Snow Day!

What a fun day we had today!  We spent the day at some friends cabin up in Fairview snowmobiling, sledding, and of course eating!  I am not going to lie, I was a little nervous about taking Ava on such an adventurous outing as she is known to ruin plans and make life miserable.  I was happily surprised by how much fun we all had, including Ava!  We got to the parking lot around 11:00, got all our stuff together and then snowmobiled to the cabin which was just a couple miles away.  All four of us fit on Nate's sled so it worked out well.  When we got there it was a little cold, so we quickly warmed it up with a fire and started in on delicious soup for lunch (which of course neither of my girls would eat- big surprise!).  They boys headed out for a long ride while the rest of us stayed and had a great time inside.  Audrey was in heaven with her friend Sienna and the other kids she met up there.  Upstairs was a big loft that had a twirly slide going down out of it so they had tons of fun with that.  Ava was really good exploring and playing with the babies while always staying close by me!  She never ventures too far away from her mom (although sometimes I wish she would haha)  When the boys came back we all headed out for some sledding behind the cabin.  There was a big hill and they would ride us up and then we would sled down and then get a ride back up, so it worked out nice.

 

 After that we were all pretty tired so we had some hot chocolate and started to pack up.  By this time it was about 5:00 and Ava had not had a nap all day and was still in a pretty good mood considering she was tired and had really not eaten too well during the day.  I was just waiting for a meltdown!  Ava did fall asleep on the ride back to the car, but woke up when we put her in her seat and cried all the way home!  Poor girl, it was a long day for her!  I would not do that every weekend, it was pretty exhausting with the kids, but definitely fun and a perfect day to do it!

Thank you

I am really grateful for the friends I have made while living here in Mapleton!  I did not think I would have as many friends and that I would be counting down until we would be able to leave and go somewhere else.  I have been so surprised at the love and welcoming we have received since we have been here.  So many people have gone out of their way to make us feel a part of things and I really feel like I have made friends that will stay with me.  Each one of the playgroup girls has taught me something and had some wonderful aspect of their personality that I want to try and emulate.  I want to say thank you to them. 

Concert!

For Christmas this year Audrey got a Barbie radio with two microphones and some Disney CD's so she can sing and perform for us.  Last night she put on a concert and it was so cute!  She dressed up in her fanciest dress-up dress, put on her own makeup and jewelry and had us all sit on the couch while she sang and danced.  I wish I would have gotten a picture, but I am sure there will lots of concerts in the future!  She is such a performer and loves to be the center of attention, we will see what the future brings for her.  Of course Ava was in the background pushing the wrong buttons, dancing in front of her and basically getting in the way but I think Audrey is getting used to that and didn't mind too much.  It was so fun and I will be sad when they grow out of this stage because it is so fun!

And now we are up to date...

 And here is what we have been up to in the past couple of weeks.

 Playing at the park in the beautifully warm January weather, who would have thought!

 And the next day playing outside in the snow

 I love these girls, and I especially love it when they are being nice to each other and having a good time.  Thank goodness they have both taken after me and my love of reading (so far anyways!)

Bath time!  Since the nights are darker and colder we do baths pretty much every night for long amounts of time.  The girls have so much fun playing and splashing and cracking each other up.






And now we are up to date on what has been going on in our lives. (sort of!)

New Years Resolution!

Ok, so my New Years Resolution this year was to start up a family blog.  My goal is to keep a chronological timeline of what we are up to and eventually publish to a book.  I am going to ignore the fact that it is now the 12th of Jan. and I am just now starting this up!  I keep waiting for things to slow down and I have come to the realization that it just isn't going to happen and it's now or never! I have put off starting up a blog for a while because I have been afraid that I will start to feel guilty if I don't publish something every week and keep up to date pictures and I really don't need one more thing on my to do list right now.  So, that being said I am going to try and be casual and not feel stressed and do what I can and it will be fun to look back on things and hopefully remember what has been going on in our lives that we may have forgotten about.  Tomorrow I will start posting more about our lives, but for tonight I just want to say that my family is everything to me and I love them more than I could ever describe.  That goes for my extended family as well as my immediate.  I have been blessed in so many ways and I hope that will come across as I write about our crazy lives.  (And as I will probably complain here and there I hope everyone will remember that fact!)