UGH!!

I want to do this!! BUT I am obviously a L-O-S-E-R! I am just so frustrated right now.... I had an entire post ready to put up. I had gone into completed details about Matt's first IRON MAN. It was long and really cute..... something happened??? I somehow deleted the entire post?? New GOAL.... learn how to BLOG?? Post pictures, and make cute collages......

Year in Review.... Dec/Jan 2011 Highlights

DEC 2010 - Season Passes

We decided that we had so much fun skiing last year, that we would splurge a little and get season passes to Snow Bird this year for Christmas. Problem was.... was that we wanted to use them before Christmas??? So, we decided to give them to the boys a little early... here we are with our new.... SEASON PASSES. So excited for the upcoming season!

Family ski days are some of my absolute FAVORITE!! I love that we are all outdoors, exercising, playing together!! It is so much fun being able to ride the lifts together and fly down the mountain. Stockton skies (like me) and Jaxson and Matt have chosen to snowboard. I say Matt chose too, because he never really grew up skiing or snowboarding. A few years ago (2009 ish) we decided to try it as a family - he and Jaxs thought snowboarding might be fun, so they took a lesson and loved it right away. Stockton chose skiing that day, so he got a ski lesson. I grew up skiing and just wanted to stick with that!! I didn't want to break my neck trying that snowboarding thing.... we have been skiing and snowboarding ever since -

Stockton and Jaxson are both brave and are willing to attempt any hill. We have brought Dawson up a few days this year.... so stinking cute - but so much work - here are a few pictures of our fun ski season... 0kay maybe not - i stink at blogging and need some help (so maybe soon there will be some picts of us skiing??).. (here is a little collage that my cute friend Keri helped me figure out how to make).

Snowbird 2011

UMMM DO OVER! and quick catch up...

Okay, sooo only 2 years have passed????? WHAT THE?? 2 years? Time flies waaaayyyy to fast! I'm feeling like such a slug, but rather than beat myself up (which I am really good at) - I will once again, START OVER!!

QUICK UPDATES :( I will try to summarize some of the bigger events - then..... move on and proceed) So, August 2009 We got quick notification that we had to move out of our Herriman home. We didn't have much time to look around, but I had fallen in love with Daybreak. We started looking and found the CUTEST house in Eastlake village that was for rent. We called on it, it was already taken (insert crying). I wanted that house!! Well.... it was fate and must have meant to be - cuz Adam (the property manager) called us a few days later and asked us if we were still interested... "HELLO!!! YES, YES, YES!" It has been the best thing ever - the Lord was for sure watching out for us, picked us up and placed us here in a little pocket of Heaven. It has now been 1 year and 1/2 and I love love love it here. Did I mention how much I LOVE IT here?? We were amazed at how friendly everyone was and how welcoming the whole neighborhood was. I have amazing friends, my kids have buddies, the school is about 4 houses away - just a 2 minute walk and we are there. I could go on an on, but the point is I LOVE IT!

Just before we moved in, Kevin had asked us if we would be willing to let a cute little Chinese girl, Mandy Li, come live with us while she attended a private school in Sandy. We thought it would be a neat experience for our family so we said Yes. Mandy has been with us ever since... that explains the cute little Chines girl in our family pictures :). She has been such a JOY in our home. She is such a sweetheart and we are happy that she will be with us for another year. We were very fortunate to be able to go visit her in China this summer.

The boys are all growing so fast. Stockton started Jr. High this year (not loving it). Jaxson is in 6th grade at East Lake Elementary and Dawson is in Kindergarten at Eastlake Elementary... (yes I cried the first day of school).

Next update will be about 2011. I will start in Jan and try to catch up to date..... then my new goal.... YES, AGAIN, my new goal will be keep up??? Lets see if I can do it?

4 months..... is that how often I should "journal/blog?"

Well, It is now June 27th....... 4 almost 5 months later!! I really stink at this! But I'm sure it will be worth it in the end if I just keep on plugging away and keep trying to catch up.

Let me see??? March?? I can't really remember anything toooo exciting in March - except for Leprechauns of course - we did get visited by the Leprechauns!

Leprechauns brought lots of "green stuff" and left cute shirts to wear. We also loved the green pancakes!

Okay so April??? OH!! How could I forget? In April, Matt and I flew to Boston so that my studly man - who is toooo cool for words could run the Boston Marathon. He qualified a year earlier in St. George. It is NO EASY feat to qualify for that run. He had to finish a marathon (26.2 miles) within 3 hours and 10 minutes - which means he is hauling , the entire race. Boston was a BLAST!!! I loved the city!! Just even watching the race was AMAZING!! Gives me chills to even think about it! I am still trying to qualify - but not sure if I'll ever be able to make it??

April also brought a really fun Easter!! The Easter Bunny surprised us by coming the night before Easter. We came home from renting movie... all the lights were out, and a note was left on the door - along with some special flashlights. The Easter bunny had hidden some glow in the dark eggs for us to find. We searched the dark house with flashlights to find all of our eggs. It was a fun night! The kids all found a basket with some extra prizes in it. It was kinda nice to do Easter the night before - that way on Easter Sunday we were able to focus on the true meaning of Easter. It was a weekend to remember!

This is Easter Morning in Herriman Cove - The boys looked sooo cute in their new shirts and ties. I am such a lucky Mom - I have 4 of the Greatest guys in my life!!!

Okay, enough catch up for today - I will try to finish up with May and June tomorrow - then as promised before........ will vow to do better (lol).

Happy New Year.... AND.... Happy Valentines?

Okay... I guess it is time for my monthly(or every other monthly?) update I have/HAD great intentions for this little "blog" of mine...... maybe some day I will get with it!! I am not scrap booking, or journaling our life events - so I really feel the need to jot down some of our fun (and not so fun) moments.

January was a BLAST!! waaaay better than last year! We had a nice quiet New Years - THANKS to Tara (ha ha). We were supposed to go to a rockin party at her house, but she slipped and fell the day before and broke her leg in 6 different places...... she spent her New Years Eve in the hospital getting surgery - no fun for her - so we had our own New Years Party with our awesome little family.

The boys were off track, so we spent some fun time together. Matt and I decided on a last minute get away - so we drove to St. George and ran our favorite 1/2 marathon, and the boys ran a 5k with Grandma Vickie.... Thanks Vickie!! (Fawntell - one of very BEST friends Mom). It was beautiful weather and we had a really great time. We then journeyed down to Diane and Allan (my sister)'s house in California where we left the kids for the week while Matt and I went on a short little Cruise. It was such a BLAST!!! We just relaxed and took it easy for 4 full days.......It was so much fun.... we didn't do ANYTHING - but sit around, order room service, watch T.V. and read - it was a great trip and such a great time to reconnect with my cute hubby!!

So.... we started of 2009 pretty nicely...... well except for the fact that on our way home our car broke down and it cost $750 smackers to get it back on the road again that stunk, but all in all pretty nice start. We are SURE 2009 will be a better year for our gang!!

As for February - pretty quiet - kids went back on track, Matt is working hard!! We had a fun Valentines Day! OH and we Finally and I mean FINALLY went skiing. Helllooooo we live in Utah - I hate the snow, the only reason snow is good, is for skiing.... AND WE HAVE NEVER TAKEN OUR KIDS???? We just bit the bullet and forked out the cash and finally took the kids to Beaver Mtn. We signed them up for a small lesson and away they went. We had a BLAST!! But I am the loser Mom and stinkin forgot my camera. Not happy about that! But we will go again, and I will for sure get some good picts.

I can not believe it is already going to be March???? We woke up to snow this morning, so it doesn't feel like spring yet.... but I am getting really excited for it to feel like spring!!! Whew... I think I caught us up. I'm sure I forgot some exciting things, but for now I will be happy about this - and just "vow" (again) to be better!

DECEMBER??? Where has it gone?

I could just kick myself!! I really really want to be consistent with this blog! This December was one of the most fun and memorable Decembers we have had in such a looooonnnng time. I can not believe that I haven't been documenting daily!! Hopefully I can do an okay job of catching up?

December 1st we started a new family tradition..... "Christmas by the fire." Each night we would gather by the fire for a special story, scripture, song and small treat to try to help remind us about the true meaning of Christmas. This turned out to be a very special and spirtitual time for our little family - one that I'm sure we will carry on for years to come. Some nights we had longer time than others, but we made it a point to gather together and have at least a small thought and some special "together time."

We had a "secret elf" deliver the 12 days of Christmas for the Smagner family.....
Smith + Wagner = Smagner (Brian, Annie and Linc are living with us). Each day the secret elf brought us something that we could do together as a family. In a day or two (because I want to remember all of this) I will post pictures of each of the days activities - it was so much fun waiting each day for him to come deliver us a special prize...... then getting together to enjoy each activity as a family. It was so great to have so much family together time. I love these little guys, and time is flying by so quickly that it has been fun to slow down a bit and cherish these cute faces!

Not that we haven't already had a blast for the month.... just to add more fun - Annie and I decided to host a Christmas Eve party. We knew we were going to have a big clan joining us for Christmas this year, so we thought we'd make the best of it and turn it into a Holiday Bash! We invited everyone to our "Ugly Christmas Sweater Party" No one was allowed without an Ugly Christmas sweater. We ate, ate, ate, and ate some more! We had a beautiful photo op... which you can see how lovely we all looked!! I was laughing soooooo hard - everyone did such a great job with their "cute" Christmas ensembles!! We then voted on the best sweater..... Kev took the prize. After our photo op, we played some serious BINGO!! then moved on to Rock Band! Finally the Secret Elf delivered some twinner jammies shirts for everyone and it was time to settle down and hope that Santa would come for a visit. Not only did he visit..... he delivered lots of fun stuff for EVERYONE!!

It definitely has been a December to Remember that is for sure!!

Partners in crime!!

Dawson and Linc.... fixing a snack

Today, Annie (my sister-in-law) and I were downstairs finishing up our morning exercise. We have started a new competition around here..... For every 1/2 hour of exercise you get 1 point. For every treat you eat you have to subtract a point. The contest ends November 27th and whoever has the most points WINS the pot.... the pot is cash that has to be spent on something fun!!! No bills. Anyway, we were finishing up our routine when we heard a small crash from upstairs??? As I ran upstairs to find out what was going on..... there were my little "partners in crime" Dawson and Linc (my nephew ) had gotten a stool, gotten in the pantry - found the bread, peanut butter and the honey all by themselves. They were so cute, sitting at the table making their own peanut butter and honey sandwiches. The crash was just the butter knife falling to the floor from the drawer - so no biggie really - just the huge mess from peanut butter all over the table and the boys.