Valentines Day fun!

Friday was Valentines Day, so we had family day. Parties at the the school, lunch with Dad, early day, good stuff. That night, Dad surprised the kids and took us all to see the Lego Movie.
Everything is awesome!!
The movie was cute and the kids loved it. We went home for pizza and wings, then passed out little prizes to the kids.

These kids are the coolest! I love my little valentines.

Yes.

My kids reading together before bed. Our lives may not be perfect, but we have perfect moments.

What’s better?

Tell me what’s better than having great kids?
Finding them in your bed, ready to watch a show or read a book together.
I love these little trespassers!

Christmas Morning

This year was especially fun because my Mom and Dad were here for the early morning festivities.  My Mom said it reminded her of us growing up and that was the nicest thing she could say.  I loved Christmas growing up and it’s fun to have that same excitement with my own kids!
We opened presents, showed each other our new stuff, exchanged gifts between siblings, and had some delicious breakfast casserole.  Ahhhh, Christmas!

They had fun playing with their stuff…here are some of their favorite gifts:
It was a lovely morning, but now it’s time to play some more!!  Mom and Dad went to visit other kids and we headed over to Mark and Sue’s. 

Pre-Christmas festivities

Okay, so we have some time on our hands…we played games (Picwits), cleaned up, and generally got ready for the all the parties we are going to have in the next two weeks.  And we took pictures.  And we played in the snow.  And we built stuff with Jenga blocks. And we made gingerbread houses.
We’re so pretty.

Let’s party people!

Gluten-free living

This is one of my very favorite gluten-free products…I use it as a soup base for cream soups, gravies, sauces, and more.  And it’s delicious!

I’m so grateful for yummy gluten-free products!!

The Nine-Tree Christmas

My sweet Mother-in-Law decided to get rid of a few Christmas trees this year.  We jumped at the chance to take them off her hands…they were fully decorated and everything! So we added them to our small collection.  I’m a sucker for a good Christmas decoration. 
We put her doll tree on the landing and the Sports tree in the basement:
We have trees in each bedroom, some are bigger than others. Not all of them are pictured:
    
We have our little countertop tree in the kitchen:
We have our skinny flocked tree in the family room, and the big main tree in the living room:
   
I love decorating for Christmas, it’s my favorite.  I especially love the evenings when the tree lights come on, there’s snow outside, Christmas music is playing…it truly is the most wonderful time of the year!

Team Heugly

One of my very favorite things as a mom is when I see my kids getting along.  The best is when they don’t think anyone’s looking.  It’s not like they constantly fight, but they often do their own thing, go about business, and *ahem*, yes, they sometimes fight. 
But look what I found…a sister who feels so safe with her big brother that she literally fell asleep on him.  A brother that didn’t brush a sister off and let her rest while he was reading.  (I hope he was reading, but he was probably playing a game.)  Either way, it’s love. Team Heugly.
Look what else I found.  The stomach flu hit every single person in the family, yuck, but not at the same time.  The ones who were not sick took care of the ones who were sick, then when they DID get sick, they were taken care of by the same ones they cared for. Team Heugly.
I also found two busy little helpers.  I asked them if they wanted to go grocery shopping or shovel snow.  (Sidenote: grocery shopping usually means a treat of some kind for the attendees. Judge me if you will for this practice, but it makes shopping a whole lot easier). 
It was unanimous, they wanted to shovel snow, who would’ve thought?  They had a great time together and we got by without milk for one more day.  Team Heugly.
  

I’m so glad when Daddy comes home…

The kids flock to Dad when he walks through the door!!

Home Sweet Home

I love our house.  When we were looking for homes, we saw home after home after home that were okay. It seemed like every home we looked at was missing something or we’d have to give something up or we’d rather stay where we were than move to that house. 
One day, we walked through a home I found online.  It was very nice, but we still didn’t have that feeling of home.  Jake and Liz were also looking for a home so we drove around the neighborhood of the home we had just looked at and found this.  I loved it, but knew that if Jake and Liz wanted it, they had first dibs.  Plus, I hadn’t even seen the inside yet!  The next day, they walked through both homes (the one we saw the day before and this one).  I called Liz later to see what she thought and they had fallen in love with the first house!  Joe and I scheduled a walk-through of this home and immediately knew this would be our home.  I had visions of grandkids coming to visit us here…and we only had three little kids at the time, Dakota was only 5!  I hoped we would get the house and I hoped we would be here a long time. 
So far, so good. 
Jake and Liz bought the other home, we bought this one and we live close to each other, win-win!  Our family has doubled in size…we’ve added three kids since we moved here.  We’ve done some improvements in the yard and home, we’ve made it our home and I love it here.  But what I love most about it is the gang out front in this picture. 
And just so we never forget, one night I was at a Relief Society activity and Joe was home with the kids.  I think one of them left something on the stairs and Joe slid all the way down, punching a hole through the sheetrock with his knee…ouch!!  He missed the beams, thankfully, and we have since patched it up. 

I guess these are the things that make a house our home!

Ode to Randomness

When we came home from our trip,

A ukulele we did bring,

So Koko learned a song or two,

and even tried to sing.

I drive this road a thousand times

to take the girls to school,

In every season, it’s beautiful,

Right now, it looks so cool.

As you may know, for Emma-girl

Only gluten-free is good,

So to the Expo we did go

And taste all of the food.

Football’s winding down this year,

But family came to cheer.

Thanks to Todd and Liz and kids

For always being here.

Saratov Approach was great,

It hit so close to home,

It happened while I was in the field,

(Joe, are you on your phone?)…

Each day I try to exercise,

When school’s in and kids are gone,

Except for Annie, she’s my pal,

And makes exercising fun!!

  

My poem is done, but life is full,

Each day’s a different view.

So stay tuned for my blog posts,

If you want the Heugly News.