February

Our first adventure in February was buying bunkbeds. We met up for dinner in Sandy at our favorite Mexican Restaurant before heading to Draper to buy the bunk beds. It was a fun date night with our kids. 

 We broke our tradition of having a non-superbowl party and had a real super bowl party with Zak and Sam. It's because Zak and Sam were going to be leaving soon and because the Denver Broncos were playing. My dad is a huge Broncos fan, and I will never forget that first year they won the superbowl. My dad stood behind his recliner, biting his fingernails the whole game. And the hugs and celebration afterwards. Yeah, the Broncos are kind of like extended family, and it felt nice to be connected with all my siblings since I knew they'd be watching the game. I made Brian take this picture of me to send to my family for laughs. And it was fun hanging out with Zak and Sam.

 Whenever Brian lays on the floor, you can bet that Rachel will use him as her chair, lounger, or horse.

 And sometimes, Michael joins her:

 Reading scriptures. Basically Rachel, like her beloved Ariel, just wants to be where the people are.

  And what would a month at our house be without a project (or ten). When we moved Rachel into Michael's room, the biggest concern was what we were going to do for a Lego table. We had lots of ideas, and finally settled on building a shelf type table in their closet. Brian cut the boards for me and I painted them. He laughed at my make-shift painting clothes and had to take a picture:

 Over President's Day weekend, Brian made this awesome food rotation shelf. We bought wood during our Valentine's Day date on Friday, and we checked out as the store was closing. The lady helping us couldn't find the price on the plywood, and despite our protests, she gave us the three sheets of $24 plywood to us for $5 each. We walked away feeling like we robbed Home Depot. We tried our best. We knew how much they cost and told her several times. We almost bought a couple of Thrive's rotating shelves (around $350 each), but were glad we went ahead and made these because, thanks to the Home Depot lady, we made these bad boys for around $70 or even less. Well, Brian made them, but I did help a little.

 And after loading our cans, we realized we still have a long way to go in collecting our food storage.

Remember what I said about Rachel and Brian?

 The third Thursday of every month is Release Night for Brian. This time, the kids and I went to Chuck-o-rama. Normally, we're not buffet people, but I knew the kids would love this option, and since all I wanted was meat and potatoes, it seemed like a no brainer.

 After dinner, the kids got to spend their Valentine's money from Grandma and Grandpa and piano money on something fun (after putting a big chunk of it in savings).

 We also had some frustrating days, like the day I fixed my throw pillows twice and Rachel immediately came back and messed them up--again. I finally gave up after the second time of messing with them. If it had been a different day, I wouldn't have been so irritated, but it was a rough day. It's kind of funny now, but only kind of. I'm including this picture in the hopes that when I finally publish this book, it is hilarious how mad I got over this silly thing.

 We've been working hard trying to get our basement ready for the last round of Drywall (yay!). One of the things we wanted to do was plumb the basement for central Vac. The top had already been plumbed, so it just made sense to plumb the basement before closing up the walls. Well, Brian has been wanting a Central Vac since his mission. So, we decided to just go ahead a buy a unit, hoses, and attachments as well. The kids have loved vacuuming. In fact, I've barely been able to vacuum at all since every time I start, they come running! It is nice to have a vacuum that has such amazing sucking power and one that I can control. I love my robot vacuum, but it's nice to have a nice vacuum for deeper cleaning--which has really come in handy since the nesting bug is hitting hard.

 Remember what I said about Brian and Rachel:

 And here's Michael's closet Lego table. It is small, but it does the job:

 Not sure what this picture is about:

 Or this one:

Hope you all had a great February as well!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Brian and I officially became a couple on February 29, 2008. February 29, as you all know, only comes around every four years. The last time it came around, we decided to ditch town and head to Vegas to celebrate being together for 4 years. Our anniversary that year was a sad/rough time, so we didn't do much to celebrate on our actual wedding anniversary. And since we were in Orlando for our anniversary this year, we decided we should celebrate on the 29th of February again. I think we're just going to make it a thing from here on out. Since the 29th was a Monday this year, I asked my mom if she and my Dad could come down and stay with our kids at our house so Michael could go to school. They kindly agreed. 

At first, we talked about going to Park City. Driving long distances in the car has been tough on me, so we wanted to go somewhere close to home. And by we, I really mean me. As time went on, Park City started to sound to far, so we were going to look into Salt Lake. But since I really wanted to go see a play, and the play I wanted to see was in Orem, we decided to make our big escape to Provo. Yup, we stayed 30 minutes away from our house in Provo's only Bed and Breakfast. 

This turned out to be perfect. After a busy day at church (with Brian speaking and me helping coordinate a primary teacher training), we came home, made an early dinner, packed, bid farewell to our kids, and checked into the B&B around 6 p.m. I was so happy to arrive at our destination so quickly, and since we met, fell in love, and started our family in Provo, it was the perfect place to go to celebrate. Our room was tiny, but historic, and it reminded us of when we stayed at the bed and breakfast in Washington, D.C. when I was pregnant with Rachel. Here's Brian pretending to write something in the guestbook. 

 We were a few blocks down from the newly finished Provo City Center Temple, so we took a nice evening stroll to the temple grounds. It reminded me of all those walks we took together when I first got home from my mission, back before we decided to start dating. We relived the weeks leading up to finally deciding to just date each other, and we set goals to not talk about our kids until such and such O'Clock. (It's amazing how we can't wait to get a break from our kids, but then we just want to talk about our kids the whole time! That's parenthood for you, right?). We both had colds, so we mostly just relaxed in our room, talking. We went to bed early. Our college selves would have been ashamed.

The next morning, we had a fabulous breakfast and then headed out to celebrate our special day--by running the errands we couldn't do with our kids. We made it to the first store, but I was so tired that we decided to go back to the room and watch a movie from Redbox. We lamented that it was a bummer that we both had colds for this get-a-way, but remembered it was sort of poetic since I had a bad cold on our honeymoon and spent a good chunk of that time napping in an attempt to feel better. We also decided that if we had to be sick, at least we didn't have to worry about our kids and could just rest. We set new goals to see how long we could go without talking about our kids. Then, we went to lunch at a Teppanyaki place, and ran the rest of those errands, and then ate at La Jolla Grove in the Riverwoods:

 It was fancy and delicious! Then, we headed to Hale Center Theater to watch Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It was so fun! We laughed the whole time. In their production, they had Pharaoh be more of a punk rocker instead of an Elvis guy. He was AWESOME! So we took a picture with him at the end of the show.

All too soon, it was the next day. We had breakfast, slowly packed up, took a picture in front of the B&B

And the Provo Temple (it's there on the right, promise). 

And made our way back home. We stopped at a fireplace store to look at Fireplaces for downstairs, ate lunch, and then headed home to our kiddos. It was short and sweet, and oh so needed. Thanks, Mom and Dad, for taking such good care of our kids so we could temporarily run away.

BYU Men's Volleyball and Provo City Center Open House

Back in December, 2010, Brian, Michael, and I were in Idaho, visiting my folks for Christmas when Brian got a picture text from a friend in Provo showing that the Provo Tabernacle was burning. It was very sad as we watched news stories covering the disaster. We had attended concerts and Stake Conferences in that building, and it hurt to see it destroyed. Then, after months of Provo speculation about whether the Church would restore the Tabernacle, President Monson began his opening address at General Conference in October 2011, saying, "First, may I mention that no Church-built facility is more important than a temple," I knew that he was going to announce that they would be rebuilt to be a temple. I was giddy with excitement.

By the time he made his announcement, we had already moved from Provo, but I ate up every video, every picture detailing the temple's progress. Whenever we'd visit Provo, I liked to drive by and see how things were coming along. By a miracle, the kids and I were even able to see them place the Angel Moroni 2 years ago. 

So, when they announced the dates for the Temple Open House, I set an alarm on my phone to grab tickets the second they went online. I texted my sisters in Ogden to see if they wanted to go, but decided not to wait for their response before grabbing the first available Saturday with enough tickets for all of us. The earliest I could get were on February 26, near the very end of the tour dates. I was a little disappointed to have to wait so long, but then I remembered that I had asked my parents to come that very weekend to watch our kids so we could get away for an anniversary trip. I tried to add two more tickets to our group, but everything was sold out. In fact, the tickets went on "sale" at 10 a.m. and by 10:15 a.m., all Saturdays were taken for all tours. 

Okay, enough of the backstory. Actually, one more thing. My mom is a die-hard volleyball player. At least once a week while we were growing up, she would drag us to the church so she could play volleyball with her friends. When I was in high school, she became a high school volleyball referee. She played club volleyball. She LOVES volleyball. If she is near Provo during a volleyball season, she tries to get tickets to watch BYU. She and my dad took Brian and I to a game last fall. But, she'd never been able to go to a BYU Men's Volleyball, so since she was going to be here and the men were playing, she made sure to figure out how she could take whoever wanted to go to the Volleyball game. Between the game and the temple open house, we had a weekend of family at out house, and it was fun. 

My parents arrived with Taryn and her kids on Thursday, February 25. I was still a little bummed out that Sam had just left. They got there around 9 p.m. Taryn got her kids settled, and then we went to bed. I'd been working all week to dig out the room for my parents (since it had been a construction zone of sorts with the room swapping and all that.) I was tired physically and emotionally, but it was so nice to see my mom and dad.

The next day was pretty lazy, mostly hanging out with Taryn while my mom worked and my dad taking Rachel for a cookie run. Michael took a nap after school so he could go to the game that night (a miracle!), and when he woke up, he anxiously waited for Chelsea and her kids to arrive. She got there in time to eat dinner, and so did David, I picked up the babysitter for Rachel and Aaron, and Ethan arrived as we were loading cars to head to Provo for the game. Chelsea brought Walkie-Talkies, and we had a little too much fun with them as we caravaned down.

We had a blast at the game, and BYU won in 3 fast games.

 After the game, we headed back to our house and got kids to bed. Then we talked. I was sad that I needed to put myself in bed before the good conversation ended. I always have a hard time walking away from it, but Brian was proud of me for being strong. I'm not a fun person if I don't get enough sleep, and with being pregnant, I need way more than usual. 

After a lazy morning on Saturday, we decided that we would head to Provo to eat lunch and then go right over to the open house. We heard that even with tickets, most people ended up waiting up to 2 hours to get in--that many people wanted to see the restored tabernacle/temple. Chelsea picked up these cute, matching outfits for the little girls, so I did all of their hair matching, and then we had to take a picture or two:

 Amber didn't want to smile. These are all the Chadwick granddaughters. Pretty cool.

And then we pulled the boys in. Except Elijah. He must have been sleeping or something.

This time, we sent all the grandkids with Mom and Dad to Provo, and everyone else (minus Elijah, who rode with us, and Ethan who had to go back to Logan for work) loaded into our car. David was good enough to sit in the very back. But we weren't as cute as the load going with my parents, so we only took a picture of this crew:

 We ate a Burgers' Supreme and then headed to the Open House. The lines were quite long, but I enjoyed a good chat with Chelsea while we waited, so it was totally worth it. And we were smart to go right after we had stuffed ourselves with food. Finally, we were able to go inside, and can I just say WOW! They did such a good job restoring it to her early 1900s glory. The arch from the windows was carried throughout. The woodwork was amazing, and the murals were breathtaking. Every now and then, I could recognize the old tabernacle. It was just so wonderful to be there, and my historical design loving self was in heaven. Add to that was the fact that it was a temple and I got to show my kids the inside was such a blessing. I didn't mind that we had to wait so long in line, because it was totally worth it.

  

 After the Open House, we went to the BYU Creamery for ice cream

 And then headed back to our house. We helped Chelsea and Taryn gather up their stuff and them sent them on their way home. We put our kids to bed, It was a quiet house after that. We all were pretty tired, so we went to bed early. Thanks for a fun weekend, everyone! And thanks for being patient with a very tired hostess!

Where's the Good in Goodbye?

On Christmas Eve, the rumor/speculation was confirmed. Sam, my next door neighbor and friend, along with her family, would be officially moving to Wyoming. Zak, her husband, officially accepted a job offer, and Sam let me know the news. That may be why I felt a little depressed heading into Christmas. Over the past almost 5 years, we have really come to depend and love this little family. They were one of the first people to come to our house to welcome us to the neighborhood. They were so excited--and we were too upon meeting them--to have a couple move in next door that was in a similar life situation. Over the years, Michael and Eva have become the best of friends, and Rachel and their almost-three-year-old Emmett were best friends too. We even decided that we wanted to have our next babies around the same time. She had her baby in November, mine is due next month--both boys this time. My heart has broken over this. 

I refused to dwell on it as they looked for a house, put their house on the market, and the weeks of January ticked on by. So many days involved Michael helping Rachel get into her snow gear (while he got his on) so they could head out into the snow to play with Eva and Emmett--and I let them, encouraged them, helped them. My regret is that I didn't join them and take more pictures.

On February 10, while I was teaching lessons, I kept hearing Michael messing with our folding chairs in the mud room. I wondered what was going on, but figured it would just have to be okay until I was all finished. Then, I looked out my front window to see a booth set up. Apparently, Eva and Michael's latest venture is giving away free hearts. This has so much of Eva written all over it, and I'm tried so hard to keep from sobbing about her moving away in a couple of weeks. That day, I shared the picture below and this :

"We are so blessed by our neighbors. They're going to leave us with a big hole in our hearts. Guess we'll just have to take advantage of the opportunities like this that we have left, even if it means lots of little papers to clean off the snowy grass, and try to fill the hole with gratitude that they've been such a huge part of our lives for so long." And then I started crying. 

 All too soon, their closing day arrived--February 25. It started out rough (bad sleep or something) and I knew it was only going to get worse, so when I saw lilies and tulips at Wal-Mart, I bought them for myself, sending a picture message to Brian that said, "Thank you for the beautiful flowers you bought me. I love them!"

 Just before 4, Sam came over to see if I wanted some things they were leaving behind. And that's when she told me they were leaving at 4:30 for their closing and weren't planning to come back. I called Brian and could barely make it through the phone call. It took me a couple of minutes to squeeze out, "Brian, Zak and Sam are leaving at 4:30.  You need to run home now. Please be fast."

Meanwhile, we took some pictures:

 Brian finally got here and took this one of Sam and I.

And then they were gone. There were more tears. I'm going to miss this little family like crazy. They've become so much more than neighbors and friends, and I'm still trying to figure out how to fill the void they left. At the same time, I'm so excited for them and their new adventure. This is a good move for their family and Zak's career. Good luck, my dear friends. Wyoming is super lucky to be getting you!

A Whole Lot of Love!

The day before Valentine's Day is Galentine's Day--the day you celebrate all the amazing ladies in your life (something that Leslie Knope does on Parks and Rec). My vision of this day was to invite my girlfriends to my house for brunch or lunch. Last year was a success, and I was looking forward to having it be on a Saturday where even more friends could come. Well, this year finds me tired a lot. I can really not count on having energy on a given day, and the thought of getting my house ready and preparing a meal was just too much. I almost didn't do it at all this year, but instead I wimped out and sent out a group text, "Hey, let's all go to Kneaders for brunch." We had 6 ladies make it (one left before we could take this picture), and it was so nice to have an excuse to just get together and chat. 

  I have so many amazing ladies in my life, and I'm so grateful. They've all been so wonderful and supportive of me and my little family. 

Valentine's Day was on Sunday this year. Brian and I went on a date on the 12th so we could spend the three day holiday weekend working on basement projects. I was glad that Valentine's was on a Sunday so we had lots of time to just rest and enjoy our little sweethearts. We did a heart attack on their door the night before and blew up lots of balloons (because by the time Brian made it to the store on Saturday to pick some up, there weren't a lot to be had). We woke up to them excitedly kicking balloons around. 

Then they decorated hearts for their grandparents (that we sent via picture message)

 Brian got me pink roses and some more kids: 

 Trying to take a good picture to send:

Michael's heart was adorable since he wrote the message himself without any help. It says, "I love you so mush". 

 And we had our traditional pink heart-shaped pancakes for dinner (only we forgot about the pink part until halfway through. Oops!) 

 And ended the night with some games and a little EFY music dance party.

  

  

 I love these little excuses to make days special. Sometimes, we all just need an extra push to step up our game, even if that stepping up seems to wimpy compared to what we would like to do. I guess it proves that small and simple things really can make a big difference.