volleyball pics, thanksgiving, and forgotten carols

so i know volleyball season ended like a million years ago, but i wanted to share some of our pictures we had done for our team this year. they turned out so good!! the infamous molly landon did them and she's pretty much the best. 

i really didn't have anything else to say, other than i love me some volleyball and am forever and always grateful for the opportunity i have to coach. i learn and grow every year from the girls and my fellow coaches and it truly is a blessing in my life.

speaking of being grateful....while we are here, lets talk about thanksgiving!

we are trying to recover over here from the lack of sleep from partying all night errrr night! 

it was a great four day weekend for us! we spent our weekend in pocatello with our families. we played games, had thanksgiving dinner with normans side of the family, went to the new movie moana and i thought it was cute! it had great music. it was grant's first movie in a theater and he did really well! he sat through the whole thing. then we took family pictures which were a disaster...no need to go there right now...still too fresh. ;)

and then last night we had the opportunity to kick off the holiday season by going to the forgotten carols with normans family. i looooove the forgotten carols. i listened to them all growing up and i truly love the messages each song has. bringing it back to our Savior. norman and i walked home after the show, hand in hand, talking about which songs were our favorite, what loved ones we think about during the show that have passed on, and the miracle it truly is that our Savior WAS in fact here on this earth, and how special it is to be able to celebrate Him. 

now that our little family is starting to grow, norman and i are trying to come up with some traditions of our own to help keep the Savior the focus of christmas for us AND our children. it's fun to create new traditions with our little family. i'm always up for some suggestions, too! what are your family's favorite holiday traditions??? 

i hope you all had a great thanksgiving weekend and lets get this christmas party started am i right?????

PRIEST LAKE: Spike Ball Tournament

a week ago today we were in beautiful PRIEST LAKE, IDAHO! my family's favorite vacation spot. i decided to break up priest lake into a few posts cause there was just tooooo much.

so first up...our spike ball tournament. this last thanksgiving norman and i decided to start a turkey bowl... we bought this ridiculous turkey hat and the winner of our ping pong double elimination tournament got the hat and had to plan the next event. since our families don't see each other EVERY thanksgiving....we decided to do the next turkey bowl at priest lake when everyone would be there. Nick (my cousin in law) won the ping pong tournament so he planned a double elimination spike ball tournament. 

now, before we start...one thing i do love about our family is that even while camping...we try to keep the sabbath day as holy as we can. we don't go swimming or boating, and we have our own little church meeting in the trees and i love it. you can feel the spirit so strong when you are out in the middle of God's creations. i have experienced that many times in my life and this year during our meeting i felt it again. it was so special to be with so much family, learning about the gospel and being inspired to be better. we also managed to get a picture of allllll the great grandkids with my great grandpa after our little church meeting. then we had a little primary activity (my mom has those pictures so i don't have them here...) where the kids took a journey around the camp to learn about different scripture prophets and what they taught us. 

after all THAT...the tournament started. i know i know. that doesn't sound VERY sunday appropriate but it was nice being with everyone and playing a game all together. we are quite the competitive bunch so it wouldn't be a proper game night if we didn't have a little arguing ;) but it was a super fun tournament with some awesome games and norman and i even ended up placing 2nd!!!! we were so close!!!! but alas, my cousin jordan and her husband jason ended up winning the tournament. (although when jordan found out she got the turkey hat and had to plan the next turkey bowl she wasn't super pumped about it heeehee). so below are some pictures from the tournament...

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!!

two. cool.

i meant to write this more around grants birthday...but...you know how it goes. last year on grants birthday, he had a shirt saying "i am this many" with a finger holding the number one up. so this year i decided we should make it a tradition. so i got him a "two. cool." shirt now that he is two, to wear on his birthday. well.....procrastinator morgan forgot to order it in time....and i BARELY missed his birthday (his birthday was on that sunday, it came on monday....*eye roll emoji*). but i wanted to take pictures of him in it for documentation purposes. so here they are. 

do you ever look at your toddler and get a little glimpse of what they are going to look like as a teenager?????? that happened for me when taking these pictures. there were a couple that i looked back at the photo and thought.....oh my heck...i can see it!!! and it made me want to scream at him to stay LITTLE!!!! norman and i were looking back through some old photos to look for a specific picture and came across grant when he was still little and chubby and i thought...when did he lose all that chub?? when did he start looking like a little boy and not a baby? it's crazy to me that they just grow up before your eyes, day after day and change every day and you don't see it because you're with them all the time. thank goodness for pictures to remind us that they were babies once, with gummy smiles and chubby thighs, and helmets in our case (flat head grant...poor kid). 

but as grant gets bigger, he is getting funnier and funnier. i love how goofy he is. i want to remember so many things about him at this stage. how when you tell him no he furrow his eyebrows, and does the duck lips as he heavily exhales. how when he's upset about something and i pick him up he will play with my hair...but ONLY when he's sad/hurt/worried. how when i go to give him another bite of something, he points to his cheek and says "CHEW!" to signify that he isn't done with what he has in his mouth. how he folds his bottom eyelid under his eye because i think it's gross, and he thinks its funny. how he will say mom over and over again until i actually make eye contact with him and THEN say what. how he loves to give brecken her binki and he blanket. and how he will randomly go up to her throughout the day to give her a kiss. how he loves to help burp her. and then picks up the nearest stuffed animal to put up on his shoulder and burp. how he is obsessed with the movies cars, prince of egypt (or has he calls it "momo", as in moses), and fantastic mr. fox (he's well rounded), and will quote certain parts of each movie. how he always says hi to random strangers we pass. how he can spot ANYTHING flying in the air...even if we can't see it yet...helicopter, airplane, crop duster.... he's kind of the most fun kid to hang around with all day. so i'm glad that i'm the one he calls mom. he's kind of the best ever.

thanksgiving & christmas 2015

so i'm a little behind on the blogging thing...but i have to record holidays for my sake so here's a little thanksgiving and christmas mashup for ya.

thanksgiving 2015

we were with my family this year for thanksgiving. our family had reserved the ISU institute building so all the little kids could run around and not be cooped up in someone's house. well us bigger cousins are quite the competitive bunch and we (i) decided that we would hold a ping pong tournament. all our family is pretty decent at ping pong so it was quite competitive and a lot of fun. norman and i bought a (cooked) turkey hat that dances for the winner of the tournament. we also played dodgeball, lightening, ate lots of food, watched football, and chatted of course! it was so fun and a nice refreshing change from just eating and sitting around all day. 

christmas 2015

right after normans last class, we were packed and ready to go to pocatello for the break! 2 weeks of partying! we started it off by heading to salt lake to see the lights and go to dinner with my parents, my sister, and her family. i hadn't been in a few years and it's always a special place to be at christmas.

we stayed with my parents the first week and norman's family the second week and had a fabulous time at both. we spent christmas eve with normans family and had a nice dinner and had some funny entertainment from norman's dad, who read us christmas letters to santa from various people (President Monson, Obama, President Benson, Elder Packer, Richard Nixon...etc etc.). We spent christmas morning at my family's house and got spoiled as per usual by both families and had SO much fun playing santa for our little guy. grant still doesn't fully understand the santa thing...or the christmas thing...but he liked opening presents. (except for when i wrapped one of his presents in an old graham cracker box and he thought it was actually graham crackers and got real upset when he found out it was just clothes....)

he got lots of train stuff this year. he's currently obsessed with trains and cars. santa also brought him a bouncy horse (that stayed at my parents...no room for that in a tiny 2 bedroom apt), and a basketball hoop!

i couldn't help but think how weird it is that next year we will have TWO babies at christmas time. it just keeps getting better and better.

we played our annual christmas present game with my family (which i didn't get pictures of) and it was a blast as per usual. probably one of my favorite parts of christmas. 

At our big annual christmas party on my mom's side of the family we did a costume competition where everyone had to dress up in what they felt was the most "christmas-y". well, me being pregnant, i thought it would be perfect to dress up as mary, joseph, and a shepherd. grant won his age group for best costume, and our family won as the "best family costume". it was a blast!

the power went out for about an hour and a half on christmas eve so norm and i played santa's helpers in the dark, with a head lamp, putting stuff together!

hope everyone had a great holiday season as well and a late merry christmas to you all!!