Eli is 6

Before I get too backlogged, and have more birthdays and life tid-bits to catch up on, I must shine some light on young Master Eli!!

Eli made his grand debut 6 years ago on April 14th. That is quite simply hard to believe; so much has happened in 6 years! And to celebrate we spread the activities out through the week- why only celebrate for one day? Joseph was out of town, so on a whim I decided to start the celebrating the night before with bowling at UCM.

That was a good time, and I especially liked it because they have $1 bowling at 8pm on Wednesdays, and I did what any really amazing mother would do on a school night and we stayed out late!

On Thursday for his actual birthday, I did the standard take treats in to his class and had lunch with him, then I picked him up a little early and we raced out to Powell Gardens. Now when I say race, I mean just that because they still close at 5pm and it takes 20 minutes to get there. We met up with our friends and had some high paced enjoyment at the gardens!

Right now they have Fairy Houses on display and can you guess what my children have been doing since then?? Yes, it looks like we will have a summer full of creating houses from the earthly treasures around our home- I love to see their creativity!

Oh sweet flowering Japanese Quince and vibrant tulips- you make me happy!

Looking Back

So as usual the time just keeps flying by and we have plenty of catching up to do! 

This year Kaija joined the winter guard team at school. 

She had so much fun learning some new skills and has found a great new talent.

In addition to guard Kaija was inducted into National Junior Honor Society and elected as Treasurer. 

We are proud of her accomplishments this year.

Hey Hey it's your Birthday

So 39 years ago this gorgeous guy was born!

Joseph- wow, what an old man!!

I can't be taken seriously... ever! 

I love this man more than words could ever tell!

Some of my favorite things about Joseph:

• He is a peacemaker- always has been, always will be
• His hands!!- they are perfect for playing music, building amazing things, and my favorite- rubbing my shoulders!
• He is an awesome dad! He loves and teaches so well!
• He always shares! The kids know that he will always share with them- really they take advantage of him- well, so do I!
• He makes me laugh! This is a very important quality and boy do we have some good times!
• He is super talented! Things just come easily for him- (Lucky!)
• He is handsome! I think he gets better looking as he gets older!

There are so many things that make him my favorite guy! 

He always makes me want to be a better person- when I grow up I want to be like him!

There is one thing that I need to do for sure, and that is take more pictures of him- 

there are definitely not enough of those!

Izzi is 11

 ISABELLA IS 11

How is it possible that our beautiful little girl is growing up so quickly?

She is always so much fun, and still has a love of small things!

 This was the maiden voyage of the new cupcake cake pan- 

(we did pretty well for the first time, we will just learn as we go).  

She put the finishing touches on with the cute mini- reeses. 

Because, yes, they are small!

This is the girl of many names: 

Isabella, Bella, Bells, Belly, Izzi, Iz, and sometimes even Bob!

She can be found up in her closet creating homes and cities for all of her little toys

She likes to make the effort to have her room tidy

She is an awesome student, and very likely the dearest thing in the world to her teacher

She is funny, and can make very funny faces

She is a voracious reader and enjoys a good book on CD

She has her daddy wrapped so tightly around her little finger

We adore our darling little girl.... 

which reminds me that I am still in shock that she will be in Middle School next year, 

She is just too tiny- how do you turn the clocks back again?

Her only request was for Legos- so she lucked out in that department!

She is happy and that is what matters!

It is amazing that we have any pictures that the kids have straight faces, 

this is usually what we come up with!

I fear that if I even tried to have a family portrait done, this is how it would end up!

OH WELL, HAPPY BIRTHDAY BELLA!

Just thought I would add an extra morsel from the week!

After most of the snow had melted, I had the kids go out and get the snow off of the trampoline.

 They had a grand old time and built a few snow huts! And even had on the right gear....

 Yes this is Eli with his bike helmet on, he said it was to keep him safe! 

And don't forget his super safe mismatched gloves- impromptu snow gear! 

That is what I like- Safety Kids!

Finishing the Holiday Ramblings

It must be done, and I won't feel bad if no one ever reads this, but I just have to get the last part of our trip documented before I forget everything!

Joe and I got wrapped up for Christmas- he has been gone so much that it was a welcomed situation!

We totally lucked out to have our Partridge cousins come down from Idaho- we are so blessed to have so many awesome cousins. Let's see that would be 21 on the Carter side and 21 on the Nielsen side. 

Could that be right?? I think so; 42 cousins and the potential for more!

Eli had the greatest time being chased by Grandpa Nielsen all around the house, I wish we had a picture of that, because it was very endearing- he would just giggle and giggle as he ran.  Too bad Papa Carter and Grandma and Grandpa Nielsen were sick while we were there, we were just glad we got to spend time with them.

Randy and Jess making the most of the celebrations!

We introduced Joe's family to our latest tradition of celebrating the Norwegian Lilejuleaften, or the little Christmas Eve, which would be the night before, the night before Christmas. We made the usual items and had a grand time, though we have got to find a way that our immediate family members are not the ones who find the almond in the rice pudding! This year it will not happen, I can assure you! 

I have to say though, one of our favorite things about Lilejulaften is that we choose Norwegian names for everyone to have for the night, it certainly livens things up! Our kids love choosing which names to give everyone- we like to pick names that aren't very well known and are really fun to say!

We had so much fun with everyone.  Joe and I went out with Jessie for Thai food and it was amazing! If anyone is in Riverton Utah you really should check out Thai Basil, you won't regret it!  I can still taste that curry- oh the taste buds are still rejoicing just thinking about it!!

Unfortunately we had to wrap up the vacation at some point, and what better way than with a party!  When we have the chance we love to visit with Joe's cousin Owen (one of the amazing people who Spencer is named after) and his wife Amy and her family. We especially love to be a part of their New Years Eve party, which is basically the best party around! Can't tell you how amazing the food always is and the company, well that goes with out saying! They are some of our favorite people on earth!

It was a great vacation, and now I am ready for another one!!

All this snow

So all this snow makes me think of Christmas. And that being said, I haven't posted a single thing about it!

I didn't post anything before Christmas because we were going to surprise everyone, kids included.  We made it to the Wednesday before we left to tell the kids, with Joe out of town I needed some help to get all packed and ready to go.

We first hit St. George to visit Judi and Clint and their cute family- it had been too long and was great to just visit and catch up. Not only that but we could see first hand all the amazing quilting that Judi has been doing! You can check out her fantastic projects at: http://greenfairyquilts.blogspot.com/ 

(I can't believe that I didn't get pictures of everyone- uggh!)

After our all too brief visit there we headed up the road to New Harmony to visit Paul and DeAnn and family, which happens to be one of our favorite places on earth! It was great to see Erik recently returned from his mission to NY, and we had great craft time with Bec and the ever amusing pantyhose tennis match with Bec, Kenlynn and the kids! The dogs really liked Zach, though there wasn't a lot of love in return!!

We thought for a little bit that we might just move in and never leave- luckily for Paul and DeAnn we did leave, and when did we decide to go?? Yep just in time for a huge snow storm heading to Provo!! We broke down and called Grandma and Grandpa Carter, to let them in on our surprise arrival, while we were sitting for an hour and a half at Cove Fort due to the road conditions!! 

Lucky, Lucky, Lucky Us!!! 

What would have taken us 3-31/2 hours took 7 1/2! Can't tell you how much fun that was!!

We were so glad to make it there and were ready to have some fun! We hit the D.I. (thrift store) to get some winter gear and had way too much fun while we were there!

Snow ball fights were in the line up, playing games, eating yummy food, and eventually ice-skating (which had been some 15 years for me!! I did live to tell the tale though!). 

Bananagrams is really addictive!

Eli was plum tuckered out- he had a nice nap with Papa!

Oh yea baby, IcE-SkaTinG Rocks!

7 Peaks Olympic Hockey (ice-skating) Rink

Most of the pics from the rink are super blurry, but we had a great time with our cousins!

You just can't capture all the good times!! We were so glad that we got to be with all the local family, and extended Wright family at Aunt Karma's for Christmas Eve. We have loved going there for delicious  food and the opportunity to get reacquainted with everyone! Emma, and Nicole, and Lindsay were there this year and it was so good to see all of them, again it has been too long! 

Then I love getting to take the drive up to the Heber cemetery to light luminaries. 

It is so beautiful and fun for the whole gang! 

(This year I stayed in the car with the baby and had a great chat with Kelly!)

Man, it just kills me that we don't get to spend loads of time with all of our family members- 

we miss everyone so much!!

Ah yes more snow days!

Well it has really been too long since I posted anything, and I really have a million other things that I should be doing, but who wants to sort through the truckloads of paper that have invaded my house, mostly my desk, but luckily I was able to push them far enough away from the computer to sit down and type!! Besides we found all the ones that we needed to get our taxes done- too bad the government won't even start processing them for another couple of weeks.

We have now had 2 half days at school and 7 full snow days and we are still counting- I doubt very seriously that they will have school the rest of the week. The kids are stoked!!  However, the snow has impeded Kaija from having all of her Winter Guard practices. They have their first competition on Saturday up in Independence and she is feeling a little nervous. She is one of her team captains and is really enjoying it!

Joe was in Alabama and somewhere else for the last two snow storms this last month, but he lucked out this time to be shoveling 18 inches or so- that is just the average, it is no less than 12 and some places 36 inches so I guess it depends on which snow drift you are in! It took the two of us a couple of hours just to get his van out- it will probably take that much longer to get the other van out of the garage, since this is where the 3ft drifts ended up!  No worries I don't want to go anywhere anyway!!

Joe thrilled to be shoveling so he could go to work!

We have never had a blizzard before, but it was quite a crazy thing- I saw that the mailman came yesterday around 11 or so and decided finally around 2 to go out and actually get the mail. Talk about crazy, I couldn't see anything because the wind was whipping snow in my face so rapidly, I was grateful that there were no cars coming when I crossed the street, I would have only been able to detect them by full body contact!  The wind did create some awesome effects in the snow though!

The top of this cool snow drift was probably 4 feet high!

So we have our friend Dan living with us for a while and he luckily escaped on Saturday to Vegas for a couple of weeks- good thing too, because his car is going nowhere!!