around our house

I haven't blogged since I caught up with Christmas break posts. I have kept my self very busy with other projects. Primarily photo books, I grew up scrap booking and love it, I have grown to love even more the books I can make digitally and then print. I have used a few different companies, and unfortunately the one that stands out to me as the best is still Shutterfly. I really hate how expensive Shutterfly is , even with huge discounts or coupons, yikes I think I spent $65 dollars yesterday on that website (a very painful ouch!). It was a planned expense since I make the books at regular intervals and we had big coupons but ouch! I made my 2015 book (the last half of it, because we had such a busy early spring and summer I split this year into two books) I made a family album to cover the years thus far with just family photos, and I made a wedding album. I already have a scrapbook of my wedding (thanks mom!) but I wanted something I felt could have downstairs accessible to the kids. I keep my scrapbooks upstairs a bit more out of reach, just because I don't want them to get beat up, (or completely destroyed). I know I will make another book when the baby comes (I always make a book just for them Eli and Kayden have one) but my next little computer required project is to turn the blog into a book for me to keep on the shelf!

At our house lately we have kept to the house, still recovering from holidays. I am feeling very pregnant now.
Each time I walk into the Kitchen I feel so grateful. Michael was amazing to paint it for me, it feels so bright and light now, and the new dinning chairs -Mitchell thank you so very much! I love that our home feels bright and light and beautiful. Its calming, and it makes the toys easier to deal with ;)

I am menu planning again, its my new years commitment, I am doing it on my phone this time. Its working so well. Mitch says he likes it so I am committed to keep it up.
My Mitchell man is so busy now days. I don't know how he does it all and still smiles. I am grateful that he does. With work being so stressful (and no prep periods) and then 21st century, his masters and now the BYUI job he hardly has time to turn his head.
We are so grateful though. all of these things are blessings and I am so grateful.

To My Sons

To E and K,
We are all excited about the new baby coming arnt we? Mommy is excited too, it will be fun to have so many boys around all the time wont it?
Mommy wanted to write you a letter. at the beginning of new year. This will be a big year for us, E you will start kindergarten and K you will turn 4! We will all have another baby in the house, and even baby T is already trying to learn to walk this year. It will be a busy, big year, sometimes big things like a new Baby and Kindergarten can be really hard and stressful. We will all have to make sure we are telling each other how we feel, nicely, so that we don't have fighting or frustration.
I hope you both know you can always come to mom and dad with anything you are worried about or wondering about. If anything or anyone makes you feel uncomfortable or sad let us know. We love you and will never be upset at you for talking to us about your lives. You boys are my angels and I am so proud of you both for the little gentlemen you are becoming. We talk about helping, making good choices and being kind. So many times each day you will do or say something that makes me so proud and grateful to be your mommy! We have so many good times together and I know that we will have many more good time as we continue forward this year!
I love you both more then anything,
Love,
mommy

2015 year in review!

January:

Sledding in a winter wonderland. The car died shortly after this so it was good thing we got pictures!This was also a month of new goals and the awesome time Kayden sent my point and shoot camera on a swim in grandpa's fish tank!

Febuary:

Valentines day 2015, AND I got my camera! We also got a double jogging stroller for me!

March:

We had a vacation, in march we went to Utah! Also I took Jessica and Todd's engagement pictures. Spring break also! This was also the month we bought the Mercury Sable from Grandpa Durrant. The timing was a tender mercy! We celebrated St Patricks day a made a new tradition, Eli brought a party to preschool (it was his first time and my first time begin one of those cool moms).

April:

On the 1st my sweet Eli turned 4! Also we hosted a bridal shower for Jessica, and BIG highlight
Sun Valley! We LOVE going to sun valley each spring. Favorite activity and tradition of us all!
 The month was busy as we Celebrated Easter, watched general conference, gardened, and cleaned up house (I refinished and sold a ton of furniture this month). We also bought the kids first ever matching suits!

May:

Wow! May was a busy, busy month! There are so many favorite things that happened, and big things! Mothers day, first snow cones, The boys first Father Son camp out, Eli's preschool graduation, Eli's first primary talk, Jessica and Todd's wedding , and memorial day! The Hill grandparents visited and we spent some time out on a few date hikes in the foothills.


June:

June was the timing of the amazing trip to Wash-away beach in WA, it was a family reunion and so wonderful. We loved it. The beach was perfect and everything so beautiful.
June was also the month my grandfather died and the month that I had my miscarriage. We took tons of day trip and celebrated summer and Fathers Day! It was also the month we got a job offer in Texas and almost moved.

July:

Of course July was the 4th of July! WE also had a wonderful time camping, we found a new favorite location, went to the Zoo with grandpa (big hit for the kiddos) and went paddle boating and kayaking with the Tanners at their house on their pond! We went on so many day trips to parks I cant even count them, we also took family pictures.  This was also potty training month! We began watching Baby tucker!

August:

August was another jam packed month, we where so busy! First was the first ever family reunion in Park City Utah for the Hill side (organized of course by my amazing sister-in-law Allison), We spent several days there after the reunion as well spending time with other relatives including lunch with grandma Linda. Then we had more family and camping at the Mann creek reunion. Soon after Mitchell began his Masters Program.The kids learned how to ride a bike and cousins Barthlome came to visit (we went boating when they came!)! It was also my birthday month!

September:

In September my sweet Kayden turned 3! Both boys began preschool , oh sweet little Kayden going to preschool with his big brother. We found a leaf bug, The boys went on a Primary Temple trip! (I think this was also right when my dad got put in the Bishopric)

October:

October I was sick with pregnancy but despite that we really tried to make the fall fun for our family.
Big happenings was uncle Michael coming home! It was amazing, we took West family pictures and celebrated. October also had, a trip to Linder farms, the tradition play in the leaves day with grandma, Halloween, the kids first trip to IHOP, our first doc appointment and ultrasound, and we (mostly uncle Michael) painted our kitchen cabinets white!

November:


November was thanksgiving! We once again traveled to Utah for a long vacation, we spent time with the West's and the Hills, we also went to temple square! We announced our pregnancy officially this month at 17 weeks, we made the cutest little video with the kids to announce it!

December:

December was fun and amazing! Christmas, Family Visiting, meeting Santa, and Pinetop to name a few favorite moments from this wonderful busy delightful holiday month! We also celebrated a very exciting anniversary of 6 years, and Mitch started teaching an online class for BYUI! Oh and we cant forget New Years! (also we got some very cute Holiday photos taken in our front yard with a tripod and Uncle Josephs help and some anniversary pics taken by Jessica!)


*bonus picture we took just this month to mimic the January picture!

our traditions

For our anniversary obviously we didn't do much this year. But we did exchange gifts.
Mitch gave me a ring and I got him a gift card and slippers, and a super beautiful overpriced mushy card- because that how I roll. WE also got a new beaches calendar so that we can draw little cartoons of ourselves on the beach (we really do that)!

We had yummy sparkling cider and we completed this years puzzle! We get a new puzzle ever Christmas for us to do together. 6 years in counting. It is a very fun tradition I love it!

Taking the tree down

On January 1st 2016 we took our Christmas things down.
The white stocking tradition and taking tree down day. special and bitter sweet. until next year.

We took down the tree(s) while listening to the Piano guys Christmas CD Mitchell got me for Christmas, and we filled up boxes all together. I get set up with my boxes and tissue paper and everyone takes things down off the tree and gives them to me to pack up carefully.
After everything was down we wrote a spiritual goal on the paper and put in in the White stocking for next year. We got the stocking from the bishop and his wife in our newly wed student ward years ago, the idea is that its your gift to the Savior.

As a side note the poor Joseph from our nativity took another fall! That's four times this year that he has been knocked over and beheaded. Poor thing! It felt like every time someone walked by he fell down, one of the 3 wise men also took a fall or two but mostly poor Joseph! He is recovering with some gorilla glue on the workbench in the garage while the rest of the Nativity sits in its box waiting, hopefully my man can fix him, this time he lost his head and most of the base of him shattered, ouch!

Whats the Gender

I just want to start off by saying 2 things.
One - I LOVE my boys! they have tons of energy and guess what? That's a good thing! I love there energy and excitement. It can overwhelm people but I am here to tell you that its a good thing, they can grow up mowing lawns hiking and playing sports!
The second thing I want to say is this, we really did think this one was going to be a girl. So we where a bit shocked to find out we are having a boy, but not upset about it!
- those statements being said, I am going to be blunt and say that if you say anything that could (with pregnancy hormones or not) be taken as a negative statement about us having another boy, I will probably hold it against you for a long time.  My boys are awesome , and if they are more energetic then you like,well don't sit by us at church.
PS. Holly, we are so glad you guys sit by us at church!

So we went to the ultra sound and found out it was a boy, being honest both Mitch and I expected a girl, I think enough things had been different, the thyroid issues and the Mitchell gaining weight and my hair and nails being different this pregnancy, that we thought pretty firmly it was a girl. It will sound horrible but we've had a girl name picked out for over a year, and have given almost no thought to boy names, well not yet.
The boys came to the ultrasound with us and they where really good. Kayden was very interested in a lot of the tools and the doc, nurses and ultrasound tech just fell in love with him. He and Eli kept talking about their bloodstreams and the baby growing bigger and just adorable stuff. Mostly they kept mentioning their bloodstreams- they refereed to anything on the ultrasound as their bloodstream.
Eli seemed to understand pretty well and when he saw the face and the ultrasound tech explained then he said "oh its so cute!". Kayden and Eli kept kinda discussing weather or not it was a girl or boy.
Its most definitely a boy.
The ultrasound tech, got a big kick out of our little hill because he had both hands up by his face and , both feet up above his head, seriously, she thought it was a hoot and took tons of pictures! Also with the 3d imaging we could see better. I don't think I did that with the other kiddos, it was just a normal ultrasound. We are just SO happy that baby is looking perfectly healthy. The heart (which is family history risk) looked perfect. Everything looks great. And by the way our baby has a cute little face and nose. Like my other boys this baby was pretty much sucking his thumb. SO cute.
The only other concerns at this point in the pregnancy are the same ones , keeping food down and monitoring all those hormones and blood glucose levels. The placenta is right in the way so we will have to check on that later to make sure it moves (hopefully it does, I really don't want a c-section) , I have a cyst on my ovaries but that's probably not a big deal so really health-wise things look pretty good!
Anyways, we are excited to have another Boy, we are good with boys and have tons of little cousins who are boys so it will be really fun for all my boys when they get old enough to all play together We are getting all geared up to decorate the guest room/ tuckers room for the new baby, and I am already planning matching outfits for all my little guys.

After the ultra sound we went out to Lunch to celebrate! we got balloons for the gender revel, and because the boys wanted to keep the party going to celebrate we also got cake and strawberries and my dear wonderful husband got me flowers. I love that man!

New Years 2016!!

What are you doing New Years, New years Eve? I love that song
This year it was the day we got back from Pinetop. My sweet husband indulged me and let me buy some hats and noise makers and stuff to make special treats for new years eve.
We went to my parents house, invited by Rebecca and family we had fun playing a few games and having treats with the kids. We made Gluten free funfetti cupcakes and sherbet and sprite floats. It felt very festive. The kids had way too much fun with the noise maker and although grandpa was very patient I think he was pretty close to confiscating them.
Unfortunately most of the kids had fevers so the night ended very early. Poor K had a huge messy accident in the bathroom that my amazing hubby cleaned up. E had a really high fever so I took them home after treats at around 8:30 and let them sleep in our room.
I did have time that night to film interviews with each of them, which was and idea/goal I had wanted to do and so I call the evening a success!

2016 beginnings

I love the new year, I get excited and set huge lists of goals and get calender's and planners and all those things and I love it.
This year is the same my mind is swimming with goals big and small and ideas, but this year I am going to try to find and overarching word, and a big main goal to focus on.
 I have tried to put some study and prayer into this. The word I choose is :

Trust

I almost choose other words like, embrace or accept or enjoy- wanting to make sure I enjoy and accept my life and the stage that I am in but in the end I choose trust.

This year is going to be a great exciting year, but also a hard one for me (I suspect). This year Mitchell adds yet another job to his to do list, teaching online for BYUI. I am so proud of him but it does take time for him that would usually be spent with us. Also as his Master program continues it will take more and more time and effort. I need to be supportive of these things- and I am.
Biggest of all is us adding a new member to our family in may. This will be the biggest blessing and it will also be hard for us. Babies take a lot of time and sleep from mom, I have a hard time with sleep deprivation and after my last sweet baby I struggled for well over a year with postpartum depression. I am hoping to prevent that. We plan to continue to watch baby T next year even after the baby so I will have 3 kids, 4 during the days.( Baby T will be walking soon too!)
 AS our family embarks on these new adventures it is important for me to have trust. Trust in the Lord, Trust in my Husband and trust in myself. Mostly Trust in God and his plan. I know that if I have a firm testimony and faith and trust in the plan and the Atonement of Jesus Christ then our little family, and myself can get through anything. The biggest part of that is knowing that even when horrible or hard things happen God can bring about good from it.
I really hope that this year brings nothing but joy to us. I am so excited for us to have another baby and for Mitchell to get further in his Masters program and to have all the new career opportunities that he has, I am so excited for Eli to Start Kindergarten and for Kayden to go from nursery to sunbeams. I am excited for K to learn to ride a bike like his brother, and for our family of 4 to grow to 5. To update the house and to learn new things. We have a lot of fun ideas and plans in the works and it will be so fun to see many of them come to completion. We have trips and vacations planned and ideas and goals for our family. It is exciting!

Other goals are :
Daily Scripture study - family, couple and individual
FHE
morning prayers -(we are pretty good in the evenings)

and my "mom" theme for the year is to LOVE.
L-listen
O-observe
V- validate
E- encourage

I suspect that with a new baby coming and school starting in the fall these things will be more crutial then ever.

Snow shoeing

Pine top gave me the opportunity to go snowshoeing for the first time! This has been on my bucket list since my first year of college!
Mitch didn't feel well- he had hurt his back a little going down a very steep icy slope on a sled, so Rebecca and I set out together for some sister time- kid free.

It was so breathtakingly beautiful and silent and wonderful. Unfortunately Rebecca was in the bad pair of snowshoes because she didn't want her pregnant sister to get hurt, so she did not have as much fun because, her ankle got twisted a few times and she fell twice- that got our heart rates up, it was scary!
In the end we took a trail my dad had made earlier (so several miles more then we had already gone).
I will say that I personally LOVED it. I want to buy some snowshoes and go all the time!  I think my dad enjoyed it too, he said he though he had found a new sport/ hobby for himself! :) It was so still and beautiful, the world and trees covered in white and the untouched snow..... *sigh*
Thank you Uncle Darryl for sharing so generously with all of us!

PIne top 2016!!

This year we went to Pinetop again!
 It is almost a yearly tradition, although some years we missed because we could not travel from Rexburg, and some years we didn't go because...? But I think the first year we went I  must have been in the neighborhood of ten or twelve. I was little. SO it has been a fairly consistent West family tradition for about 15 years now, crazy to think about. They already reserved it for next year too! cousins from far out of town will be here so they went ahead and scheduled us a year in advance. This year it was a last min schedule because several people (my smart mamma included) asked on the right day if we could,  but it was perfect. 2 ft of snow everywhere with higher drifts in places. Perfection!

We got there first out of all the families- that has never happened before, so we got a big ole corner and set up our stuff. Rebecca and family came too and Jessica for the first day, so we had a big bunch of us together like old times.
We played in the snow and sled on the hills and hiked and played games and ate junk and yummy meals and let the kids play hours of air hockey and ping pong.
The snow was just wonderful!
Pictures say it best. It was 3 days and 2 nights. the 29th-31st.
Emily and Jessica went on a snowshoe hike, Eli and  Emily played in the snow for hours, Emily made a dragon in the snow, Mitch and I both played in the snow, Mitch and Caleb played many rounds of Ping Pong, the kids watched movies on grandpas projector, and we all had fun visiting together.