Thanksgiving

This year we had Thanksgiving dinner 3 times. It was the year to be with my family, but my dad accidentally planned their Hawaii trip over Thanksgiving (they thought Thanksgiving was the last Thursday of the month.) So we ended up having turkey dinner with my family the Saturday before. We went to my parents church and it was a blast. I brought 4 scooters, 3 wiggle cars, and some bikes and the kids had SO much fun. I forgot my camera so all the pic are still on my dad's camera. On Thanksgiving, we went to the Ericson's to enjoy the evening with them. Friday night we went to Josh's uncle's house and had another turkey dinner to celebrate his grandpa's birthday. So much turkey! We were in charge of pies for 2 of the dinners, so we have had a ton of pie leftovers all week. Yum!!!

 After we got home from the Ericson's a little surprise showed up! Our own personal elf, Elfie, showed up to keep an eye on us. He reports back to Santa whether the kids are naughty or nice. He comes to life when we are asleep as moves around the house. The kids absolutely LOVE him! Especially Brooklyn...she wakes up every morning and runs downstairs to find him. I should have taken a pic of him...I'll do that one of these days.

Brayden's Birthday

The only thing Brayden wanted to do on his birthday was to go to Nickelcade. So we invited Josh's family and met everyone there. The kids had a blast and Brayden loved every minute of it.

 Brayden picked out the cake and it really was one of the best cakes I've ever had.

We love you so much buddy! I hope you had a great day!

Thirsty?!

First of all, Brynlee's newest thing lately is to find either her Halloween costume or this dance tutu, bring it to me while I am still in bed, and ask me to dress her. It's cute...but gets old while I'm still trying to sleep. She was SO funny when she decided to share her drink with the dog.

More Snowmen

The kids really have been loving arts and crafts lately. This time we made snowmen out of marshmallows.

The Markers Continue...

This moment was way too cute and funny to interrupt. Luckily Samantha's father was also standing there with approval in documenting this moment rather than stopping it. It really was awesome.

Uh-oh!

Brynlee LOVES to get her hands on the markers. And since Brayden and Brooklyn have been loving crafts lately, there are always markers all over the place. Luckily they are washable. Brynlee usually will stick to paper, but once in a while gets away and gets to the walls. She always has to clean up after, but I guess she figures it's worth it bc she continues to do it over and over again!

Snowmen

We invited Elijah over to make snowmen with us. The kids loved it.

A New Shed

We have been saving for a while to be able to build a shed. We found a guy that was really reasonable to build us a huge shed. We needed it big enough for our stuff as well as for my sister and her husband to clear out of their storage shed. The guy built the kit in his shop and put it up in just a few short hours. It was amazing to watch and we are thoroughly enjoying it.

Pregnancy Update

16 weeks and feeling great! Baby girl started kicking this week. Always fun to feel the baby start moving. 

Stein Ericson Lodge

Josh won a trip to Park City at work for 2  nights. It was wonderful to finally get away with any kids! We headed up there on Thursday afternoon and were able to stay until Saturday afternoon. We checked into our beautiful and HUGE lodge, then headed to Main Street for dinner. We ended up eating at a Pizza and Pasta place. I absolutely loved it. Josh didn't love his phili steak sandwich, but agreed the place was one we would like to go back to. After dinner we stopped at a grocery store to grab a few snacks and something to eat for breakfast. Of course, their halloween happened to be on sale so we stocked up. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing, and enjoying the private hot tub on the deck. Here are a few pics from the deck:

 Friday was very relaxed. We slept great, and slept in! It was so nice not to have to get up with kids. We finally managed to get up and head out to the outlet stores. We spent the afternoon shopping. We got some spending money so it was fun to get a few things courtesy of Josh's company. By 4 we were done shopping and pretty bored :) There wasn't much to do in Park City in between seasons. All the fun summer stuff I wanted to do was shut down, and the winter stuff hadn't opened yet. We couldn't find a movie theatre with any good movies, so we headed to Walmart and bought Just Go With It. We went to one of Josh's Mexican accounts for a yummy dinner, then back to the lodge for the evening. We watched the movie, laughed a lot, and soaked in the hot tub again. Eventhough we didn't do much, it was nice to not HAVE to do anything.
Saturday morning we used our food credit for a very small, overpriced meal. It cost $50 for little pancakes, an omelette, and orange juice. We laughed bc the food wasn't even that good. It reaffirmed that we could never live the expensive life...just not for us. It was ridiculous and SO not worth the money. Oh well. It was free to us so I guess we can't complain. We checked out of the lodge and headed home. We stopped at Fashion Place Mall for an hour before rejoining reality again. Such a nice few days off! Thanks Josh for working so hard to win us the trip!