a little randomness I dont want to forget

love this picture of Seth....cracks me up

Family Date night to DQ- Seth is the vanilla man and normally (not shown here) I can count on Jaq to represent with the chocolate!

Doesn't this bean bag look like a little nest for her.  Its like her own little egg!

I love this picture.  Cordelle's mom sent this to me.  It was actually from Christmas.  She snapped it as they were watching a movie together.  SOO Sweet.

I really can't tell you what good friends these two are.  They are always playing some kind of game together most of the time even if its a real game, they are making up their own rules usually working pretty well together.

We almost always have some sort of job chart. I know, I'm already THAT mom. Seth flies through these things, I'm almost considering making his twice as long as Jaq's.  Jaq as you can see gets a lot of strikes (which result in stickers being taken away) cause she has a harder time not listening and whining, but everyone does eventually earn their goals and I figure its good incentive for me to keep them motivated. 

Star Wars battles are constantly breaking out everywhere around the house. 

Along with the Millenium Falcon, Seth enjoy Star Wars Lego's for the upteenth time.

Snowy Family Sunday Afternoon

Yea, a door!!

"Are you kidding me mom?  I think I'm stuck"

Had to have a window now that we had the door.

You cant really see it in this picture, but I made King and Queen chairs right next to the "window" they look out to see if dad is going to throw a snowball at them.

In the Royal Chairs

Who said playground equipment is for the summer?

Pretty nice FORT if you ask me....and the shovel flag helps.

Not a snow day without this in my kitchen for a couple days after.

Angry Birds Night with Dad

What do you get when you mix this....

with this....

and a little of this...?

Answer:  One super fun night with Dad as the culprit.

Love Day

This year's Valentines Day was nice.  I had set up mailboxes for everyone in our family at the beginning of the month so the whole Valentines giving was way ingrained in their minds.  It was fun to see the kids get so excited to draw pictures or put little toys in each other's boxes (I should have taken pictures).  Anyways we also got invited to a neighborhood kid Valentine's Day party my friend Angela put together.  I'm so grateful for fun creative people who invite me to stuff so my kids have fun things to do here and there. Vday bags, frosting cookies, and then the ultimate exchange.  Whats not to love?  I don't know why, but I took some pictures of it!

I really wanted this love day to be about people I loved.  So I tried to just do better about making sure my kids and family knew I loved them.  Of course Cordelle got my attention too, but its fun to share Valentines Day with kids too you know?  Make that a focus instead of the lovey-dovey boyfriend/girlfriend husband/wife exclusivity.  I dont know, but I enjoyed the day even more this way.  We ended the day with a candle light dinner (heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's) and some Valentines Day Wipeout for the kids.  All in all, a great day.

Ahh February...thank you for saving us from boring January

Okay February is clearly my favorite month.  There are so many great holidays like Valentines Day, my birthday, and this year LEAP YEAR (which basically means another day of February!!).  I start off every February baring my testimony in Sacrament meeting which to a lot of you would not be fun, but I actually like to do it and it forces me to think about what really is important to me and to share it at least this once a year.  Sharing my testimony in Sacrament meeting just kind of gives me a spiritual boost for the month that i love.  I really should do it more, but it does make February special because its like my own little tradition, i have in my head.
  Anyways next comes my birthday on the 10th.  I dont know why but since I was a child, I have always thought you should just feel differently on your birthday. And I still do.  I know its different as an adult, but I still let myself be excited all day.  I think its fun to just allow the attention to come and just revel in it for one day.  Is that kiddish?  Cordelle stayed home from work and we totally got to hang out all morning which was so fun.  I took a leisurely long time getting ready and then met my basketball girls for lunch.  They were so sweet.  When we got home we packed up the kids and headed to Richfield which turned out to be a very nice drive.  Cordelle was able to get a really slick deal on the Marriott there and we were already needing to take a drive to Ephraim for youth conference preparation plans so we decided to make a weekend out of it and met my parents in Salina for dinner.  After dinner we stopped by my grandparents home they are trying to clean up to sale and helped my dad move some furniture and gather some really cool artwork of my grandma's that had been foolishly thrown into the dumpster out front. (yea, I dumpster dove on my bday.  But it was for a good cause) We went back to the hotel and swam with the kids and all crashed. 
   The next morning we drove to Ephraim, went on a very muddy hike with the kids to the center of Utah, visited some parks and other locations we are using for Youth Conference, got to visit my Grandma Mason in a nursing home and ate birthday cake Cordelle had stored in the trunk for dinner!  It was fun and I really enjoyed the whole trip.  Just should have taken some more pictures....the only ones I got were from the hike.  oh well.

It was muddy, thats why the pants are rolled.  Jaq was carried the whole way thats why her's were not. :)

Can you tell which child got a nap?

You really can see the Manti Temple off in the distance, its pretty cool.

He was a mess which is actually very out of character for him, guess the late night swimming kind of did him in.  How are we ever going to do Disneyland?

 

That and this

Hum...January.  I'd ask where it went, but lets be honest, January is the most boring month of the year so who's asking that?  After the new year's eve bash (see previous post) nothing happens in January except for a house with a stir crazy mom, kids that cry because their Christmas toys are becoming a thing of the past, and my overly cluttered Christmas cottage home gets stripped of its festivities leaving my small home to suddenly feel....empty.  So I patiently wait for February cause its my favorite month....but in the mean time....

                                  enjoy some of the randomness that does occur in our home.

I just have to post this picture, cause it will embarrass Cordelle and I think its so cute!  He was filming one day at work and they took some still shots and I liked this one the best.  My blue eyed man!! 

Jaq is still, well a struggle at times, and bed time is one of those time.  But after fighting with her to go to sleep and then finding the end result as this....it totally made it worth it.  Hey, what ever's comfortable sweetie.

Are we at Disneyland or something, you might ask?  NO.  We were passing through Gunnison Utah when we saw this gem at the Ford Dealership.  Are you kidding me?  Its a real truck someone turned into Mater!  We had to get out and take a picture with it. Did we take time to let Seth put on shoes? No again. With coolness like this, there is no time for trivial things like shoes (that, and we couldnt find them in the wonderland which is the car floor.... and it was cold). But Jimbo- who knew your hometown could be so cool?

Saw these sweet things on Pinterest and let me just say, they look way better in this picture than they did in real life.  They were a mess.  And they took FOREVER.  Oh minions! Goes to show you what can happen when you try to copy someone else's really cool idea.  Also helps to have icing equipment, the corner of a ziplock bag really does not make very straight lines.  Ahh well, it was for a scout auction so hopefully they got at least a nickel off of some of these guys!

This is down in the spare bedroom and I am actually working out on our elliptical cause we are space savers and double our spare bedroom as a workout room slash additional storage room slash staged nap room (did I really just write out the words "slash" instead of using the symbol / ?. So yes, this is totally staged and Jaq is NOT asleep.  But she put so much work into getting all her blankets, pillows, dolls and the camera and then begged me to take a picture of her because it was "cute" that I couldn't resist.  It is cute. And had she really been asleep so that I could have really enjoyed the peace and quiet my workout at home NEVER is, then it would have been even more cute. 

New Years Eve

Once again this Morris family braved New Years Eve alone (I know, we need to make some friends).  No, in all honesty, I think we like it like this.  Hang an orange wrapped in ribbon and tinfoil with some yarn from the living room ceiling fan, have a count down at 7:30,  drop the before mentioned orange ever so slowly to the ground, bang pots, play some games with the kids, fireworks courtesy of youtube and Japan and then bedtime as usual at 8:15,  giving dad and mom plenty of time for fireworks of their own before the sick and prego mom heads to bed at her usual 9:00 bedtime.  Wow, way to sneak that in there.  Yes, I'm pregnant or as Seth puts it, preggernant.  Guess there's no better way to announce a pregnancy than to say something potentially inappropriate (especially cause my inlaws read this) and then hurry and cover it up with an announcement that I'm expecting.  Its okay if you missed it.

  And for a huge, ANYWAYS.....hoping the new year will be good.  Cordelle has tonze of ambition for Cedar Weddings....more to come on that.  And once I start feeling better, I'm going to get ambition too.  We'll see if I can get some goals by March. :) More to come...

Walked out of the kitchen and saw this one day

Now there are some angry birds. Funny kid.  Maybe I should get him some friends.

CHRISTMAS DAY!

 These pictures are the only real memory for me of the day.  But I wouldn't have missed it, no matter how sick I was.  

 Seth and Jaq Christmas morning at G and G Morris'.  We're such mean parents, we made them go to church (at 9) before we let them open any presents!

Grandpa helping Seth with one of his Star Wars toys

THE Rupunzel dress and doll coveted for months

Gifts from Grandma (those Russian dolls are the BEST toddler church entertainment btw)

Hotwheels never get old....Grandpa, Dad and Seth did this for hours.

Gifts for Grandma and Grandpa Morris.  Thanks for sharing Christmas with us!

I thought we had more photos of Christmas morning but it looks like they are all videos. So even though these pictures are actually after we got home in front of OUR tree, here is their loot! My mom always had us do this and I love this tradition.  Its so fun to look back on pictures and say, "oh yea, I remember when I got that." That's why we do this.

 

Christmas Day Evening my mom did manage to get us all back at her house for pictures with our pajamas.  Good idea mom.  Who didn't wear they pajamas all day anyways?

 

 The Mason family boys (minus Brett who had left earlier)

 The men

 The little boys

 The women.  (yup, here are those true colors shining through.  If I hadn't been so sick that day i might actually be embarrassed about how ghastly I look.  Love it.

 The little girls.

 The Mason family girls