Fire Pit Friday

Last year I found a fire pit for sale on the yard sale site and bought it. It has since then become the neighborhood fire pit. We have started a tradition of "Fire-pit Friday". One or two Fridays a month, as long as it is warm enough, which in St. George is often, we have a neighborhood fire pit. Whoever want to come does, we sometimes invite new people we want to get to know. The kids all run around for hours just loving being outside after dark. The adults sit around the campfire and talk. We usually cook s'mores, but not always. It is a fun tradition. 

Can you tell from this picture how excited Bryce is for the marshmallows-haha! They are his favorite treat!

Why we choose to live in a Condo

Landon and I were really young when we got married..I was 18 and he was 22. To say we didn't know what we were doing in a lot of aspects would be an understatement. Especially financially, we like most newly weds, made some not so good choices. We are finally getting to a point where we are free of a lot of debt and we no longer own a credit card-but it has been hard and taken a lot of time.

However, that being said at the time we bought our Condo-the housing market was at a huge inflation-the worst it has ever been. Utah in general was bad, but St. George was the worst place in the state. A few years later the market crashed-hard! So now we have a Condo that is worth 10's and 10's of thousands of dollars less than we paid for it. The only way to really get out of it would be to do a short sale on it-we don't really want to do that if we don't have to. 

Another thing is that we are pretty happy where we are-we like our location, our neighbors, and our ward.

Finally, our kids are all pretty athletically talented. They love to play sports! Here's the thing though-Sports Cost Money-lots of it. Especially, when your kids play competitively. You have the fee to play, the cost of tournaments, the cost of travel, and the cost of equipment. Times that all by 2 and the n add on the fact that they each play more than one thing-Tanner (high school baseball, rec basketball) Chloe (competitive soccer, swim team, rec basketball, softball) and that equals a lot of money going each month. That's the thing though if we really wanted to move somewhere else at this point we probably could, but I don't think the kids would be able to do the sports they are currently doing, which they not only love, but are good at. For us it's not worth it. We like to see them play. We like to see them grow both physically and in character. We like to be able to give them the opportunities which we might not have had as kids-so for us it is worth it to live in a Condo so they can do these things.

Sure at some point we would love to live in a bigger place and have a bigger yard-but for now we really are happy here. It's not really about the size of house you have or where you live anyways that matters in the end-it's the type of person you are, how you treat others, the choices you make that really matter. 

A Mouse in the House

I feel like there is a mouse living in our house (a little mouse named Bryce). For some reason he is obsessed with eating cardboard and paper. He will get a brand new book and the next day it looks like this...

I don't know what possess him to eat cardboard/paper and I get so frustrated when I either catch him in the act of chewing on some or pick up a book and find it with the corner partially chewed off!!! UGH! I hope he grows out of this soon!

Ice Breaker Tournament Silver Medal Champions

   

Monday Morning (Presidents Day) rolled around with more soccer games for Chloe. They had a game first thing in the morning, which if they won they would then go to the Championship game. Both of my Sisters who live in town and their families, as well as my Grandma were able to come and watch her. The game was awesome. I think Chloe played the best game she has ever played! Her team easily defeated the other team and only let them score 1 point on them....onto the Championships.

The Championship was much later in the afternoon. As we showed up to the field we realized it was going to be a tough game. It was windy-miserable windy. The girls couldn't even throw the ball in without it blowing back out and all of their kicks would get carried by the wind. It was rough playing conditions added to the fact that they were playing a really good team from Wyoming and they had their work cut out for them. The game was hard fought, but unfortunately Chloe's team ended up losing. It was sad :( maybe next time. They did take silver though and got a silver medal so I guess that is better than nothing, but oh how awesome it would have been to see them win it. We are so proud of Chloe though-she had an excellent tournament and has really come a long way in the short time she has been with this team-not quite a year yet and she has already improved her game a lot. Can't wait to see what the next 6 months bring. 

Valentines Day

Valentines was on a Saturday this year and to say our day was super busy would be an understatement.  There was a baseball tournament, a soccer tournament, and basketball games all on our schedule for Friday and Saturday
Tanner played in a baseball tournament Friday-he had two games. My Grandma and I braved the second game with both Preslie and Bryce and of course we got there a little late and right after Tanner had got an awesome hit! Dang it!!! I always miss out on the good stuff.
Saturday (Valentines Day) started early with Chloe's first Soccer game of the tournament her team was competing in. They easily won that game. (Bryce loves riding around in the wagon at the games)

 After Chloe's first game we rushed to get to Tanner's basketball game. He played a double header. Luckily Bryce was able to get a little nap in the stands during the basketball games. Tanner's games went pretty good. They lost the first and won the second-in the first game Tanner wasn't playing all that great, but by the second he had pulled his act together and was on top of his game again. At one point during the second game Tanner was going up for a layup and was fouled, he made the layup but he was hit so hard he hit the wall and his shoe went flying off!!!

 After sitting through three games it was time to get some food we were all tired and hungry. We had to make a quick stop on the way though to get my Valentines Strawberries which Landon had pre-ordered for me. He started doing this a few years ago and it has kind of become a tradition. These are one of my absolute favorite treats! Of course I always share a few of them ;)

 After getting the strawberries we went out to eat a the new 'Pizza Pie' place in town-we hadn't ever been there. It was pretty good, although it was crazy busy from all the extra traffic in town.
After lunch we just had time for a quick stop at the house then off to Chloe's second soccer game. Another win for her team! Even better is that they had no points score against them all day and went into the end of then day in the 1st seed with the most points out of both pools.

 After Chloe's last game we were all ready for bed-seriously! We picked up some Chinese on the way home and then crashed. I think everyone was asleep by just after 8.

Valentines Heart Hair

Chloe's Cute Valentines Hair-Do

Valentines

This year Chloe and I had lots of fun making Valentines to hand out. Tanner didn't really hand out Valentines, but I did make a few from him to send to a couple of his little cousins and to give to Chloe and Bryce. Here is what we made from Tanner...

These are Bryce's cute Valentines...

Chloe made this cute Valentine box with just a little help from Landon, but not much.

And here are the Valentines we made for Chloe to hand out-"Love Potion #9".

Farm Walk

The other day my sister Sandi was home from work for the day, so she called up me and my other sister Tiffanie and asked us if we wanted to come go on the "Farm Walk" with her and Preslie. The "Farm Walk" is in essence a big loop you can walk next to her house where you can see lots and lots of farm animals. Bryce was so excited and he loved seeing all of the animals.

He even let this little cow give him a kiss-he wasn't to sure about all that slobber-haha!

We're Calling The Cops

One night last week we had to go do a few errands. One stop on the list was Shoe Carnival. Chloe had completely gone through her school shoes for the 2nd time this year so I really needed to find her a new pair. Of course, since we were headed into a shoes store Tanner wanted to accompany us. I hate shoe shopping with Chloe more than anything it is usually long and painful-throw a teenager into the mix and I wasn't looking to forward to it. Then there is the fact that every-time I buy one of them shoes I realize that there shoe size has grown about 2 sizes, so I then realize I have other shoes and cleats that need to now be replaced. Anyways Landon said him and Bryce would wait in the car. I told him to come in after me if I wasn't out in 20 minutes. After being in the store for about that long I get a text with this picture of Landon and Bryce saying "we're calling the cops". HaHa! Cuties! Well at least that cheered me up a little bit and the fact that we managed to check out a few minutes after that with two pairs of shoes (since they were on a BOGO sale they both got a pair) for a pretty good price helped as well. Until next time-which I'm sure is in the near future since they have both informed me that their soccer and baseball cleats are between 1 and 2 sizes to small for them.

Turtle Power

A few nights ago I left to run a couple of quick errands. When I got home I saw this...

all of them wearing ninja turtle masks that Landon and Chloe had cut out of an old t-shirt.

Happy Birthday

Last Sunday it was my 33rd birthday. We had fun celebrating most of the weekend-good thing to, because Sunday I had a horrible migraine and pretty much spent the day in bed. :(

Friday night we went out to dinner with the Kids at Red Robin.

Saturday morning Chloe got Landon up and had him make me breakfast in bed.

Then Saturday night we went out to Paula's with just adults-Us, My Grandma Marshall, Grandma Angie, Sister Tiffanie and bro-in-law Brandon, and Sister Sandi.

Both nights were fun and enjoyable-glad I got to spend time with all those I love so much.

Landon and the kids made me this "E"-each kid designed their branch. I love it. All the letters are hand carved too, not pre-cut. 

 Tanner and Bryce made me a yummy no-bake Jello Cheesecake. Chloe put the candles in.

All in all I was pretty spoiled and had a great birthday weekend.

Basketball News

Last weekend the older two kids both had more basketball games.
Tanner's team was rough. The refs let it get out of hand right from the start and by the end it was pretty much like a jungle ball boxing match. At one point a kid purposely elbowed Tanner right in the back-it should have been a technical but the ref was just like hey number 11 we don't do that and then had Tanner's team take it out of bounds-what?! They hung in there right until the last quarter but then they ended up losing by about 10.

Chloe's team played a nail-biter. It was back and forth the entire game and came right down to the last few seconds, but her team ended up losing as well--by 2 points. She played a great game and had her normal steals and assists as well as making a few baskets. She has really good control of the ball so usually when she is in she plays point guard. 

Teenage Talk

Our little Bryce totally talks like he is a teenager not a two year old. Although it is usually rather funny it is not always a good thing. This morning he told me he needed socks on. I was like okay I'll get you some socks-he said "Been Trill's Mom" (for those of you who are in the dark that is a brand of socks sold at Pac Sun). LOL He also frequently tells me that he wants to wear joggers, that something is "Sick", that he is going to 'drop a bomb', and also uses the S word "SHUT-Up". What?

If you know these terms and phrases then you probably have or know a teenager, if not you might be a little bit lost-but trust me he sounds just like his 14 year old brother.

Quiet as a Mouse

A little background for this story...(1)Bryce sleeps in the same room as Tanner. (2) We store all of the board games in Tanner's closet.

A few days ago Bryce was napping-now he is usually a really good napper-usually about a 2 hour nap. However, on this particular day it was getting closer to 3 hours. I kept thinking to myself he sure must be tired today-lets see what else I can accomplish before he wakes up. Eventually I heard him saying "Mom" so I opened the door to get him thinking he would just be waking up. I was shocked as I looked around the room and realized he had to have been up for a good 30 minutes to cause the destruction I was witnessing, yet I hadn't hear a peep (he must have been being quiet as a mouse). All of the board games were out of the closet and all of the pieces were scattered around, as well as several of Tanner's books being taken off of his shelf. These pictures were taken after I had already spent a considerable amount of time cleaning up the worst of the damage.  Well I learned my lesson next time he sleeps over two hours check on him frequently even if it seems quiet-he just might not be sleeping.