blessing day!

we blessed our little miss pepper yesterday! it was such a good day. i haven't been to church since i had her and it was so nice to be back. you don't realize how much you take it for granted until you haven't been able to go for a while. it's such a good refresher and so uplifting to go be surrounded by those who also want to worship and learn about the gospel.

pepper did awesome. i got her to sleep minutes before the blessing so she was nice and quiet while her dad gave her a beautiful blessing. he did so good, as always. he has given each one of our children the sweetest blessings and i love him for that. we felt so much gratitude yesterday for our family, our friends, the church, and just life in general. we have been so blessed and owe it all to our Heavenly Father. 

Pepper got to wear the dress (made by my mother-in-law) and headband brecken wore when she was blessed. although, pepper's feet were bigger than brecken's so..... no shoes for her this time. whoops! :) 

it was a good day! thanks to all those who helped make it what it was!

             

   

grant turns 3

^^^grant trying to hold up "3" fingers^^^ 

^^^miss b didn't love hitting the piñata...funny girl^^^

^^^digging for those minions^^^

my little boy is 3!!!! 

this year was sooooo fun with my little man. we had quite a few birthdays in a row, first my dads in january, then mine and brecken's in february, grant knew what birthdays were all about..... and he was ready for it to be his turn. mostly for the cake and the song. he loooooooves singing that happy birthday song and blowing out the candles. this was the first year he really understood that it was his birthday. i mean... he doesn't know what a birthday is still, but he knew that this one was his and we were celebrating him. 

we celebrated a couple times in true birthday week fashion. my parents were going to be out of town for his birthday so they came up the sunday before and we had dinner, some mickey mouse brownies, and they gave him his present. (the lightening mcqueen chair which he loooooves)

then on his actual birthday i took him to ijump in the morning and we had so much fun playing!! then we came home for a nap and got ready to party!! he loves having his cousins over and his grandpas. he kept telling me all day "quinn and rian and grandpa and great grandpa are coming!!!" 

we had a minion themed birthday party and had a minion cake (courtesy of the fabulous grandma joy), and a minion piñata which the kids all enjoyed!

after the piñata was presents. now this year i made a rule that any present he got had to have some educational value, couldn't just get him a bunch of toys. so the first few presents of books and puzzles he wasn't super pumped about. hahaha. it was quite funny...he just didn't know what they were. he got a drill and a tool set from grandma and grandpa reece though and thought that was pretty fun to be like dad. 

so i had bought 3 little plush minions i was going to use for decoration but decided to just throw in with his gift instead. well once he got to our present and opened it up he must've  seen them at the bottom because he just started ripping everything out an handing it to me until he got to them. it was pretty funny. then afterward he noticed the lego duplos we had gotten him that he had handed off to me and wanted to open it and play with them.

we then sang to him and he blew out candles (his favorite part) if you saw my instragram video of us singing to him you can attest to how dang cute he was. he was so excited and it made my heart so happy. i just kept thinking how lucky i am to be a mom to this little boy. he made me a mother 3 years ago and i never knew i could love so deep and so hard until he came into my life.

so, happy birthday to my sweet little boy! we love you more than you know. and i'll never get over hearing you say "i love YOU, too!" it literally makes my heart want to burst. 

happy birthday grant!

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!!