Master bathroom remodel

It seemed like it was time to do some redecorating in the master bathroom.  It hadn't been painted since we moved in 12 years ago and it just seemed drab and blah.  We had a glass door in the shower, and it was so hard to get clean so we decided to take it off and just use a shower curtain. I forget to get a before picture of that, but here's a before of most of the bathroom...

 
And here's the after.  I'm so happy with how it turned out!  Thanks to Jess for being my interior decorator consultant.  She has great ideas!

 

New Years Day Snowshoeing

For the third year in a row we went snowshoeing on New Years Day.  I love this tradition and hope we can continue it.  This year we loved having Evan and Brody join us (but missed having Brad with us as he was in CA selling for the week). They both did great, so I'm pretty sure they'll be invited back next year :)  There wasn't a lot of snow, and what there was was pretty packed down, so we ended up ditching our snowshoes about halfway and picking them up on the way back.

This picture cracks me up.  Can you just imagine what he's thinking?  I think it's something like this... "what are my parents dragging me off to do now?  Can't they see this snowsuit is way too big for me?  I was strapped in a carrier on the front of my mom and I couldn't see a thing!  What's the point of bringing me if I can't enjoy the view?"  hahaha.

December

For whatever reason, my pictures uploaded in the reverse order, so rather than be bothered to delete all 38 collages and try again, I'm just going to leave them as they are and report on the month from end to beginning.  For my 2 loyal readers- my sweet and dear daughters Ky and Jess, I'm sure they won't mind.  (update... I completely forgot to mention my dear husband as one of my loyal followers.  So sorry honey!) For anyone else reading this- you're probably scared away from hearing there are 38 collages coming and you want out anyway!  haha.  Read on faithful followers...btw- who are my faithful followers?  I only know of a couple of you besides my girls- Von and Niki. If anyone else reads my blog regularly, I'm interested to know who you are- so let me know!

We had a terrible weather day the few days before New Years Eve. It was so windy and cold that it was terrible to be outside for even a couple minutes. Here's a look at the snow piled up on our front porch.  We had a fun New Years Eve party with all the Cache Valley relatives that the Skeens hosted.  We went to their house for a tasty Mexican dinner, then went to Trace's church for some games and more food. It was a great party! 

This is Evan getting a taste of his first thing besides breast milk and formula.  He tolerated it but didn't love it. I 'm sure he will come around.  It was fun to witness this first in his life.

Some misc pics of Evan.  Cause you just can't see too many pictures of him, right?

I took these pictures from my car driving around Logan the day after Christmas.  Everything looked so pretty with the new snow!

The day after Christmas we had the Bundy's over for leftovers and some fun minute-to-win it games that Jess and Brad had.  And, after sitting in the garage for a year and a half never getting used, Bundy and Brody moved the ping pong table down to our game room and we had fun playing around the world.  Hopefully it will get used more now!

Here are some pics of Jake from his area before he got transferred on the 16th.  The top left picture is a family they were working with, the top right is the ward mission leader whom he loved, the bottom left is Sam, an investigator he loved, and him and his companion at the ward Christmas party. 

Look at this adorable little Santa's helper!  Could he be any cuter?

And these pictures!  To die for! Ky took them with her new camera on Christmas night and I just can't get enough of his adorable face.

We had such a wonderful Christmas.  It was wonderful to spend most of the day with Ky, Brody, Jess and Brad and to get to Skype with our missionaries at the same time.  Mike and I had breakfast and opened presents at the Weyerts while the girls were at their in-laws, then we got together at 1:00 to Skpye w/ the boys and open presents.  It was so great!  We then spent the evening at the Bundy's eating and playing games.  A perfect day! (I'm just realizing that I put the pic of Evan looking at the tree in this collage too- but it's so cute that it deserves to be seen twice!)

It was so awesome to look outside on Christmas morning and see 5 new inches of snow after having hardly any before that.

We had a fun Christmas Eve at the Weyerts.  Delicious food, great company and fun activities.

Cam arrived in Chicago on Dec 15 and is loving it!  He's in a town called Evanston which is just 4 blocks from downtown.  He loves Chicago! 

The Calls invited us to come to their cabin in Star Valley on the 22-23 and we were so happy it worked out for us to go. The Nelsons and Freda were there too and we had such a fun time. They had just finished their new barn (the builders called it the party palace which is more fitting than a barn...) which houses a huge garage for all their toys, a 2 lane bowling alley, 8-9 arcades and 2 bedrooms that sleep 20 people!  It was so amazing and awesome.  We had such a fun time playing games, visiting, eating and going snowmobiling.  We hope to go back again soon!

Everyone LOVED Evan and he never lacked for someone to hold him and play with him.

I got this idea from a family in our stake so thought I'd try it out this year in honor of the boys.  We had a Pday party that was so much fun!  Everything we did started w/ the letter P.  We all wore our PJ's, ate pizza, pretzel jello, pringles, pop, and played games that started with P. It was so much fun!  It will definitely become a tradition.

We should have planned this better and had our party on the day we went to the Piano Guys concert!  haha.  But this awesome concert happened the day before the party.  It was AMAZING!  I'm so glad we could all go. We had a fun evening together.

Evan is getting so big with rolling all over the place and sitting up on his own for up to a minute!  It was so wonderful to see him every day for 15 days.

We had a nice Christmas dinner at our friends the Broadbents along w/ two other couples. We had an amazing meal, wonderful entertainment and lovely conversation.

Jake is going great in Washington!  He had his first baptism!  Well, the first for him to actually be the baptizer.  He was so happy about this wonderful woman's acceptance of the gospel.  The bottom right picture shows the amazing nativity display that a stake in the area did for Christmas. They leave it up for 2 weekends and get a lot of people coming by to look at everything. They have displays set up in classrooms too, so they have the wards that usually go to that church relocate for 2 weeks.  It's a big deal and Jake was completely blown away by how awesome it was and what a great missionary tool. 

These are pics of Evan from before they came to Utah for Christmas.  Look at that sweet, innocent face!  If you were Santa, wouldn't you give him everything he asked for?  haha

I absolutely love my house decorated for Christmas!  I can never believe I will ever want to take everything down after Christmas, but I am always ready by January 1st.

We had a lovely Christmas dinner at the Griffins with Mom and 5 of my 6 siblings.  Gary made us an amazing turkey dinner, then we were serenaded for a half hour by 5 USU students. It's always so great to spend time with my brother and sisters.

Cam's last week in Mexico.  Look at the height difference between him and a sister missionary!

More pictures of this sweet boy- just because...

Top left: 12 days of Christmas package I sent to Cam.  Top right:  I'm so obsessed with having a fruit protein smoothie every work day that I took the fixings for one and mixed it up in my car one day after a hair appointment because I didn't have time to come home before going to work...Bottom left:  I went to an amazing book sale and got all these books for $6! Bottom middle:  I sure miss the boys being around when it comes time to clean the hot tub. Luckily I picked a warm day to do it.  Bottom right: Got a great deal on Bath and Body Works soap.  All these for $22! (there were 15)

November

Jake celebrated his 21st birthday on October 29.  This year he didn't have a member family offer to make him dinner and dessert, so this is what he came up with... a Halloween cupcake and eating out at Red Robin. Soon after his birthday, he got a change of companions, but stayed in the same area. The top right is his new companion, Elder Moore from Gilbert, AZ, and the bottom right is his old companion Elder Boyd from Orem (one of his top 3 favorites).

The WML took these pictures of the Elders to go on the bulletin board at church.  I love them!  The bottom two pics are at a nearby park.

Here is is hanging out in the Seahawk section of the store on Pday.  And this is the suit he found at Goodwill for $1.29!  He was very excited about it.

On Saturday the 2nd, the Weyerts came to town so Jessica could take family pictures of the Hatch's. I got to go watch and try and get Evan to smile.  It was fun (and luckily a nice weather day) and I absolutely LOVE how they turned out.  What a darling family.  We invited Tommy, Jessica and kids over after for lunch. It was fun spending time with them.  Dane amazed us all by naming every NFL team just by their logo.  He's 3....(Evan was mesmerized by a football game on TV...)

The next day we had Evan's blessing.  We did it at our house after church and had all of Brody's family there, plus the 7 of us and the Bundy's. It was such a nice occasion, and Mike did a wonderful job on the blessing.  We served orange rolls and hot chocolate afterwards.

 


Look at him!  Could you just die?  He wore the same outfit that Jake and Cam wore!  I love that (although the bowtie was an added touch).
The Bundy's stayed after Brody's family left and joined us for dinner and games. It was a great day!
The next day, Monday the 3rd, Cam and I packed in the morning then said a sad goodbye to Ky and Brody as they left to go home around 2:00.  It was so sad!  Most of us were in tears...
Tuesday Nov 4th- Cam's last day at home...I started off the day by applying a generous amount of waterproof mascara, and it was a good thing...I spent the whole day with Cam and it was wonderful but bittersweet.  Great to be together, but sad knowing it was our last day.  One thing we did was go to Deseret book to get more garments, and saw this ridiculous sight (bottom left).  Some people!

His setting apart was at 8:00.  Those there were his best buds Jeffrey, Chase, Parker, Tyson and Steve, Jess and Brad, Lin and Ryan, Mike and I, Bishop Miller and President Burns.  It was an amazing experience.  The room was so full of love for Cam as every person expressed their thoughts about him and their testimony.  It was so special. I will never forget it. His friends stayed for about 2 hours after it was over, so I waited up until midnight so we could double check everything and make sure he was ready to go.  We only got a couple hours of sleep as we had to wake up at 3 to have him to the SLC airport by 5:00.

I'm so grateful that after Cam's setting apart blessing, he felt such a calm and peaceful feeling and that lasted him all the way to Mexico.  It was a blessing that he wasn't stressed and nervous and scared like he was before the blessing.  It really helped to be able to let him go, knowing he was feeling so good about going.  But it was still so hard to let him go and watch him walk away.  I still can't talk about it or even write about it without getting a huge lump in my throat and feel like bursting into tears...  Ah- such a mixed bag of emotions.  I'm so happy he's worthy and willing to serve a mission, but I'm so sad to have my baby boy leave me for 2 years.

I had to keep very busy for the next several weeks to keep my mind off my grief, so I deep cleaned the whole house.  That was great therapy.  Freda brought me these flowers and Evan did his best to cheer me up by smiling at me from his framed pictures :)

Seeing new pictures of Evan always makes my day.  He's so adorable!!!


These pics of Cam came the week after he got to Mexico. It was so wonderful to see his happy smiling face.

 We celebrated Mom's 88th birthday by having a progressive dinner at the Bundy's, our house and the Skeens. It was a nice day and a fun way to celebrate. 

I decided several months ago that we needed to make this Thanksgiving a good one so that we wouldn't be missing the boys too much, and so that we'd have another chance to see Evan.  So we picked a destination that was halfway between Logan and Fort Collins, and also someplace Brody really wanted to go since he'd be celebrating his 30th birthday 2 days after Thanksgiving.  So Moab was our destination.  We rented a nice 3 bedroom condo and met the Hatch's there Wednesday afternoon.  We had such a fun 4 days together.  The first night we just hung out at the condo eating a spaghetti dinner and playing games.  On Thanksgiving morning, we did a 3 mile hike to Corona arch. It was a great hike- we all loved it- even Evan! 

We made a delicious dinner, then everyone but Mike and Evan went to the movie "The Hunger Games: Mockingjay part 1"  It was awesome!  We all loved it so much, and Mike loved staying home with Evan and watching the 49ers play.  That evening we had fun playing games and eating a tasty pumpkin dessert. 

On Friday we went to Arches and hiked to Delicate arch.  It was awesome.  Again, a fairly easy 3 mile hike with Evan being such a champ in his carrier.  We drove around to some other places and had a picnic.  Home to watch Elf, eat leftovers and play more games.

Jess and I got up early Saturday to help Kylee decorate for Brody's birthday.  Everything looked awesome. Ky had 30 reasons why she loves Brody in the 30 balloons that say "Brody, here are 30 reasons why I love you"  For our gift to him we hung 30 $5 bills from the hall ceiling. He was very surprised when he woke up.

That afternoon everyone went in different directions.  Ky and Brody went climbing, Mike, Jess and Brad went back to Arches to do more hiking, and I stayed at the condo with Evan so he could have a good nap.  I think I had the best time :)  That night we went out to eat at a delicious Mexican restaurant, played games and had birthday cake and ice cream.  It was a wonderful little vacation!

These pictures arrived from Cam while we were in Moab, so it was awesome getting more pictures.  He's loving his time at the MTC.

This face... I'm so in love.