Welcome to 2018!

I am so excited for the new year and new possibilities! I'm even more excited for our goals for our family and to see our family grow and progress. This is going to be a great year, I can just feel it!

So far our year has been off to a great start. Here's some of the fun things we have done this month:

We have been to a lot of University of Utah events. Between our gymnastic season tickets, and Grandma and Grandpa's men's basketball season tickets, we also try to go to a few women's basketball games which means we have had a lot of nights here. The kids have so much fun because they usually have a kids zone where they have face painting and balloon animals.

 Sometimes our late nights mean all our cuties fall asleep on the way home.

 Kenzee turned 4 years old and had a Cinderella party, complete with Cinderella herself! She read the kids a story, did a craft with them, and then posed for pictures. Our kiddos had so much fun!

 I'm still in Young Women's and LOVING it! We had a night where we played get to know you games. It was fun to see the girls act silly and get to know them a little better.

 This little stinker cracks me up. She loves to go shopping with me. This particular day we had to go to Kohl's and while I was looking at the clothes, Brynn found a shopping cart and filled it up with toys. Brynn's walks around whatever store we are in and says, "I want 'dis for my birthday" to every single item we see. At first I tried to tell her that her birthday wasn't for quite a few months, but she would get so upset, so now I just answer, "sure, Brynn, you can have that for your birthday."

On this particular shopping day we walked past the underwear section and Brynn found this and yelled to me, "Mom! I found your boo-boobs! Do you want it for your birthday?"

I was laughing too hard to respond. 

 This is our first year with gymnastic season tickets, and we are absolutely loving the meets! The U of U gymnastics team is ranked 2nd in the nation and they are SO good! We have great seats and love going to watch them. My cutie pie Kay-Bugs came with me to this particular meet.

Makayla had her winter dance concert. She danced to the song, "Friend like me" She did such a great job and we were so proud of her!

This winter has been very unusual. We have hardly had any snow and a lot of record warm temperatures. This was the one and only snow storm we got so far this year. The kids had fun playing in the snow and trying to build a snowman. 

Makayla and Caden had spirit week at school so they got to do a lot of fun things. They had pajama day:

 And crazy hair day:

Reflection

2017 was a very interesting year for our family. I feel like in a lot of ways it was a really good year. We set a lot of goals for ourselves and we accomplished almost all of them. We paid off our house and became completely debt free! Tyler received the Melchizedek Priesthood and his patriarchal blessing and we both gained stronger testimonies. We made the decision and started preparing to have our family sealed in the temple. We went on the funnest and longest family vacation to Disneyland and San Diego and had so much fun! The perfect job for Tyler came out of nowhere and allows him more time at home and less stress. Our kids are growing and learning and becoming outstanding kids. They are kind and helpful and think of others. They are fighting and teasing and testing our patience like all kids should. And they make us proud each and every day. But most importantly, we laughed a lot this year and became stronger as a couple and as a family.

But we struggled a lot this year too. My relationship with my brothers and my parents is not as strong as it used to be. I feel like Tyler and I fought the good fight with my family and really tried to do what was best for everyone, but somehow we became the bad people and the outcasts. I look at other families around me and yearn for the support and fun that they have together and wish that was the case with my family. I watched Anna struggle with the loss of her baby, Desi and Andrew with the loos of his wife Mary and it broke my heart. It made me so sad, yet so grateful for my family and our health and it made me realize how fragile life really is.

Looking ahead at 2018, I have so much excitement and enthusiasm for this year. I know it will be a great year because I will wake up everyday and do my best to make it a great day. I have set a goal to do things this year that are healthy: physically healthy, emotionally healthy, mentally healthy, and spiritually healthy. I want to be a better person by being more giving and more compassionate. I want to be more positive and find the good in others. Mary's life and ultimately her death really impacted me and I want to live each day without regrets and truly live. These all sound like cliche statements, but I truly believe them.

We have a lot of goals again for our family. We hope to get sealed as a family in the Spring and I am looking so forward to that day when we will enter the temple together. We are excited to learn and grow as a family as we experience the ups and downs of life. I know that the only way to enjoy the good times in life is to endure the difficult times. I know the difficult times are where we grow the most and where we learn. I really learned a lot in 2017 and I am ready to learn a lot more in 2018.

The Week After...

Yep, this is pretty much how we felt this year. We had a very relaxing post Christmas week. Sadly, we had to go to Mary's funeral, but we were also able to do some fun family traditions. Tyler was able to take a few days off and we got all of our decorations put away, went on a date, and went to Temple Square. We realized last year the only time to go to Temple Square is to go after Christmas when it is slightly less crowded.

We started off our night with dinner at The Brick Oven.

 And here's proof that I go on these fun family adventures too, even though I generally don't make it into any of the pictures unless I take a selfie. Thanks to Tyler for recognizing this and snapped this random and awkward picture of me.

 Oh look, here I am in another picture.

 Do you know who sometimes doesn't end up in pictures? Brynnli. Because she throws a lot of temper tantrums and refuses to pose like I ask her to. Just give her a few years and Brynnli will be a professional poser like these two. See? Proof that they do like each other.

 The temple is so pretty this time of year.

 The only picture you get of our entire family this season is this selfie we took.

New Years Eve was relaxing and very low key this year. We had steak dinner at home and then had apple cider in our fancy glasses.

 Thanks to Netflix we counted down to the New Year at 8:00

 And sent the kids to bed

Happy New Year! We are so excited for the many exciting things we have planned for this year!

Disheartening

I'm not going to lie. This has been a very rough December for our family. At the beginning of the month my brother Darren ended up in the hospital in an alcohol induced coma. Our whole life got turned upside down as we have been dealing with Darren. Since the kids couldn't stay at their apartment alone, and it was questionable if Darren was capable of taking care of his kids after he was home from the hospital, Hannah stayed at our house for a few weeks. It seemed like everyday was a new challenge, a locked door, a struggle to be happy. Darren is out of the hospital now, but unfortunately he has not changed, nor taken accountability for his actions. It is disheartening to realize he will probably be in the same situation again in a matter of time.

Hannah stayed with us for about 3 weeks and just a few days before Christmas she decided to go stay with her dad. Tyler and I felt heartbroken as she walked out the door because we knew she would not  be back to say with us and all of her goals she expressed to us for her future probably wouldn't be accomplished. I truly hope Darren can turn his life around, and Hannah will graduate early from high school and accomplish all her goals, and that our family will not be in this situation again with DCFS, but only time will tell. In the meantime I will strive to find joy in life and realize how many blessings our little family of 5 has been given.

Unfortunately, our hearts were broken again when we got a phone call letting us know that my cousin Andrew's wife Mary had suffered a brain aneurysm and ultimately passed away on December 17.  Mary and Andrew had one of those marriages that people admired; I know I did. They were so perfect together and had such a cute family. I didn't know Mary all that well, but she was the most genuine person and really seemed interested in what you had to say; she made you feel important when you talked to her. Mary leaves behind Andrew, a 4 year old, 2 year old, and a 8 week old, just a few days before Christmas. My mind just cannot comprehend it and my heart breaks for their family.

I truly admire Andrew's strength during all of this. I copied his Facebook posts because he has such a meaningful way of understanding this tragedy.

Mary's funeral was one of the saddest and best funerals I have ever attended. She had so many people there to support her and her family, and the spirit was strong throughout. I left her funeral, surprisingly, feeling uplifted and wanting to be more like her. She truly emulated Christ in all aspects of her life and she made people around her feel special. That's the kind of person I want to be and the person I will strive to be more like this coming year. 

I don't know why some people leave this earth and their families behind when they still have so much to give and so much good to offer the world. And why others who wreck havoc on their lives and affect others' lives seem to go on untouched, but I do know that Heavenly Father knows more than I do and he has a plan for all of us. I am grateful for the knowledge I have of the gospel and the plan of salvation. I know we will be reunited with our families again someday. I have a wonderful husband, three adorable and crazy kids, and a whole lot to be grateful for. Mary's death reinforced to me how grateful I am for the simple things in life and how I need to cherish each day and have no regrets because you never know when your life could be turned upside down.