a little closer to 30...

so i've been really bad at taking pictures lately...i barely got these... and as you can see... we all look a little homeless. haha. but i had to document my birthday!! because it was a good one. i felt so loved this year as i turned the whopping 27!! ... can't believe i'm in my "late 20's" now.. the closer i get to 30 the more weird i feel about it. haha.

but this year was simple and fabulous. so my husband thinks that i celebrate "birthday week" which...i kind of do... but i need to clarify... "birthday week" is more something i can call when i don't want to do something, or if i DO want to do something. say....i don't want to do the dishes so i say... norman can you do the dishes, it's my birthday....week. :) haha. anyway..norman always jokes about this now so he did a cute little post every day of my birthday week on instagram expressing a reason why he loves me each day. i looked forward to them every day. 

my actual birthday was on saturday, but friday night we went to pocatello and had cake and ice cream with my in-laws and my sisters family. it was great!! then on saturday we came back home, norman gave me money for shopping and i got to go out ALL BY MYSELF while my kids stayed home with norman. it was heaven. then i came back, we got some dinner at red robin as a family (pictures above are from the lobby waiting to be seated) :) then we came home, put kids to bed, and norman and i pulled out some popcorn, milk duds, and peanut butter m'n'm's and we watched Jason Bourne cause we hadn't seen it yet. it really was the perfect day. i felt so loved all week...norman really hit up all my love languages. 

THEN on monday my mother in law came to IF and took me to get lunch and a pedicure with my sister-in-laws while my father in law watched my kids. it was FABULOUS. i felt so spoiled.

anyway!!!! ....i can feel that 27 is going to be a good year.

also, while we are here and for my own sake i wanted to document quickly what we did for v-day...norm was in charge this year...we went out to puerto vallarta ... which was delicious and then got some hot chocolate and drove around asking get to know ya questions and seeing how many we could guess correctly about the other person. it was really nice. 

ps....the movie norman could watch the rest of his life and never watch any other movie again.... any guesses????? almost heroes. hahah that's why i love him :)

12.11.16

we have been married for 6 years..... 6 YEARS, PEOPLE! how crazy is that. 

this year we celebrated a couple weeks early on account of our dear friend, jim gaffigan coming to salt lake. we thought it a perfect opportunity to celebrate our 6th year with some laughs with jim!

we drove down, dropped brecken off with normans parents who happened to be in salt lake for a funeral the following morning and headed out to city creek to eat, walk around, and head to the show.

we first went to the cheesecake factory because we thought... well... it IS our anniversary so we should do something fancier, right??? wrong. they had a 60 minute wait and we ain't into that. so we went over to the city creek cafeteria and got some delicious mexican food at the red iguana. that's how we do it in year 6, people.

then i made norman walk around west elm looking at rugs and furniture.

we stopped at rocky mountain chocolate factory, got some hot chocolate since it was FREEZING and some chocolate covered strawberries and made our way down to the vivint smart home arena (how many times are they gonna change the name...i mean really...i can't keep up). we thought the show started at 8, but i think ended up closer to 8:30 or 9... the opener for the show was pretty funny! i always get nervous for comedians if i don't already know they're funny... it's just so awkward... but he was good. and then jim came out and was hilarious as usual! 

after that, we headed back to the hotel where norman's parents were and went to bed! had a nice continental breakfast the next morning and headed home.

we wanted to do something fancy this year... stay in a fancy hotel... order in fancy room service... slip into fancy white robes... but we decided to save some money instead. #adulting

we figured we have plenty of anniversaries to come that we can do more "fancy" things where i won't be nursing or pregnant. i swear, every year it's one or the other. haha.

then sunday the 11th was our actual anniversary. we went to church, came home, had some dinner, then we put kids to bed that night and we made hot chocolate, sat down and grabbed our memory book and wrote down memories. (we have a book that every year on our anniversary we write down some of our favorite memories from the year). it was the perfect little evening sitting in our new home, christmas lights around us, reading old memories and writing new ones.

we are still learning... always learning. and i am happy that i have a spouse who wants to improve our relationship as much as i do. to always work to be better and to make each other happy. marriage is tough and sometimes causes for some tough self reflection and change... but it's worth it. always worth it.

so happy 6 years to you and me, my handsome! 

a blessing for brecken rose

(we still haven't mastered the whole posing for a picture with two kids yet....)

April 10, 2016

Brecken's Blessing day

it was kind of crazy weekend! norman graduated on the 8th, we had a party to celebrate his graduation and brecken's blessing on the 9th, and then blessed brecken on the 10th! got it ALL done in one weekend. phew!

this was the only picture we managed to get...on a cell phone because i left the camera at my in-laws and then we were struggling to get it over to my parents...even though we only live about a neighborhood away from each other....hah. long story...anyway, by the time this picture was taken...we were ALL HANGRY and ready to get out of sunday clothes and eat some lasagna. yay for real life.

it was a great day, though. norman has given BOTH of our babies the most beautiful and thoughtful blessings and i love him for it. he really takes time to prepare for them and feel the spirit as he gives them. and it makes a difference. i was all sorts of proud of him that weekend, first graduation, then brecken's blessing...i was just feeling allllll the feelings for this special man in our lives. 

and of course miss brecken. it was so special to celebrate her birth with family and give her a name and a blessing. her beautiful dress was made by my oh so talented mother in law and it turned out so cute. she looked beautiful. although she started out as an accident {shhhh don't tell her ;)} we sure are glad she's here, now. she's such a light in our family and has such a happy and strong spirit.

we love you miss B! happy blessing day to you!!

he did it!

^^adam keller, one of normans school buddies^^

^^all the graduating civil engineers (they are missing 3 that didn't walk) and the professors!^^

so i've been meaning to write this post for foooooorrrreeevvver (insert sandlot quote) ...well more accurate, i've been meaning to write this post for a couple weeks now and it just has NOT happened. but i want to document it because it was such a BIG DEAL!

WE GRADUATED!!!!!!! best. day. ever.

i've said in the past that i always hated april/may time because i always saw everyone graduating from college and we were still....in college....trudging along....going to school. for forever. but now WE were the ones graduating!!! so this april was fabulous!

(i keep saying "we" like it's me receiving a diploma, too....it's not...it's just norm)

so now, the bragging.....

it has to be done, people.

norman graduated in civil engineering with basically an emphasis in mechanical. and mind you...he went to school YEAR ROUND. no breaks besides a quick one in august before starting back up again in september. and i don't mean for the following to be taken out of context because i mean it as the biggest compliment i could give....you'll see what i mean...

engineering was hard for norman. it didn't come easy for him. a lot of engineers are brains. really really smart and along with that, maybe a little socially akward... that kind of smart. norman isn't like that. engineering was a LOT of work for him. and classes were TOUGH. beyond tough. i say this because norman could've bailed. but he didn't. he could've and sometimes (maybe more than sometimes) wanted to quit and decide to do something else. but he didn't. he could've picked an easier major from the beginning. but he didn't. he finished. it's not easy going to school day after day and feeling inadequate alongside some people who it simply comes easier for. but he did it. he finished. he finished something that was not easy or pleasant to finish. and for that, i admire him a lot.

now, don't get me wrong...he loves engineering and he IS smart. but it just didn't come easy for him. he had to work at it. and i feel it means more to him, to us, because of that. and he we were blessed for him pushing through. and if you haven't heard already, he received a job!! in fact, he received it a few weeks before graduation. 

he is now working for a company that we think very highly of in idaho falls called Northwest Engineering Services the people there are great and we are beyond excited to be a part of their team. (again with the "we" talk...like i'm doing anything over here....haha). they are in the process of purchasing an engineering firm in rupert, idaho and norman is going to be a part of that transition. sooooooo...we are moving to BURLEY! cause there's no where to live in rupert....lets be honest. in fact there's barely anywhere to live in burley! but we DID find the cutest old fashioned house to rent from some fabulous people. i would be lying if i said i didn't cry when we found out we were moving to burley.....but since making the decision we have truly felt so blessed and guided during this transition in our lives and are excited for something new. i even found myself a coaching job at minico high school!!! wooohoooo!!!

but... moral of the story is, i'm thankful to be married to a man who thinks about more than himself. who finished this degree not just because he wanted to, but because he knew it would be best for his family. we love and appreciate him as the leader of our home and look up to him in many ways. so, finally, congratulations, norman! grant, brecken, and i love you soooooo much. thank you for your hard work and dedication to our family for the last (we won't count how many) years while getting through school. you are our rock and our leader and our favorite person to see come through that door at the end of a hard day. 

happy graduation!!!

how we celebrated 5 years of marriage

we played it pretty low key for our anniversary this year. when you have a husband in his second to last semester of college, in the middle of finals, and you're 28 weeks pregnant, taking care of an almost 2 year old....sometimes the fantasy of a 5 year cruise, or overnight get away, or a spa day, or laying on a beach somewhere to celebrate your 5 years of marriage just isn't going to happen.

we rotate who plans the anniversary celebrations each year and this year it was norman's turn. a few weeks before our anniversary i told norman (knowing how stressed he was about the impending end of the semester) not to worry about planning a big "ta-do" for our 5th anniversary this year. to just focus on school and that would be good enough for me!!! i had already given him a new shotgun, and he had already surprised me with tickets to taylor swift back in october, so...we didn't really need to spend more money on presents, either....

however, my cute husband still managed to pull through in all his sentimental glory. (he's good at that sentimental thing...me...not so much). so the day of our anniversary we had an ACSE (a civil engineering society) dinner to go to. it was delicious and we had a nice time! we headed home, put grant to bed, and i was ready to just hang out, watch a movie, take a bath, something relaxing and norman tells me he has a little surprise for me. which was surprising because i honestly wasn't expecting anything due to finals. he told me that he had looked up what the traditional 5 year anniversary gift was, and it was wood.....

so he pulls out a handful or so of different sizes of stained pieces of wood and a drill. now, on my pinterest board for a while now i have had this shelf pinned that someone made that spells out the word "love". Well norman looked it up, figured out how to make it, cut all the pieces of wood, stained them...and now we were going to put them together! i thought it was the most thoughtful gift!! so when we said "we" were going to put them together, we really meant he was going to... so while he put it together, i popped in a movie, and got out our journal we write in every year and read through some of our old memories (we write 10 new memories from that year each year on our anniversary and then write down goals we want for the next year). it was so fun to reminisce and laugh and think back on our 5 years of marriage. it was a perfect evening.

i can say that we are in a place right now that i love! we have grown so much through these last 5 years and it's exciting to think about new experiences we have ahead of us. we have learned to compromise better, forgive quicker, laugh more, stress less (maybe not as much on that one...), and love harder. marriage is tough, but it's fun to figure it out with this guy that i get for forever.

happy 5 years to my handsome husband!
12.11.15

^^we don't have it hung up yet, so here's what it looks like...laying on my bed :)^^

grant and ducks and dad

i haven't really been feeling this blogging thing lately....i feel like i'm just in a blogging rut. don't really have much to say... don't feel like anything i do have to say is important enough to blog about. but here i am, blogging, because i took some pictures and wanted to document it. so here ya go....

our little family went to the duck park, as we call it, a few weeks ago to feed the ducks and watch airplanes take off from the private strip. grant can totally say duck now (kinda) and knows what they are so it's fun. he's at such a fun stage. he's learning new words and getting that independent feisty personality already....but he is so fun! did i mention he walks now? i haven't blogged about my little guy in quite some time...but he walks! took him a while, but 13 1/2 months rolled around and he finally decided to do it. he has his 15 month appointment coming up soon so i'll probably write more about him after that! by the way...can you believe he's already 15 months old?? 

so we went to the park...right...and nothing significant happened other than it was a fabulous afternoon and we just hung out and fed a million ducks and talked about how cute grant was. how we can't get over it (i really still can't get over it...he's so dang cute). but i took a bunch of pictures of him and norman and i loved them. norman is seriously the best dad. i never once doubted or wondered what kind of dad he would be. i already knew the answer. and as per usual, i was right. :) he's a natural at it. he makes my life so much easier. i love that i live in a time where dads aren't afraid to get their hands dirty when it comes to their kiddos. it has never been a "i'm not doing that...that's your job" situation. ever. and i am always so grateful for that. he loves his boy and his boy sure loves him. it was fun to celebrate that this last sunday. what a special pair of boys i have.

grant and i are leaving my cute husband for a little over a week here in a few days....and we are sooooo sad about it. my family goes up north camping to a place called priest lake every year and we have missed the last 2 years!! this year would have made it 3, but even though norman couldn't go because of school....i decided i was still going to go with grant. i mean, i just can't be missing 3 years in a row of my favorite vacation....can't. but we still wish our favorite guy was coming. 

so when i get back i'm sure i'll have lots of fabulous pictures from that beautiful place for all 3 of you that read this to enjoy!! so, look forward to that. ;)