Happy Birthday Mark!

Happy birthday Mark! His actual birthday was pretty lame. I was diagnosed with Influenza A the day before, so I felt like death. The poor guy even had to make his own dinner. Bailey was awesome though, and she got up really early, and while Mark was exercising, she made his breakfast, so it was all ready when he was finished working out. We face timed with Sawyer while Mark opened his presents that night. He got a speedometer type thing for his road bike, a new wallet, some cologne, and winter running clothes to help him train for his trail marathon. We celebrated more on Saturday. Bailey and I took him shopping to pick out his running clothes, and Sawyer came down for lunch at the Snakebite .

Presents!

The Snakebite for a celebration lunch!

Happy Birthday!

Winter Ball

Bonneville added a Winter Ball to the dance line up this year. Bailey got asked by Parker Christopherson. They went rock climbing for the day date, and then it was off to the dance.

Parker asked her by leaving this poster at our house. I forgot to take a picture of how she answered, but she ditched a box of Ding Dongs at his house that said, "I'd be a Ding Dong if I didn't go to the dance with you."

Rock climbing

Bailey wanted a dress that was nice enough for the dance, but that she would be able to wear to church also. I love this one!

Bailey and Parker off to the Winter Ball!

XC Snowshoe Adventure!

We had our 3rd annual cross country snowshoe adventure in Harriman Park. We had perfect weather conditions. That was a happy change from the negative 20 degrees we went in last year! It was nice enough that a lot of us just wore sweatshirts, and left our big coats in the cars. It was also lightly snowing the whole time, so it made everything look really pretty. We had a group of between 20-25 people. We took them on a 6 mile loop along the river, and then around Silver Lake.

This was most of our fun group!

Holly, Dillon, Hannah, Jakob, Bailey, and Ezri

We're so glad Holly came. This is the last time we could see her, because she left a couple days later to serve a mission in the Netherlands.

I'm sure gonna miss these guys next year!

Jakob made Idaho with the snow!

Stetson, Mark, Seth, and Jessica were our leaders the whole way.

All finished!

Happy New Year!

We always have a nacho bar on New Years Eve. We stuck to that tradition again this year, and spent the rest of the evening watching movies, and playing games. We really know how to throw it down at our house! Hahaha, total party animals!

Nachos! Sawyer always gets mad when I take pictures, and usually tries to ruin them. He was being a total butt, so I took about 100 pictures of him with his nachos. I just followed him around and took picture after picture.  I even have a great one of him flipping me the bird! :)

Happy New Year!

I'm not even sure what is gong on here...half toast, half first bump! Weirdos!

2018 is going to bring a lot of changes for our family. The changes seem exciting and sad at the same time. Bailey will be graduating from high school, so both kids will be out on their own, and Mark and I will become empty nesters. So, my only resolution is to try to focus on all the good that happens. I'm trying to focus on the fact that we've raised two great kids who will both be in college, living responsible, adult lives, instead of dwelling on the fact that they're not here anymore. I can do that....right? (long sigh)

Snowshoeing: Lower Palisades

It's that time of year again! We love snowshoeing, and we plan on doing a lot of it this year. Our first snowshoeing adventure of the season was to lower Palisades Lake. It is such a beautiful trail in the winter. 

The lower lake

 We want to make it to the upper lake by the end of winter! That's about a 15 miler, so we needed to start out slower.

Book of Mormon Challenge!

Bonneville Seminary issues a Book of Mormon challenge each year during the Christmas break. Bailey has taken, and completed the challenge each year since she was a freshman. She picks a word to focus on each year as she reads. She uses a different color each year to mark that word anytime it comes up in the scriptures. Since she will be graduating from high school and starting her adult college life, she picked FAITH as her word this year. She has also gotten increasingly faster each year she has taken the challenge. This year she completed it in under 5 days. She never stops amazing me! 

Here are her words for the past four years:

Freshman- LOVE

Sophomore- STRONG/STRENGTH

Junior- HAPPY/JOY

Senior- FAITH

I hope she keeps this Book of Mormon forever!

Book Nerd Challenge: 2017

Bailey and I entered the Book Nerd Challenge from the Idaho Falls Public Library. You have to read 50 books in 50 weeks. Each book has to fit in a certain category that the challenge gives you. It really stretched both of us this year! We read some great books, and really got out of our reading comfort zones. We both completed the challenge, and are anxiously awaiting the 2018 categories to be released!

My 2017 favorites:

Once We Were Brothers

A Man Called Ove

Dad is Fat

Harry Potter 1-7 (I reread them all for the challenge)

My 1017 least favorites:

Eat, Pray, Love

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

20th Century Ghosts

We heard that Barnes and Noble was having a huge sale on classics. Bailey got super excited and asked if I'd take her. She was giddy with excitement, and went a little crazy! She loves classics, and got all stocked up for the 2018 Book Nerd Challenge. She got such a great deal on these books, that all I could do was encourage her! :) I love this picture, that totally illustrates where their passion lies!

Christmas Fun!

Decorating the Tree/Ornaments

We were a little slow with the Christmas festivities this year, because we were on our cruise when we would normally be getting things ready. We eventually got things decorated. The kids got their 2017 ornaments, and it's the first year they picked them out themselves. It's usually a surprise, but I wanted to get them something to represent our Western Caribbean vacation, so I let them chose while we were on the trip.

Bailey's ornament is a pretty shell.

Sawyer picked Santa riding a sting ray, since we loved our sting ray encounter so much.

Favorite Things Party:

Bailey had a performance the night my friends and I scheduled our annual 'favorite things' Christmas party. So, they all came to the museum to listen to Bailey play for an hour before we had our party. They're so great! Then we went to Michelle's for dinner, our gift exchange, and lots of laughs and talking until late into the night. We all look forward to this every year! So fun!

The fab five!

A Movie Night basket from Misty!

A cute snowman, Santa salt and pepper shakers, and an awesome planner from Becky!

Lesa is the crafty one of our group. She made a candy cane themed gift, and made these candy cane wreaths for all of us. The whole thing is made out of ribbon. So cute! 

Michelle gave us a basket filled with all the things she loves. So many great things!

I made my friends a crock pot recipe binder and got them aprons. I ended up loving them, so I'm gonna make one for myself and Bailey next. I love these ladies, and I love our party each year!

Laughing All The Way: 

Bailey got two tickets for the Laughing All the Way fireside for her birthday. We were so excited! It was John Bytheway, Meg Johnson, and our all time favorite, Hank Smith. It was so great! We laughed the whole night!

So excited!

John Bytheway was great!

Meg Johnson has an incredible story, and is such an inspiring person!

We love Hank Smith! We have every one of his CDs, and listen to them over and over! He is hilarious, and we could have listened to him for hours!

Such a great show!

Festival of Lights:

Bailey loves the Festival of Lights at Freeman Park! We took a carriage ride to see the lights, and met Santa Claus.

We love the sweet horses that pull us around in the freezing cold!

Carriage ride!

Bailey and her horse friends!

Good times with Santa! It would have been nice to have a family picture, but Sawyer wouldn't come.

Puzzle:

We always start a puzzle Thanksgiving weekend, and finish before Christmas. Since we were gone this year for Thanksgiving, we got a really late start on our puzzle. We finished it the day before Christmas Eve. 

Christmas Treats:

Bailey loves to bake treats at Christmas time. She usually learns a fun new recipe each year. This year they didn't get out of school until right before Christmas, so she spent all day Saturday making treats for her friends and leaders, and then delivered them on Christmas Eve. This year she made gingerbread cookies, chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, Oreo pops, and cute little donut reindeer.

This is what she baked in all day on Saturday! Cute little elf!

Putting on the finishing touches!

Christmas Eve:

Christmas Eve was nice and relaxing. We went to church for an hour, then I took Bailey around to make her Christmas deliveries. We had a nice dinner, made a gingerbread nativity, read our Christmas story, threw reindeer dust, and went to bed early.

Cheers to a plate full of olives!

Working hard on our gingerbread nativity!

Sawyer had a cute little helper most of the time!

Ta-da! 

It lasted about 5 minutes before the roof caved in!

Sawyer read 'The Perfect Gift,' by Henry B Eyring for our Christmas Eve story this year.

Reindeer dust!

Christmas:

Christmas was great! I thought it would be less exciting with adult children, but it's still just as fun as ever! Bailey was up at the crack of dawn, but let us sleep in until 6:00 this year! Whahooo! We opened presents, ate breakfast, and then Elder Cannon got to call! So fun! His mission president said since they have I-pads, they can call and chat with friends and family all day! We also watched movies, and played around with our new stuff.

Santa came!

Merry Christmas!

Stockings!

The puppies get so excited for Christmas!

They get so many treats!

Sawyer got a green screen for his computer.

Bailey got the whole collection of Jane Austin books, and was so excited!

We knew once Sawyer headed back up to college, he wouldn't be able to afford to buy a lot of cereal, so we stocked him up.

This is my favorite picture of the whole day! Oreo isn't even allowed on the carpet, but she was sitting right next to Sawyer watching him open presents. When I said, "Say cheese," she looked right at me and smiled right along with Sawyer. She's naughty, but too cute to get mad at!

So happy!

Bailey's big present was Shania Twain concert tickets! She kept trying to win them on the radio, and I kept hoping she wouldn't!

Sawyer got a new suit!

The best part of her day was being able to video chat with her missionary! She didn't find out she was going to get to talk to him until Christmas Eve!

Sawyer trying to figure out his green screen.

Bailey got a lot of Boise State gear, and came up wearing it all at once. She's a dork!

She only asked for two things for Christmas....Jane Austen books, and a bathtub tray. She loves taking baths, and was so excited about her tray! She's used it a ton already!

She got to video chat with Mason twice! It was so fun for them to talk again! I hope his mission president lets him do that again next year. They talked for a few hours, and got all caught up.

We had a great Christmas, and a great time off of work and school! We told the kids this was their last really big Christmas. Since they are both adults now, we are going to tone it down. Next year we told them we are doing, "Something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read." Bailey was super excited about the idea! It will probably be harder for me then for them. I love picking out presents I think they will love. But I think it will be a good way to focus more on the Savior, and the real reason we celebrate Christmas.