two little indians and one great big feast!

Happy belated Thanksgiving! We had such a fun Thanksgiving this year. The boys are completely amazed and happy when holidays roll around. This is such a fun time of year. Here are my two little indians, dressed up in our home-made, after-school headresses. Will really gets into the spirit of things, loves to make stuff and draw pictures for the holiday at hand. Eli.... well, he's a little busy body and stops every once in awhile to check out what we are doing and then it's back to running, jumping, climbing, etc. I did get him to wear his headress for about 5 minutes until he ripped it to shreds. I love how Will put on a belt to hold his extra feathers and wore his feather necklace that he made at school. It's got cool beads on it and it completed the outfit!
They are so darn cute. I love how Eli looks up to Will and wants to do everything he does. Will is a great big brother, and SO patient with Eli and his spirited personality. These two boys melt my heart and I love spending fun holidays with them.
Thanksgiving this year was with the Hopkins clan, which means there are around 50+ people to feed, house, and entertain. My parents rented the Heber Valley Camp which is normally used for Girls Camp and church activities. It had a huge industrial style kitchen and plenty of room for us to all spread out. We had a great time. My parents provided tons of games for the kids, even a jump rope contest, which Scott did awesome at! Seriously. He is so athletic that boy. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, played lots of games as adults when the kids were in bed, and watch family slides and home movies. It was memorable, to say the least. I love being with family and more than anything I love to watch my boys play with their cousins. We have several "older" boy cousins that Will and Eli love to play with. The older boys are so great to play with and have fun with my boys. I feel really lucky to have them as role models for my boys.


I also loved that there was a ginormous space for the boys to run around like crazy. We didn't feel cramped at all. The weather was beautiful and we had a fun time playing in the snow. I love to go out when it's not FREEZING. It is so much more fun!
Eli (and Will) thought Grandma's red rider vintage sled was the greatest. I'm thinking we need one of our own. It put all our other plastic sleds to shame! No joke. The runners on these sleds are awesome. We used to have sleds just like this growing up, it brought back lots of memories for me.
You have to click on the picture above to check out Scott and Eli's faces. It is the BEST. I love this picture! Eli LOVES to do anything with Scott and had a blast going on the sled. He cried when it wasn't his turn and when he had to wait....
I also love this pic above. My parents are well into their 70's..... yet that doesn't stop them from hopping on the sled and going for a ride. My mom wanted to go from all the way at the top of the hill. It was great. She's always up for a good time. We were worried they were going to fall off, but they didn't!

Our little eskimos, cutest little people I've ever seen!

I am so blessed. I am so thankful for my sweet little family. We have so much fun together and I just love being with these boys every day. Scott is a great dad and provider for our family and I'm so grateful for his job. Will and Eli are the joy and light of my life. I look forward to every day I get to spend with them.

Now.... bring on Christmas! Wahoo!!

as of late

Time seems to be flying by! I downloaded a couple pictures off my phone. I found these two of the boys that I forgot I had on there. I love my boys. They are so fun. Lots of work and lots of physical craziness, but still so fun. They have begun fighting. The kind of fighting where they know they are annoying each other and that's why they are doing it. Just to tease each other. It's driving me nuts. Most of the time, I just let them go at it... then they both end up in tears. But in the end, they are still always great friends.
Please don't judge the dirty shirts in the pic above.... it was the end of the day.... They love to wear their baseball hats. They always look so cute with them on.

A couple weekends ago, we headed up to Logan. It is always so fun. Will and Eli just play and play. They love every minute of playing at grandma's, playing with cousins and having a "mini-vacation!" Scott raked up a huge pile of leaves for the boys to jump in. They loved it. Scott would toss them up in the air and they would land in the leaves. Eli was laughing so hard he could hardly breathe, it was awesome. :) They were loving it.



I was so glad I could capture this moment of my boys playing together in the leaves in the brisk Fall air. It is gorgeous in Cache Valley, and so calm and peaceful. It always feels like home when we go up there and it is such a beautiful place. While I was taking pictures of the boys the smell of the leaves made me super nostalgic and made me reminisce when I was a yougin' and used to play outside in the leaves for hours with my sister and friends. Fall is such a magical time of year and so fun for kids. We always had a great time playing in the leaves!

This picture (I know it's not the best of Scott and I and my hair is doing something weird....) we snapped just before the show was starting. Scott and I were able to go see My Fair Lady at the Hale Center Theatre. It was awesome. So fun!! We even got a backstage tour. It was a fun little evening out without the kiddos.

Life is moving right along. We are looking forward to Thanksgiving and the holidays! I'm proud to say that my Christmas shopping is D-O-N-E, DONE! Yes, that's right. Everything is bought and tucked away secretly in my bedroom. I may pick up a stocking stuffer here and there, but other than that, everything is ready to go. It is so nice. Now I can focus on doing fun things with my kids and really enjoying the season instead of stressing about gifts. Online shopping totally saved me this year. I love it! I'm really looking forward to the Holidays and menu planning! :) I know, my life revolves around food. I'm also super excited to our fun advent calendar activities with the boys. I'm looking for new fun ideas, so if you have any, send them my way! I only have about 15 activities so far. Some of our activities include: making hot chocolate, reading a Christmas book, writing Christmas cards to friends, making paper snowflakes, decorating a ginger-bread house, etc..... I can't wait!

one year older, and wiser too

He's done it again. He's had a birthday, and he just continues to amaze me! Scott's birthday is Nov. 1st, the day after Halloween. He is such a good sport about it, and even with the big events of Halloween, we still try to make the day a special for him.

Scott is just an all around great guy. He is a wonderful, caring husband, a true friend and supporter, and an amazing father. He takes time with his boys and genuinely enjoys spending time with them. He's not afraid to get "down and dirty" as a dad and is always up for a fun time! Scott has been a great employee, through various jobs in the past couple of years and is doing amazing at his current Assistant Administrator job. We visited him at work a couple weeks and people just didn't have enough good words to express about Scott. He does his job, and he does it well, meanwhile, connecting with people and creating lasting friendships and influence. I'm so proud of Scott and honored to be his wife and mother of his two incredible boys. These three boys are the light and joy of my life. I love it!
Since it's the first of November, we were thinking FALL!! I love my turkey plates and thought this was a great FIRST time to use them. They looked so pretty. I wanted some "fallish" decor and wanted something fun to put our fun drinks in. So I covered some #10 cans with some burlap. I love how they turned out, I might just put some flowers or plants in them and keep them out for the rest of the month! I also thought they could be really cute with some bright yellow sunflowers or something and used in the summertime......
Scott has great taste in everything. So on the menu we had: cilantro/lime/honey grilled salmon, with sautteed green beans with bacon and toasted almonds, marvelous creamy mashed potatoes, and raspberry fluff. Oh and we also had really yummy Rosemary and Olive Oil crusty bread. To drink? San Pellegrino Limonata and just regular Pellegrino. I'm not one for just "agua con gas (Krista will appreciate that little inside joke)" - so I opted for the Limonata, it was SO yummy and tart!
We also had Tres Leches cake for dessert. It turned out so yummy, I was so excited about it. I wish I had taken pictures!!

Will did "heavy, heavy, hang over they poor head...." with Scott's gifts. He thought it was great!
Scott was spoiled with having his parents come down to celebrate with us. We are SO glad they did! It is always a treat to have Glenn and Martha here, they always liven the party. :) And our boys can never get enough Grandma and Grandpa!
The birthday crew:

Since Eli's birthday was just a couple weeks ago, he was so excited to blow out candles! He crawled on the table and blew out Scott's before we could stop him. Then he made us light it again three times so he could keep blowing it out. Love that boy!
My sweet boys. Will is a mini-Scott, Eli looks bored, which I think he was doing to be silly, and Scott is just a handsome Dad! I love them!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY Scott. We love you forever.

Arrrrrr

The spooks at my house were out in full force this year! Halloween was such a fun day for our little family. The boys were so excited about everything that was going on. Eli was hilarious, he had no idea why it was such an exciting day, but he was hyper and excited none-the less. We had Jack Sparrow, the pirate, and his pirate mate Eli. They were the cutest pirates I have ever seen!
We were struggling to get some good pictures of the boys on Halloween morning before all the festivities...... really struggling.

They are still pretty cute though!

We went to dinner at my sisters house and had "bone" breadsticks, "witch's fingers" veggies and dip, and delicous pizza! We also had worms floating in our drink! eeeek! My sister froze gummy worms in ice cubes.

The kids had a blast and trick or treated to their primary teacher together. They were bouncing off the walls with excitement, but it was so fun for them to be together. Why is Halloween such an exciting Holiday, especially for the kiddos?

All ready to Trick or Treat!

At Scott's work, his administration group all dressed up as zombies and did Thriller. They even did the dance! He did a great job on his costume and was such a good sport to wear it around trick or treating with the boys.

I loved watching the boys trick or treat. It was a blast! Now we are thinking about and getting ready for the Holidays! I've got to get the candy out of my house, ASAP.... it feels like it is just a downhill slope from here on out, until after the New Year. We sure had a great day, everything is so much more fun with little ones around!