Winter Reading

I'm finding myself in a reading kick lately.  I haven't always been a book worm, far from it.  Growing up I don't think I ever read for pleasure.  And as sad as this is, the first book that I ever read in my adult life was the Twilight series.  I was not a reader at all, and was so determined to not get hung up in all this hype about vampire books.  But on a fateful Thanksgiving day my sister-in-laws Racquel and Challise and I went to the movie.  I had to know what happened next and so I read the first book to get all the real details, and then all of the rest quite quickly.  That was the first time I had read books for sheer enjoyment and all on my own doing.  I was so surprised that I liked reading.  What I also came to realize though was that comparing books to Twilight, I usually found interest only in page turners and/or love stories.  I'm a sucker for staying up til 3 in the morning because I can't put it down, or getting completely enveloped in a romance and find myself shedding tears of happiness when they finally kiss or end up together... (that could just be the hormones lately, jury is still out on that one!)  With my lovely friend Jen Johnson starting a book club, I've ventured out and read more books and of different genres than I would have imagined.  It's been a lot of fun.  A book she chose to read for this month is called Edenbrooke by Julianne Donaldson.  I loved this book, and highly recommend anyone to read it as well.  Unfortunately I believe it's her first book, I was hoping she had others.  I started to read it at 10 one night thinking I'd read a little bit before bed, but ended up not being able to put it down until I finished it at 3:30 am.  As I was going thru the next day, I kept thinking about that book.  I put in movies for the kids and settled down myself and read it again during the day.  Don't ask what my kids did the rest of the day because I don't know either!  It's set back in the 1800's in England, a proper romance as it says on the book.  It reminded me of Pride and Prejudice, some of the same locations and names were the same.  I had an urge to watch that movie but I have yet to get to that.  But I realized I've never read Pride and Prejudice.  So I borrowed the book and am really enjoying reading it because like always, books are always better than the movies and have so much more detail!  With the weather just starting to get cold, I just want to stay in my pajamas, snuggle up and read all day.  But my kids don't always allow that, plus it's not even winter yet and I don't think I can start my hibernation this early.  Until then, I wondered what some of your favorite books are?  I'm definitely new to the reading world and need to get a stack ready for when I can finally hibernate and read all winter long!

And this is why I've been a slacker at blogging lately.  We take days pretty leisurely around here!



I'm not sure what 4 boys is going to be like, but we do know how to do loud, dirty, wild and super heros so I'm sure it will just be more of that!

Home Sweet Home: Part 2

So as many of you probably know from facebook, we just took a little family trip to Yellowstone.  And most importantly we took our little old trailer for it's maiden voyage camping.  I would have to say that it was heavenly.  It is our home away from home.  Here's a little background story as to why I'm so in love with our trailer. 
I love to camp, we grew up camping all the time.  Some people are not a big fan, but I think it's the people you're with that make it so fun.  I have always loved our big family camping trips, (sigh) so many memories.  I want to keep that love for camping and pass it down to my boys.  It is so their element.  They love dirt, water, being outside, campfires, smores, roasting hot dogs, peeing outside, and fishing  = camping is perfect.  I love our tent, we invested in a ginormous tent when we were pregnant with Tatton knowing that we'd want something that we could a) stand up in and b) fit kids, our queen air mattress and a pack n' play in.  I felt pretty spoiled.  But as the years went by, we just kept thinking it would be so nice to just pull into camp and be ready, no setting up the tent, have a sink, an oven, a stove, a fridge, real beds, a bathroom... so many luxuries.  So we started hunting ksl.com.  I know there are some darn nice trailers out there that cost more than homes so I do not compare ours to those. at all.  We knew our route was paying cash for something old and small enough that we could pull with our expedition.  And in walked our 1970's trailer that was perfect for us!  We got to take a road trip to Cedar City to pick it up, and I started shopping immediately for material with my sister-in-law Toni.  It was a blast, and I couldn't believe that I found something so perfect to go with our trailer.  It has been such a fun little project to fix up, and the boys love just playing in it, and having little sleepovers in it just at home.  Everything worked when we bought it, and for it's age it was in really good condition.  We just wanted to spruce it up for fun, and the outside was in need of a facelift!  We got it all mostly ready by Memorial Day.  We had big plans to go to Bryce Canyon with my family over the weekend and that was originally our maiden voyage with the trailer.  We got to about Lehi and Aaron noticed one of the little doors on the trailer was flapping in the wind.  So he pulled over to go shut it and also noticed a huge puddle under our car.  He pulled the car forward and the red trail followed us.  Our transmission was gushing fluid.  We had pulled off right by an exit, so we made our way to a Jiffy Lube.  They informed us that our transmission had blown and we'd be lucky to be able to make it back home to Morgan.  And that's when I started crying.  I was so devastated that we were having to turn around and go home, that we weren't going to Bryce, that we wouldn't be camping with the family for the weekend, all the food we just bought, and that we had a big car problem.  In a matter of 10 minutes, everything had changed.  I was really bummed and Tatton was too.  He cried with me.  We were so blessed to have seen the door and pulled over when we did.  If we would have been driving when the transmission finally went out, we could have been in a lot more trouble, so for that I am really grateful we were being watched over.  The stress kicked in though about our car situation.  To make a long story somewhat short, we were pretty set on just selling the expedition as it was and buying... a suburban.  Yes, a suburban.  I was so excited.  So we started looking and looking for a long time, nothing seemed to be what we wanted or in our price range.  We both finally got the feeling that that was not the right route for us to go in, and we really didn't want to have a car payment- those stink!  So we finally got it all lined up, bit the bullet and had a new transmission put into our expedition.  Unfortunately, not in time for our Yellowstone trip, which we had booked months and months ago.  We were totally lame and borrowed my mom and dad's truck for the trip.  It worked out great though, we got home and had the car done just a few days later.  It all worked out in the end and now we have our car back in commision to go on many more camping adventures!  Being in the trailer with babies that can't walk yet, you moms know what I'm talking about, was so nice to not be in dirt constantly!  And feeling a little bit more protected from a bear compared to a tent was also a plus!  Really, I felt like I was in our home away from home in Yellowstone.  We can't wait to take it out again and be able to create more family memories.



Home Sweet Home

Well I'm just as surprised to be on our blog as much as you are!  It's been far too long and apparently the craziness of having 3 kids has kicked in.  Actually, that's not entirely true.  I am busy, but I think you find time to do the things you have to and the things you love.  I guess blogging hasn't fallen in either of those categories lately.  I update facebook much more than I used to, it's quick and I stay in touch with more people there than I do on here.  Nonetheless, I have missed out keeping this updated because it is a way of journaling for my little family.  So instead of catching you up on months worths of activities and pictures... we're happy, we've celebrated birthdays and holidays, graduations, done some fun things and my boys look adorable in numerous pictures!  How about that?!  Now that we're up to date, I will get to the point of the title of this post.  Home Sweet Home.  Aaron and I have moved several times in our short 6 years of marriage.  Life has changed a lot for us.  We're just renting his Grandma's house, but I feel more at home than anywhere else we've lived.  It's on a lovely road that my parents live on and his parents.  It's up a long driveway on top of a hill and it is heaven.  The house itself is not necessarily a magnificent thing to behold, but it's the happiest place we've lived.  Aaron's Grandma is 85 I believe and in a nursing home and the house was vacant.  We were living at my parent's house to save $ while Aaron is at school and it was getting a little old (my parents are great fyi, just nothing compares to being by yourself).  So by divine intervention... someone needed to live at the empty house and take care of it!  And in came our little family moving in the winter a week before christmas into this home, and couldn't be happier.  We've done a lot of painting and fixing up and many projects that Aaron rolls his eyes at when I say "I saw this thing on pinterst...".   We don't know how long we'll be able to stay here.  But we're staying until circumstances force us to move i.e. family decides to sell the house.  Until then, I'm busily making it my own without putting too much into it since it's technically not ours.  My favorite things about this home, why I love calling it home, is that it is perfect for boys to be boys outside.  We're on a country road, but even better than that, we're off the road a long ways which means my boys can go outside and play to their hearts content and I don't have to worry about where they are, cars, strangers, really even what they're doing, it's pretty indestructable out there.  I also love (here's my brag list) the beautiful views, large shade trees all over, tons of cement for bike riding, room for Jack to roam, covered pavillion with lights to eat outside anytime, rv pad for our beloved trailer and a big swing on the front porch to sit and watch my boys play.  I need to pinch myself as I'm describing it!  It may not be everyone's dream stuff, but it certainly is mine.  I definitely like the country, the space, and the seclusion.  Of course we want to own our own house again but we're content to wait for the perfect time, perfect place and perfect home.  We owned a house once and we were young and naive.  We didn't think too much about the location, and certainly didn't really think about the layout of the house.  We bought a split-level home in Clearfield when we were first married and we consider ourselves so blessed to have sold that right before the market went down.  I started to dislike the home, ugh and our neighbor, I hated how close the houses were together and we were just barely pregnant with Tatton and realized we didn't want to be in the ghetto of Clearfield to raise our family.  That's how it started and fortunately it lead us to knowing we needed to sell and move away.  With that lesson under our belt, we've decided we would wait to buy or build a home when we were really ready, knew where we wanted to be settled and in the perfect spot for our family.  You can always change the outside and inside of a home, but you can't move it.  So someday, that'll be my dream home but for now, this place will do.  I just feel so much happier here and blessed to call it home for now.

Right Ror'...

If Lincoln would say "right Tatto", I believe he would be the spitting image of my brothers Rory and Ryan. My Mom has told me so many stories of Rory and Ryan when they were little, her first experiences of having two little boys running around. When Ryan first started talking and walking, he immediately took to following and doing everything his big brother did. And all he would say as he putted around was "right ror". He wanted to make sure he was doing everything Rory did, and if Rory approved of all his activities. Lincoln has taken on this same position. He does exactly what "Tatto" (Tatton) does! If Tatton tickles Harrison, Lincoln is right behind him doing it next, if Tatton wants a drink, Lincoln wants a drink, if Tatton puts a bowl on his head, Lincoln is doing it too. Tatton is catching on, I tell him he has a little copy-cat and that literally Lincoln will do what you do. So now Tatton will run upstairs just to see if Lincoln will follow him or not... and he usually does! They are a pretty fun bunch of boys to watch as they grow and I hope that Tatton will be a good example for Lincoln in the years to come!