Camping luck

So this past weekend we were supposed to go camping with some friends, and low and behold the hot weather that we have been having for over 2 months straight was broken with rain, rain, and more rain. So we made due with local fishing and camping in the back yard. Not quite the same, but fun none the less.....

Tooth Trouble

So we have been dealing with a stubborn child that has had this loose tooth for months and refusing to get it out. I even brought home topical anesthesia from work so she wouldn't even feel it and that was a no go. So a couple of weekends ago we went to visit grandpa and he worked his magic and we went form this.......
to this.......
Unfortunatly the other one is loose also so the drama is not yet over. We had fun at grandma and grandpa Williams. Thanks for letting us come. They live on lots of acreage with horses and tramps and wilderness and the latest contraption of my fathers......

Always good times to be had there :)

Lake Powell

So Lake Powell is one of my favorite vacations of all time, and we are blessed to be able to go annually with my family. Thanks mom and dad for always letting us come and crash your houseboat. We love you!

Some of our favorite times at Lake Powell were...
Waterskiing/Wakeboarding....


PAIGE....Alexa....

Wendi....
Justin....
We loved boating and tubing with cousins..
jet skiing....
Playing in the sand with our new tie-dye shirts...
And every now and again a little down time with grandma :)

I'm Back!!

So I know that it has been months since my last post, but I'm back on track. Our lives have been turned upside down and we have needed a little time to readjust. For those of you who don't live near by, a short recap of our lives the past 3 months....
1. Justin lost his job the beginning of March
2. I picked up a full time job the end of March and we have officially traded spots providing for the
family.
3. We sold our home upon the news of Justin's job within two days!
4. We moved into a rental across the street
5. The kids finished school and summer is here!!

We are now into the routine of our new life and are anxious to see what is ahead for us. Here are a few pictures to do a quick sum-up of our kids adventures during the last two months....
The kids in their new Easter clothes (aren't they so handsome? :)) It was a fun-filled holiday with multiple hunts and parties!!Alexa finished up her softball season. She really does well at this sport and finds it quite fun. It is always a treat to watch her in the games. Paige finished up another year of ballet with her closing recital. It was "The Wizard of Oz". She of course is the opposite of her sister and the princess of the family. She LOVES her dancing. And Cody-well his job is always to entertain us. Notice the car in his hand. You will NEVER see this boy without a car is his hand.

Alexa Alexa Alexa

So this week was ALL about Alexa. She had her last basketball game last Saturday and WON! Yea!! She celebrated that with her end of the season party on Thursday night by going to the BSU mens basketball game. They girls has so much fun there and of course her favorite part...NACHOS! Sunday she had a violin recital at a retirement community and did fantastic, also followed up by violin festival Friday where she got the highest marks. Yea my little girl. Her jump rope club also ended this week with an ice cream party and they show us all their moves. She has learned a lot of tricks. I am actually a jump rope lover so we have fun doing it together. (of course our camera was dead all week and we kept forgetting to charge it, so no pictures of these events. SORRY)

Cody did squeeze in this week with a little event of his own....HE'S IN A BIG BOY BED! No more babies in this household!!

Take back

O.K., so my sister just called me thinking I was dying because of my overly depressing post a couple of days ago. I'm here to say I take it back. It was just a day and now two days later I am fantastic!! (talk about bi-polar) Cody still has a funny looking head, but I'll give it a week and it will be normal again. My family is fantastic and I need to always remember my blessings. I love you friends and family!!

PERFECT

So yesterday was probably one of the most terrible, horrible days of my life!! Many thing happened to stress me out and worry me. I don't say this to complain (maybe get some sympathy because I know we all have these days) but just to show you that the day didn't start good nor did it end good. I was cutting Cody's hair at the end of the day and the guard on the clippers fell off and well...........

Perfect ending to a perfect day!!!

Our get-away weekend

So Justin and I had a great weekend away for Valentine's Day in Salt Lake City together. My wonderful parents took our children (thanks again mom and dad!) and we went for a skiing adventure. We went away on a cruise last year without children for the first time and promised ourselves a yearly trip away by ourselves. I recommed it to anyone if you can. So this weekend ski trip was ours for this year. It was beautiful, and despite the little setback of Justin's ski's being stollen, it was great to reconnect and get away.

Grandma and Grandpa still had snow so the kids enjoyed a little bit of sledding. Fun for all!!

FHE

So I don't claim to be the best at keeping up with the F.H.E. in our household, but lately we have been doing very well and loving it. But I did drop the ball this past Monday with nothing planned so we resorted to the same ol' stories from the Friend. Then I decided to teach the kids the chicken dance and the macarana dance and let me tell you it was a BIG HIT!! The kids had so much fun and Justin and I were laughing our heads off. If you ever have nothing to do I suggest doing this with your kids. Here's a few shots of the action.....

The Macarana...(please ignore Cody's thunder thighs)

The Chicken dance...

Then some High School Musical music came on and some serious break dancing went down. Did I ever tell everyone that Justin is a pro break dancer?! He took lessons as a youngster. I think my kids inherited his moves!

Here is Paige and Cody doing "the worm"

Alexa doing some hand stand thing, it did look pretty cool....

Cody's 2!!

What a weekend!! My little man is now two years old! No more babies in this household. We had a fun CAR party that the girls loved decorating for. I must say Cody could have really cared less though. The fun was more for the rest of us than him. We did go out to dinner that night and Cody did entertain us with a good gag on his food and vomit all over the restaurant table. As my friend Angela would say "it was AWESOME!" By the end of the day I was glad Cody was two and now life could go back to normal.

So most of these shots are a little blurry. Sorry. I don't claim to be the best photographer. At least they are getting taken. That's big news in our family.

So here are the girls "helping" Cody open his gifts. They are always close by to help their baby brother......

And last but not least I took some pictures of Alexa's SECOND basketball game since I missed the first. (I know I'm the best mom ever) She sure does love to play even though she is the shortest girl out their. What she lacks in height she makes up for in energy!!

Our fun-filled weekend

We had a fun weekend at the Winter household so I thought I would share some pictures with you. We started off Friday with a Family Movie Night featuring "Horton Hears a Who". We have done many Family Movie Nights in the past but Cody was always very disruptive and we would usually end frustrated, so we gave them up for a while. We resurrected the idea and had a lot of fun. He did make it through a good 30-40 minutes of the movie before his craziness started, but that's o.k. Movie night is fun because I buy TONS of candy and popcorn and we cuttle in blankets and pillows together. Talk about my kind of night!!

Saturday was adventurous with Alexa's first basketball game of the season (no pictures because I had the camera with Paige- tune in next week for those) and Paige had her ballet recital. Early morning ballet practice, afternoon basketball game, and evening ballet performance makes for one tiring day.

(Paige is the one on the end dancing as Belle to "Beauty and the Beast")

Today was church, not anything different or exciting, but I took pictures of the girls in their brown dresses from Grandma Winter so she could see them.

Little Cody

We were going through our old pictures and I came across this and it just made me smile. Isn't it great how the simplest things are so joyful!

Rocco

We got our dog about three months ago with a little anxiety and uncertainty, but I am suprised at how attached we have all become to him (even Justin though he won't admit it). He hurt his leg yesterday and my heart is breaking for him as though he was one of my children. My children LOVE him. It's fun having someone to greet you happily when you come home or wake up from sleeping. Here's our lovely ball of fluff.

We have a four day weekend with the girls due to MLK day, so of course part of our fun is playing the Wii together. We love that thing!

Bubble wrap popping and lego building are also fun past times.

And of course a movie or two. Do you sometimes feel the television sucks out their brains?!