Birthday Shenanigans in the Mitten

As son as Val, Bill and the gang left we had 2 days to pack and do a little cleaning before heading home. HOME. Wonderful, beautiful, green Michigan filled with tons of family and friends that we miss so dearly. We celebrated Chad's birthday on Saturday along with Jared as well. It' become an amazing tradition that we are all determined to keep alive. In addition to celebrating together matching shirts have also snuck their way in as well. I love it. LOVE it.

I also love that we were able to celebrate not only with my parents, Taylor, Jared (duh), Chad's parents, Nikki, Matt and the gang, Tracy, Lincoln and their whole crew as well. It was so fun to be able to celebrate with so much of our family! Happy Birthday Chad!!! Especially since I was passed out for a while (ok, it was longer than a while) due to some drugas for my whole SI joint issue. Glad to have some birthday support otherwise it wouldn't have been quite so fun with just me!

It was so nice to see everyone, everyone! I slept on the couch (are you sensing a theme) while my mom and the boys made the birthday cake, everyone brought yummy salads and sides while we ate fried chicken. We hung out all afternoon and it was awesome. I couldn't be more thankful for my wonderful family, immediate and extended, they are the absolute best around. And while it is technically "Chared's" birthday, I can't wait to see how we celebrate it all next year :)

In addition to the birthday festivities there was a ridiculous amount of Mexican food consumed, just enough sugar cookies eaten and not enough frozen custard, lol. We were able to stop in at our old ward briefly to basically just say "hi" and harass our old primary class, I stopped by my old work, Chad fit in a little climbing, we managed a double date with Jared and helped pick out a new tv for the parents, and just generally did a lot of hanging out with a lot of the people that we dearly love and miss.  Somehow we were out there for so long but it all went by in a flash.

 

 

(Chad took an actual group photo, and I think some overall better ones in general, imagine that. So as soon as I'm not feeling lazy I'll get some real photos up here to add the amazing amount of selfies that I took all week :) )

Hail to the Victors

After failing to get a good family picture at Temple Square we tried again the next morning. Again, we were ridiculous and decided that it would be a good idea to do this outside, in the cold, without our coats on. Chad was determined and we all decided to buck up and do this thing. And do it we did. Pretty adorable if I do say so myself.

Christmas 2013

Oh Christmas, you were wonderful. We headed up to Provo on Tuesday afternoon just in time to go out to our favorite sushi place. The parents were good sports and treated us all to one of our favorite dinners even though it wasn't necessarily their favorite.

Ashley had to work Christmas and the day after, sad day. So we hung out and chatted, slacklined, watched a horrible movie (R.I.P.D. anyone?), ate cookies, grocery shopped and counted down the minutes to when she would return :)



We opened presents and stockings and all of us kids were absolutely spoiled. It was fabulous. Not to mention the grocery shopping trips mom took us each on to restock our pantries. Merry Christmas to us! I was dancing around WalMart like a little kid the entire time! In addition to Christmas spoiling I have a birthday in January so I also got a few extras at Target, hello polka dot jeans!

Speaking of birthdays, my dad's is the 27th. So there was even more celebrating! Dad took us all to Salt Lake where we shopped our hearts out at the new mall. After he reigned us all in we went up to the Joseph Smith Building and ate dinner at the very top, overlooking the Salt Lake Temple. SO FUN. Afterwards there were multiple attempts at pictures at Temple Square but it was cold and Tay and I may have had a hard time holding still. We managed to pull our ish together for some pretty awesome pictures on Saturday though.

We saw Enders Game (loved), ate our hearts out at Chuck-a-Rama, and played Pictionary until Dad couldn't take it anymore. The boys escaped at one point to go climbing at a gym and do some shopping of their own at REI. While the boys slacklined the girls got crafty and did some easy sewing projects. I can now crochet a square... and a rectangle. Bam! We all got our craft on and decorated our own ornaments this year, it was a good time.

Hopefully you guys had a wonderful Christmas and could spend it with those you love doing and eating all the other things you love. In other words, hopefully you had a great Christmas love fest like we did :)

Spoiled Rotten

Chad and I spent the last couple days being completely spoiled.

The plane ride junked up my back, surprise surprise, so Debbie took care of me. Love being around Mommas :) There were back rubs, foot rubs, massagers, and tylenol PM, all courtesy of Debbie. She helped my poor back make it through the first day. There's nothing better than having a mom around when you aren't feeling well.

Then we celebrated Chad's birthday. The big 2-6. Not only did we get to spend all day with Nikki, Matt, the babies and his mom, but my parents and brother came down along with our 2 best friends from Michigan.

My parents and Taylor were rockstars and brought us down a ton of mexican food from our very favorite restaurant. They took the whole gang of us out to lunch to celebrate Chad and Jared's birthday! Aside from birthday presents my dad slipped us some "gas money" right before they left.

Will and Jared drove down at 4am just to spend Chad's birthday with him. It's Jared's birthday the day after Chad's and they always celebrate their birthdays together, we were happy we got to keep the tradition alive!

Oh I did I mention that Nikki and Matt flew us out to spend a week with them? We only get to have this awesome vacation because of them. I guess they like us or something.

We've also been getting snuggles galore from the kids who barely let us out of their sight, and we are loving every single minute of it!

Best Week Ever

We made it! We've survived a red eye flight, celebrated birthdays, baked cakes, thrown out backs, devoured chimichangas, ate half a jar of salsa, played games, and spent the whole last day with part of mine and Chad's family and our two very best friends. And we've only been here 2 days. Can't wait for the rest of the week!

Christmas in the New Year

 We celebrated my dad's birthday on Thursday, I had to work.... boo. So after a strenuous day of chillin' at work answering a few phone calls my family picked me up and we headed out to eat. We decided to go where everyone could find something... Golden Corral! We had to accommodate 3 vegetarians, the grandparents and their meat loving tummys, and the rest of my family who is a little less particular :) A buffet was perfect!

We ate waaaay too much. And then we finished it off with cotton candy! Dad got sung to and then we headed back home to the grandparents.

Friday I only had to work half a day so we of course had to celebrate the birthday more with a second buffet! Chinese this time. It was a little bit of a drive to get there but it was my favorite. We ate soup and shrimp and noodles and loved every minute of it. This will have to be our dinner stop after Zion's National Park from now on!

Ash and Pat left us Friday afternoon. Jobs are the worst (ok, not really, but they are around the holidays). Then late Saturday night I got a phone call from Ashley.

"Are you alone"
"Uh, no"
"Ok, go into the bathroom so no one can hear!"
.....
"We are driving back down to St. George!!! BAH!!!"

Chad, Tay and Mom tried to get the secret out of me but I didn't tell! I'm a horrible liar though and couldn't stop smiling. They were convinced that she was pregnant. They got in around 2:30 Sunday morning. After church that morning all the kids headed over to the granparents. Everyone was very surprised to see Ash and Pat, we had just said goodbye!

The rest of the weekend we played cards until we couldn't play anymore! Mom and Dad took us grocery shopping, we almost had to get another cart! The boys played pool, grandpa whooped them all! Mom and I finished someone else's puzzle at the clubhouse in my grandparents neighborhood, and we swam soaked in the hot tub! We sneaked in a trip to Cafe Rio, bought goodies for half price at Kneaders and had the biggest shakes we could find! Happy Birthday and Merry Christmas to us!!!

Monday morning the parents and Tay headed back down to Vegas to catch their flight home. We said goodbye and did the ugly cry. It's always the worst to say goodbye. We had an awesome week with them and a great Christmas!

I'm Baaaack!

I had a wonderful, amazing, marvelous Christmas! My parents and brother flew out to St. George and my sister and her husband came down from Provo. Aaaand, my grandparents are spending the winter down here already. The last week I've spent all of my time with my family, and it's been the best!

We picked up my parents and Taylor at the airport Sunday afternoon. After driving the strip and a pit stop for some Mexican food we were back in St. George at the Grandparents house.

Christmas Eve we braved the store to go shopping for some last minute stocking stuffers and groceries for Christmas dinner. I took over Grandma's kitchen to make all of our favorite cookies and Chad started a new tradition of making his mom's cinnamon rolls. We had KFC for dinner, and a piece of fried chicken may or may not have found it's way on to my plate, whoops.... mmmmmm. We then dragged Grandma out into the cold to see all of the lights at the St. George temple. On the late drive home Chad, Taylor and I managed to avoid getting ran over by the biggest tumble weed of all time.

Then we played dress up with all the animals while Chad stayed up until the wee hours of the morning finishing his delicious cinnamon rolls.

Ash and Pat joined us Christmas night where we ate too much, opened presents, took naps and played Christmas bingo. Grandma even had prizes for us all, Taylor was the big cash winner. I got some jerky and Chad and Pat played with Pat's prize of "go fish" into the night.
 

 

Wednesday we headed to Kneaders for a french toast breakfast and then braved the snow(?!) to take some pictures up at Pioneer Park. It was just a tad bit chilly out. We were happy to join the grandparents back at the warm house for leftovers and more cookies :)

We spent the rest of the evening playing pool, playing the piano, swimming, working on a puzzle and playing hand and foot.

The rest of the week brought surprise 2am visitors and a buffet of buffets! But that can wait until tomorrow! I hope that you all had wonderful a wonderful Christmas!