December Wrap Up

Right after Thanksgiving Shantel got a call one night from Nathan about his sewing project for this sewing class. He was headed back to Logan (Yay USU!), but had some questions. After talking for a few minutes Shantel invited him over and next thing they spent hours with him working on this project and Shantel teaching him/giving him some advice and instructions. You could tell Shantel just loved it and I think they both had a good time chatting while he worked. We are grateful to have a good relationship with the Rencher's kids. 

Lydia had a couple of friends over this month to play/work on some cooking projects. One day was Alli Milward and they made cookies. Then a week or two later Jaiden came over and Lydia and her made a dish designed to look like spaghetti and meatballs, but that was actually made of cookie. 

You have spaghetti and meatballs, peas and garlic toast all made out of dessert items. I came home and tried it and they had so much fun. 

After Christmas, we spent the whole week hanging out, playing games, and being together. 

Shantel took Lydia and Austin Ice Skaiting. 

The kids played with all their new toys. 

We had the Peaden Family over for 3 days in a row. We played games, ate delicious food, and watched some movies. First we watched the second Lord of the Rings movie. The next night we made everyone watch While you Were Sleeping with us because we firmly believe that this movie should be watched every year between Christmas and New Years. 

July Wrap Up

Here are a few more things from July:

When we got back from our vacation - Lucy had some presents from her birthday left for us at the house and she was so happy.

Lydia and Audrey Ward (neighbor across the street) came to me one day and told me she really needed Shantel and I to both go over to the Ward's basement. We had a bunch of things going on but Lydia was very insistent and was worried we wouldn't both be able to go. We finally walked over and Lydia led us and Leah and Cade Ward downstairs. They had set up a romantic candlelight dinner for us. The stairs were lined with candles. The dinner consisted of a series of snacks they patched together from things we were willing to let them use (wiithout having any idea what they were doing). We had apple slices, graham crackers with frosting and lemonade. It was so cute and so sweet. They are such good girls. 

Shantel put this one our list to blog for July - but I'm not 100% sure why. I'm guessing it is to document the Library as it was. Starting in July they shut down the library and are moving to a temporary location while they build a new updated library. We have loved the Lehi library, but have definitely been wishing for an upgrade given how much Lehi has  grown the last few years and are excited to have the upgrade. 

Scott and Lori are selling their house in Morgan. We knew that it would be coming for some time since her parents inherited the Ranch in Wyoming. However, we have so many incredible memories with our family in Morgan and will miss that house. I'm sure more on this in another post. 

We are making progress in making it to our 100th bottle of Ranch Dressing and just hit #95. 

We have our best garden ever this year. For some reason, last year things did not grow that well even with our new planters, but this year the Strawberries and Tomatoes have been so awesome and we are excited for it. 

April Wrap Up

Here are a few things from April:

My Dad has been coming to dinner every Thursday night. It is nice to be able to visit with him every week. I'm grateful for Shantel for helping to make this happen every week, even though it takes an effort for her to make sure she is back at the house every Thursday with a good dinner ready. 

We celebrated my 1/2 birthday with a chocolate bundt cake. 

A haircut for Austin. 

Look at this beautiful picture of Shantel. She and I had a date night and did some reading at the park. She is reading Jane Eyre right now. 

Lucy walking reverently at church. 

Chick-Fil-A did a special free breakfast promotion during April and so we were able to go multiple times and get breakfast and one morning I went and picked it up for everyone and we had breakfast together. 

We are inching closer to our 100th Ranch bottle that we have gone through since Shantel and I started dating. You can see we are on number 94. Hidden Valley Ranch for the win!

Here is what church looks like from the eyes of Lucy. She had Shantel's phone during church and was taking pictures. She was feeling very grumpy and this helped for a few minutes and it is fun to see what things look like from her perspective. 

She was so tired that eventually she fell asleep in my arms. It has been years since she did that, so it was so sweet to get to hold her as she fell asleep. 

A few more pictures of Shantel wearing her Grandma Walker's dress.  

January Wrap-Up

The Wrap Up blog post is like a catch-all post for all of the pictures that didn't really have anywhere else to go but we still want to say something about them. At one point in our blogging life, we may have included these in a "5 Things on Friday" post or something - but now they just get lumped together at the end of the month with the hope that we remember to say the thing that we wanted to say about them. 

Here are a few "wrap-up" things from January. 

1- David was out of town for Assurance Advantage Level 1 from Monday, January 8- Thursday, January 11. He was leading the training for his company (and did a great job). He travels 7-8ish weeks per year and I feel like it's a manageable amount for us. We miss him while he is gone, but we find things to do to make it through. I often find us changing our routine a tiny bit; maybe not going to bed as early, or maybe having a bonus movie night. We don't usually eat out, but we might eat frozen pizza or something. On the Monday that he was gone, we loaded up into the car at 6:15 and headed to the library to get some books.  I snapped a picture because it was definitely out of our normal Monday night routine. (Who leaves the house after it gets dark in winter? Not us!) It was a good excursion for us. 

2- Lately we have been doing a rotating meal plan and it's really been working for us. We make a 3 week meal plan and then rotate through it 4 times. It means that we are only making the same thing about once a month, but we get three months of meals out of it. The other great thing about it, is that for many recipes I can quadruple the dinner and freeze the extras. Then, when that meal comes back around- I already have it prepped and can just pull it out and heat it up. It's been really really good for me! I snapped this picture of the lasagna's that I prepped to freeze for us to eat over the next several months. 

3-Lydia has been babysitting a handful of dogs while their families are gone for trips and it's a good business for her. She doesn't have a lot of interest in babysitting kids, but a dog-watching business is a good fit for her! I can't get her a dog, I just can't. But I can support her in feeding her love of dogs by helping care for the other pets in our neighborhood. She loves watching Harley (Bradfield Family). 

4-David and I have started switching back and forth for who is teaching Family Home Evening. But we have told Lydia that if she ever wants to teach a lesson, she just has to prepare it the Sunday before and she can lead. She decided she wanted to and she did such an incredible job with activities, stories, scriptures, and testimony. 

5-The kids don't know this yet, shhhh! We are going to Disneyland in March and we are attempting to watch ALL of the Disney movies that they might encounter references to on our trip. All of the movies that have rides associated with them and princesses that they should probably know. We have instituted "Wednesday Night Family Movie Night" and are making our way through a whole bunch of them. The kids just think we are doing a fun winter thing by having an extra movie night here and there - but they are going to be so excited! 

6-The Lydia we know and love, reading a book while making a snack at the same time. 

7- Our backyard isn't the dreamiest backyard you might ever imagine, but it's pretty much the best backyard in the winter. The perfect little sledding hill, rock wall to build a for against, and lots of snow piled in from the wind. Our kids love it and I love that they will go out and play while I stay nice and warm in my kitchen. 

8- I 'm grateful for the relationship these sisters have together. 

9- Austin drew this cool thing on the LCD pad and wanted a picture of it. Poor guy has a fever sore on his lip and his nose and we are trying to get it under control. 

10- We finally sold our 2014 Chrysler Town and Country. We posted about it back in November when we bought our new Honda Oddesy, but as a note for our 2024 book: 

We bought the Town and Country in April 2016 when it had just over 30,000 miles. We named her Millie.  She took us on so many trips and we've been able to do so many fun things together. Some of our favorite memories are going to the Oregon Coast and the California Redwoods, but she also took us to Logan, Wyoming, St. George, Bryce Canyon and a whole lot of driving around town.  We loved that it had the stow-and-go seating and so often used it to haul things usually done by trucks. David said, "Shantel believed that it could carry anything in it (beds, furniture and cattle guards) and was rarely proven wrong about what it could fit inside." (true) 

We had hoped to get $7,000 or $8,000 for the van, but were only able to sell it for $3,900. It took a few months to sell it since we tried posting it higher, but we're glad to have it finally sold and so excited for our new van. Millie had about 120,000 miles on it]. We are grateful for the many memories we made together in this van and all the trips and running around and going places together as a family.