some divine muffins and hot cocoa at Magnolia Bakery. We went back to the hotel to change and headed to Ground Zero. Talk about a somber experience. There was a very special feeling there.

We had tickets to have a tour of Rockefeller Center. It actually includes over 20 buildings and the tour was pretty great. We went to the top and the view was so incredible! We also went to see the windows at Macy's and got to ride on the wooden escalator there. Although it was crazy, it was super fun to visit New York City during the holidays because the decorations were so beautiful! We found a hole in the wall place for lunch and had the best pizza I've ever eaten!

The day came to a close by going to dinner at Bouley. Completely amazing!! You know when a man comes around with a bread cart and one of the choices has pistachios in it, it's going to be a fabulous dinner! In addition to what we ordered, the chef sent out two additional desserts (um, yes please!!) Who isn't going to love that! :) To top everything off, we went to see Wicked. WOW! Both of the women leads were SO talented, especially Elphaba. It was a perfect day! Thanks for 10 years, babe!
Manhattan Temple

Ground Zero



NBC-Where the Today Show is taped

Gorgeous cathedral



Bart in front of one of the Macy's windows

Wooden escalator


Crystal chandelier

Top of "The Rock"

View of Central Park

Rockefeller Christmas Tree

Wicked Stage

Waiting for Wicked to start!

NYC-Part 1-Statue of Liberty/Times Square

Bart and I went on a trip last week to celebrate our 10th Anniversary! It was incredibly awesome! We flew my wonderful niece, JaNessa, out to watch the kids while we headed north for 3 days. After landing at JFK, we were driven by a crazy taxi driver to our hotel. I couldn't believe how sick I was by the time we got to our hotel! That cabbie was a wild man! He drove super fast, accelerating-slamming on brakes, weaving in and out of traffic. Numerous times I thought we were going to get in a car accident and I was ready to puke by the time he pulled up to our hotel. Our hotel, the Andaz, was fun to stay in. It was very modern and had a HUGE shower with a ginormous shower head spraying from the ceiling. The Empire State Building was one block up and we had a great view from our window.

After lying down for 10 minutes, I felt good enough to leave so we headed to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Both stops were SO amazing! It was a very chilly, windy day, but our hearts were full of gratitude for the freedoms that we enjoy!

We had dinner at The House, which was super yummy. Afterward, we headed down to Times Square. They were already starting to set up for New Years Eve and there were SO many people! I swear, on this trip, I second hand smoked several packs of cigarettes! I couldn't believe how many people smoke in NYC. But, Times Square was fun to walk around and there was definitely plenty to see!
Crazy Taxi!

Bart is the waiting room in the museum at Ellis Island. This was where people who had run into trouble trying to get into America had to wait.