Friday, April 24, 2015

February 2015

Matt's parent came to visit the first couple of weeks in February and to attend the Roots Conference. The kids loved having them here. A day or two after they came I had been trying to figure out how to go about getting rid of binkies or "kiki's" as Olivia called them and had bought a toy as a reward thinking I would use that. Olivia found the Minnie Mouse toy in Matt's closet and really wanted it so I told her that if she wanted it she needed to throw her binky away in the garbage. In total shock I watched as Olivia walked over to the garbage can and threw away her binki. I knew it was in the moment for her to get the toy and she probably figured she could find another one around the house later but I knew if I gave her the toy we had to stick with it. Over the next week she would ask for her"kiki" especially when going to bed and we would tell her remember you threw it away in the garbage. It seemed to work really well because she knew she had done that and couldn't really throw a big fit about it knowing she did it. Then it became a joke when putting her to bed to jokingly ask for a "kiki" to see our reaction and she would laugh about it. Now if only potty training could be that easy! :)

Olivia loves to paint at my aunts house after Sunday dinner. She has painted a couple different bird houses to put outside. I love the tongue out concentration she has here.

February 1, 2015

It's always fun to capture her personality. I really wanted to remember her kissing face because she loves to pucker her lips to give kisses.

February 5, 2015

Over the weekend we headed up to the cabin with my parents, sister and Matt's parents because his parents hadn't seen the cabin since the beginning of last summer when we bought it. There was still enough snow that the roads were closed but it wasn't a hard hike since most of the main roads weren't completely covered.

February 7, 2015

We couldn't believe how warm it was once the sun came out. Olivia had fun throwing snowballs at everyone until her hands were too cold and she wanted them warmed up.



She liked throwing them at daddy the most.


The boys didn't want to go sledding so they stayed inside to play games while a couple of us headed out to sled.


The side roads still had snow on them since they aren't in the full sun so we headed off to our new favorite hill. Olivia and I rode together and we were soaked after. It was really slushy snow and we were going so fast I would have to drag my feet in front of us to slow down which kicked snow at us and filled up or sled. We even hit a patch of the crushed asphalt and a piece of it shot down my throat. It was fun but one run was enough for us.


We had lunch and played games and left late in the afternoon to head home.


We don't have church until 1pm and so after Olivia's bath in the morning I put these foam curlers in her hair to see how they would work. You just roll up the hair and twist the ends so it went pretty quick.

February 8, 2015

Kaleb's suit that he had been wearing for a couple of years ($12 from Goodwill) was too small for him and  instead of telling us it didn't fit we had to figure it out when in sacrament meeting his jacket was off and we noticed the button on the pants undone. When I asked why they weren't done up he said because they're too small. You forget how fast kids grow! Ashton had also been wanting a suit for months and so we were able to get a good deal on 2 suits for the boys. They looked so handsome for church. And the curlers in Olivia's hair worked really well. I didn't even realize Matt took this picture of them but I'm glad he did.


Olivia's nursery teacher sent me this picture of her with her Valentine's hat on.


Olivia likes to use stools or chairs to play in any sink with the soap and water. She'll even turn on the bath water if we aren't in the bathroom fast enough to do it for her. But a cold bath isn't very much fun so she climbs right out. She loves water and baths!

February 9, 2015

Matt had a couple days off when his parents were here and so one of the days his mom came with me to the apartment to work on some crafts and Olivia stayed with the boys. Matt sent me this picture with the message "Guess who didn't take a nap....ME!"

February 10, 2015

The boys gave out microwave popcorn for their school Valentine's with this tag on it.

My sister is always nice and offers to watch the kids for us while we go out for Valentine's and Matt's parents were nice enough to let us go up to the cabin after dinner to spend the night. We had dinner at Cafe Madrid (my brother and sister-in-law had given us a gift card) and it was really good. When making the reservations they didn't tell us it was a special menu and Matt was really wanting to try their paella so he was a little bummed we couldn't order it but the food was really good. We hiked up to the cabin in the dark and had stopped on the way to grab ice cream and it was fun just to hang out and have a quick overnight date. The next morning as we were leaving we called Matt's parents and learned Ashton had woken up early to the sound of Olivia throwing up so he went to get grandma. I felt horrible she had to deal with her throwing up all morning until we got home. I stayed home from church with her and we figure it was either something she ate or some bug because she was fine the rest of the day. She just wanted to watch the fishy movie, Little Mermaid.

February 15, 2015

Matt's parents left the next day and since it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day Matt and I both had it off so we went over to help Logan and Liz put all the bead board and trim up in the nursery. It took longer than we all thought but at least we were able to finish it that day.

February 16, 2015

We came up from the basement to go to bed and Olivia had fallen asleep in our bed. I'm just happy she didn't fall off since our bed is really tall.

February 19, 2015

The boys love playing Monopoly. They're pretty competitive and play to win!

February 24, 2015

This girl is always posing and wanting me to take her picture. I don't mind one bit!

February 25, 2015

Awhile ago I read on THIS blog post about doing sock curls. So I decided to try it on Olivia. I only used 3 socks the first time and this is her the next morning. They loosened up a little but she has such thin hair and not very much of it I expected it to fall out a little.

February 26, 2015

Olivia wouldn't hold still so this is the best after picture I have. For only taking a couple of minutes the night before I was happy with the results. And it was only the first time so I've improved since then.


This is the next day and you can see it still left some wavy curl to her hair which I was surprised by. When I curl her hair with a curling iron the next day all of the curl is gone so I was happy to see even the slightest curl left. I now use 5 socks but still love how easy it is to do and the socks don't bother Olivia at all.

February 27, 2015

Olivia had fun wearing my sewing scrap basket as a hat. She was laughing hysterically thinking it was the funniest thing ever.


Ashton finally lost his first tooth. The boys must have my teeth because I was always behind in losing and getting teeth. I just had a baby wisdom tooth come in last year that I had to get pulled out. It looked like a baby molar with a really big root. I wasn't expecting at 30 to still have teeth come in! He actually just lost his 2nd tooth too a couple weeks ago. He has really tight teeth unlike Kaleb who has plenty of room in his mouth so I'm sure Olivia and him will eventually need braces.

February 27, 2015

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

January 2015

For New Year's we had rented snowmobile's and knew we needed be at the cabin early. So for New Year's Eve we went to see the new Night at the Museum movie and went to dinner and called it an early night. Matt and I went to bed right at midnight so we heard the kids running around the neighborhood ringing in the New Year. By 6:45 the next morning we left for the cabin so we could meet the guys dropping off the snowmobiles.We used Uinta Recreation and for a small fee they delivered and picked up the snowmobiles from our cabin which was nice. They also only rent new machines so the 2 2-seater 2015 models we rented were only 2 weeks old. Luckily the week of New Year's is when we actually had quite a bit of snow but it was also the coldest week of the winter. When we arrived at the cabin gate it was -18 degrees. Just stepping outside your nose hairs were immediately frozen and your hands would sting. Thankfully about 2 hours later when the sun was over the mountain it warmed up.

We bundled up the kids in the car while waiting for the machines. Kaleb wasn't bothered by the cold and you can see him out playing in the snow.

January 1, 2015

The helmet squished Ashton's cheeks but he didn't mind.



We took turns driving everyone and all our food and supplies up the mountain. I didn't take many pictures because we were too busy having fun. Kaleb tried sledding down the driveway but eventually went to the bigger hills around the cabins. We found one hill that was really long and that became our new favorite for sledding. You just had to make sure someone would drive you back to the top or it was a long hike back to the top.


Olivia went out a couple of times and loved the snowmobiles. We had brunch at the cabin with pancakes, bacon, eggs and fruit and it was really good. We also learned we hadn't put enough antifreeze down some of the pipes and some of them were frozen so we had to boil water and dump it down to thaw them but we didn't have any problems after that time. Overall we had a great time with all of my family there and hopefully we'll be able to do it again next New Year's.


Olivia is still obsessed with Frozen (although Ariel she likes more now) and so she was excited to put together this puzzle she got for Christmas.

January 2, 2015

Cute girl!

January 5, 2014

I didn't realize while doing dishes Olivia had brought some toys in and was playing behind me. When I turned around she was holding each of the dolls bottles in their mouths to feed them.

January 5, 2015

Matt helped finish off a room at my brother's for their future nursery. I helped with some drywall and putting up the bead board and trim but Matt and Logan were the ones working hard to get it finished and pretty quick too.

January 5, 2015

You can see more pictures of the nursery and how cute it is on their blog at the end of this post HERE.

Here's a picture from Liz's blog.

Olivia loves her brother's (most of the time). She loves giving them random hugs but she also loves to wrestle with them too. Her brother's love giving her whatever she wants for fear of her screaming at them. She's a little spoiled sometimes and doesn't like being told "no".

January 10, 2015

Olivia loves Minnie Mouse and this was her hair accessory this day.

January 13, 2015

I could hear the kids in Ashton's room and wondered what they were doing in there and when I went in I caught them eating Dorito's on his bed. They were laughing and having fun together and Olivia was feeding them because she had to hold the bag. It's always nice when they're having fun together and no one is fighting!

January 15, 2015

The boys had Nerd Day at school and dressed up as nerds. Ashton just wore glasses but Kaleb had the pants tucked in to his socks and parted hair too.

January 16, 2015

The best part is as I was taking pictures of the boys Olivia came running in from her room with glasses on and stood against the wall. She didn't want to be left out. She looks cute in her upside down sunglasses.


A co-worker of mine gave me a gift certificate to Baskin Robbins for Christmas and so one evening we went out to get ice cream. It was yummy! Ashton can't ever just smile normal.

January 16, 2015

Kaleb can't either so I said something funny to get him to try to smile for a picture.


Olivia wanted her cone in a paper cone too and she thinks she needs a spoon or fork to eat everything.


A couple days after Christmas we went to Ikea to get something for Olivia's room for her toys and books. We ended up getting 2 Kallax shelves and bought drawers, doors and baskets to make this configuration. It's great because everything she can get to easily but at the same time she likes to get into everything and so the first month or 2 she loved emptying everything out everyday. Now she's better about not pulling everything out and she knows where everything goes to put it all back.

January 17, 2015

We also moved her bed to the other side of the room since the new shelves were where her bed was before.


We celebrated Ashton's birthday at Sunday dinner with family. He was mad to find out Kaleb was doing bunny ears on him in the pictures.


Can't believe he's already 7!


He LOVES Halo, even more than Lego's most of the time so we was so excited to get this from his uncle and aunt.


The kids had their 6 month cleaning appointment with the dentist and this was Olivia's first time getting a regular cleaning. She didn't like someone else brushing her teeth so it was a quick check and brush with the fluoride and hopefully next time she won't be as scared. The prize and ride after she loved though. The dentist also confirmed what I thought and that is that Olivia has geographical tongue where there are smooth patches on her tongue making it look like a map. He was surprised I knew what it was but it was only because I have had my tongue look like hers has before and never knew what it was so about a week before their appointment I looked it up. For the first year or so I was always worried she had thrush but it would only be patches on her tongue and so I'm glad to know for sure what it is now. It's harmless and you don't do anything to treat it.

January 19, 2015 (Didn't realize 6 months before when making the appointment this was President's Day which means no school. I always try to go first thing in the morning so they don't miss any school and there's no wait when you're the first appointment and so the boys weren't happy on their day off they had to get up earlier than normal to leave at 7:30! Oops!)

Ashton said that for his birthday he wanted to have Cheesecake at our house so that's what we did.

January 21, 2015

He was nice and let Olivia help open his presents.


Kaleb had his last pinewood derby. His leaders have a shop at their house so they worked on their cars during the week at scouts which was nice because they were able to make the car how they wanted without any outside influence (dad's) helping. He made a tank and put an army Lego guy on top.

January 22, 2015

These boys! Kaleb's car did well the 2nd half. Matt didn't realize he needed to help Kaleb put the graphite on the wheels before the race which everyone else had done so Kaleb's car was almost last every time it raced the first half.


Olivia let me blow dry her hair for church which was a first. Usually she hates the blow dryer. (Now 3 months later she loves it but I'll talk more about what we call the "nursery ball" when I get to blogging April.)

January 25, 2015

Olivia loves playing ring-around-the-rosie with her brothers.

January 31, 2015