Valentine's Day

To celebrate Love Day this year, we had our traditional "Fancy Dinner" and chocolate fondue fountain.

These pictures simply do not do this night justice. What I really should have photographed was the aftermath of Declan tripping over the fountain's cord and spilling chocolate all over the floor, while everyone screamed and tried to keep Nacho away until we could clean it up. Or maybe I should have done a video instead, capturing the loving voices of the children: "Mom, he's going to stab me with his fondue fork!" and "Hey! No double dipping!" and "Stop dripping chocolate all over everything!"

On second thought, I think I'll just be happy with the above pictures, which portray (albeit falsely) five loving, happy, peaceful children in the midst of making a childhood memory.

Happy Birthday to Me and Wrassling

This year marks one of my favorite birthdays ever. It fell on a Friday, and Garreth took the day off work and sent me to Park City for a day of shopping...alone. (For an introverted mother of five, "alone" is one of the nicest words ever.) As if that wasn't enough, I came home to this:

And then, to make things even better, my sister Cait and her three kids came over to spend the weekend with us. We all went out to my favorite Mexican restaurant, then home for birthday key lime bars and presents.

I was spoiled yet again by this awesome family of mine.

The kids loved having cousin time.

Having Halle, Kael, and baby Ryan at our house is one of our favorite things ever. And getting to snuggle a newborn on my birthday? The absolute best.

Liam and Declan finished up another fun year of wrestling with the Pee Wee Tournament the next day.

They both worked hard and did their best.

Declan gets a big laugh over this sport. It's cute to see him having so much fun!

He lost the first match and dominated the second (it might have been a slightly dirty fight - the other kid started crying and wouldn't go back out on the mat to finish) for an overall third place in the 43-45 pound weight division.

Over in the light heavyweight division, Liam took things a little more seriously.

The first match, he fought a very strong kid and lost. Liam doesn't take losing well, and he channeled all his frustration into the second match, which he won by a landslide for an overall second place.

I never thought that I would be excited about my boys wrestling, but it has been so good for them. I think it has given them a lot more strength and self-confidence and discipline. I wish Sam would do it to, but he just doesn't like all those eyes on him while he's on the mat - and I totally get that! Maybe next year he'll get the eye of the tiger, too....

The Slopes and the Aggies

For Christmas, my parents gave us all lift tickets to Beaver Mountain and a few weekends ago, we took all four of our kids for a beautiful day on the slopes. Garreth and I haven't skied in years - we took Grace once when she was about five and haven't been since. We put the kids in lessons for the morning so we could ski with my parents, then after lunch we all skied together.

Sam and Declan's private lesson might have been a waste of money if it hadn't given us time to ski with the grown ups. They were so excited about playing in the snow that they didn't really learn much!

But Grace and Liam did great.

And it was so much fun to be on the mountain.

This guy was definitely the quickest learner, little athlete that he is.

Check out how Sam holds his arms - I love it!

Declan was not interested in technique, just pure speed. My biggest struggle all day was trying to teach him how to stop properly, instead of just flying down the hill as fast as you could go until you crashed.

It was such a perfect day and we had so much fun together! Thanks, Papa and Nana!!

After skiing, we went to soak our tired legs in the hot tubs at Riverdale Resort and spent the night in Preston. The next night we went to Logan to watch the Aggies basketball game, which was another thing Garreth and I haven't done in years - not since we were students there. Our kids are at such fun ages for things like this now.

The people that sat around us were especially grateful for the free foam fingers the kids got handed at the door. They ended up under my seat sometime in the first five minutes of the game!

Perfect family weekend.

Garreth's Birthday

My favorite person had a birthday last month.

We celebrated with presents,

which included his very own custom-designed shoes from Mi Adidas.

(Even if you don't want to order your own custom Adidas, they are dang fun to design.)

Then it was on to dinner at Applebees. (Where we might have mourned for a few minutes about the disgraceful, utter lack of good eating establishments in our town.)

Then home again, to beat on some birthday bongos,

and eat cake and ice cream.

We sure adore that birthday boy.