tagged!

Two friends tagged me with this one...so here it is...I was supposed to go to my 6th folder (which happened to be these old pics Tom scanned from his childhood) and pick the 6th picture...here is Tom on Christmas years ago...he was a CUTE kid! He's still cute (in my opinion! ;-) Then, I'm supposed to tag people...but, I'll just say that I'm tagging you if you read this! Oh, come on! It'll only take a minute! ;-)
Happy FRIDAY everybody!!! Yay for weekends!

the last dozen days...

Max snoozing with his Grandma!

This is where Tom got to stay for his training...it was totally out of reception for phone services and in the middle of no-where...and breathtaking! It was so nice to drive him and there last Thursday morning and pick him up on Saturday...we were very excited to see each other!

Camp Keisel--Ogden, Utah

On Friday morning/afternoon my friend Laurel and I went on a nice, long walk through Provo Canyon along the river...it was so beautiful!

me, Taylor and her newly found pet boxelder bug (in her hand) on the slide...poor, little bug! This was Taylor's second pet bug in the last few days...she held it in her hand for at least a good 30 minutes!

Taylor taking her little pet bug on a walk! ;-)

my wonderful friend Laurel and her cutie Melia...one of those people who enriches your life continually! Our morning/afternoon together was a highlight of my trip! Thanks Laurel!!!

my sweet, little man!

snoozing kids! seriously, a blessing for this part of my trip! They fell asleep on our walk back to our cars so I said goodbye to Laurel and kept walking for another hour so they could keep napping. It was a very enjoyable way to spend nap time!

Taylor and my friend Megan's cute little son seemed to have a blast playing together. They were pretty cute to watch.

Megan, Julie, Christine, April, me and Max--I hadn't seen these amazing girls in years, but have stayed in touch thanks to blogging and facebook...it was so great to see them and spend some time together!

my big brother Josh and the kiddos...

Two weeks ago I got to have the ultimate "me" time...I attended an AAAI fitness conference at the Broadmoor. It was all day Saturday and Sunday and I participated in the advanced Pilates program. It was so, SO enjoyable! The presenter was this guy who is a former professional ballet dancer and now owns and runs his own Pilates studio in Connecticut. He was great! Very "ballet-esque" and I loved it! We spent about 80% of the time doing the exercises, which I love...I learn best by doing and it also felt great to get about 3 weeks worth of working out crammed into 2 days. I just feel so blessed to be able to learn more and more about something I love and then be able to teach others! It was also a beautiful weekend and I spent both days lunch breaks walking around the beautiful hotel, lake and golf course. It was so nice to have some time to myself and be reminded of how blessed I am.

If anyone is interested in learning more about fitness and getting instructor certifications...this conference comes to the Broadmoor every year in March. It's very affordable too so if you're interested...let me know and I can get you more information about it!

On St. Patricks day (Max's birthday), I taught my regular Tuesday classes at the health club next door. I teach mostly seniors in my afternoon Pilates class and they are the most amazing people! They truly inspire me and I LOVE being around them. We have lots of fun in class! There are two ladies (one in her sixties and one who just turned sixty) who are participating in a triathlon the first of August...they've talked to me about it and I told them it sounded really fun (I've been wanting to do a triathlon for a couple of years) so I went home and looked up this particular triathlon, but it cost 85 bucks to register (which is a lot of money for us...we still feel like college kids and don't like spending large amounts of money without analyzing every aspect of the purchase for a few weeks to decide if it is really necessary). Anyway, back at class, the ladies asked if I had registered for the race and I told them that I had looked it up, but that I would probably have to wait a few weeks to register b/c 85 dollars was a lot of money for us.

Okay, so back to St. Patrick's day...these ladies brought me a card and said "happy St. Patrick's Day!" I thought that was sweet, got home, opened it up and there was 55 dollars inside and a note saying they hoped that would help me be able to register for the tri! I felt SO touched and loved...and without question, I guess I am participating in my first triathlon!!! Yikes! I am really excited though! I'm not expecting any amazing performance, just enjoyment in the completion!! I look forward to training for it too! It'll be great to add cycling and swimming to my weekly workouts. I'm also looking forward to getting to be there with these ladies to support each other and be with them and their families! I just feel so enormously grateful for my little 4 hour a week part time job! It has blessed my life in many ways, most of all with the company of some of the most genuine, uplifting people...who could ask for anything better?! I am thinking of tracking my training on my blog....we'll see!

We also just got back (Tuesday) from a little trip to Utah. Tom had a training for his job with the Boy Scouts. He spent the weekend up in the middle of no-where in Ogden canyon while I got to spend time with my sister in law Emily, my brother Josh and some great friends, including 4 beautiful girls I served with on my mission. Last Saturday, the kids and I drove back up to the Boy Scout camp Tom was at and picked him up...we always love reuniting with each other. Then, we drove up to his parents in northern Utah and stayed there until Tuesday morning. It was great getting to see some of our fam and we didn't get too sick this time....just colds! ;-)

Today, Thursday, has been wonderful b/c although I am so happy Spring is here...it's not quite here today and it's been snowing (actually blizzarding) since about noon and Tom came home early from work and will hopefully be snowed home tomorrow! Yay!!! Hopefully, we'll continue having power and will just get to enjoy this extra time together! Well, it is still snowing like crazy outside and Tom and I are going to go watch and laugh at Twilight together! ;-)

the birthday cake...

I was looking on my friend Callie's blog and saw a great post about her cute son's birthday and saw this awesome cake...my first thought was 'I wonder where she bought it?'. But, if you read her post, you learn that it was her first attempt at decorating a cake with fondant...I was so impressed and she got me excited to learn how to do it myself because I think it's SO cool looking! So, yesterday morning I went to my private lesson with the great "fondant tutor" Callie and she helped me make Max's cake! It was so fun! and it's easy! time consuming, but easy! Max wasn't very happy there though, so we had to pack everything up and head home and while the kids napped, I got to play and decorate Max's cake...I'm now so excited to go and get my own pans and 'cookie cutter' thingies now that I know how to do this. Thanks Callie for sharing your talents with me! It's so great to have such talented, generous friends! and thanks for letting me borrow your pans and supplies! I couldn't bring myself to tasting the fondant while I was decorating the cake...I sort of got myself sick of frosting from Taylor's bday last year. But, I finally had a peice last night and it was really tasty! If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to share with you how to do it! It's simple and SO fun!

party favors: bowties and bubbles (Alyssa-I forgot to give them to you until about 2 min. after you left...so I'll get it to you soon!)

don't look too closely! ;-) there's lots of flaws! I was sort of trying to make it look Dr. Suess-ish though, so some of the flaws are okay!

A whole year already?!?

cute kiddos! they had fun together! or at least, I hope they did!

'it's my party and I can cry if I want to!' Poor Max, he was pretty tired...I'm glad we had his party last night so today can be easier on him!

Colton was a great sympothizer!

everything's better with cake, right?

Colton's cute older siblings...

need....some....milk!

yep! these pics are way out of order!

our 'mostly' happy little family!

Max's little hand cracks me up in this shot because that's what he was doing the whole time before he finally got a peice of his cake!

the kissing game...

the blindfolded diaper changing game....it's nice to have friends who are good sports! ;0)

the great crawl race...this is the parents/siblings trying to lure their baby over to them the fastest...it was pretty humorous! Except for Emily and then Colton at the end, the babies pretty much just sat there looking bored...

there's Emily...in the lead...at only 7 1/2 months old! She started crawling when she was 6 mos. old!

the start of the race....and they're off!....or maybe not so much! ;-)

Today is Max's birthday!!! I can't believe it's already been a year since this. I love this little boy so much and am so glad he's in our lives! Last night, we had a little party for him and invited the other two boys we know that are his age...Hyrum is a couple weeks younger and Colton is about 6 weeks younger than Max. And, we invited Max's new little neighbor, Miss Emily who is only 7 1/2 months but seems to outplay and out move all 3 boys. We had cake and played some fun little games: a kissing game where the moms start out trying to get their baby to give them a kiss, once they do they pass them off to the dads to do the same and so forth (but they can "pass" after 15 seconds of no luck). They try to see how many kisses the baby will give in like 3 minutes. Max gave us 4...he's better at kissing than crawling! Then we had a crawling contest which was hilarious! The parents were trying so hard to get their babies to come to them...and most babies just sat there. Emily almost won last night...but then Colton finally raced across just in time to beat her. ;-) Last we blindfolded the dads and had them race to see who could change their baby's diaper the quickest. It was pretty funny! Yeah, they were goofy games, but thankfully, our friends are good sports and went along with it and it was fun!

Then we had cake, poor little Max accidentally touched a candle right after his dad blew it out and hurt his finger! I felt so bad. But, he loved eating his cake! After cake, we visited for a while while the babes showed off some of their walking skills (Emily-at 7 1/2 months out walked everyone (she had a toy to hold on to--which they all did)). Max just sat on my lap...it'll be a while for him and we find ourselves quite fortunate about that! ;0)

We had such a fun, little party for him and are so glad he is here to celebrate for! He's our little sweetheart and I'm so thankful to be his mom!

Spin, baby Spin!

Our friends moved into our apartment complex and we get free memberships to Golds gym with this complex...plus I work at a health club literally right next door...so anyway, yesterday my friend Rachelle and I went to Golds gym (we really wanted to do a spin class, but our only option for the time we could go was a Pilates class-which I also teach and so I love to go to other people's classes for a change and learn some new stuff). Well, we talked last night and decided to get up EARLY this morning and go to the spin class at the health club next door (at 5:35 a.m.!) Can I just say YIKES!!!

First of all, I slept horribly (I have anxiety issues and don't sleep well if I have something I need to do the next morning), second, it was so NOT fun getting out of bed that early!!! and lastly, the class (this was my very first spin class and I honestly thought (how hard can it be?)...it was SO HARD!!! I had the tension set pretty low too! I was so glad when we got off the bikes at 6:20 to work on abs...so glad!

My overall opinion of the whole experience? loved it! Rachelle and I decided to try to make it to at least one spin class a week. We'll see how it goes and I'm hoping after several classes it won't kill me as much as it did today! And, one last question...why do all the morning spin classes have to start at 5 something?!?

our first weekend in March...

Last weekend started on Thursday evening because Tom's boss gave him and his coworkers Friday off since they'd been working 12-13 hour days for the last week and a half. So, we got the bright idea (from Tom after he helped move some friends into an apartment in our complex) to spring clean and rearrange our bedrooms. It did NOT look very clean for a day and a half while our living room was filled with furniture and odds and ends...but we love it now (even though I still have organizing and decorating to finish up). We also sold a desk and stroller on craigslist (I LOVE craigslist!) We posted them Thursday night and 24 hours later we had an extra 135 bucks and less stuff! love it! here's Max in his new bedroom...this was Taylor's crib toy and we finally got it out for him.

our new double jogger (thanks to my friend Rochelle, I went on a 2 month long search for a good deal on this stroller and finally found one and drove 2 hours to get it the weekend before--it is so worth it and I wish I realized before I had babies!)...Saturday morning we went downtown to a health and wellness fair. It was lots of fun, so nice to get out of our home and we got to watch cool self defense demos.

Then Saturday evening we went to our friends' Nate and Allyssa for the most fun dinner! Alyssa told me all we needed to bring was our "sense of humors"...so I thought she was just going to make a really simple meal or something...then when we got to their home there were sheets over the kitchen entrances. So, I thought to my self, well maybe they have a messy kitchen and didn't want us to see it. I finally realized when she had us fill out sheets with our "order" that they were providing us with the most fun dinner. We had to list what we wanted for each "course" from a list of random options that didn't make any sense. Then they served us up and I got my salad and pink lemonade with no utinsels except for a toothpick! The dinner went on like that. We had so much fun, the food was so great and I loved it! Thanks Allyssa! It was so nice to spend time with friends...while we were there, I had this sense of being with family...when you live far away from family, it is so nice to have great friends and we are blessed to have some great people here to have as friends!

Max and Tom eating their cake with a toothpick...

Curtis eating spaghetti with a butterknife!

my first course! ;-)

freshly bathed kiddos!