Hannah's new smile

Both my kids have had a 'picture smile.' And they both have cracked me up. Hannah just learned how to smile on demand and the result is truly hilarious. She does not share her picture smile as much as her brother did, but if she does you are in for a treat!

I was able to catch a few variations of the smile for your viewing pleasure.


You have to click on this one to view it larger. It is so funny and cute!

Sometimes her smile consists of 'crooked teeth' positioning. Here is that one.



She looks mad in this one, but no-just another variation of her beautiful smile. She almost always does the scrunched forhead look though.

Forever 29

Cameron celebrated his birthday yesterday. As he said, from now on he will always be 29. I think he could pull it off, because in my opinion he still looks like he is 21.


We celebrated low-key style. I made him his favorite dinner-chicken enchildas and all the fixings. I tried a new recipe for his cake...it was "Olive Garden's chocolate lasagna" It was very delicious but probably the ugliest cake I have ever made. The frosting was extremely difficult to work with!

Here are a few things I love about Cam.

He is such a hardworker.

He is handsome.

He is an excellent pianist.

He is an excellent handy-man.

He is smart.

He is a worthy priesthood holder.

He has always provided a comfortable life for his family.

He takes me to the temple.

He is a good dad.

He loves a nice home, and always makes sure that things are in order at home.

Once he starts a project-he always finishes.

Love you Honey! Happy Birthday!

Chuck E Cheese

A new Chuck E Cheese was opened in Layton recently. You can see it as your drive on I-15. Carson of course, saw it and immediately wanted to go. He has been asking for a week or two now, when we could go. I invited my sister and her family and we had a Chuck E Cheese 'date' last Friday.

The kids, of course, loved it. It was super busy, probably because it was Friday. The new facility was really nice and clean. We printed some coupons off their website so it ended up not costing much either!

We had a good time and Carson is already asking when we are going back....

Complain fest

I am finally posting a few of our happenings. I know I say this all the time, but I have been so busy these last few weeks. I really feel like most the time, I am running on empty and just working through each day-day by day.

I can not describe school any better than a love/hate relationship. One side of me really does enjoy it, I like learning, I like the clinicals, and when I think about my future I really am excited about it. The other side of me HATES the time it takes-especially when that takes time away from my family.

Besides school obligations, Cameron has started busy season at work, which means early starts and late finishes. Oh and did I mention...he just bought a triplex! I am really excited about that (heavy on the sarcasm here) We have also had a lot of church obligations (besides our usual ones) -Cam and I were asked to speak at New Beginnings, I spoke in sacrament one week ago, and we have had a baptism every Saturday for the last 3 weeks-4 counting this Saturday.

I also was asked to head up a big project for Carson's school. I said yes, when I should have said no. All of this is contributing to late nights and early mornings for me.

Wow...what else can I complain about? ;) Really, life is good here. I may not have all the time I want in the world, or be able to do all I want to, but I have the cutest kids in the world, a good supportive husband, the true gospel in my life, and too many other things to list. SO really, what else can I ask for?

Valentine Boxes

The first Monday, in February we had a family home evening lesson on love and made Valentine boxes. Each night thereafter, each family member was asked to leave a note in each others boxes, expressing love or appreciation to them. Carson really enjoyed this activity and every morning he would wake up and run to his box to see what notes had been left to him.

We will definitely do this again, but maybe wait until the second week-because towards the end, we were getting a little forgetful when it came to our Valentine boxes!

Camping Party!

Carson carpools with two little guys J and P. The three of them have become best buddies. They want to play together every day after school, and usually do have weekly play dates. Last week we hosted the boys but I wanted to do something more than just 'free play.'

That morning when I picked them up for school, I gave each boy an invitation to the camping party. They were so excited and so cute.

I had a tent/fort set up for them when they came home that they loved. Carson received a star theater for Christmas so we set that up and they watched a star show on the ceiling of the tent. I then read the boys ghost stories by our fireplace. After that we made smores and cooked them in the oven. The kids had so much fun and played in the fort for hours.


Poor little Hannah really wanted to join in all of the fun...she loves her brother and always wants to be by his side!

Carson's Photo Shot of Hannah

While I was preparing dinner the other night Carson whipped out my camera to take some pictures of Hannah.

Here are the results...





As you can see, Hannah was thrilled about this.

Ice Skating...with first graders!?!

I was 'lucky' to go ice skating at the Ice Sheet with Carson's class the last week of January. It is a yearly tradition that the ALA program goes ice skating each year for their January field trip. First of all, it has been many, many years since I went ice skating. Let alone while I was 'helping" 5 children seven year olds who had never ice skated before. Can we say wet pants, sore muscles (for me), and bambi on ice x5?

Second of all, the ice skates were all WAY to small. Each of the kids had a little note pinned on by their parents stating their shoe size-trying to make the process a little easier. But every child in my group had to go up at least TWO sizes before we could even get them on. So after 30 minutes of trying to get the right size and get them on-we were ready to hit the ice-literally.

All the children in my group (and basically the entire class) were clinging to the wall in fear for the first 20 minutes.


Slowly most of them got braver and braver and by the end we had a few who could actually "ice walk." It actually turned out to be a fun and humerous day!

This is Carson and his cute little 'girlfriend" L.