December 2018

Buddy the Elf

The kids love when Buddy the Elf comes back!  On the first day he brought them a Star Wars advent calendar, they were super excited it!

New Christmas Jammies

I made the shirts for their jammies.  I thought it was very fitting for this year, not because my children are a nightmare, but because we dressed up as Nightmare before Christmas characters for Halloween.  Although sometimes they can be a nightmare ;)
Buddy the elf took the jammies I made and put them in the Christmas tree to find the next morning.  I didn't want Buddy to get all the credit so I said, "What?!  I made those jammies last night, Buddy found them?"

Eclipse Concert
I love the Acapella group, Eclipse and I got Paxton listening to them.  So I took him to their Christmas concert.  We doubled up with Sandee and Jake Moss.  The seating was uncomfortable because there was no leg room, but the concert was super fun!!  Paxton loved it and I loved being on a date with him.  We also bought one of their c.d.'s.  

Annual Gingerbread House Contest
This year we stuck with our theme and built the Haunted Mansion at Halloween Time, The Nightmare Before Christmas.  Also this year Rem decided to bake gingerbread beforehand.  He's always wanted to do it, but I've always thought it was cheating because it gives you a head start.  But we told everyone that they could do it to if they wanted.  Both of my sisters came and some of our church/neighbor friends came.  It was a lot of fun!  I always love seeing what people come up with to build.  We got first place!  I think it was all because of Rem's gingerbread he made, but there were some fun details too.

Ward Christmas Party
Our ward recently split, so now we are in a whole new ward.  We were invited to both ward Christmas parties, but they ended up being at the same time so we had to choose.  We decided to go to our new ward because we need to transition and get to know new people.  It was hard to go, we saw a few familiar faces of people that moved to the new ward with us, so that was good.  They provided a yummy breakfast and hot chocolate bar that my kids loved.  Then they had a family provide the entertainment singing a bunch of Christmas songs.  They did a really good job, but we missed the magic show that our old ward does and Santa didn't even come!  We were a little bummed out, hopefully next year will be better after we make some new friends.

Gingerbread Houses with the kids
The day after our gingerbread house party we let the kids invite some friends over to make their own creation with all our leftover candy.  Paxton made a loot llama from a video game called Fort Night and Graham made Santa's workshop.  Paxton of course had help from his creative dad and I help out Graham, but I followed his instructions and he did all the decorating.  They had a lot of fun!

Big Give
For one of our service projects this year we invited our neighbors, the Goodmans to help us out.  We went to the grocery store and bought food to make food bags for children to take home during school week long breaks.  Some kids at these schools only eat breakfast and lunch at the school and nothing else, so they worry if they'll be able to eat anything when there is a week long break.  We filled the bags and then the next day delivered them to the school.  It's nice being able to include some friends in on the service project and it's a great opportunity to be able to teach the kids that not everyone is as blessed as we are and it's the right thing to help others out.

Christmas Concert
Our sister-in-law, Liana is a bell ringer for the Mormon Tabernacle and got us some tickets to their most popular concert.  Kristin Chenoweth was the featured guest artist and narrator of the show.  She was so amazing and so was all the music!  It was a little harder for me to fully enjoy the show because of being pregnant and uncomfortable to sit that long.  But it was a great night out with Rem and we walked through temple square afterwards to see the lights.

Soderberg Christmas Party
We had the Soderberg family party at The Salt Lake Country Club again, thanks to my cousin Don Williams.  I'm grateful for this Christmas holiday that brings all the extended family together.  I always enjoy seeing my cousins.  We all help bring something for dinner, do a gift exchange game for the adults and kids and Santa Claus always come to visit!  The kids always love running around playing on the tennis courts and playing kick ball.

Moss Christmas Party
The Moss party this year was at my Aunt Carolyn's new home.  The family is getting too big for my grandma's house.  Her home was beautiful as always.  We had our traditional prime rib dinner, share experiences from our service projects and a small gift exchange.   I sure love my grandma, she is so kind and giving.

Sorenson Christmas Party
Rems parents moved to St. George so the family party this year was at our house.  The only way I pulled it of being 7 months pregnant and hosting a Christmas party was that everyone brought most of the food.  It wasn't anything fancy, but no one cared.  We sang The Nativity Song which always brings the spirit and then we exchanged gifts.

Christmas Sunday
I got my boys all matching ties for the Sunday before Christmas.  I always love sacrament meeting near Christmas time with all the Christmas songs and the story of Christ's birth.  I sure am grateful for my Savior and for my little family with baby sister on the way!  

Moss Christmas Eve Party
For Christmas Eve we went to Grandpa and Grandma Moss' home.  We had a yummy dinner and then the kids did a little program and we sang the Nativity Song, one of my favorites!  After we opened gifts, Paxton and Graham both got Lego sets.  They also gave all the grand kids minky blankets which was a big hit!  They love soft blankets!  So the kids then all changed into their pajamas and we had to get a stair picture of all the grand kids.  This year my parents got us adults the Ring doorbell that has a camera on it and my favorite thing... a German Christmas Pyramid that goes on the dinner table and you light the candles.  I always loved this growing up and now we get one of our own to share with our families.

This year we decided to make videos of the grand kids saying their favorite things about Christmas and about Grandpa and Grandma and such and then we all sat around and watched them.  It was so fun and hilarious to watch.  We will definitely need to make this a tradition!

Jack & Jo

Christmas Morning
These kids were so excited Christmas morning to go open presents and they seems to always wake up early so we make them wait while we try and wake up ourselves and get everything ready for them to come out. We read a book and talk for a minute about the true meaning of Christmas and then we let them go see what Santa brought.  This year Santa spoiled them and brought them a Nintendo Switch with some games and extra controllers.  I always try to stick with the "something they want, something they need, something to wear and something to read".  Paxton got some nerf guns, books, a bed light and a binder for all his Pokemon cards.  Graham got a scooter, an art light board, books and a rock digging kit.  Then we had a yummy cinnamon and orange roll and sausage breakfast and then the kids got to play with their new toys all day long.

Later we had my parents and Erika, Ben and Joelle over for dinner and just hanging out.  It was a good Christmas!

Snow Day

We wanted to have a sledding day at the cabin with my family so we picked a day and headed up.  It ended up being a really snowy day and we were the only ones who braved it and made it up.  The boys sled down the hill a few times and then we found out that Jamie and Dan got stuck so they decided to turn around.  We decided that the weather was just getting worse and worse so we all headed over to our house and had dinner there and stayed inside where it was nice and warm.

Swimming 
I really wanted to go swimming to take some weight off my back.  My belly is growing bigger and bigger and I remember when I was pregnant with Graham I went swimming a lot and loved it.  So we invited the neighbors, the Suprises to come with us.  It was so nice being in the water and I love watching Graham swim, he is getting so good!  

New Years Eve
I think it's safe to say that New Years Eve at Jamie and Dan's house has become a tradition.  We picked up dinner on our way and after dinner we just hung out and played some games.  The kids played the Wii and watched a movie and then we ring in the New Year whenever our games are finished around 9/10:00.  We have our sparkling cider, do a countdown and have an awesome dance party around the kitchen counter!  It's super fun!

November 2018

Graham's Art

I love that Graham loves to draw.  This was just a napkin sitting on the table that he decided to draw our family.

Baby Jackson Duane Tervort

Jack was born on November 6.  I was planning on being at the hospital to see him born, but ended up being about 5 minutes too late.  Jamie was induced and everything seemed so slow moving that I didn't want to spend hours sitting in the hospital after I had just worked and being pregnant, I was extremely tired.  So I thought I'd wait until she was dilated to about a 7 before I headed all the way to Orem.  But about a half hour from hearing she was at a 5, the next text was that he was on his way!  I jumped in the car so fast and drove as fast yet safely as I could and then I missed it.  I was bummed, but I was so excited for Jamie and came in to take lots of pictures for her.  Such a cute baby boy!  He was so awake and alert too!

Food Bank Shopping

Another year of shopping at Sam's Club for the Food Bank.  We gather together with my Dad's side of the family and have about 10 carts or more and fill them full!  I'm so blessed to be a part of this family that is fortunate enough to do service like this to help those in need.  I love being able to teach my kids to serve.

Baby Joelle Ruth Latimer

Joelle was born on November 6.  I was determined to not miss the birth of Joelle, so I spent about 10 hours at the hospital, yikes!  This is Erika's first baby so I knew it could take a while, but when she went in for her 39th week check up she was already dilated to a 4 so I thought things would go quickly.  It was fun sitting and talking with her at the beginning and then as things progressed we gave her some privacy and sat in the waiting room.  Well we made it just in time when they called us back to the room and I saw Jo slip right out as I walked through the door.  She is such a beautiful baby that definitely had some lungs on her!  She had a hard time calming down for a bit, the nurses made a comment about her being a mad baby.  I was so glad I got to be there to see this precious moment of Erika holding her baby for the first time.

Pie Party

Rem's Aunt Kennie is so cute to have everyone over every year the night before Thanksgiving for a fun pie party where we get to try lots of different pies.  She also buys everyone a mug each year (every couple years I have to pick out our favorites and donate the rest because we have too many).  It's always fun to get to see Rem's cousins that we don't get to see too often.

Paxton's favorite cousin, Taylor Kimball.

Happy Thanksgiving

This year we had Thanksgiving with the Sorenson side.  With Rem's parents living in St. George now, we had Thanksgiving at Rachael's house.  She is so cute and had coloring or game books for every kid.  The food was delicious and we just hung around talking for a bit after dinner.  It's fun to get these cute cousins together, they all get along so well!

October 2018

The Ranch
We LOVE going to the Ranch, it's our favorite!  We didn't think we'd be able to go this year, a lot of the dates were getting filled up and we can only schedule it 60 days in advance to get the family discount.  Then one day I checked the calendar and someone must've canceled their trip because there was an opening!  We snatched it up with only 3 weeks until we left so we just started inviting pretty much everyone we knew.  It ended up being some of Rem's family; his parents, brother Russ and brother Randy and my sister in law Sandee with her kids (my brother couldn't come) and also some neighborhood friends; the Coons family, the Gonzalez family and the Westenskow family.

Going in the fall time is so pretty!  We had pretty decent weather while we were there.  It was a little chilly but it was perfect for swimming in the warm pool and bundling up for rides, going for walks, shooting guns, feeding the horses and touring the town.  We also spent lots of time just relaxing, chatting and one of my favorites, playing games.  We can't wait to go again!

Paxton's flag football
Paxton had a fun flag football season with some of his friends from school.  He loves it when family comes to his game to support him.

Leaves!
We get so many leaves from our trees and Graham loves to jump and play in them!  Such a fun and beautiful time of year!

Our Halloween House
Rem has made our house so fun for Halloween!  I do have to admit that I don't like the time and money spent on it, but I do love the end product.  And the boys absolutely love it and go outside almost every night before bed to listen to the music and look around.  We also get people daily driving by the house to see it.  It was listed in the news again as one of the houses to go see this Halloween.

Scarecrow Festival
We went to Thanksgiving Points Scarecrow Festival with the Tervorts.  It was nice just to get outside and go for a walk while being entertained by some cool scarecrows.  There were all different kinds from movies and such, my favorite was the Michael Jackson one.

Paxton is such a good cousin to his younger cousins, they just adore him.

Go Utes!

My dad had some extra tickets and invited me and the boys to a Utes Football game.  I love going to one football game per season as long as it's good weather and at a decent time of day.  I had fun getting the boys ready for the game and doing some face paint.

Sorenson Halloween Party

We invited Rems family over for Sunday dinner and had all the kids wear their Halloween costumes.  The Kimballs forgot their costumes so luckily we had some masks they could wear.  It was fun to see the kids in their costumes.

Happy Birthday to Me and Dan!

With my sisters husbands birthday being on the same day as mine, sometimes we celebrate together.  We tried going to Top Golf but they had an event going on so we went out to dinner first, tried Top Golf again when their event was over but then it was too busy so we went bowling instead.  We had a lot of fun!  Dan and Rem are holding bowling balls while Jamie and I are holding our baby bellies.

Trick or Treat at Dad's Work

Every year I take the kids to Rems office to go Trick or Treating.  His work does a competition on who has the best decorations.  Some of the teams go all out and it's a lot of fun for the kids and adults to see what they come up with.  Rem normally would love to be a part of this, but his team isn't really into it all that much and he doesn't want to do it alone.  So he didn't even try this year.

Witches Night Out

I love doing girls night with my friends.  We had a blast at Gardner Village!  It was fun to see everyone dressed up, do some shopping and watch a few of my friends compete in the best witch cackle.  They were awesome!

Pumpkin Patch

We took the kids and some of their friends, the Goodmans, to the pumpkin patch to pick out some pumpkins to carve and some to decorate the yard with.  I love this time of year and seeing all the pumpkins!  We even got to go through a cornstalk maze!

Friend Halloween Party

The Goodmans always have a fun Halloween party with a ton of friends from the ward/neighborhood.  This year for the game they did a 2 truths and a lie and we had to guess everyone's lie.

GG Soderberg

We made a quick trip to visit GG Soderberg just before going to GG Moss' Halloween Party so the boys were already dressed up.  She just finishing up her dinner when we came in.  A lot of the residents loved seeing the kids in their costumes so I walked around the tables with them to say hi to some of them.  Hopefully we cheered some of them up.  GG sure loved seeing us there!

GG Moss' Halloween Party
Another family fun Halloween party in the books.  This year we chose to dress up as The Nightmare Before Christmas.  Graham is Jack Skellington (I found his costume a couple years ago at a thrift store and had to use it this year or he would've grown out of it), Paxton and I and my pregnant belly are Lock, Shock and Barrel (Jack's sidekicks) and Rem is Santy Clause being captured.

It was a lot of fun being with family and seeing all my cousins.  My grandma is so awesome to still be doing this party.

After dinner we carved pumpkins.  I usually gut them all and Rem carves them.  I try to get our kids to pull out the pumpkin guts and they don't like the slime feeling.  

Happy Halloween!
Halloween night is always super fun!  It's always a toss up on whether it's more fun to take the kids trick or treating or stay home and pass out candy at our super fun Halloween house.  This year my parents came over and passed out candy while Rem and I both took the kids out.  We joined up with our neighbors, the Suprises.  It was a lot of fun and of course we had to go check out our friends house, the Goodmans, they put on a pretty good haunted walk through in their garage.

After a while I decided to go back and be with my parents.  Rem had made this big wooden scare box this year that when you push a button it would open and close quickly making a slamming noise.  My dad was having such a great time scaring all these kids!  He asked me if I wanted to take over handing out the candy and I said no, I just wanted to watch him do it, he was getting a kick out of it which was making me laugh.

When the kids got home from trick or treating, they joined in on all the fun.  Paxton hid in the bushes and loved jumping out to scare people.  He was sweet to not scare the young kids.

Graham and Zoey

Paxton and Kai

September 2018

Cabin Day

One day we decided to go spend some time at the cabin.  The boys had fun going for a ride and shooting guns with there dad while I relaxed in a swing on the deck watching my boys bond with their dad.  I love seeing them together having fun!

It's a GIRL!!!

My friend Mel (also my boss) has a friend that does ultrasounds.  She did an early one for us when I was pregnant with Graham so we asked her again and she was happy to do it again!  So we found out when I was 15 weeks along.  Only Rem and I went, the kids were in school.  Rem so sure it was a girl and that's what he was wanting for the longest time.  I think I was trying to prepare myself for another boy so I was saying that I would be fine either way, but when we found out it was a girl I was so excited!  I really wanted a girl deep down, I was just afraid to admit it.  Of course Rem had the biggest smile on his face!

After the ultrasound we went to the donut shop and asked for 2 pink filled donuts.  When the boys got home we gave them the donuts and I think they were way more interested in eating that donut than finding out they were getting a sister, but they did have smiles on their faces.

Then a couple days later we announced to our families.  For the Sorenson side we took a pink dessert to family dinner.  I taped the donut boxed closed so no one would sneak a peek.  But I caught Grandpa Sorenson trying to get in and I had to get after him so we called everyone in and announced, they were all cheering and so excited for us.  Then we went to the end of the Moss side dinner and gave my parents a gift.  It was a toy pink baby stroller to keep in their playroom.  My mom opened it and there was cheering and even some tears, everyone was so thrilled for us to have a girl!

I always love getting an ultrasound, it's so fun to see the baby moving around inside.  When we went to check out the gender, her legs were crossed and not leaving much room to be able to tell so I was told to go empty my bladder, do some jumps, bend over to get that baby to move.  Thank goodness she did!  We are so happy to be getting our baby girl!

Graham- Kindergarten

School pictures.  Yes that's food on his face, luckily my sister is a photographer and was able to edit that out for me so I didn't have to do retakes.  My friend watches him one day a week when I go to work and feeds him lunch, she must've forgotten to check his face.

Graham has Mrs. Tovey in the afternoon Kindergarten class.  His good friend Elly Goodman is in his class.

Paxton- 3rd Grade

This year Paxton  has Ms. Ogrin in a 3rd/4th split.  I wasn't too sure about the split, but he was lucky and got two of his good friends that are 4th graders in his class.  I was worried about them making trouble for the teacher, but they are all good kids and have been good students.

Comicon

Rem has started the tradition of taking his boys to Comicon every year.  They sure love getting dressed up and going with their dad!  They always come home with a prize and a huge smile!

This is the Place

We went with Jamie, Lucy and Lincoln to This is the Place.  We got to go on a train ride to the top of the park, make a necklace, dig for rocks, do some leather stamping, ride a pony and much much more.  The kids had a blast and we wish we would've had more time to see everything.

Tae Kwon Do

Paxton passed his next test and earned his blue black belt.  I'm so proud of him for learning his formations.  It was cool to see all the moves he's learned and how far he has come.

The Zoo

We went to the Zoo with Jamie, Lucy and Lincoln (we had a pass together that we were trying to use up before Jamie had her baby).  We always love coming to the Zoo and seeing all the animals!

Erika's baby shower

My youngest sister Erika is pregnant with her first baby.  So Jamie, Sandee, my mom and I threw her a family baby shower.  It's been so fun to be pregnant with my sisters and I'm so excited for Erika to become a mom!  Jamie is having a boy and Erika and I are both having girls.