Olympics!!

I love the olympics!  I love all the memories from when I was in the Olympic spirit band, and all the memories from watching the skating every year as a little girl and then at college with all my roomates who would humor me.  My mom even came down to my apartment with treats to watch the skating with me!  And now my boys are enjoying watching it with me!  They work hard to get their homework done right when they get home so they can watch it till bed.  Since they're loving it with me I decided to have a little fun with it!

I made Olympic ring fruit while grandma was here.  She had fun watching the skating with us too!

And then for FHE we did an Olympic games night.  I gave a lesson about not giving up and shared my story of failing a skating test 6 times before I passed!  My dad even facetimed and sang us the song he sang us growing up "It doesn't matter how many times you fail, only the number of times you suceed..."  Then we made torches out of cheetos and ice cream cones and marched around to the olympic music.  Then we had our games.  First was who could eat their torches the fastest.  Parker won since he through it in all at once, Henry copied Parker and was a close second.  Then we had a contest to see who could stack their marshmallows the highest.  E won with three.  Then Parker impromptu did the chubby bunny game with them.  Hilarious!  Funny after all my prep and the thing that was impromptu was what their favorite thing of the night was, ha ha.  Reminds me that I don't have to spend hours on ellaborate pinerest ideas, but spending time with them laughing is what matters most to them. 

Next was a mini hockey game I made.  I know adorable :)  They both won I think:)  Then they had a contest to see who could get their winter gear on the fastest.  Eddie got me as a teammate so he won and Henry fell on the floor in tears.  Ha, so much for my lesson about being a good sport and not giving up:)

Any kind of prep was worth seeing that boys genuine smile and so happy!

Henry recovered and they made medals out of fruit loops and chocolate gold coins:)  So much fun!  Definitely going to become a tradition!  I'll have to do it for summer Olympics too because by the next winter olympics b will be 12 and maybe too cool for my cheesy games:)

BYU basketball game!

B's been learning to write code with grandma corts so he wrote a letter to grandma and grandpa barlow that next time they go to a BYU basketball game will they please take him with.  They did!  My dad invited anyone in our family that wanted to come and took us to the wall burger first.  Here's our whole group:)

Carmen came in town for a wedding that day and so Haley came with us to the game too.  I think she had fun at the game but she enjoyed checking out the boys on campus more, ha ha.

The boys loved their cousin time!

And they won in overtime with seconds left!  Very exciting!  Can you tell we're all very happy:)  I enjoyed the game but enjoyed watching the pep band more!!!  Down memory lane again!  I played in the pep band for the girls team in 2006.  They were an awesome team and we even got to go to Denver to play at the finals with them.  I subbed for the boys team pep band sometimes too.  They still play all the same songs and had my same director.  Good times!  I love all the adventures I got to do before I met my Parker and I love the mom and wife adventure now!  My poor boys have been hearing alot of memory lane stories from mom since we moved here:)  

Random fun!

For pack meeting they had all the kids make a cardboard box car to race.  B decided to make an air force airplane.  Parker is the best and spent the couple hours Saturday morning before going to work helping him make it!  B decorated it himself:)

Yes!  I found them cuddling again!  It's been a really rough go with the long Christmas break then getting back into the swing of things with B, so when moments like this happen I hold them dear!

Holding the Thurgoods less than a week old puppies.  They're so cute!  We won't ever need to get a dog when we have their cute puppies to hold every so often:)

Aww, he was asleep when we got to Sams and he cuddled right back up to sleep in Dads arms.  

Parker!

Although Parkers job as a supervisor has been rough for us and a big sacrifice for him we've been blessed to have so much family support and have already had two getaways since we moved here!  We're so spoiled!!  I love spending time with my boys, I love spending time with the whole family, but I LOVE LOVE having alone time with this guy.  He's the best!  He's not a pic fan so I don't have much of our adventures but here's what I've got:)

 Our 9th anniversary fell on Parkers long weekend so we scheduled a getaway to Heber City where we spent our honeymoon and my awesome mom watched the kids!  Oh the memories!  We went and checked out the Olympic Park in Park City!  I can't believe I've never been there.  It brought back many memories from my adventures in the 2002 Olympics!  

Not on our anniversary but another week we went with my parents to a fancy restaurant called Fireside Dining.  All the food is cooked by the fire.  It was so fun!

A day date with my parents to the Pie Pizzeria.  We get lots of day dates plus cute Eddie since Parkers off during the week while the boys are in school.  Lots of fun!

More Christmas Break!

We had the normal Christmas break but then two additional weeks after for off track which gave us lots of family time and time to play with all our new Christmas things.  It did end up being a little long and the boys maybe questioned if they like each other anymore:)  It was long for me too especially since they of course were sick and grumpy the majority of it.  Mostly it was super hard for them to go back!!!  Henry had anxiety over it and B had a super hard time adjusting to having before and after school routines again!  Well we've been back now 4 weeks and they're finally adjusted!  I love year round, but after this rough go I'm questioning it:)

We went sledding where I sledded growing up next to my high school behind our old house.  It seemed huge when I was five, but now it looks like a tiny bump in the grass:)  The boys loved it though and I've wanted to take them back except there hasn't been any snow since!!!

Parker got New Years off since he got the shaft on Thanksgiving and Christmas.  Since New Years coincided with his weekend and the boys were off track we headed to Boise to celebrate!  In the 9 years we've been married we've never been to Parkers house for a holiday since tickets from alaska during the holidays were outrageous!  It was so much fun to be with them!  We enjoyed yummy food, played lots of fun games, and were overly spoiled for Christmas!

And Eddies out within 5 minutes after hitting the road..

I planned a few New Years Eve games and Haley won the cute glasses!  They looked best on her anyway!

Came home from Boise and the next week was a doozy for us!!  Let's document our Monday the 8th! It started with me realizing I washed and dried a batch of Parkers work shirts with a yellow crayon!  Uggh!  As I was treating them in the bathroom sink E was standing next to the counter on the toilet watching me.  I didn't realize he was holding onto the toilet paper roll holder with all his weight.  It broke and as he fell off the toilet his chin hit the counter on his way down.  As soon as I got a peek at it I knew he needed stitches and I knew I wasn't up for taking hysterical Eddie and the other two boys to the ER so poor Parker got woken up after working all night and having only been asleep for 1 hour. It took him a minute to wake himself up.  It looked like he was sleep walking helping clean Eddie up before we took him in.  He's our hero.  He always provides the calm and peace in our home.  He got Eddie all calmed down and even took him in to our Dr. to get stitches.  He needed 5 and with Dad by his side he was a champ!  He didn't cry, just winced everytime he felt the needle go through.  When they left there was a little girl screaming that she had to get weighed!  Eddie was all smiles when he got home and was proud to tell us how brave he was and how the other girl was a baby.  He also loved showing off his stitches as you can tell.  It was so sweet seeing the bond between Parker and Eddie after that traumatic experience.  

Don't worry that wasn't the end of the day.  Shortly after they got home I realized Breitling was completely covered in big bumps!  Off to the Dr. we go again!  Turns out he was allergic to the amoxicilan they gave him.  That was an easy fix.  

We finally got the kids to bed and we both fell on the bed exhausted!  I'd been reading for maybe 20 minutes when I heard a big boom.  Sure enough the kid who as never fallen out of his bed fell out and on his way down hit his chin on his desk.  Uggh.  It was a bloody mess but luckily the stitches didn't need to be redone.  Dad got him cleaned up again and back to sleep.  When we got back to our bed we realized my water bottle had leaked all over our bed.  Uggh.  After changing the bedding we both looked at each other giggling from the crazy day and decided we better go straight to bed before anything else happens!  Life as a parent is an adventure and I'm so grateful for our rock Parker who pulls us through all crazy days despite 1 hour of sleep!  

Christmas!

This is the first Christmas my kids got to spend with extended family!  Definitely different for us since we're used to doing our own traditions, but it was very fun and we adjusted when we did our traditions.  We're used to being flexible with traditions with Parkers wacky schedule!

Christmas Eve program at my parents.  Eddie was the sheep, B was Joseph, and Henry was a shepherd for the nativity.  

Kicking myself I didn't take a video.  Notice E's mouth is open in every photo.  That's because he's baa ing as loud as he can over and over again.  I couldn't get him to stop.  He was taking his role very seriously:)

Christmas Jammies and cookies for Santa

Breitlings getting pretty good at legos. He had his new lego done in no time Christmas morning.

Cousin Kaylee got a Harry potter shirt with a cape for Christmas.  Eddie happened to be wearing his Superman shirt with a cape and loved that they were twinners!  He cracked us up because we kept telling him to turn his head like Kaylee for a picture and he kept pulling his head further and further backward until he fell over.  

Star Wars Playdough from the cheshires was a hit:)

The hit for B was Lincoln logs from Grandma and Grandpa

Our Alaska Grandma even sent them this fort building kit.  They've had fun building stuff(Henry especially) but this creation was with Dad's help.

Caught another sweet moment of B reading to E.  I love it when I spy these moments!

Dad helping B seal his letters with the awesome harry potter sealer the corts game him.