Everly Update

 Everly is a darling and has us all smitten with her.  She talks non stop and has a huge vocabulary for being only 2 years old!  She has taken her spot as the youngest child and screams and hits until she gets what she wants.  We are working hard to break that habit!  She also falls asleep in random places when we miss nap time.  We all love catching a snuggle with Everly!

Everly LOVES to color and draw and asks to get out the markers every day.  The other girls are just getting into coloring now so this is all new to me.  Now I understand what other moms mean when they talk about their little girls sitting and coloring for hours.  Unfortunately, Everly chooses to use her face, clothes, tables, walls and couches as her canvas from time to time.  

She will sit and play with Jenny's World for hours on her own and has the cutest little imagination!

We are currently working on potty training Everly and it is going OK.  It has been 10 days and today wasn't great.  She still has accidents and is so scared to poop on the toilet.  We are trying all sorts of things to get her excited about it.  Bubble parties worked for a few days, when that got old we gave her little jewels from our "Love Letter" game and told her they had special powers to help her poop.  Now every time she sits down she asks for her special powers.  They do not have any affect on her ability to do a #2 though.  Dang.  Today I tried yelling at her and shaming her after she pooped in her panties.  Shockingly, it backfired and she started peeing her pants as well and pooped her pants again later.  Will it ever end???!?!  I really hope so.  I can imagine that Everly will one day read this and at that point, if she is still pooping her pants, I will have to promptly sell her to the zoo.

Happy 14th Anniversary

For our anniversary we went rock climbing at Edge Climbing Gym.  We could have stayed all day, but after an hour we were both so dead tired we had to call it quits.  It is so much work!  I love that Zac and I both love to be active!

Afterwards, we went out to dinner with Kurt and Shelly at Jakers.  They had a delicious seafood buffet that we enjoyed so much!  Amazing!  We headed home early because we had sick kiddos, it's kind of a yearly tradition,  and were going to watch a movie or something and the Heath's asked if we wanted to play games so we went for it.  We enjoyed a night of Settlers of Catan, sparkling cider and fun!  One of these years our kids will be healthy!

Happy 12th Birthday Teagan

Teagan is 12 and we love him so much!  This year he requested crepes for breakfast and we weren't fast enough to catch him in bed still.  He decided it's easier to eat in the kitchen anyway.

This year Christmas and birthday were all about soccer.  For his birthday, Teagan got the matching team warm-ups for his spring soccer team.  They were an extra add-on that he was really excited about having.  

Then we gave him an envelope and inside was a gift certificate for BYU soccer camp.  We thought he would be excited, but we weren't prepared for the tears.  He was so so happy and couldn't believe that we were letting him go.  There were so many hugs and tears of joy and he now spends hours every day downstairs practicing his moves, getting ready for the season.  It is fun to see him so passionate about something and working so hard.  

For his party we went to ijump and exercised and then headed over to Pizza Pie cafe for dinner.  I wasn't thinking and bought trick candles which about set off the smoke alarms in the restaurant.  We sure love you Teagan boy.  You are creative, energetic, fun, exciting, and have the biggest heart ever.  Life just wouldn't be the same without you in it!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas was just as magical as ever this year.  The kids are all at such fun ages and every single aspect from the decorations, to the service, to the dresses, to the family parties was a new exciting adventure.

The girls loved their dresses and Teagan, the ever growing boy, got a new suit.  It is so fun to match them all!

We tried to get Scout in our family picture this year and it was very challenging.  Turns out, he is not very obedient, we'll have to keep working on that.

I had to take a picture of Teagan wrapping this present for grandma, he cut it right out of the middle.  I was dying of laughter.  Kids are funny!

I was supposed to help in Eloise's class but the other girls were sick so I couldn't make it.  Eloise begged me to call and ask grandpa to come in instead and she absolutely loved having him there.  We are so lucky to have him close by!

We got to see Santa at our ward party and at Grandma Packer's ward party...Teagan opted out of the pictures this year...sadness.

One of our highlights was going to "Laughing All the Way" with Hank Smith, John Bytheway and Meg Johnson.  It was so funny and inspiring and we all loved it!  The Ivins and Davis families went with us as well.

We dressed up and acted out the nativity and it was pretty great, check out our home video for details! 

There was no shortage of family parties and we soaked it all up.   We did a party with the Durtschi cousins and Grandma Packer and it was fun and low key.  Then after Christmas we had another party with the rest of the Durtschi crew.  We love all the family time!

Everyone got matching Moosletoe PJs complete with slippers for Christmas Eve which was so fun.  Mom even got the sizes right this year!

Christmas morning was so fun!  It was a little bit smaller this year, but everyone was still completely delighted with every present and they were so grateful.  Some highlights were kitties, a tea set, new clothes, wheelies and earrings.  Teagan got soccer gear, including an awesome goal to practice on downstairs. There are no pictures because we just kept taking videos of him scoring but no pictures.

The Hersley Fundraiser

This year November was filled with putting together a fundraiser for our neighbors, the Hersleys.  Brain was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and their church decided to put on a fundraiser.  I am friends with their mom, Charlene Tomchak, so I decided to join the committee and help.  We spent hours and hours collecting donations, assembling gift baskets and organizing the event.  

I eventually became the designated food lady and got to work looking for donations for all of the different food items for our Costa Vida dinner.  I was so amazed at how generous all of the different local businesses were.

When the week of came, I spent every day either shopping, chopping, or cooking food to get ready.  I made dressings, cilantro, beans, pork, and chicken for 300 people and gathered the lettuce, chips, salsa, rice, cheese, tortillas and cookies from amazing people who donated it!  It was no small undertaking and I took an entire week off afterwards to recover, but it was such an amazing event to be a part of!  I had so many friends and family members who helped pick up food, deliver it to me or the high school, cook food, or help me prepare at my house.  It was incredible.  

The morning of the event I woke up and checked my "Light the World" calendar and saw that the goal was to find a way to help someone in need by making a donation.  I cried and felt like I was doing what God wanted (there had been many moments of doubt when I wondered if I was really doing the right thing).  I loved working with the people at Journey Church.  They are amazing, have such strong testimonies, and are just cool people to be around.  

During the actual event Zac bid on a million baskets, Eloise had fun writing her name down on lots of items and begging dad to bid on baskets and Teagan helped serve food.  It was really beautiful and I loved being involved.  

Thanksgiving- More like Everly and Logan

Thanksgiving was so fun this year!  The whole Durtschi side of the family was getting together so we had the Lewis family sleeping at our house, but we actually did Thanksgiving day with the Daniels family which was so fun.

Unfortunately, we were hosting Thanksgiving and didn't take a single picture because we were busy cooking and cleaning and entertaining.  But we did get pictures of the pre-meal fun.  At breakfast, Zac pulled out a key lime pie and gave each of the kids a slice.  It was so fun and I have a feeling it is going to become a Thanksgiving tradition!  We spent the whole day eating and playing cards and a new Christmas game that Adam and Sheena gave us.  It was so fun to have the day together!

The rest of the weekend was spent with cousins.  We went swimming at the hotel where Whitney and Joe and Garth and Alicia were staying.  It was a blast, everyone LOVED swimming.

The rest of the time was spent just enjoying each other's company and obsessing over how cute Everly and Logan are.  We could all claim that we don't play favorites, but the only pictures of the entire weekend are of these two cuties.  We did get Teagan's arm in one and him pulling the sled in the other.  LOL

But seriously, look at them, they are for real the cutest little things I've ever seen!