More holiday fun!

I still have a few more fun pictures from Christmas and New Years that I wanted to post. We were really busy and going back and forth to different families and parties and everything, but it was really fun! I’m sad that it’s over :( Warning: a lot of pictures ahead…            On New Year's Eve, we went to Dan’s aunt and uncle’s house with the Goates family. There were a bajillion people there, but a lot of good food and fun stuff to do. I almost stayed awake until midnight, and just took a power nap around 11! :)                   Playing a game…Mike is our handicapped brother. They were just being nice and letting him play.       Sarah and Ryan are the same size and Ryan is over 2 years younger! It’s so funny and Sarah is just so precious and funny and a smart little thing! She’s also a cheeser in pictures! We ended up playing in the dryer for a while.       They had rock band set up in the basement on the projector screen and it was a hit. The “grown up” boys played forever and were so loud! The kids also did really well at it and had fun. Dave had to help Emily with the guitar because she was too small.  Emily and Lissie are good friends and love to play together when Lissie is visiting from Idaho. They are really crazy when they get together!                                  Spencer and Brigham playing the Wii on a different TV! Brigham couldn’t tear his eyes away from the screen for a picture!            On New Year’s Eve day, Dan and I decided to take the “Idaho kids” to McDonalds! They were ecstatic and their parents were pretty happy to get a break too. It was really fun and they loved their toys in the happy meals! We had to make sure they ate instead of obsessing over the toys! Showing off our yummy McDonalds lunch. 

On Sunday, we had our usual fast Sunday dinner with the immediate family. Grandpa Goates and the Hill Grandparents came and it was really cool to have everyone in our family there except for Jon in Brazil!  It was also very chaotic with about 30 people there (11 kids under the age of 7!), but very fun. Taylor came over wearing my shoes!

 

 

 

                            Ryan loves to eat!      There is a little kids table, but we usually don’t have all the kids sitting there at once, and this time we squeezed 8 kids onto the little table! It was hilarious but it worked!      Dessert! Taylor and Ryan (below) loved the treats and everyone made a big mess!

           Me and Brig just chillin’. I loved him telling me all about his transformer toys. He makes up names for all of them and knows exactly what each character does. Some of the names were Purple Jaguar, Sword Face, and White Light. Pretty awesome.

Running the Wasatch Back!

Well it’s the new year and I have to say that I’m not a huge fan of new years resolutions. I think that having goals and plans and resolutions are super and great and everyone should have them. But if there is something you want to do or not do or whatever, just set a goal and do it! Don’t wait or plan around the new year! Sounds easier than it really is, but I hate that there is so much focus about “new years resolutions”. Just set your own goals in your own time and work towards them! Right?? :) Anyway, with that said….Dan and I have decided to run in the Wasatch Back Ragnar Relay!

The Wasatch Back is a relay race with teams of 12 people who run from Logan to Park City in 24 hours. Each person has 3 legs of running, with each leg varying between 3 and 8 miles. It’s a total of 188 miles and goes through the mountains! It’s definitely not easy, but I’m glad we’re doing it.

It’s really really kind of scary for me, but we’re definitely going to do it! I have always been active and worked out, but running has never been my forte. We took a non-planned break from working out the past 2  months or so with the house hunting, moving, and holidays, but we are going to do the ragnar in June so we have to start training! It happens to be a good time to start with the beginning of the year and all that jazz.

Anyway, I’ll probably feel a lot like this:

Hopefully I don’t end up like this:

 

Maybe by June I’ll look like this:

Haha! I hope not! But it will definitely be good for us to get back into a routine and a good training schedule. I have planned out an entire schedule day by day to follow to get ready to run in June! I’m really excited to get stronger and in better shape and I think it will help my life in a lot of ways.

Who knows, maybe after we train for and run the Wasatch Back in June, we will be ready to tackle a marathon?? We’ll see….

Christmas Parties!

With the new house, we have tried to have as many people over as possible! It has been so much fun having family and friends in our home. The day after Christmas we had the 2nd annual progressive dinner. We had appetizers at Jon & Julie’s in West Haven (north Ogden), then soup at our house, dinner at Dave & Amanda’s in South Jordan, and dessert at Ben & Becky’s in Lehi. It was so fun to see everyone’s homes all Christmasy! And Dan’s brother and his family was visiting from Idaho so they were able to come too! It was a blast. Last night (Monday), we had a bunch of friends over for a housewarming/holiday party! It was so fun to see our good friends from high school that we don’t get to see a lot. We have a blast when we all get together and we’re lucky to have such great friends!Me and Thaddy pants! Have I mentioned that I love this kid?? Well I do. I played with the pic to show his blue eyes and cute shirt. I kept feeding him so he would love me :) Matty is rockin’ the beard and long hair for a play. He looks great! Dustin and Kaley brought us a quesadilla maker (thanks guys!) and we all made yummy quesadillas! The boys are playing a finger running game on Dan’s itouch and yes, Dustin and Dallas are Mexi-spooning. Dusting is really touchy-feely like that. Stevenson, Wendy, Matt and Brighton! The cutey cute Monsen fam. Love them!

It’s Over??

Well Christmas is over and I’m so sad about it. I was hoping Christmas wouldn’t come because I didn’t want it to be over! It seemed to go so fast this year but we still enjoyed it and had a great holiday with our families.Christmas Eve was spent at Grandpa Goates’ house with a LOT of people! The little kids got pjs and they were so cute! The little girls in our family got tinkerbell and Addy and Sarah were ecstatic. It was so fun to watch them open them and realize what it was, then help them get changed and bounce around with excitement! Sarah was beside herself and just kept saying, “We got jammies!”. They were all so stinkin’ cute.  Dan and I had fun with the fam and we also celebrated Dan’s mom’s birthday! I made her a sweet photo book from MyPublisher with lots of pictures of the whole family. It was a hit and it was fun to show everyone all the cute pics I found!                                                                                       Danny gets really really excited for Christmas as you can tell…and I got this cute headband!!

 

Even though Dan’s style is definitely not my style, I still love it and I try my best to just let him be and wear what he wants…He loves his “lumberjack jacket” as he calls it which is a sick old blue flannel jacket he’s had FOREVER! It’s too short on the sleeves and he wears it all the time. I found a new version for him this year and he loves it! Yay!

Dan and I slept at my parent’s house and we opened our present for each other first. He did great and got me a shoe rack, headband, hat, kitchen stuff, lotion and a mouse sander for my crafts!

We talked to Dan’s brother on his mission in Brazil then opened presents with my family. We got so many great gifts! I got black couch covers for our old living room couches, house decor, clothes, scentsy,  movies, and a lot more!                       My mom bought herself a memory foam pillow with Michelle Obama modeling on the front. Weird.

Steph got my dad a U of U snuggie! So awesome!                                                      The best part of the gift giving was the last gift and it was for Dan. My parents got him an ipod touch! He wasn’t expecting it but wanted one so bad and was so excited! It was way awesome and he loves it! He also got a lot of other great gifts from my family!                                                

Christmas afternoon was at Dan’s house opening gifts with his family. His parents gave us a big folding table, tool set, and dish set. The little kids got cute gloves and candy canes.   Picture courtesy of a 3 yr old. I look stoned but I was just happy.                 Grandpa managed to snooze amid the madness and Sarah was modeling this sweet fur hat for me. Christmas dinner was back with my family and the Thomases. We had a delicious dinner and had a ton of fun playing Mad Gab and Catch Phrase Music Edition. Steph was visiting for 5 whole days from Cedar (yay!). We had fun together and she came and slept over and hung out on Christmas night. Love my sis. It was a fantastical Christmas and Dan and I were reminded again of how blessed we really are. We have wonderful loving families, many material things that we don’t need, our health, and most of all, the gospel! We are so grateful for our families, friends, our lives, and for the gospel of Jesus Christ.