Merry Christmas!

While visiting Fantasy at the Bay, we stopped in to see Santa. This little chica wants a ballerina dress! And she's been very good this year! She sat right up on his lap looked him in the eye, and told him what she wanted. She was on a mission!

Anyone game?

Hello to all my friends. We are still alive and well. We are now in our house and finding out that homeownership is not as fun as it's made out to be, at least not all the time. We are changing a lot and slowly making it ours. But I guess the good think about owning your home is that you can change stuff. Kind of a double edged sword. We've redone the bathroom, and are currently waiting for furniture to place in our family room. We've been watching TV with the Lazy-boy, and a sleeping bag on the floor. I think college dorms have it better than us down there.

Pictures to come, I promise.

That aside, I miss being in SLC for many reasons, but this one found me today. So...is anyone game? Want to go? They have THE BEST and cutest modern stuff! Seriously, I was quite unimpressed with all Peach Days had to offer. The Bijou market is where it is at. I promise you'll come back with lots of fun stuff! Anyone, Anyone? I'm thinking about going Friday.

Click the flyer to see the vendors, and then call, text, fb, or leave a comment and tell me when you want to/can go, because you will!

I know, I know...

I'm fully aware that my lack of blogging is horrible, however, I'm pleased to report we have found a house, close on the 26th and are excited beyond belief!

We did family pics the other night and this was my absolute favorite! I love these two more than I can put into words. They melt my heart every time!

And...

We're here, just barley. We kind of don't have internet, and we kind of are loving the country life. Seriously, 9:00pm 4-wheeler rides up to the canal and back with the wind in our hair. We're not sure if we want to leave. Seriously. Anyways, here's a picture to tide you all over. We are still house hunting. We honestly just don't know where we want to live. We're just taking in this slow country life as much as we can. Sleeping with the windows open, playing with cousins until the sun goes down, hanging out on the porch chatting the evening away and making daily trips to the slushy stand.

Moving

And we're off. Where, we don't know exactly. Rob got a job at Bonneville HS, so we will be moving to the Ogden area eventually. For now, we will be renting from Rob's parents until we can find a place of permanent residence! We're buying a house! Finally! Needless to say Evva will be spending some time like this in the car.

How we make it in Ikea

Lots of snacks...

Enjoying the sun

We just got back from an awesome walk! The sun was out, the breeze was lightly blowing and Evva was rocking her Dora shades! Happy weekend everyone!

Birthday Weekend

Evva was officially 2 last weekend. Friday we had a great day. Waffles with strawberries, strawberry syrup and whip cream for breakfast. A little shopping. And friends over for dinner, cake and ice cream. It was wild night. After they left we skyped the grandparents and Evva ate more cake. {you get to do whatever you want on your birthday right?}

{I'm aware this is a horrible picture, but it was the only self portrait of us that worked}

With all the fun we had Friday night, we didn't get her big present in until Saturday morning.

She's so official and now gets to cook with mommy. I have a little sidekick. She is so in love with it!

Sunday we got to get out and enjoy the sunshine a bit with our friends the McDonalds. We love them so much! Ask Evva about anything from dreams to what she learned about in church and she'll say "carter n' mia". We love them!

Business Update

I'm well aware that this goes against everything everyone has said, but...

We're done potty training for a while.

And Evva and I are back on speaking terms.

Enough said.

Happy Easter

I'm a little late. Whatever. We had a great Easter weekend. Rob had spring break and we were able to go home from Thursday to Sunday. It was bliss. We had a great night at the temple with my family, great {early} birthday party for Evva, ate lots of food, had lots of laughs, a trip to Smith & Edwards {that makes me sound like a hick, but it was great, minus I didn't find what I was looking for...they're supposed to have everything right?} lots of time with cousins and a good Sabbath day to remind us of Christ and what He did for us.

Evva about had a heart attack when the pinata broke open. She kept yelling "Broken, Broken!" She was pretty sad until I took her over to see what was inside. Then she was kind of happy.

*Note to Rob: Don't let our kids name the pinata.*

Business

Yesterday we picked up a book about going to the potty. On Evva's level. She was so enthralled by it. Seriously, we read it for like 20 minutes as she flipped back and forth through the pages taking each one in. So today, she decided it was time to do her business in the potty. I was astonished and caught a little off guard. She doesn't turn 2 until Friday!? I guess I'm getting thrown into it.

A quick trip to Target brought:

New potty

New big girl unders

Jelly Bellies {for success}

We'll pretty much not be leaving our house for the next week or two.

Let the training begin!

Started with a somersault...

We are not awesome at doing FHE. Every night is kind of FHE for us, but we're not great at having an actually lesson or doing something outside the norm. But last night was great. After dinner we went to a new little place that just opened for some frozen custard {it's pretty comparable to Neilson's. So all my S. SLC/Provo friends, do stop by, it's called BOMBDIGITTY'S, on 126th and 14ish W}. It was fun to get out and Evva insisted she wear her sparkly black church shoes with her jogging suit. We're classy.

After coming home and getting the house cleaned up, we ended up in Evva's room and started playing around with Rob's nerf gun. We then tried to teach Evva to do a somersault. It was so funny. So totally rolled to the side. So I showed her. I haven't done one for YEARS and I'm convinced I must have been much smaller in size because I felt like I had a long way to go to roll over my head. Rob took a turn and didn't do much better than Evva. So funny. That lead us to being Frogs, which lead us to an impromptu game of following the leader, animal edition. We were laughing so hard being penguins, snakes, elephants, and lots of other things. Evva has having a blast and all three of us were exhausted by bed time.

Good memories. It was a good night!

We were Irish

I redeemed myself the next day with dinner. Like I said before, I'm all about traditions this year, so we had a traditional Irish dinner. I guess. I've never been there, but it's on my bucket list. So we had corned beef and cabbage with potatoes, and Irish soda bread.

We invited Uncle Mark, but unfortunately didn't get a picture with him. He said it would have been complete if we had a frothy beer. Maybe next year. I'll put it on the list. But it was seriously yummy. The bread took all of 1 hour, to make and bake, and I did the beef in the crock pot. Tasty! And for dessert we had chocolate coins. Not so tradition, but it hit the spot.

{Evva looking at uncle mark who brought her "bo-buddys" for a treat. Thus, the blue lips}

Dinner?

Today I made the worst dinner...EVER. I didn't know I was capable of such awfulness. Most definitely could have qualified for "worst cook in america".

Rob, I told him he didn't have to eat it, but he ate a bit, like a trooper. Evva, she just spit it out.

Just thought I'd let you know.

Stickers for prizes

{please excuse her hair, it's 10pm and it had been a long day}

Saturday night at Target, Evva tried to get away from me while I was holding her hand. She fell to the ground and started crying. I just thought she was throwing a fit, but she wouldn't stop crying. Not like her. So we left the store and started heading home. She continued to cry and whine and didn't even eat the "baby turkey" {peep} we gave her to appease her. We decided we better take her to kidscare because she was not moving her left hand {the one I was holding}. She ended up having a "Nursemaid Elbow" basically the tendon in her elbow goes over her radial bone and it hurts to move. Seriously, I felt like such a bad mother. But apparently it's fairly common and the way Evva's happened is usually how it's done. The good thing is the doctor was able to fix it right there. It didn't feel good right after, but like 2 minutes later, it as like it never happened. She was running around and laughing and jumping again. So here are her prizes from the doctor. She also got a sucker, which she ate on the way home.

And one more of us with Baby K, at his blessing. We love him.

Good day!

Evva,

Today we went to the library, we don't go often because I usually end up chasing you up and down the isles and you rip the books, so I've decided to take a break from there for a little bit, but because you are doing better with paper books, I thought we'd try it again.

I still ended up chasing you up and down the isles, only this time you were yelling "cash me, cash me". Not at the moment, but yes, it was funny. You found a Bob the Builder DVD, and lucky for us, your cousin Korver got you hooked last weekend. So that along with some Signing Time DVD's and some books is what we ended up with.

We had "peaut budder & lelly" for lunch with "arrots". You took a fabulously long nap which enabled me to get caught up a little bit with the challenge we've been working on to read the Book of Mormon in 90 days. I've never read it this fast and I'm seriously loving it! I'm making so many more connections.

After your nap, we read your new books, gave tickle hugs and laughed at your "lilly monsters" while we snuggled on the couch.

I had YW tonight, but when I got home we had more tickle hugs with Daddy. After you would tackle us we would lay on the floor and laugh at each other while you gave us "nuggins" and tried to pull us up.

I love you and I love good days with you!

P.S. Yesterday at the grocery store, you discovered the shopping carts with the cars on the front. Pretty sure your shopping experiences will never be the same.

weekend, don't go!

Just a few notes to get down how great this weekend was, even though we didn't get done anything we had planned on doing.

Saturday brought snow, I figured this out at 6:00am when I got up and went out to run {6 miles cause I'm training for a half}. One of the negatives of living in a basement, is you have no idea what the weather is like until you step out. So after stepping out into snow that came up to my ankles, I called my partner, and we decided to crawl back in bed. This is how our day followed:

Sleep til 9

Malt-o-meal with peach jam

get dressed

go to IFA to buy a sled

realize that have baby chicks

tweet at the baby chicks for a while

hit the hill by our house

quesadillas for lunch

naptime

playtime with cade and addi

JoAnns

stop at BK on the way to cabella's

while contemplating on if we should get her chicken fingers or not

{no, we were not asking her, we didn't even look back at her}

from the back seat we hear "kees-buger......get it" when we pull up

{seriously, we have only done this like 4 times}

laugh

feed the fish at cabella's

pj's

scrpitures

prayers

bed

And today was seriously great too.

Church

nursery-we got treat bucket for next week :)

Yummy dinner.

Thai chicken legs with cilantro lime rice.

Tasty.

Skype with the grandparents and "baby K"

hugs with tickles

snuggles

awards

kettle korn

tall towers

superman

I'm seriously loving this!

Can we do it again?

this Friday night

Our house was the place to be. Trains, coloring, blanket rides all which lead up to a calm down with Bolt and popcorn. Evva loves friends!

loving the popcorn.

We were loved

This year we had a great night in and I loved it! This year I'm kind of all about our own traditions. I'm wanting to make memories. And do things that my kids will remember and know we do it every year. I had so much fun planning what we'd do, and we honestly kept it way low key and simple. It was a day that I could show my love and appreciation for Rob and my little munchkin.

We didn't have to fight Evva {at least not too hard} at a restaurant, and we had fun just being together. I love my little family so so much. I'm looking forward to next year!!!

Grilled steaks w/ peppercorn melange and sweet onion marmalade, wilted baby spinach w/ honey-maple vinaigrette, squash and rolls {which fell and were flat}. So yummy!

Tablecloth-Target, placemats-ikea, salad plates-Rob's mom was DI-ing them {along with bowls-now mine}, napkins-dillards like 5 years ago, I wish I'd gotten more, napkin rings, made in like .5 seconds with random stuff around the house.

I found these cute fortune cookies at gardner village last summer, I was so excited to pull them out, I think they kind of inspired to whole thing. Beautiful flowers from Rob.

I found these awesome straws for Evva, and she so gladly shared. She totally loves them & one of my all time favorite DI finds, I use this little pitcher for dressings and syrup. It makes it happy.

And these amazing things grace our table every now and again. Molten Chocolate Lava cakes with Vanilla bean Ice Cream on top. More please!!!

Hope you were loved too!

"Oast Bees"

That's what she calls it.

Ruffle bums

I haven't been such a fan of the ruffle bums, but I found these tights my aunt handed down to me a few weeks ago. Pretty much this is the last time these tights and this dress will be worn, because Evva ran around church like this all day long last week.

Dear wind,

Although it is absolutely frigid, we love that we are seeing some blue skies. We went to Ikea today and I think Evva about passed out on our way to the car. But thank goodness that yucky inversion is gone!

Over the weekend we got to meet up with this little bundle of energy. We love her so much and wished she lived closer.

American

I'm really liking this book. Just finished the chapter on 9/11. I'm so blessed. And grateful for his leadership at such a time of turmoil in our country. I appreciate him, although I don't agree with EVERYTHING he ever did in office. I appreciate him and what he has done for our country.

I am proud of our history.

I feel chills when we sing the national anthem.

Commercials about veterans make me cry.

I'm so honored to have men and women serve and sacrifice so that I can be free.

So Thank You!

Baby McKay

My sister Tiffany finally had her little bambino. He is so precious. Evva loves "baby Kay" as she calls him.

Trauma

Let me introduce you to Elmo, Blankie and "Buddy". These three spend a lot of time with Evva. She is in love. Many times I hear her in her crib, "Elmo...Buddy{the care bear}...Blankie...Elmo...Buddy...Blankie...over and over again." So obviously, it's hard to wash them during the night or nap time. Before I know it, it's time for one or the other and I haven't gotten them washed so it gets moved until the next time, when the wash doesn't happen again.

However, yesterday morning it was time. So as soon as Evva got up I put them in the wash. She followed me in there and saw the tail end of blankie going into the big white machine. Immediately the trauma began. So I had to tell her that they needed to take a bath, just like she did because they were stinky, like she was, and they would have bubbles, like she would. Things calmed down a little bit after that, but we had to go check on them like every 10 minutes. But now, they are clean! And they have to watch Evva take a bath from the vanity. And they may be able to take "baths" more often from now on, because baths are good.

"Lilly"

Evva. You are a "lilly gurl" who loves her uncle Tyson!