Warmth and a wedding

Vegas was fun. Really fun. Any chance when my whole family can be crammed into one home and be together for a few days is always fun. And crazy.

It was so warm there too, much nicer than this snow infested valley I live in. The sun rises early there, which means the kids do too. By 7am the first morning, Dylan and his cousins were out playing in the dirt. Or mud, I guess. Dylan loves playing outside and I think he broke a new record that day by playing outside for 1o hours straight (with a 10 minute lunch break). I later found out he even relieved himself out there. Nice.

He was having so much fun he didn't even have time to change out of his pajamas. Might as well keep the dirt contained to one set of clothes. His shoes were like 2 lumps of mud after this. This picture doesn't show how dirty they got...

Cute little Max!...



Diana and the twins...

Claire cleaning Lani's house...

We went down to the strip one day and walked a lot and went on some rides.

Of course, someone has to get sick and spread it around. Sadly, I think Cassie was the cause of it this time. I think almost every kid got it and was out for about a day. And it came on suddenly too, even poor little Jackson had no warning in the middle of church when he threw up EVERYWHERE. It was kind of funny, actually. It just kept coming, and coming, and coming. And splattering everywhere since we were in the back on the wooden floor. It caused quite the scene.
But anyways, the wedding was different, but nice. I am so happy for my sister that she can be happy again.

Cute little flower girls...(I may or may not have stolen this picture from Diana's blog)

Attempting a family picture. It was a little bright out and I have no clue how to fix that. I hope to get copies of the photographers pictures soon...

A cute little Claire...

Lani's cute kids. I love these kids!!...

And the cute couple themselves...

And their daughters...

And another cute Claire...

Jesse and Tanya sharing a special moment on the dance floor. j/k. We had fun rippin it up out there though. Wow, when you get our family together and try to have a little dance, it turns into somethin else for sure. Good thing we didn't know a whole lot of the people there.

And the cute couple that we are waiting to hear an announcement from any day now. Yes, any day now would be great!!!

The end.

January = Blah

Seriously, I am so glad January is over. What a depressing month for me. I am not sure why this January seemed worse than others, but it did. Maybe it's this inversion over Logan that keeps our air quality the worst in the nation. Seriously. You can taste the nastiness even when you breath. Good thing we like it here.

I didn't take a single picture last month. And I even have a new camera!

Our days were filled with more sickness than we have ever experienced, lots and lots of pj's and sweats days, and lots of crying from Claire.

We have both kept up on p90x so watch out for us!

Nate passed his written Boards and now all he has left are his oral Boards in the fall. So proud of him and all his hard work. Yahoo!!!

We tried ice skating for the first time and the kids loved it and did really good.

We managed to spend a weekend with my sweet little sister and her family. We had so much fun swimming, shopping, relaxing, and late night milkshakes from Maverick. They were goooood.

Claire keeps me almost more fit than p90x does. That little girl sure keeps me going. Especially on Sundays. But I won't go into that because it would make a long post. Let's just say that I dread going to church on Sunday's, especially when Nate it working. And I may or may not have been seen showing up to church after sacrament meeting is over just so the kids can go to primary. And that may or may not happen more times than not. In 3 weeks, life will be better. And I. Can. Not. Wait!!! (Nursery time)

We have still managed to have lots of game nights. I love having family close and being able to hang out weekly. It is great!!

And now, to look forward to Vegas next week. I can't wait for some sunshine!!!

December

Wow. December came and went so fast and was full of lots of fun. Here are some highlights and lots and lots and lots and lots of pictures to show how we spent our month...


-My birthday and some of my wonderful gifts from my children...

-decorating gingerbread houses with the lovely Badgett family. We were all very excited to share this event with each other. Especially Jennifer, as you can see below. She is also the one responsible for hanging the lovely birthday banner on my house on the late eve of my big day. What I would do without her in my life, I do not know.

-bundling up for the freezing cold weather...

-going on The Polar Express with 2 of my sisters and their families. It was a fun experience, but a one and only experience for me. The train was so freakin slow and WAY too long of a ride. Or maybe it just seemed that way to me because I was trying to contain a VERY grumpy and wiggly 15 month old. It was cute for the kids though, the elves served us hot chocolate and cookies, Santa gave the kids bells, we sang songs, and blah blah blah. Oh, and my grandpa came too and the best part was my sisters and I took him out to dinner after (while the guys took all the kids home and put them to bed, so nice!) and then we hung out at his house for a few hours and just chatted with him.

One very cute little Case...

And one very excited Nate! (he just loves these kinds of things!! Not!!!)

getting their bells...

the kids all wore their pj's too to add to the whole effect

my grandpa showing us that he still has some juice in him...

Okay, what else did we do? Oh yes...


-a ridiculous vest party was had...

-Cassie turned 4...

we celebrated the day with the closest family we have around, and one of the best. It is so nice to have these guys so close and spend so much time with them every week.

-school programs...

-snowmen...

-Santa coming to our very own home. What a treat, although Claire didn't know what to think...

-Christmas at the cabin! What a fun time. Have I ever mentioned how much I love that place? Well, I do. A lot. We were really lucky that Nate had so much time off that allowed us to travel for Christmas. Just hanging out, eating, playing games, visiting, and being together. I love everything about it.

Christmas ever pj's...

I think this was the quietest nativity I have ever witnessed in my family. The kids did really good. Cassie and Katelyn have angel wings on that you can't see too well...

a very spoiled Christmas for us all...

We put together a memory book for my Grandma. I think she liked it...

And the kids very favorite and very much anticipated gifts...

And on a side note, I got a nice camera for Christmas, so hopefully my blog will start looking a lot better than it does now. No fuzzy or bad lighting pictures, hopefully. Not that I know ANYTHING about photography in the first place. We'll see how it goes.

In this next picture, Claire is sporting a gift that all the men received in their stockings. I have no idea how they got in there. Maybe.

Sledding behind the quads and playing on the ice...

And now, a new year. Sad. I miss Christmas.

Precious

This little girl sure keeps us busy. She gets into (and onto) everything!!! Whether it be the Ziploc baggies (and pulling all 100 of them out 1 by 1), our clothes (and pulling them out 1 by 1 as well), our toothbrushes, the dishwasher, my make up and every other content in the bathroom (including the toilet), to name a few. She has even lost our house phone and Nate's cell phone, which very well may be in the landfill by now. But we have so much fun with her and love her so much! She is so silly and makes us laugh all the time.

I mean, just look at that cute little face...

One of my very favorite, yet busiest stages.

My first half marathon

*Warning, this is long and may be boring to many

A few weeks ago we ran the Provo Halloween Half Marathon and it was my first time ever to run that far. And it wasn't too bad. Of course, I say that 3 weeks later. At mile 10, I would not have said that.

Why on earth would I ever run that far? I don't know. I asked my sister Candace the exact same thing in August as I watched her cross the finish line in her 2nd half marathon here in Logan. Crazy, I thought. Just crazy. But deep down inside, I thought it was pretty cool to see all those people cross the finish line having just accomplish something so huge. Just ordinary people. Some young, some old, some larger than others, some for the first time, some for the 20th time. It was sort of neat. I guess I always thought only extremely athletic and die-hards would do something like that. And I had in my mind that I am the sports type, not the running type. Yuck, not ever would I be the running type. I mean, I do run often, but never more than 3 miles and I never would have classified myself as a runner. But as I watched all those ordinary people running that day, the competitive side of me started to rise. I thought to myself, "Self, if all 'those' people can do this than surely you can do this too." But I still didn't have the desire to run a race. And then September came. I went running one morning and came home happy. Why? Because usually when I finish my runs I am huffing and puffing and feel like I am going to die. No exaggeration. I hate it. But that day it was like I finally hit a point where my body could keep going. I seriously don't know what it was. Maybe I had been running enough that I was finally used to the elevation here (or all the blasted hills I am forced to run) that I felt like I could run farther. So I tried 4 miles the next time, and it wasn't too bad. I toyed with the idea of doing a half marathon, but still not serious about it. And then I ran 6 one morning and it wasn't too bad either. Nate had been running lots too and we decided to follow a training schedule to prepare for a half just in case we decided to run one. St. George had one 8 weeks out and that was really pushing it for us (most training schedules are at least 10 weeks). And then my sister called and asked if we wanted to do this Halloween one and it really worried me because it was even a week earlier than the St. George one. But with Nate's work schedule and babysitters for kids, we decided on the Halloween one. I tried to train as much as I could, but really feel like I wasn't trained enough. I missed quite a few long runs in my training and I had no muscle training. But anyways, to move this story along, I finished my first half marathon! And I actually really enjoyed it, minus the last 3-4 miles. I could definitely tell the point where my body just wasn't trained enough. About mile 9-10. I hurt bad and really, really, wanted to stop. The first 5 miles of the race were extremely down hill, and some might think this is a good thing, but it gave me the WORST blisters ever!! I even had on some mole skin to prevent them, but it didn't help. Wow, my feet felt like I had raw flesh being scrapped and dug into. That is about the best I can describe it. And my legs were killing me. But I kept trekking along and the main reason I did was because of my sister. She pushed me the whole time. At mile 12 I stopped because I could no longer run. I told Candace to keep going because I couldn't finish the last mile. I was done. She felt bad but kept running and as I watched her run off it gave me an ounce of motivation to catch up to her. I really, really, really, wanted to finish the race with her and so I forced myself to catch up and finish with her. And I did it! We finished together! She literally pulled me across the finish line. I wish I had a picture of that. And as soon as I crossed the finish line I just stopped. I couldn't move any further. And the race people kept telling me that I had to move out of the way. But I couldn't. I forced myself once more to walk a few more steps out of the way and then I just stood there some more until I could get my feet to move again. And where was Nate you might ask? Oh, he had been finished for over a half hour already. I think he finished in 1hr 34 (or 38) min. Crazy. Candace and I finished in 2:09, which I was happy with.

And I may or may not have been able to move any part of my legs the next day.

And a big thanks goes to my brother Jesse for being the favorite uncle of the day and watching my 3 crazy kids for us. Even if his teeny tiny little dog scares the crap out of Cassie.

And I highly advise getting a massage after running that far. And a Garmin GPS running watch. Those 2 things saved the day.

And one more thing: This race was a Halloween race so a lot of people dressed up. It was so funny because we would be running down the road and all of a sudden a random spider man would go sprinting by, or a chick with a full on wedding dress that had a sign on her that said "run-away-bride". And I kept seeing random parts of costumes that people would shed on the road, like wigs. It was pretty funny. To see some more funny pictures of the runners click HERE.

And yes, I may end up doing this again to myself in the Spring. Anyone else want to join?

And no, I will never run a full marathon. Ever.

Okay, and one more little thing. It was a freezing 24 degrees when we started this race. COLD!!!!

P.S. - I will try not to bore you with long descriptive posts like this again.

We love leaves!

Halloween

Carving pumpkins...

Trick-or-treating with cousins and trying to orchestrate a picture with 6 kids...
(and no, Cassie does not have to go to the bathroom. She is holding her broom, in case you were wondering)

One cute little Raggedy Ann...

Hope you all had a happy Halloween! Wasn't the weather wonderful for it?!?!