Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas morning (that didn't start until 7am) and everyone was excited about what they got. Both Noah and Cooper would have been perfectly happy with just the toys Santa brought, but they're slowing playing with everything they got. Tommy's parents made us breakfast, which was delicious! We had a great visit with Tommy's grandparents. Then over to my Mom's for more presents, fun, and a great dinner. We couldn't have asked for a better Christmas. We are so lucky to have such wonderful family and friends!

Christmas Eve

We had a great Christmas Eve. Tommy's parents came out to spend the night with us. We had some great dinner followed by games, making cookies for Santa, reading stories, and the new tradition the Gingerbread house. The boys were also good enough for 'Jingles' (our family elf) to bring them new Christmas pajamas. We really had a great Christmas

Our Anniversary Trip to Zions

Tommy and I were able to spend 3 days down in Zions to celebrate our 8th anniversary. We stayed at the Desert Pearl Inn (which we highly recommend). We have always wanted to see Zions in the winter with snow and our dream came true. The only thing we didn't get was a day of sunshine for better picture, but we were just grateful for the snow.

The new addition to the family...

a Cannon SLR camera. We've wanted one for years but just had to wait until the price dropped, and we finally decided to get it as a joint Anniversary/Christmas present. We absolutely love it! Here is a one of the first pictures Tommy took. If you look closely you can see the dust on our plant. It's amazing!

Smores at G&G house

What a great evening to make smores! Actually I think any day is a good day to make smores, but it's more fun when your cousins are in town. Noah loves roasting the marshmallows and Cooper loves eating them, they make a great team. Noah, Cooper, Unlce Dave, and Dallin roasting marshmallows

What a perfect marshmallow!

I think Cooper just really likes to watch the fire (as he stuffs his mouth full of marshmallows)

Jodi is 'Queen Smore'

It doesn't get any better than this!

Noah's final soccer game

Noah's final soccer game was quite the adventure. As you can see in the pictures it was a cold stormy day. When we showed up there was no coach and only 4 boys who desperately wanted to play their last game. Tommy was nice enough to play coach for the day and Noah's cousin Abe was all excited to jump in play so they had enough kids. It ended up being so much fun and the boys all had a great time. Go coach Tommy and soccer player Noah! Noah had a great game and really went after the ball!

Tommy doing a great job coaching the kids

Noah getting a little extra coaching from Grandpa

Noah and Abe were very excited about that Halloween cookies for a job well done

Two of the cutest boys ever!

Cooper

I've come to the conclusion that God makes children look like this when they sleep so you forget about all the bad things they have done that day... and the love you have for them just fills your heart and you're ready for another day! Ya just have to love that kid.

The best purchase of our lives!

Oh how grateful I am for our little trampoline. It sure took a lot of time and effort to finally get it in, but it has all been worth it. The boys live out there, it doesn't matter if it's cold, hot, wet, or even hailing they will still venture out. Here are some pictures of the fun times we have had:
Noah got home from school... it was pouring rain outside and the first question out of his mouth, "Mom can we go jump on the trampoline?". So we pulled up our hoddies and enjoyed the rain.


It was only in the low 70's this day, but the sun was shining so the sprinkler had to be on. Evidently the trampoline is not as fun without the sprinkler on.

Farm Country

This was Cooper's day to hang out with one of his best buddies Cy. We'd planned on the Dinosaur museum, but they were doing $2 tuesdays and I've never seen so many people there in my life, so we decided that Farm Country was a better option. As you can see from the pictures Cooper and Cy had a great time. Their favorite part was feeding the animals, especially the lamas, they both just giggled as the lamas eat corn out of their little hands.

Clark's Planetarium

Noah's new dream in life is to become an astronaut, so what's more fun than taking him to Clark's Planetarium. They have a new movie Fly Me to the Moon, we thought the movie would be a lot of fun for the boys, but they surprised us and had much more fun looking at all the stuff on the different planets. I just really enjoyed watching them run from one thing to the next with eyes as wide as watermelons. Here are a few pictures:

Noah's Soccer Games

It's soccer time, a.k.a. 'magnet ball' all the little kids seem to form one big group around the ball and move up and down the field slowly. Noah sure loves to play though. He and Miles (one of his really good friends) are on the same team, which is good and bad because they are two peas in a pod and get so distracted with things other than playing soccer, but love doing things together. It's been fun to watch Noah get better and better as time goes by, I give a lot of credit to his wonderful coach and his dad cheering him on from the side line!

Noah's in 1st Grade

I think 1st grade was harder for me than kindergarten was, reality finally set in that it's just one grade after another and we're on our way to graduation. He may still be a little dude but he sure is growing up! This year we're trying to walk him to school since we live close enough. I actually really enjoy the walk home hearing all of his stories. The things he comes up with are so funny sometimes. For example: The other day I asked him what he did during class (most conversations revolve around recess) he told me they were practicing writing the letter 'L'. My response was, "you're great with the letter L that must have been easy". Noah says, "No Mom, they were really bad, I can't write very good with my right hand." My response to that was, "of coarse because your left handed, why were you using your right hand?". Noah "Because I have to hold the skittle with my left hand" Evidently they use a skittle to practice spacing their letters out. Noah didn't realize that all he had to do was tell the teacher he was left handed!

BYU Meeting the team night

Another annual tradition is the BYU meet the team night. The boys love the activities they have set up with the track, soccer, and football teams. Noah also took his football to get signed, and they got to eat ice cream. Does it get any better?! Go Cougars!

BYU Women's Clinic

This is one thing I look forward to every year now. Last year it was the answer to Tommy's prayers. For those of you who don't know what it is... it's wonderful. Bronco had a brilliant idea 4 years ago to get the women involved in football, so every year before the football season starts the ladies have the chance to go meet the football players, take a tour of the facilities, hear from all of the coachs, and the best of all run drills with the football players out on the field. It is so much fun to go out and make a fool of yourself with alot of other ladies doing the same thing. Last year Max Hall took us for the tour of the facilites (we were a good 10 mins into it before someone finally told us who he was). This year was fun because we had so much of our family and friends there! If you ever get a chance to go - GO! It's well worth every minute.
Me and my sisters-in-law in the locker room. Lucikly it wasn't to stinky!
This is one of my favorite pictures from the press box. What a pretty place to play football.
Me and my friend Gretchen up in the press box.
Yes men you can be jealous! That is a very nervous Bronco Mendenhall (I don't think he's use to dealing with that many ladies).

Boating on Jordanelle

Me the boys and Kiara had a great day boating with my Dad up at Jordanelle. The water was a little cold, but not cold enough to keep us from water skiing and tubing. Noah was a little scared to go on this new tube, he's use to sitting down inside of one, once he realized he wasn't going to fall off we couldn't get him off. My little dare devil Cooper loved it all as always, including driving the boat with Grandpa!

Hail Storm

We had a really cool storm blow through that brought the biggest hail I have ever personally seen. Noah help me run out and cover our tomato plants with sheets (that was thanks to my moms quick thinking). He had so much fun getting hit by the hail we started jumping on the tramp, we could only handle the stinging pain for about 5 mins, long enough to get a good laugh out of it.

Happy 24th of July

We spent the 24th at the Peterson's. We took Noah's bike down so he could ride somewhere that wasn't a straight hill up or down. Tommy took his training wheels off finally and Noah did a great job! He's so proud of himself that he can ride without training wheels. Now we just have to teach him how to safely ride down the hill at our house. After the bike riding we had some yummy dinner and then let the boys have some fun with sparklers (that was until Cooper burned his foot, poor kid). Then it was time for the adults to have some fun. We decided we had to break our last years record of lighting off 150 fireworks all at the same time, so we went for 200 ground bloom flowers. This all started with my friends in High School and each year it gets bigger. It was so much fun watching 200 fireworks spin all over the place, it's a wonderful 30 seconds of fun. We're already planning next years... bigger and better! You can see from the pictures below how we did it.


Before we set them off. It took 5 of us to light them this year. (and only 1 burned finger)
The aftermath... I really is alot of fun to watch and with a push broom clean up is easy!