norton's visit

My sister and her family have been in town the past two weeks!  It has been a pretty big party and a lot of things happened while they were here.  We had a funeral and a baby born in our family.  While there was plenty of excitement going on, it was so fun just to spend time with them.  So much fun, in fact, we were actually looking forward to them leaving so we could get a break!!  Just kidding, sister!  You know how much I wish your little family lived here so that we could play together all the time.

Here are the cute kids at Gardner Village.  You can tell which one is her child.  Obviously, the girl is not mine.  I wish.  Harper is such a cutie and the boys love playing with her.  There is just so much to love about this picture.  The bag of chips is probably my favorite though.

Another classic shot...

Finally, we got a keeper!

This is Erika's new baby, Dawson.  He is too cute and always this happy!

Then there is my baby (who is getting too big)...

All the kids talking to the ducks...

More posing on the way to the candy store for some bribes!

Crew in his element, dirt!

Sweetest candid picture ever!

We also got to celebrate my Grandma's birthday while they were here.  I love that we made my Grandma pretend to blow out her candles 10 times so we could get a picture.  She's a great sport! 

Besides swimming and sleepovers, the most favorite thing for me was watching these kids play together.  Harper is the smartest little girl there is (with a temper to match)!  I absolutely love watching my boys play with her.  Parker is the cutest thing ever with her.

Erika is absolutely going to kill me for posting this, but it was the only picture I have of her.  Keep in mind that she has a 3 month old baby and is still very self conscious about her body.  I think she looks great!! 

This is also the only picture I have of Brian (in the background playing basketball with Payton).  I loved getting to snuggle with Baby Dawson and help give him baths.  I also loved hanging out in my parents yard.  The weather could not have been more perfect.

Just chillin at my parents, which is what we did most of the time.  Here we are saying our goodbyes.  Harper does not love to hug...

This is such a classic shot of the chaos.  I love Payton on the couch, twirling his hair.  Classic Payton shot!

Bye, bye, Dawson.  Doesn't he look sad to leave us?  We are sad to see them go too, but love the time we got to spend with them!

city creek center

off track fun

This year the older boys were off track the entire month of December.  When we first got this track choice, I was terrified of having all the boys home during this busy time of year and especially during the time that I needed to get tons of things done!  However, I ended up loving it.  We got to do so many fun activities and it made me much more organized.  I felt like I was able to focus more on the spirit of the season instead of the busyness of the holiday.  We bought passes to our rec center and spent almost every morning at the gym.  The boys played basketball while I walked ran around the track upstairs.  That's what I call a win-win scenario!

off track

In addition to our Vegas vacation, we also did some fun activities at home while the boys were off track.  The boys got to have sleepover's at their Grandparents house and lots of play dates with friends.  We also went to our new rec center for the first time.  Of course, the boys had to do their homework first!  We also had fun making sugar cookies.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love having my boys off track?!

off track fun

I know that I'm back "tracking" {pun intended} a few weeks, but I have to post about our off track fun.  The boys are on year round school so we get to have mini-vacations all year long.  I absolutely love it when the boys go off track.  It's a three week long party at our house.  It's a time to reconnect with my kids and enjoy our time together.  The first day the boys are off track I have them each make a list of things they want to do while we're off track and then we plan these things into our time.

Here is Payton's list:

As you can see, his requests were fairly simple.  {FYI:  For those concerned about him as a student, you should be.  This is not his best work.  His goal for this term is to slow down and write more neatly.}

Parker's list was fairly simple as well:

After I see what the boys want to do, I usually have a few things that I want to do with them.  The biggest goal that I had this time was to try to visit my Grandma each week that we were off track.  Luckily, we were able to do this.  We took her to Gardner Village with us one week.  We went to lunch at Arctic Circle and got those awesome Square Pumpkins the next week.  We stopped by to visit the last week.  It was fun for her and us!  I've already blogged about some of the things we did while we were off track, but here's a few things I missed:

Pirate Pizza in Orem {so fun} with other friends who were off track...

Engh's Pumpkin Patch {a must every October}...

Lunch with Grandma Patty at Chuck E. Cheese {the boys were in heaven!}...

Sleepover at Grandpa Ock's & Grandma Patty's {heavenly for me and the boys}...

We've been back in school for three weeks now already, but I'm already looking forward to our next break!