President's Day

Not much can beat a brand new pair of bowling shoes, mostly because it is a rare thing.

We cleaned up our house really good on President's Day, and then went to do some fun things. We tried to make the most of this day since Jon doesn't get home til later.

We wanted to go bowling, but after going to a place that had a 45 min wait, and calling another that had a 45 min wait, we called another a few cities away. They had a 30 min wait, but in the next city they had opened a new bowling alley, that day. We headed up and there was no wait, perfect! And it was a brand new perfect facilities that smelled nice and new. It was awesome to wear these shoes for the first time!


Rachel took the boys bowling a few weeks ago when we were on our Anniversary trip, and they loved it. And they loved it this time too. There was this nice ramp that helped our game go faster.


Holding a 6 lb. ball

Haha, so dramatic. Max loved when it was his turn to go get the ball off the return and carry it over and put it on the ramp, with help of course :)


Zac won the game!! The three of us who used bumpers got better scores. But even with the bumper, I managed to get a few gutter balls. We suck at bowling. Maybe Jon and I should take a class together. That would be fun.

Then we went to Fuddruckers for dinner; I wanted to keep my house clean :) Then we headed over to Out n' Back. They were having a great sale. I have no snow pants or boots, and Jon doesn't have any gloves. He got some gloves and I got some snow pants. We just got him some boots a few weeks ago, for the Scout's Klondike, and I got him some snow pants at Plato's Closet a few months ago. He didn't have any goggles either. But he has a great connection at work and was able to get some Oakley's for FREE!! Yay!! We are finally trying to get our own stuff so we don't have to borrow every year. Then we came back put the kids to bed and watched a movie. It was a nice relaxing afternoon and evening. Perfectly satisfying President's Day.

Valentines

My friend Callie and I had been trying to get excited for the next holiday after Christmas, so we did some Valentine's crafts and decor. We made some heart boxes (Callie's idea), cute wreaths (The Idea Room blog), and some crayon wax heart hangings (Martha Stewart).

This is how my wreath came out. I love it!! And it was pretty simple. It looks almost like roses to me.

I have made Valentine's treats with Lexie for the last 2 years. But this year things seemed too busy to coordinate. I got together with my friend Amanda. She has this AMAZING recipe for soft, moist sugar cookies! They are fantastic! And I love making the big ones.

This is what I decided to sent to David the week of Valentines, in the MTC. I doubled the batch to get enough big ones to give away and to keep some. It took forever to roll out, cut, and bake. The dough is sooo sticky (but that's what make them so good!), and the bigger thicker cookies need to bake longer. I barely got out the door to take the cookies to mail services. I got there 5 mins before the MTC pick up time!



Zac did Valentine's for preschool this year.
I found so cool/cheap ring pops to put with the Valentine. I love that the theme matched! The suckers don't look as cool as the picture though :(
As for a Valentine's date, its kind of tricky since we just had our Anniversary. We decided to get a sitter during the day, so as to not compete for a babysitter or a restaurant. We were going to go snow shoeing, which would have been great fun, but I didn't reserve any shoes. And I wanted to look pretty and not have beanie hair.

We headed to Salt Lake and window shopped at the Gateway. Then we stopped for a late lunch at Biaggi's. I ordered this PERFECT butternut squash ravioli in a sage butter sauce with toasted walnuts. Seriously, it was divine!! My mouth is watering just thinking about it. We both did a half pasta, half salad thing. The salad was really good too. I got the wedge salad with half blue cheese dressing and half ranch. It was quiet and nice, except for the one couple that was totally making out at their table every 2 mins! All the people working there were irritated, as was I. Get a room people! And seriously, at the bottom of the escalator at the baggage claim at the airport, get a room people, its disgusting to see!!

Then we headed to Cabela's the hunting/camping/fishing capital. We'd never been there. Its a pretty amazing place. . . We shopped for a GPS for Jon. We have been saving for one. Then we came home and watched the Olympics with the boys. It was a great day!

Craft with Boys

During the Super Bowl I decided I would finally do one of the many crafty, fun activity things I have gotten for the boys. These are little plaster bobble-heads. I found them at JoAnns a few weeks ago. Its part of the the perks/drawbacks of having to wait for the cut counter; I find other little crafty things to buy.

Zac's is a horse. He LOVES to paint. I think it is one of his favorite things to do, besides wrestling with daddy.



I'm painting an elephant


And Max is painting a pig

I haven't really included Max is the painting activities because always felt like he was too young. But in his PEIP class he paints all the time and he loves it. This was also fun, because Max got to perfect his words for "pig" and "elephant". Well, not so much elephant. He has an approximation for elephant, that only I can understand and only under the right circumstances at that. But he know what one is now :)

The also love to play with them. Good thing the plaster is sturdy!

Snowy Trees

I love the way the trees look when they are laced with snow! (These were taken in early January since we haven't had any snow since then! It is almost all melted off the yard and Jon was able to take the Christmas lights down yesterday.

Today was the perfect weather. I got to run on the river trail. I have sure taken being so close to the trail for granted.

It feels like the end of March. I bet we'll get a couple more snow storms before the season is done though. I hope? I have mixed feelings. Jon is going to try and hit the slopes this Saturday for the first time in YEARS! I think the last time he went was before the mission!

Max in Boots

(I couldn't get this picture again if I tried a million times! Love it!!)

Hahaha! He's so fun. And stubborn-what do you do when "time out" doesn't work?? Zac was so responsive to that. But we have to figure something else out with Max. He is such a teaser, he thinks its a game. We, (I), have been able to conveniently not teach him how to open a door. He almost has it figured out. When he does we are in TROUBLE! :)

Thoughts

I'm tired. I hate to complain because its not like, I am dealing with the woes of a pregnant body, or the sleepless nights of having a new baby, or death, or any major or minor health problems. But, its been a long week or few weeks. These warmer and sunny days are teasing me. I feel like I am having bad hair days too often. I haven't been to the gym in 2 weeks, which makes me so mad at myself. The beginning of the week was hard. Lately, I haven't been in the mood to be with my kids. They bicker a lot and antagonize each other relentlessly. Individually they are great, but together so hard. There are fun things I have wanted to do with them, like a craft or what not (I'm not really a down on the ground and wrestle type of mom), but I find I have "too many" other things to do, like clean, or file the taxes, or wasting time on facebook and finding crafty personally inspiring blogs to follow with fun ideas-not so proud of that. Which is so unfair to them. There is a thought I saved once, and it was something like don't sleep away the hours when you could be spending time with your kids. I am doing that all too often. Although, I think following blogs of my friend Ashley Haws, and people like Stephanie Nielsen help be more encouraged to appreciate the call of motherhood and to embrace all its ups and downs, they help me to be better than I otherwise would be-Thank you to them both.

Since Jon now works in Park City he gets home at 7p. He leaves the house just after 7a each day. Since I am a slave to getting at least 9 hrs of sleep a night (for me to be in a generally good mood) I don't see him in the morning. Zac often wakes up when he hears the garage door close after Jon pulls out. This is WAY to early for me to have Zac be up. He also needs more sleep because he is so moody during the day. (I think his reflux may be acting up again, if our insurance was arranged we could go figure that out, even though the co-pays almost doubled). At any sign that he won't get what he want when he wants it he'll start to melt down. I don't get it. I don't think he is spoiled. We try to make a point to not let that happen. I would have thought he'd be used it by now. Anyway, since the boys and Jon need their time together the boys don't go to bed as early as they should, to be happy the next day. This makes my days harder and longer since Jon doesn't get home til 7p. I know that there are other mom's whose husbands travel and are gone days at a time so I shouldn't complain. But this is hard for me and its hard for Jon to not have as much family time. We are both so tired in the evening. The time we do have isn't very quality either. But the job is great. Jon loves it! He loves the work and the people and there is so much opportunity. Its an exciting time.

Over the last few weeks we have been contemplating how to get closer to Park City. And there is a lot of decision making to happen. Its exhausting. We aren't there yet. As I was writing this I totally went off on a LONG tangent about all the things to consider for this topic. I took it out of this post because I wasn't sure me or any readers (if there are any) were ready for all that. :)
I've been trying to do better at making dinner. My friends Callie and Jessie started a blog about the meals they make and their menus and it is helped me be more meal minded. And this week I've been better, but cooking is tiring too. So in my attempt to make dinner and eat as a family (after 7p), I missed Enrichment. I have mixed feelings about that. It was nice to see my dinner through and enjoy it and be with my family. But I also love being a part of the women in the ward.

Then on Wednesday, Max had a development class in the morning, and I went to help my mom "clean sweep" her house. The cleaning has been going good. Its been about a month now. We do one day a week. It has been nice to spend time with my mom and get to know her better and build a better relationship. Even though we are doing chores, its an enjoyable time. And I also love that my Dad plays with and entertains the boys-thanks Dad! Its so fun to see them talk, see their relationships grow, and watch my Dad teach Zac about ice fishing. It also helps me feel good to have accomplished an organizing/cleaning feat. We have been making good progress, but it seems like stuff keeps coming up to make the time we have shorter. We need to do better on that.

Then on Thursday, Max had "surgery" again. I use quotes because he was probably only put under for 10 mins, and it was very minor, and they (the dr, the facility, the anesthesiologist) were kind enough to do it for FREE! Yes, I said FREE!! What an amazing blessing!! One of Max's tubes came out early so they replaced it. Good thing too, because his ear drum was sticking to the ear canal, but hadn't adhered yet. So it all went well and he recovered very quickly. My mom took Zac over night and during the day so I would have to worry about him and getting him to preschool and helping Max too.

Today I just took it easy, and tried to put the moving/housing situation out of my mind. I needed to get our vacuum fixed so I took it to the shop, and since I was feeling ugly this morning I went to the mall and bought 2 new colors of eye shadow. I let the boys run around the mall. We shared lunch at a pizza place in the food court. Then we walked around some more. Zac said he wasn't ready to go, and we walked by the movie theater. I thought, a movie would kill some time and it would be fun. Luckily, there was a movie the boys would want to see "Chipmunks 2" or whatever its called. The boys, Zac especially loves the first one, and whenever going to Aunt Rachel's wants to watch it (well, before they got a Wii that is). The boys were excited and I was that they were and the movie was dumb, but I didn't care. It was a different fun thing to do. Max gets bored during the last third of movies so I got some candy to get him through. The 2 mins before the climax of the movie Zac starts to cough while eating some junior mints. Its a choking kind of cough. I hit him on the back a few times, but nothing. So I grabbed him, leaving Max there (there were only like 10 people in the theater) and heading downstairs to the lighted area by the back door. After I got down the stairs I held him more like the heimlich position and tried to bounce him a bit. In theory I know how to do it , but I never have before. He was still coughing by the time I got to the door. (I know coughing is good, but it was scary.) As I opened the door (to perhaps find someone else who could effectively do the heimlich), Zac said, "Mom, you're hurting me". Relief flooded over me. He was till coughing some, but I could see he was ok. I started to cry with relief. I didn't realize how scared I was until then. (I should add a whole thought process of how this changed my perspective on how I felt about Zac, since lately he has been so crabby, its hard to like being around him. It reminded me that he is also my little one and how much I love him and want to be a better mom. I have learned that I can greatly influence how my child acts. I need to be the mature one, the bigger person, and understand he's just a kid, and know when to let things slide. I don't want to make this already extremely long post longer.) Then he gagged, and I went to get him a cup for water, but the concession's people were too distracted to help me and I had no money on me so I stole a water cup when they were turned around. I could feel the eyes of the people in line watch me do that-yuck. He was just fine after some water.

Anyway, I also cleaned out the fridge, vacuumed the floors with the loaner vac, caught up on blogs and found some new ones, and made dinner again tonight. Sweet and Sour Chicken, great recipe, thanks to Amanda! Now Jon is watching one of our 4 channels. So I really should go. But I felt the need to get all this out. Not sure why. I generally don't like to be this personal and vulnerable on my blog. And a note about me: I like to be busy. No, I need to be busy (thank you Aunt Kristi for this realization). Yes, busy can be stressful, but I prefer that to the depression of staying at home with nothing to do but focus on my worries. And I also wanted to apologize for being unavailable to the handful of people I've been meaning to serve and be in contact with. I hope all is well.
-Me

Seven Years

Last weekend we celebrated our 7 year anniversary. We had a great time! We are so grateful we had the opportunity to get away. We were able to go on another weekender. A big thank you to my parents and my Rachel and Jeremy for all their help so we could go.

We went to Midway again. We just love it there and its so quiet and non-touristy. This year we stayed at Johnson Mill. Its a bed and breakfast. But we were able to "opt out" of that part. They were kind enough to bring breakfast to our room.

This is a beautiful building on a gorgeous piece of land. I got a few of these pictures from their website.

Back of property



View from our balcony, to the front

Since Jon works in Park City, my parents were willing to take me to Park City to meet him so we didn't have to have 2 cars up there all weekend. We stopped to eat at Dairy Keen in Heber, then drove on to Park City.

After my parents took the kids back, Jon hadn't eaten so we went to Red Rock Brewery, it does have a bar, but its also a restaurant. They have some very good bruchetta. Then we went over the the outlets, to get me a cheap pair of sunglasses, since mine broke on the drive up. And I'd need some for the next day.

Then we went to check-in. The Mill also rents snowshoes. We were able to go snowshoeing for an hour until it got dark. We went out on the property behind the mill. It was so beautiful. I wish wish wish I had brought my camera out. It was the most romantic scene, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary. The sun had recently set over Timpanogos and you could still see sunlight outlining the mountains, the bright full moon had risen over the mountains on the opposite of the valley, steam was coming off all the ponds, the Mill was cozily lit in the background, and all was quiet except for the taking off and landing of geese on the large pond. It was so peaceful and though provoking.

We like to contemplate and talk about the last year and the successes and struggles, and goals for the next year. Snowshoeing in this atmosphere was the perfect way to unwind and let go so we could enjoy our trip and not be troubled with the current worries of home.

Since we had eaten lunch so late, we made a run to the grocery store to get snacks, and watched Michael Jackson's This is It.

Since breakfast was being delivered to out room we were able to sleep in (and not have to mingle with strangers ;). We lazily got ready to go to Solider's Hollow to go tubing.



When we got back I again lazily got ready to go. I that think was one of my favorite parts of the trip. We were on our own time line and I could take as long as I liked to get ready and it was just so relaxing to do everything at my own slow pace. I just needed to worry about me-no feeding kids, changing diapers, getting them dressed and all their crap into the car, and no whining. It was wonderful!! We did some shopping at the outlets. Zac has had his new pairs of jeans for 3 months and they all have holes in the knees! Then we ate at Ruby Tuesday. We wanted to go into Park City and eat at a nicer place, but it was the last weekend of the Sundance Film Festival and we didn't want to fight the crowds.

Then we watched some more movies, and slept in again. After check-out we looked at some properties for rent in Midway and Heber. (We are looking to move closer to Jon's work).

It was a great trip!! If you have never been on a weekender alone with your honey, you are TRUELY missing out!!