Seeing Santa 2013

 This year has been so much fun already enjoying the holiday season with the kids.  Logan honestly thinks he is one of the trio group so although he is tiny, he does "big things."

Our triplet party this year was so fun too - we decided to do a "Milk and Cookies with Santa" theme and it was so fun!  The kids got to wear pajamas and they thought it was so fun that Santa came to visit and give them a candy cane.

 Logan was cracking everyone up because he kept following all the "big" girls around and hugging them from behind.  This was my friend Kristi's little girl - she was so patient and sweet with Logan. What a silly boy!  He's quite the ladies man already I guess

Yah! Santa arrived finally and was so amazing with the kids!  They loved him

*Austin, Andrew and Rio*

Oh man!  Logan was NOT ready for Santa this year I guess.  The triplets were wondering what was going on with him :)  So cute - I love these kind of pictures

Here's the happy kids with Santa - aren't those balloon decorations so cute!

YUMMY!  Cookies and milk

Hanging out with our Simms triplet boys

*Parker, Andrew and Nicholas, Rio, Jax, Austin & Spence*

Not a bad pic actually right?

Everyone is looking and kind of smiley - maybe we're on the up and up for pics :)

For Spence's work family party, we got to go to Costco again and have a yummy breakfast and then go shopping!  What a fun gift they give each year - they really are an amazing company.

We're also lucky that my BIL works for the same company so we get to see our cousins there too.

Zak was keeping the kids entertained while we waited for Santa

Jax with Santa

He is seriously a crack up - he asked Santa why he didn't have his present with him that day :)

Santa was so cute - he even brought his check list with him with each child's wish for a present - so creative and so sweet.  They were shocked when Santa was right!!

Rio was just ever so sweet and kindly told him she really needed a "Baby Alive"

Austin was sweet too - he was the one who mostly was amazed that Santa knew what he wanted but then quickly followed up by saying, "I also want a stuffed Elf"

What?? That was news to me!  Ha-ha

And yet again, Logan was not having it!

Next year, I'm sure he'll love him.

Getting our tree and decorating the house

 Woo-hoo!

Christmas time is here!

This year since we moved, we packed our tree so we decided to do a "real" tree this year and get "non-breakable" ornaments.  Best invention by the way :)

 The kids were so excited and did a great job helping

There it is! Our short little mini tree but it will be perfect for our great little place

Now...how to get it home???

Well, we only live 5 minutes away, let's just leave the door open

Austin and daddy getting some lights on the tree

Logan helped too!  Well, kind of...the best he could

Starting to put ornaments on - they were awesome

Cannot say how grateful I am for non-breakable ornaments - they were totally fabulous for this kid who thinks anything in a circular shape is a "ball" and he gets to throw it

Mommy and Rio  putting the hooks on the ornaments to give to the boys to put on the tree

Love this little guy - he always looks like he is doing something mischievous :)

After the tree was decorated, we decided to listen to Christmas music and drink some delicious Egg Nog.  Austin was thrilled to try it - can you tell?

Rio loved it! Although she was being attacked by the plant at the same time

What a cute tree!  We had a really fun time decorating with the kids and they did a great job



The stockings were hung by the "wall" with care

Even our little Elf friend, Charlie joined in the fun by hanging out in Spence's stocking for the night.

New home and a City Creek Playdate

 

When we got most things moved in, we were able to have our first Family Home Evening together and the kids insisted that we make cookies for the occasion.  Jax was super tired one afternoon and he fell asleep but Rio and Austin joined in the fun and got to eat the batter and watch the cookies.  I thought it was so cute I had to take a picture because they were so excited that they could look into the oven and watch the cookies "get big."  Apparently the ovens at our old house was too high for them to see into - sillies!

Some of our great friends moved away to Boston this month so we decided to make one last play date with them at the end of December.  We decided to go to City Creek and play in their Dino Playland.  It is so cute and the kids loved it!

First we stopped to admire the beautiful Christmas tree. The kids' magical little smiles was so fun to watch.  They loved all the decorations and it got me excited to put all our decorations up.

These 3 girls are so amazing and I love them all so much.  They've been such an amazing support to me with my little family and I couldn't ask for better friends.

*Angie, me, Kara (who was moving) and Roxy*

We'll miss you Kara - love you and your cute kids so much!

Thanksgiving 2013

 I think this will be a Thanksgiving that we never forget!

Besides having to be out of our home 3 days before the holiday (which ended up not being the case since we didn't end up signing until the 11th of Dec...but o-well)

So we got all moved out and moved in to our "new place" and then "IT" hit us - yucky winter sickness!

The Monday before Thanksgiving, Jax and Logan got pink eye which isn't horrible until two days later, Logan and Spence got the flu and then the day after Thanksgiving, Logan also had double ear infections and Austin got the flu.  I swear, that poor little Logan - he was absolutely miserable for 7 days!!!

I felt really bad for our new neighbors who honestly heard probably more crying than they ever want to again.  Welcome the Morris family :)

But after that first week, we've done okay.  Knock on wood...

 So needless to say, Logan and I stayed home while Spence (with the mild flu himself) took the triplets to Grandma & Grandpa Morris' house to celebrate Thanksgiving

 YUMMY!

 Happy Thanksgiving cuties

 The next day, my parents had all of us over to their place to have Thanksgiving with them and it was great.  However, this time, Spence stayed home with Logan  while I took the triplets.  He was not longer contagious but man he looked horrible!

We had a great time playing our annual "Thanksgiving Bingo" with my crazy, zany dad as the Head Turkey Caller

 Here's a great pic of him with his turkey head on.  All the grand kids love it and have fun picking out their prize.  And this year, my mom and dad threw in the spin of being able to choose money as their prize.  It was so much fun

 Rio, Halle and my cute Austin loving their prizes and just waiting for more

 My dad also brought up his "bell ringer" so that when the kids won, they would say, "Thanksgiving Bingo" and ring the big bell.  So fun.

I love Rio's face - she is so silly

 My sister's cute 6 kids saying "Bingo"

*Zak, Ella, Gabe*

*Anna, Halle and Luke* (who thinks anything "cutesie" is super lame) - love him!

 Me and my 3 cuties trying to have a good pic for Thanksgiving :)

Here's a few pics of my Logan with daddy.  Looks horrible right?  All he wanted to do was sit on one of our laps and play "Lilah" (a talking fairy game on our phone/Ipads and as a result, out of the 6-8 words he says, Lilah is now one of them).  Ha-ha.

Oh my goodness, it was so so sad with this guy.  He lost 3 lbs in 5 days and would not eat anything!  He was so miserable but he is back at it again!

I think this Thanksgiving, I was most grateful for being able to see a doctor and having money for our deductible and in general, having healthy happy kids.

This was a pic of my Rio back in early November when she had the flu and croup and the worst fever that lasted like 4 days.  Poor thing - she is the easiest sick person though - sweet and easy.  The only thing was that she was sick during our "home showing" days and so we had to leave our house during showings and I had a "throw up" bucket for her to hold while we drove around.  So sad but she was a champ - tough little cookie!

Moving out and saying goodbye to some wonderful friends

With the addition of this new little baby coming in March, Spence and I knew that we were going to have to move from our home that we loved so much for almost 11 years.

We did so much work in that home on our own and we have some of our greatest memories there. 

So at the end of October, our house went up for sale and it was sold in 4 days with 4 offers.  We felt so incredibly blessed and grateful.  We were so happy with the family that chose our home and really think they will love it and love our neighborhood so much. It was a longer road than expected getting everything finalized and complete but we can move on now and feel very grateful.

 We have absolutely loved our neighbors/friends and that beautiful area.  It was so fun to live right next to a park and enjoy that area for so long.

We will miss it so much!

The night before we left and all the beds were taken down, we got to sleep on the floor and the kids loved it!  They thought it was the coolest thing.

*Austin, Jax and Rio*

 What a beautiful home right?

Makes me sad to look at it and I know I will miss it like crazy!  We will never have such a beautiful, big yard like that again.

It's a far away pic but we wanted to get the whole house in

I zoomed in on our pic so it's a bit blurry but I love it; shows my cute fam on a place that we played both cold and warm.  The kids loved our front porch and jumping off those steps.

 This is a pic of the kids at our "new" home...well, our temporary home for 6-9 months probably.

They slept horribly to be honest but it has gotten better...

beds got put up the next day and they were a lot happier

 Rio and her buddy Eliza

We've lived next to them the whole time we've lived at our home and so when we went back to make sure we had gotten everything, two of our greatest neighbor buddies dropped by and we were so glad to see them.

Eliza even made all the kids little picture cards.  She is such a cutie

 Love these two together! I hope even though we're not next door neighbors, we can still be friends

*Rio, Isaac, Austin, Lennox, Eliza and Jax*

Great buddies that we will miss terribly.  Love you two and your family so much!  I missed getting a pic of the Boyacks who came by as well and we will miss them so much as well.  They've been the best neighbors and friends to my kids and us.