Annika's Date With Dad

So, since Ryan has been having late nights working, he can go days without seeing the kids since they go to sleep before he gets home.  Since he has missed the hugs, kisses, loves of bedtime, he often leaves notes for Annika to read in the morning.  Lots of time, they invite her to go on a "date" with him.  The dates may be to stay up late on a weekday to go for ice cream with him when he gets home, or to make popcorn and play games late on a weekend.  Whatever it is, she loves the time with him.  Dads are always was cooler than moms.  So, yesterday she asked me when I was going to leave her a note and invite her on a date.  Good question, I thought, I probably need to do that too.  Then she said, "I know I will invite Daddy on a date around the house."  So here is her invitation she left for him last night.  She is going to plan something for them to do tonight.  Should be fun.  I am just waiting for Ryan to leave a date note for me!  When is it my turn?

This says Mom, Annika, Annika, F

Dad, Will You Go On A Date With Me, Annika

(We both got a kick out of the huge "E"'s)

She is a sweetheart!

Nickelcade

Ryan had President's day off work, so we took advantage of the day off to go and have some fun.  We went to a really good taco shop in SLC.  It was really authentic.  If you love Mexican food and really good fish taco's like us, we can recommend a fun little place.  Then we went to Nickelcade.  Annika (and Ryan) loved trying to get enough tickets from the games to get some wonderful cheap prizes.  I hate that stuff.  I end up throwing it away when Annika is asleep.  I do the same thing with cheap happy meal toys too.  I do not need anymore junk, so I get rid of the cheap arcade stuff.  But, the kids had fun, suprisingly one game they BOTH loved was air hockey.  Even Ashton could get into it.  It was nice to have Ryan home for the day, we miss him now that he is gone for over 12 hours everyday.  I think he needed a break too, the weekends go to fast.

BYU wins UNLV 74-48

On Saturday night we went to the BYU vs. UNLV game in Provo.  Ryan is a huge UNLV basketball fan and I attended BYU for a while, so we thought it would be fun to bring the kids.  The boys wore grey and red and the girls wore blue (jeans that is) neither one of us had a cute blue shirt, but we did not wear red.  We definitely cheered for the Y.  Annika had some pom poms and would yell so loud.  It was cute.  BYU wasted UNLV and Ryan was really bummed.  Before the game we went to Goodwood BBQ in Orem.  Here is a picture of the boys loving their ribs.  We had a good time.  The kids loved the noise, lights, dancing and watching all the people.  They did pretty good for it being such a late night game.

Everyday Life in Cold Country!

So, one major downside about living in a cold climate is that you can not get outside too often.  I am one of the few moms I see that will take my kids out at the slightest warmth in temperature.  It has to be not windy, they have to be bundled and it has to be at least above freezing.  This does happen about 3 times a week, but other than that we try to have fun in the house and not go stir crazy, here are some fun things that occupy my days with the kids.  We have a lot of fun together.

Annika loves to play dress-up and she has started to include Ashton in this too.  He thinks it is hilarious, I do not think his dad will though.    Here is one of Annika's favorite outfits to put Ash into.

Annika puts Ashton in his wagon and pulls him all around the house.  He LOVES it!  I think he could stay in there all day, no matter how uncomfortable it is.  Sometimes he even gets dumped out and he could care less.  It is cute to watch!

We like to set up these pop up tunnels, buses, ball pits and more that take up our whole house.  The kids love chasing each other through it, and sometimes, I even attempt to make it through.  That is quite hilarious!  They have a lot of fun doing this, and it helps get their energy out.

Snowed In!

We woke up to 18 inches of snow on Sunday morning.  I was up off and on in the night with a teething, ear infection, diaper rash 1 year old, and saw it progressively coming.  We got ready for church, and went and took these pictures.  It was exciting.

They cancelled church all around us, not for us, it was Stake Conference.  But, we were not sure we could even get out of the parking lot.  Other cars were getting stuck, and even if we did get there, if it snowed more, we did not think we might be able to get home.  I did not like the idea of getting stuck in a snowstorm with two kids, so we stayed home and did FHE interactive DVD's.

Here is Annika on our covered patio.  There was no snow on here before Saturday night, and this was only the snow that blew onto there.  This was the most snow in one fall we have ever seen, even in Idaho we never got this much.

This is the picture we took after they plowed the sidewalk in front of our place.  It is probably close to 2 feet deep.  Some of this snow is from the week before that hadn't melted yet, but most of it is from this one storm.  That is a ton of snow!

Kids Say The Darndest Things

Last week we took the opportunity to go to the viewing of President Hinckley at the Conference Center.  There was a great Spirit there, I will never forget.  It was very touching.  But, before we went Annika said the cutest thing.  I had been trying to explain to her how he would look and what to expect.  I told her it would just be his body, and he had passed away, she asked if there would be a red button to push to hear his voice.  I said no, why?  Well, because when Grammi took me to that place with the pretend dinosaurs, there were red buttons to push to have them make a dinosaur noise.  It was too cute.