Sledding

And now that the snow is finally melted and pretty much gone from our back yard AND our trampoline (hallelujah!) I am finally posting about our first winter.....

This is the first time, in our married life and with kids that we have lived anywhere that snowed.

Like for real snow that comes down and does not stop and actually sticks.

Noah and I both grew up in

Alaska so we both are used to the snow.

We both grew up skiing and snowboarding and sledding.

So of course when it snowed all Noah could think about was taking the kids out to go sledding.

So they called some friends and went sledding at the hill right by our house.

See that set of poles in the top middle of the picture? That is right where the hill is, and I am taking this picture standing on the top ledge of my door frame.

Noah is in the dark coat with yellow on it.

Braddoc is in the blue coat

 Landon is in a black coat with green stripes on it.

Going down.....

down.....

down.............

oh boy did that kid have fun! He has been several times since this day and always wants to be there. Its all he talks about.

This was always the worst part for me when I was a kid.

 The trek back up the hill.

And the best part....

the ride down the hill.

This husband of mine was like a big kid.

He was laughing and yelling and having a heck of a time.

It was even better because it was snowing the whole time.

Perfect sledding weather.

My little men hanging out, waiting for a sled.

I can't say that I want to live in the snow forever, but it does make make me happy right now.

I love it, for now.

I hate the 9 degree weather and the freezing cold cars but I love the look of snow.

Happy winter!

I like to look for rainbows

This was like a month ago and I never posted it. (opps)

Something we (or maybe just my husband and kids, and me on occasion) really like to do when it rains is run around outside in it. 

We (and when I say me I totally mean my husband) also have to run out in the rain and make sure the trampoline is attached to something because it was super windy and our wind stakes had not showed up yet. 

Realizing that there were still blankets and clothes outside......

.....so like a truly awesome guy he turned around and went back for them.

It was really pouring. I told our 4 year old that it was raining "cats and dogs" and he kept asking me where? "Where da cats and dogs mom? I don't see them. Mom? MOM? where are they? Why you say that?"

After all the beautiful rain we got a nice little lake in our back yard. Gee mother nature, thank you for that, I always wanted a lake in my back yard..... really I do, just maybe not that kind. 

After all the beautiful rain came my favorite part, the rainbow!!!

One of my favorite quotes when I was a teenager was by Dolly Parton (not sure where I heard it....) 

“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain!” 

This has stuck with me for nearly two decades and I still love it as much now as I did when I was kid. I think of this quote every time I see a rainbow. The rain leads us to the rainbow. The trials in life lead us to the greatness at the end. If I want the greatness I have to put up with the trial. I love to look for rainbows because it reminds me that even amid all the crazy parts of life there is so much beauty to be found. I really like the rain and the pure and clean feeling that it brings, but I like the rainbow in the end the best of all. 

Its soccer time

Its that time of year again.

The time of year where we spend most weeknights and every weekend at the soccer field.

And I LOVE IT!

When I was younger and thought about having kids, this was part of my dream.

Lots of family time spent at sporting events, and now here we are.

This last Saturday Landon had his first game.

He almost scored a goal and he was SOOO excited, not sure it was because he almost made it or if it was because we give him $1 for every goal, and so he ALMOST got a dollar. Ill pretend it was because he really was excited about the goal.

I wanted to share some of the pictures I took.

Can't you tell Landon was super involved in listening to his coach before the game.

His shorts were SO big and would not stay up so he had his hand in his pants for a long time trying to re-tuck in his shirt.

I love this picture, you can just see how much he loves it and how much fun he is having.

The two little men sat and watched and cheered Landon on for a little bit.
I think the sun got too much for them and they were tired of squinting so they went and played on the playground.

Team huddle at half time.

Pulling up his pants for the nine trillionth time.

Running ahead of the pack with the ball in front on him, almost scoring a goal.

Sitting on the bench taking a break.

Mixing it up. It was funny because at some point one of the little boys on the other team got tired of this whole mess and just sat on the ball.

Landon got to throw the ball in A LOT! He loved that part too.

Landon does not do well on defense. He hates being bored, especially when the ball did not make it down to his end of the field once, the whole game.

Soccer has never been my favorite sport.
If I was to pick one I wanted him to play it would be baseball.
Noah would pick baseball too.
But Landon picks soccer, so we support him and love every bit of it.
Landon likes baseball too and I think its starting to slip into first on his favorite list.
But for the last 3 years its been soccer, soccer, soccer.
We love sports!
Can you tell?

What do we do in the summer time?!!

My favorite thing so far about living in Utah (besides the AMAZING mother load of Decorating stores!!! {yes decorating needs to be capitalized, it's just that amazing}) is the beautiful weather, mountains and trees!

We have been taking lots of walks and exploring the base. I have enjoyed it so much and have LOVED watching my beautiful children enjoy it too. 

Look at those adorably chubby cheeks and that super cute little baby hand (I think baby hands are some of my favorite baby features).

Aowyn is having a nice mid-walk snack.

I love Tayton's beautiful blonde hair. Who knew I would have a blondie?!!

I love this girl. I love her big brown eyes, and her chubby little cheeks. And I love that she is mine!

We found some ducks and Braddoc fed them some rocks. What duck doesn't love rocks?! (note the intense sarcasm and hear the pleading in my voice for him to stop FEEDING THE DUCKS ROCKS!)

The ducks had such beautiful colors on them. Just look at the blueish purple hue that adorned this beautiful lady (or gentleman).

Feeding the ducks little pebbles. Braddoc kept throwing them in the water and would get very upset  when the ducks did not flock to it. Because of course what duck doesn't LOVE rocks!?

Look at that gorgeous sky and tree line. TREES!!! REAL LIVE TREES!! Ahhh how I love real landscaping and not desert "landscaping" (the nice way of saying rocks). You can also see my little independent 4 year old walking ahead of the herd....... errrr family. 

Oh how I love this little man! He is just a dream 2 year old. I love watching him learn and seeing him take in everything around him. He loves to talk and will talk our ear off. He is so smart and knows so many words, so its lots of fun to listen to him talk.

Aowyn was really enjoying eating the straps on the stroller. This walk was the first walk where she was sitting in the stroller itself instead of sitting in her car seat in the stroller. I can safely say I think she LOVED it.

Look at the tongue sticking out! Such a cutie!

Man I love this guy! I wouldn't want to spend eternity with anyone else. He is the best part of me.

In case you didn't know Lions wander around Utah free and they live in this little patch of trees. Along with Acacraters. (alligators and crocodiles, apparently its easier to just say them together, according to Braddoc.) We had to be very quiet when we walked by this area because of all the wild animals in there. I love kids imaginations. 

(A few days after this walk, when we were checking into our house we were warned about a loose cougar who wanders around on base. So I guess the kids were not too wrong in their thinking.)

Oh the sweetness! This girl is seriously the best thing EVER!!.....

.....I mean just look at that chunk! Oh how I love her chunk!

Its hard to believe that this little man is big enough to just wander around in the park by himself.

And that this little lady is big enough to just chill and play with her feet, while watching her brothers play.

I HATE BEES!!! But I thought that they were the perfect subjects for me to use to test out my macro feature on my camera. I think they turned out beautifully. I am allergic to bees, like epipen on hand allergic, so I was being daring and adventurous getting so close to them. (or maybe just really dumb, because I did NOT have my epipen and the hotel was about a 30 minute walk away.)

I think Handsome hubby is enjoying having trees too. He was like a kid in a candy store climbing those trees.

Landon went on some mushroom finding hunts. He has been obsessed with finding new bugs and new plants lately. I love that we have so many areas for him to go and find them.

This is my new neighborhood. Its beautiful! I love all the green and all the trees.

This tree was beautiful to me too. I saw it at the same time as Noah and just as I am admiring its beauty and majesty, Noah is saying "Wow! that's really ugly. Why don't they cut it down?" I guess beauty is really in the eye of the beholder. I still think this is such a beautiful tree, holding its own in the middle of brilliantly vibrant green trees. 

We still live in the desert, high desert to be exact. But to me its such a pretty desert. A lot pretty to me then Las Vegas was.

And the mountains are green too. I loved the red rock mountains in Las Vegas. It was beautiful but it was not the beauty that makes my heart pitter patter. This is the beauty that speaks too me. Again, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I love that Heavenly Father created so many different types of beauty.

My littlest men surviving the walk. (barely)

I just had to thrown this is for good measure, because look how adorable that kid is. 

Utah, so far you and I have a good relationship. I don't know that I would want to live here forever, but I do think I will enjoy the beauty of it while I am here. One of my wonderful friends says "Bloom where you are planted." I think of that often and I am definitely going to bloom while I am planted here.