Belly rub

Aaron got up early (5:30) to go play basketball. He heard the boys and went in to check on them. He found Jaylen sitting on Gavin's bedside, rubbing Gavin's belly. After inquiring what was going on, Jaylen said Gavin's belly was feeling ouchie so he was helping him rub it. Gavin was laid out, enjoying and grateful to Jaylen for his ouchie belly rub.

I love tender moments like these. Jaylen is so commonly doing these sweet, thoughtful acts. It especially melts my heart to see him express his love to his little buppy! 

Jaylen

My sweet little Jaylen is 6 in a WEEK. I'm so sentimental. I loved snuggling and reading to him tonight- soaking up my last Sunday with my little 5 year old.  I'll post more later on him, but I just felt like my heart was going to explode and wanted to remember how I felt- or more importantly, I want HIM to know how I feel about him. I love that sweet boy like I've never loved before. I could snuggle, watch and listen to him forever. His sweet, innocent voice, with his caring sweet actions... I can't believe he's growing up so fast. He's so excited for his birthday. I'm excited for him, but will miss his little 5 year old stage.

New Years 2014

New Years was crazy this year. Crazy in a completely good, but busy way. 

The Washington Rec Center did an outstanding Family Fest, where they had bounce houses, games, prizes, minions, dive in movie, big water balls, slides, lazy river, fireworks... amazing. We spent most our time in the pool watching Despicable Me 2 twice, going down the big slide (Gavin's first time!), a million laps around the lazy river, playing in the bubble machine, and just splashing around the pool playground. After three hours, we were pretty tired, so we headed home for a treat and some fun fireworks Aaron got. The kids loved it! 

As the kids were going to bed, I got ready and headed off to the Biggest Loser to instruct their 11 pm-12 class and to help ring in the New Year. More on that below..

Minions. Gavin was SO excited to see him! So cute!

Bubbles! The boys LOVED this. They'd get so bubbly and then jump in the pool over and over again.

I had a workout planned that I wanted to be flexible for those that really wanted a workout and fun for those that wanted to play around a bit. Everyone worked out for the first 20 minutes and on the laps out to the middle, it turned quickly into a dance off at the center line. We soon had a dance line people were going through, people showing off their dance moves, and then I put on some requested line dance songs. We turned the lights down and ended with a fun dance party. About 10 minutes before midnight we headed upstairs for a countdown for New Years.

The fun guests we had last week made it truly an entertaining night. I love the different people I meet out there. I had a lot of fun playing around with them all!

Not the most FLATTERING picture, but me doing the worm down the line. I would have never thought that the silly worm I learned to do at a stake dance when I was 14 would be a dance move I'd get paid to do as an adul

Cotton Eyed Joe

Cody and I- one of the managers here at the resort

My schedule now involves a FULL day shift on Wednesdays (so I can be more open the other days), so I slept overnight at the resort on a massage table (all the rooms were booked). I went to bed about 1:30 and woke up at 5:20 am to teach stretch. A few hiking guides called in so I ended up being a hike guide and ran up Stop Sign (path through Snow Canyon) and helped others reach the top (15 miles by the end of the 2 1/2 hours) and then taught classes until 5 pm. Needless to say, I was ready to get out of there- but it was certainly a fun and active day. My job rocks- seriously.  I'm ready to tackle 2014. Goals are set, written down and posted, and I'm ready to enjoy the rest of my 20s and start of my 30s this year!

End of December

Jaylen and I went on our first bike ride together down the street. It was really fun and very fulfilling for me. Jaylen was nervous, but as he kept going, he gained confidence and was so proud of himself. I love my outings with him so much. He makes my heart so happy.

 

Jaylen is SO adorable in his new track suit from Merilee and Bryan. Adorable.

Jaylen has his Mario all wrapped up in his angry bird blanket and he was using a different one. He takes such good care of his Mario.

I haven't done a little update on the kids lately, so I thought I'd remember their cute stages right now:

Gavin:
Holy cow, this kid eats. CONSTANTLY. He likes to eat on any type of candy or treat. His newest constant snack is Cutie oranges. He unpeels them like a champ (Jaylen even has Gavin unpeel them for him) and can eat them constantly if we let him. Jaylen would eat- but this kid constantly has his hands full of something from the fridge or pantry. We don't bring any toys to church to entertain him- all he's interested in is food. It's incredible. He must be growing something crazy right now. I'm dead determined to have him potty trained by his birthday, so he's excited about wearing underwear and putting stickers on his new potty chart. He loves saying poop, toots, potty and laughing about it. He thinks he's hilarious- and Jaylen loves it too so they feed off each other. He has the sweetest smile and definitely holds his own with Jaylen now days. He's not afraid to stand up for himself. I can't believe he's 3 in a couple months!  Gavin definitely adds a lot of silliness and sweetness to our family. He is 39" tall, wears size 4T-5T, and wears a size 11 in shoes.  Love him!

Jaylen:
Oh Jaylen. He says the sweetest things to me. "Mom, all I really want to do is snuggle you all day. Can we?" "Mom, you're so cute today." I love how kind, thoughtful, snugglie and curious he is. He loves playing with friends, chasing Gavin around, and reading books at bedtime. Merilee gave him some chapter books (Magic Treehouse) and he's read all of them but one. He's a sponge for new knowledge! He's not a fan of his new bike- he'd rather scooter all day. He's very excited to start his first basketball practice and game this week (so is Aaron!!). Since Gavin and him wake up super early every morning (between 5:45 am- 6), Jaylen does a great job taking care of and playing with Gavin until it's a reasonable time for us all to wake up. He'll get him breakfast, put on a show, play games or read him books and makes sure (especially if Aaron is in bed) Gavin doesn't come into our room too early.  He's a great helper- now doing chores like unloading the dishwasher, picking up the trash and setting the table.  He's lost his two bottom teeth and loves the tooth fairy bringing "coin" under his pillow. He's 50" tall, wears size 8-12, and wears a size 4 in shoes. I love my first born. He makes me smile daily.

Jaylen and I were talking about Aaron and I being little kids. He thought we'd always knew each other, so I explained to him that we didn't play or really know each other until we were adults and fell in love and got married. I told him his own little sweet pea is a little girl right now too and once he gets to be a big boy he'll find the girl he loves and he'll marry her. He said, "Mom, the only girl I really want to love is Grandma.... (pause) and you. That's it, okay?"  I was more than okay with that.

Aaron:
He's been going to play early morning basketball at the church or local high school 3x a week! I'm impressed with his consistency to go at 5:30am-8. He also was in a basketball league at the local community center and they won the championship this past month. He starts school again this week. He's got his thumb in a few business pies that he's been working with- TimeSupply and a clip business that he's helping manage with a client of mine. He's adorable, loving, fun and irresistible. He's 78" tall and wears 2-3x, and wears size 16 in shoes. Ha!

Christmas 2013!

I've been really trying to soak up this Christmas. Jaylen and Gavin are PERFECT ages for Christmas fun. Gavin got the idea of Santa, stockings, Jack Frost, elves, Mr. Candy Cane man- and we could discuss the true meaning of Christmas with him as well. So fun to have the excitement and enthusiasm of our two sweet boys all around. Aaron and I kept expressing to each other how exciting and fun it is to have our own home to celebrate in this year. We are very blessed.

I could hardly sleep on Christmas Eve. I was so excited for the boys to experience the magic of Christmas morning. The boys slept on a mattress in our closet so they wouldn't walk out in the family room alone. Jaylen was up early and barely able to contain himself. Dang Gavin slept in (never happens), and we had to wake him up at 7 to go see if Santa stopped by.  Santa did not disappoint: 

The boys are CRAZY about Despicable Me. We went and saw the 2nd one at the dollar theatres a month ago, and they've been quoting and talking about it since. They really are like little minions sometimes!

Bikes! We need alot of work to get the boys comfortable on them, but it was cute to see them riding around.

 While they tried out bikes, Aaron and I got to work setting up the awesome trampoline Merilee and Bryan got us. After a few hours (that was some hard work there!) we had it up correctly. It was a perfectly sunny day to play and enjoy being together outside.

 We quickly realized this trampoline was a gift for us ALL. I made Christmas dinner in peace and quiet while watching the boys bounce together outside.

The weather was amazing, so we ended up eating our ribs, salad and mashed potatoes outside.

Jaylen got Mario from his stocking. He carries him everywhere and snuggles him. So cute.

 After eating, Gavin was gone for awhile. We were wondering where he went. Aaron went to go find him and found him like this:

When Aaron snuck up and opened his blanket, Gavin was sneaking in the candy. Such a little sweet tooth rascal!

He wasn't too happy about having to cough up all the candy.

Very grateful to have such a sweet family to spend Christmas with. It was fun to experience our first Christmas together in our first home. I definitely missed sharing and enjoying the day with extended family. It's never quite the same. I especially started missing family towards the end of the day. I missed the laughs and company of our family from afar.

I love watching the magic come alive to our little boys and being able to watch their eyes light up in amazement- one of the big blessings of being a parent. Love my sweet little family. Many, MANY thanks to Merilee for sending some special gifts for us all and making our day more special.

A very exciting, lazy, leisurely day! Happy birthday Jesus!

Christmas Eve 2013

We spent Christmas Eve up at my brother Jared's house with his family, Jenny's brother's family, her parents, and Jared's mission companion's family from Canada. We got to see their new goats, puppies and played around the house. Dinner was delicious. The kids put on a great nativity while Jared and Aaron organized the telling of it from the scriptures. SO ADORABLE!  Jared then talked about the importance of Christ and His birth. We brought a birthday cake for Jesus and all the kids blew out the candle. Each family opened up their Christmas pjs and put them on. Wow, were the kids all excited about their new pjs!

We came back home to set out our stockings and put the kids to bed in our closet so we could all be together Christmas morning.

Kids awaiting their parts

 

Cute Gavin and Libby- cousins!

Jared talking about the importance of Christmas

Family pyramid

Kylee and Jaylen

Cute Ellie with Gavin

These pjs were meant to be. We went to Walmart, searching for a plain colored long sleeve shirt for us all. They had 10 different colors, and had plenty in 4x, 3x, 2x but nothing matching in small. So frustrating! I'm usually the one that has no problem finding a size, it's Aaron. Not at all this time. So after 40 minutes searching the racks, we wondered back to the clearance section. One of the first shirts I come to is a 3x Mario shirt. WHAT?!? What large man wears Mario?? I showed it to Aaron. Sure enough, the only other shirt was a size small matching Mario shirt, for $3. We asked Jaylen what he thought and he LOVED the idea. The Mario shirts were just meant to be I guess! :) 

Santa came!!

The boys dead asleep in our closet. It was perfect! Jaylen came out before 6 am and snuggled us. He was excited out of his mind. We kept hearing noises that he kept making guesses for what they were. Gavin actually slept in (which NEVER happens) and we had to wake him up at 7 am.