Snow, Snow, and More Snow!

We have so much snow here!  I think we live in Alaska!  At least the kids are having a great time.

First they built a huge snow cave in the backyard.  They like going in there and playing.

Then I wanted to see the grass so Russell rolled up the foot deep snow to reveal the green grass.

We used the huge rolls of snow to build a seven foot snowman named Frostina.  As you can tell, Frostina didn't really put a dent in all of the snow in the backyard.

Then this last weekend, we had another major snowstorm that dumped at least two more feet of snow.

There are huge snow piles everywhere.  You will notice the mailbox in nearly buried!  

We did have one motorcycle slide off and Logan wrecked into the snowbank.  Luckily the fresh powder cushioned his fall and he was laughing.

Can you see anyone kids buried alive out there?  Here they are building a snow fort.  The huge piles of snow were perfect for sliding down .

Look at all of that snow!  I have never seen this much snow in my whole life.  I am predicting this snow won't melt until July!

I just had to measure it.  The snow along the sidewalk was a foot deep and the piles along the driveway and road were even deeper than that! What are we going to do with all of this snow?

Science Fair

Emily recently participated in the school Science Fair.  We all had a god time putting her project together that it really became a family project presented by Emily.

For her project, Emily wanted to learn more about bees.  She wanted to know how bees made honey and how they found their way back to the hive.  This was more of a research project than an experiment so the first thing we did was find books about bees at the library.  Emily liked learning about the bees and we all learned new and important facts about bees.  We also visited a beekeeper in the Valley and learned even more.  When it came time to put the board together, everyone helped even the boys.  

On the night of the Science Fair, Emily did an amazing job talking to the judges and presenting her project.  

In the end she received many awards including the Most Time Spent Award and the Expert Award.  The Expert Award was only given to about 10 kids.  These 10 kids got to display their projects during the school's Leadership Day the next day.  We were so happy for Emily and she had a great time doing the Science Fair.

Rider Bea Pryor

We had a new little addition to our extended family this week.  Josh and Hallie welcomed Rider Bea Pryor into our family.

 She was 5 pounds 9 ounces, 17 inches long and born at 12:30 pm on Sunday, January 10, 2016.  She is so little but so darling!  Here are some cute pictures of Rider:

I know, I would be crying too if someone shoved me in a helmet like that!  What a fun picture though especially since Josh love riding motorbikes.

Here is a fun picture of Cole-man holding Rider and seeing her for the first time.  Jess said he loved holding her and seeing her that he didn't want to leave.

I can't wait to see her for myself.  Hopefully soon.

Bring on 2016!

Here we come 2016!  This new year will hopefully be just as fun as last year was.  We are not planning any major life changing events like moving or taking a new job in a new city or anything like that as we did in 2015 but we are planning some fun things this year.  That is if we can ever get out of this eternal winter!  I know, I know summer will return someday...  Any way we are excited about this new year.  We are planning a fun trip back to Oregon this summer and can't wait.  My new year resolutions for this year are pretty similar to other years.  Last year I really focused on physical fitness goals and I am happy to say I accomplished all of them.  This year, however, I really want to focus on spiritual goals like reading scriptures, having FHE, going to the temple more often and writing in my personal journal.  Wish me luck because these are things I struggle with.  As a family goal, we want to become debt free (well except for the house).  That means we want to pay off the van this year.  Which also means really tightening our belts and saving more because we also want to buy the piece of property next to our house and go to Oregon.  (Does anyone have a money tree we can borrow for a bit?)  I haven't really thought about some specific goals for the kids this year.  I really just want them to continue to learn all they can in school, church, and hopefully something good from us too.  Emily will turn 8 this year so we also want to get her ready to be baptized.  So there are our goals for the year!

To start out the year, on January 2, we traveled down to West Jordan to hang out with the Stewart's.  The kids had a blast sledding with their cousins.   

Oh who are we kidding the adults had a little too much fun too!

I am so glad Santa brought us new sleds and snow clothes and boots.  Playing in the snow is much more fun when you have the right gear.

The kids were so daring and did many awesome tricks on the sleds.  They even had races down the hills.  Unfortunately, sledding is not free of peril.  There were a few run ins and collisions but in the end, everyone had a great time.  After sledding for a few hours, we called it a day and headed back to the Stewart's house for some hot chocolate and games.  We had a great time and it was a great way to start out the new year.