Blessing Dress...

  My mom offered to make the baby blessing for baby girl Willardson.  She brought out all her lace and wanted me to choose one I liked.  They were pretty but they were not what I had in mind.  So I started going through my cedar chest to see what I had in there.  My great grandma Agnes Hurst gave me her wedding negligee when I was 14 years old.  Which was completely awkward at the time.  However after pulling it out and looking at it I was completely thrilled I had it.  The lace was exactly what I wanted to use for the dress.  Then I found some old scottish linen that she gave me as well...Jackpot!

My mom gave me a cylinder pillow so I could make a mock of what I wanted.  Ya this picture is not the greatest.  I was actually getting after Nash for something....oops!

This is what I came up with...

This is what my mom made....

 It is beautiful and I love it.  Although, I am going to change the bow on the front. I am so excited to see it in person.  I love that it has family history in it and baby girl will have a part of one of my heros.  Grandma Agnes Hurst was one of my favorite people and I considered her one of my best friends growing up.  I spent many hours with her and enjoyed being with and learning from her.  She lived to be 102 when she died.  She told me she would live until I got off my mission....that she did about 2 months after.  I love her so much!

Lounging...

When I go home to Blanding, I really do not plan anything.  I just like being in my house with my family. We watched a lot of movies with cousins and grandad.

 Nash and Asa wanted to sleep with Grandad.  My dad always let Nash fall asleep in his bed then I would carry him to his bed.  In the morning Nash would be so mad that he was not waking up in Grandad's bed.  So I would just send him down to the grandparents at the wee hours of the morning to deal with the anger.  Ya I love going home!

 Lindy was looking a bit old but she still loved me...

 Nash even warmed up to Lindy and enjoyed sitting by her...

 Asa just wanted to be every where "ad-dad" was.

Cheeks...

After experiencing the snow first hand, Asa was happy to be indoors watching his brother play from the window.

 Or sitting on Granny's lap...

 Or stuffing his cheeks with whatever he could get his hands on...

 They child is so weird how he does not swallow his food but stores it in his cheeks for hours.  Then during the day you find little piles of food around the house.

 But that smile makes everything better...

 And Granny loved tickling him to make him giggle...

Utah Snow Days...

My dad is truly the animal whisperer.  I am never surprised to find that he has taken another animal to care for.  This time around it was a flock of birds.  The back deck is always covered in bird food because he thinks he needs to feed them during the winter.  I think he is preventing their migration!  Nash and Asa loved helping Grandad feed the birds because they wanted to get out in that snow!

 So I bundled them all up...

 Asa was still deciding if he liked walking or not.  For the most part he was still on that weird igor crawl.  Especially in the snow.  Maybe he had too many layers on but he didn't want to move.

 Nash was loving it.  We spent a lot of time throwing snowballs at the swing set and trees.

 Asa spent a lot of time doing this...

Nash and I ended up ditching Asa for a nap and we went for a walk below my house in the old sewer pond ruins.  Nash loved that place.  Maybe just as much as I did as a kid.  It isn't as cool anymore like it was when I was kid.  A lot of trees and brush had died so the hiding places were not as great.  But it was so nice walking through where I used to play as a child.

Koen and Sadie came over quite a bit while we were there.  Koen and Nash found some secret hideouts and then a bunch of old stuff to make a sled.

 Well Koen worked hard on making the sled.

 Nash on the other hand spent that time packing snow to a tree.

After the sled was finished. Koen and Nash came in and asked my mom if they could hook it to the 4 wheeler to pull it around the neighborhood.  I just listened to see what she would say.  First off there isn't enough snow outside to do that and second who was going to be driving.  My mother didn't listen very carefully and gave her approval.  I gladly stepped in right then and put a kabosh on that idea.  Then my mom clued in on what they were doing.  They were happy with pulling each other around by their hands and feet.

Granny's Surprise...

This is how we surprised Granny and Grandad.  It was pretty hilarious.  My phone died before I could get my dad's reaction.  They had no idea we were coming, and it turned out to be a great Christmas present for them.

Flight to Utah

 We needed to prep for the COLD so we bought hats...

Asa is a little monster so his hat was pretty appropriate!

Nash ended up getting a black hat with gloves that had skeleton hands.  He said they were SCARY!

We ended up being in the Columbia airport for a bit longer then expected.  The boys were so good.  I love this airport because of the rocking chairs and it isn't busy at all.

 The boys were so good on the first flight.  Then we got to Houston and they were pretty tired.  Asa screamed for 2 hours on the flight to SLC.  I was pretty stressed out that I started crying too.  The lady next to me was from England.  She was SUPER nice and rubbed my back and the ladies behind me kept saying..."You are handling this so well."  As I am bawling my eyes out.  Nash was mad because Asa was being so loud and the people in front of me were annoyed by the crying.  It was a LONG flight to say the least.

Kedrick and Koen were there to pick us up in SLC.  Nash was SUPER excited about being with Koen and in Utah.  Thank you Kedrick for picking us up.

Lights at the Zoo...

Darin was assigned the PICU for the month of December which meant we would NEVER see him and what fun is that to spend Christmas without daddy or family around.  So I decided in August that the kids and I were going to Utah to visit the family.  I wanted it to be a surprise so I only told my brothers so they could figure out to get us from the airport without my parents knowing.

We were flying out of Columbia so we decided to go the night before our flight to the Riverbanks zoo to see the Christmas lights.  Then Darin dropped us off at the hotel and we made our way to the airport from there.

The zoo was so fun.  Nash wasn't all that excited about the lights.  He wanted to see the animals.  However the fake snow was pretty awesome...

 Asa was just cold...

We even got to meet Santa.  Which I think was Nash's highlight of the night.  He was so focused on telling Santa that he wanted Power Rangers.  Asa smiled for the picture then he was done.  He wasn't a fan of Santa.