Valentine's Day

Here is a rundown of our Valentine's Day...it was simple and relaxing. We definitely needed a day like that since Randy has been sick for almost two weeks now. It's starting to get really old, but at least he isn't taking a two hour nap every day and then going to bed at 8:30 like he did last week.

Our Valentine's Day began with heart pancakes. I did not dye them pink--I learned that lesson from the orange pumpkin Halloween pancakes. My boys loved the heart pancakes though!

Mmmm! I also splurged and bought the
pure maple syrup from Costco...they LOVE that stuff. 

After Mark and Randy headed off to school, Seth, Dax and I got to work. We built a heart shaped train track, and delivered valentines for everyone. Dax also secretly decorated our bed. His preschool teacher had sent him home with hearts and streamers to put on our bed. After he put the decorations on the bed, I was banned from my room until Randy came home, but don't tell him that I kept sneaking in there to get things and go to the bathroom.

Seth LOVES trains right now, so I printed a
special valentine for him.

We were very proud of our heart track.

Dax was so excited to surprise us!

Since Randy had been sick (and still is), we took him a smoothie. We glued hearts onto the cup so that he would know we loved him. I forgot to take a picture, but here is Randy enjoying Seth's leftovers.

Nice!

After that, I hurried over to the elementary school to run Mark's class party. It was so much fun. The students loved the Minute-to-Win-It games. I took a few photos of Mark on my phone.

Moving sweethearts using a straw

Randy came home from work with a beautiful orchid plant and some chocolates for me. Then we cooked dinner together which was just what I wanted. We had steak, potatoes, mushrooms, rolls, beans... all the good stuff.

I have seriously eaten half the Kit Kats already.

Then we headed out for ice cream. We all got an ice cream cone a JCWs. It was a wonderful evening. I loved being with my boys! They take good care of me.

We made cookies the night before Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm One Lucky Lady

I came home tonight to find this.....

Randy and the boys had taped speech bubbles on every picture in the ENTIRE house. All of them are kind messages for me and about me. I walked around and read all the messages. I was surprised they had even done the small pictures that I stick up on my magnet board.

We have had this cross stitch since we got married.
There was even a speech bubble here!

Randy always has creative ideas and does such sweet things for me. This was an early Valentine's gift and I am going to leave them up for a long time. I am grateful he is my husband and I am grateful that my three boys are learning to be sweet too. I hope they will grow up to be wonderful husbands like Randy. I feel so lucky to have him in my life. It has been a great 11 years.

One of the pictures we took for our wedding announcements.

Here we are, 11 years later, at our friend's fancy cheese party.

Ice Castles

Outside the ice castle

We went up to Midway to see the Ice Castles. It has been quite the talk around town here in Utah. If you don't already know about them, just google it. I did post about this adventure on our other blog, but there were so many great pictures of our family from this day that I wanted to remember them here as well. The boys and I had so much fun exploring inside the ice castles while Randy grumbled along through the crowd. It was VERY crowded, more than we ever dreamed, but we tried to make the best of it. It was a warm day, we saw Disney princesses, Olaf from Frozen was hiding in the ice castle, and we were together.

Mark and Dax waiting to head inside.

This is Miss Utah County and little Miss Utah County...
everyone kept saying they were Elsa and Anna from Frozen.

Waiting, more waiting.

Nice Mark!

Seth was very patient.

Dax had to have a picture, too.

We are finally going inside...YES!

It was fun walking under the icicles, except when they dripped on you.

They love Olaf!

We even got a family picture.

Slot Canyons were fun to squeeze through.

Off they go.

Having fun!

More fun.

Mom and the boys...a rare picture.

They went through an ice tunnel and are just coming out.

Seth is 18 months

Technically in a few days, Seth is going to be 19 months. I am a little behind these days on the blog. Seth is doing amazingly well. Back in November we went in for a check up with the cardiologist. He had perfect numbers. Seth was also a star at the doctor's office. He sat still while they did they EKG, the blood pressure machine, and while the cardiologist listened to his heart for a good 5 minutes. We are so grateful that Seth has been so heart healthy!

Seth is also progressing well as a normal 18 month old. He weighs 24 1/2 pounds and is 32 1/2 inches long. His head finally hit the chart. It was been off the charts until this visit...it was still 99%, but not super 99%. Seth has started to say a lot of words which has relieved both of his parents because for awhile we wondered if he would ever speak. He says: mom, dad, Mark, Dax, choo choo, bye bye, more, up, gone, uh oh, clock, and lots of animal sounds.

Seth is an adventurous child. He is constantly climbing on things, turning things on and off, unplugging things, and much more. A few days ago he cooked a calculator in the microwave. I was in the kitchen luckily so it was only in there for about 3 seconds while I ran across the room, but it was enough to get it smoking, ruin the calculator, and make our house smell like melted plastic all day long. I am constantly following Seth around making sure that he isn't into something he shouldn't be.

He is very ingenious about how he gets things. Yesterday Randy watched as Seth got one of our pillows off the bed and took it over by our dresser. He then stood on the pillow and got Randy's wallet down so he could go through it. Nothing is safe from Seth because he will move chairs, stools, boxes, and apparently pillows to be just a little taller.

While Seth is a little bit more mischievous than our other boys, he is also a lot of fun and very sweet. Seth loves to give hugs and kisses. When Mark leaves for school each day, Seth runs down and gives him a hug and kiss. Then he stands by the window and watches Mark head to the bus stop. Seth is also good at cleaning up. He will pick up toys when I ask, and often when he is done playing with something like the train track or books, he'll put them away all on his own.

Seth loves his brothers!

Seth also loves his Grandpa Ockey.
He always wants to sit on his lap when he comes to visit.

Seth loves technology. Holy Cow! He loves to play with the computer or any phone---even though he doesn't usually get to. He also loves dogs. Seth gets so excited when he sees a dog, and will giggle even if it licks him in the face. He love trucks and tractors and trains. Seth loves to dance to music and he also likes to play the piano. Seth loves suckers and gets excited to get one at the doctor's office. Seth loves to be outside like all of our boys. Sometimes he will even stand by the door and knock hoping that I will come let him go out.

Seth is a blamer. When he gets hurt or upset, he points to whoever or whatever did it. For instance, if he falls and hits the wall, he will point at his head and then point at the wall. We always know what happened with Seth around. Seth also started patting the seat next to him if he wants you to join him. It is so cute and you feel very loved when he looks at you, pats the floor, and is holding a book that he wants to read with you. Seth can't say drink or water yet, so he just mimes drinking. He puts his fingers to his mouth and tips his head back as if he is taking a drink. I guess it is his way of communicating for now.

Seth brings a lot of joy to our home. We are lucky to have him in our family.

Loves his new phone!

Wants to be a big boy, but Seth is actually a good shoveler.

Blurry, but so cute!

We Love Seth!

Randy's Birthday

Randy probably doesn't want me to tell you his age, so I won't. [Hey, this is ~Randy: If you actually don't know how old I am, just assume I'm about Natalie's age-- she's 34.] I'm pretty sure everyone knows anyway. Everyone wanted me to throw him a huge birthday party, but after 11 years of marriage I do know a few things about Randy and big parties are not his kind of thing. So I decided to just focus on doing things that he wanted to do.

First, we cleaned up Christmas on Christmas Day after the boys were asleep. Randy likes to have all of Christmas down for his birthday present every year. Usually we do it on his birthday, but this year we got a head start and finished the night of the 25th. The boys were only slightly sad when they woke up the next morning.

I let Randy sleep in, which is probably the most important part of birthdays for parents at our house. While he was sleeping, the boys helped me decorate the door.

I had an elaborate dinner and dessert planned, but when I called to ask Randy's sister if she would watch the kids on a different night so we could go to a movie, she offered to watch them that very night, so everything changed. We went to Tucano's (Randy's favorite restaurant) for dinner, and then to see the new Hunger Games movie. It is always fun to go out on a date!

Dax decorates the cutest presents.

We did open presents before we left and Randy got tickets to the Jazz game for all of us to go. So a week after his birthday we headed up to see the Jazz defeat the Milwaukee Bucks (one team that is actually worse than the Jazz). The new screens are huge! It was a fun night. Mark and Dax were really into the game, and Seth was super good. He did start running a fever about half way through the game, so he ended up looking pretty tired. Poor guy, but he was still happy! Before the game was even over, Dax asked if we could come to the next game that they were announcing. One day when we're rich...

The new screen

Go Jazz Go!

I love Dax's face in this picture.

Our "selfie" 

Seth--not feeling so hot.

Oh, and I did make Randy a trifle which is what kind of cake he wanted. We ate a little bit every night for about 5 nights. And I did cook him the big steak dinner with twice baked potatoes and mushrooms that he loves. I hope that Randy had a Happy Birthday! I feel so lucky to have him in my life and I know the boys love him to death.

Christmas 2013

We had a wonderful Christmas. It was fun, relaxing and rewarding. The boys loved their gifts and we spent the whole day opening presents. We like to spread the opening out as much as possible. In fact, Seth would shake his head if we tried to hand him a new present because he was so excited to play with the present he already had opened. So here are a few pictures of our Christmas. We hope yours was as pleasant as ours.

See the vacuum....that is by far the most played with toy in our family now.
Seth got these pans in hopes that he would stop strewing our pans all over the kitchen-- No luck!

They were so excited for the candy!

Dax added to his garbage truck collection.

Mark got a new bike and really wanted to try it out.
The boys spent two days shoveling the street so they could ride.

More garbage trucks...he has a whole fleet now.

This is Seth's favorite gift.

This picture is a few days after Christmas, but the Christmas photos are individual.
This one is blurry, but they love Grandpa Ockey!

Merry Christmas.