Weekends

I just don't know what to do with weekends.  When Evan was in medical he studied all day every Saturday, in residency often worked on Saturdays, or it would be a day of rest from a long stretch of working.  So now that he has almost every weekend off, I just don't know what to do.  I see friends post pictures of their weekend adventures and think "we should do that".  But most of the time we just loaf around and then Evan and I will get in a fight about something.  I'm just unsure how we are suppose to spend time as a family while at the same time let Evan have a break from the week...and have a break myself. 

 Anyhow last weekend I helped host a baby shower for a girl in my ward.  Their nursery is modern hunting so we did a hunting themed shower.  We played a shooting game with Nerf guns and had a hot apple cider bar and trail mix bar.

Evan likes to do "home owner" things.  Saturday he caulked the cracks on the driveway.

My new year's resolution is to have more date nights.  Saturday night we went to the Candlelight dinner theater and saw "Hello Dolly".  The food was good and so was the play.  Although I did fall asleep in the car on the way home.

Sunday was a tad warm.  So while Autumn was inside playing with her Lego stuff Violet, Maverick and I walked around the front yard, while Evan rearranged the snow.  Then he had the idea of pushing the kids on our sled.  Maverick wasn't huge fan, but Violet kept whining until it was her turn.

Autumn came out and joined us.  We had a great time!

Girls' Weekend

Most of my high school girl friends and I couldn't make it to our 10 year high school reunion...So we decided to get together...just us!  We met in Utah since 2 of the girls now live there. Also one of my friends' husbands has a hotel hook up.

Evan was so kind and requested a day off of work to watch the kids.  I drove all by myself the 6.5 hours.  I even stopped at Costa Vida on the way out there.  First stop was grandma and grandpa's house to say "hello".  Then I picked up Kristi and we met Noah at the new Provo City Center temple to go to the open house.

We met up with Daphni that night for dinner. Then we headed up to Salt Lake and picked Lauren up from the airport.  The next day Daphni came back up and we did an "escape room".  They tricked us by saying how important this puzzle was so Daph and Lauren spent almost the whole hour working on a very difficult jigsaw puzzle.  Kristi and I almost got one lock undone.  It was tough especially because we didn't know the other people in our room.  We were all a bit disappointed in our performance, but felt better after some In-N-Out.  Basically the rest of the day was spent chatting and eating.

After a late night snack at City Creek mall

Sunday we went to Music and the Spoken Word and toured the Beehive house.  It was so fun to see my best friends!  

 Monday on my drive home I talked to Autumn and she informed me, "Dad cut Violet's hair.  She didn't like it when dad used the vacuum to get all the hairs off her!"  Oh dear!  Alas Evan and the kids survived.  Violet's hair looks cute, the house was in good shape, and I think I may leave Evan with the kids again;)

Evan's Birthday

Autumn has been on a "tell me about the next holiday" kick at bed time instead of a story.  So in length we talked about Evan's birthday.  The plan was to make my tried and true banana muffins and a new recipe of zucchini muffins. The plan was to take them to dad and his friend's at work and to bring dad lunch too.  But then dad's lunch meeting got cancelled. Luckily he called to tell me that before we left (but not before everyone was buckled in the car.)  So we ended up with a ton of muffins.  Maverick was not disappointed.  He would almost do a whole pull-up to get to the muffins on the counter.

Evan picked up pizza on the way home from work and his parents and his brother joined us for a "party".

After Christmas I asked him to pick up some clearance wrapping paper...I forgot to tell him to get boy wrapping paper...So he got his gifts wrapped in Sophia the First paper.

The twins even enjoyed the first part of the party before bed time.

A level!  He is so excited about all his new tools.

This year in his birthday balloons I put clues to his "big" gift. 

A light bulb, a candle, a plate of food, a toy theater, Ranch seasoning, and a raffle ticket.  (Season tickets to the Candlelight dinner theater.)

I spiced up the birthday brownies this year by putting chocolate chip cookie dough at the bottom then a layer of Oreo cookies, then the brownies.  Last time I made these I over cooked them...this time they were well under cooked.  Autumn ended up waking up at 3 am and barfing!  Oops she was fine in the morning however.

Christmas

Evan had to work on Christmas (as well as Christmas Eve and the rest of that weekend) so he chose to go into the hospital at 5 am so he could be home when the kids woke up.  I heard Evan leaving and couldn't get back to bed until he made it home around 6:45 am....and then we both laid in bed awake, waiting for all the kids to wake up.  Alas Autumn woke up.  Evan blocked the hallway with the couch so Autumn couldn't sneak out and get to the tree before we did.

She found the pickle on the tree and won the "pickle prize"

locating her stocking.

We had cinnamon rolls for breakfast then finally had to go wake up Violet and Maverick.

They had chocolate chip waffles for breakfast...

but Maverick ate the rest of Santa's cookies first.

Opening Evan's stocking.

They love to follow each other around.  They were not interested in opening gifts.

Traditional stocking picture..kinda

When I was little I had an Avon Belvedeer light up reindeer.  It only came out at Christmas time and I loved it.  One year when we took the Christmas decorations out of the attic, my mom gasped!  Poor Belvedeer's nose had been eaten by a rat.  So we saved the scarf and I got a replacement bear/dog thing instead (it is in the first picture).  Any how Autumn has been really into hearing about past Christmases and talking about Christmas each night before she goes to bed.  So I told her the story of my beloved Belvedeer.  So multiple times she told me she was going to buy me one.  She was very convinced this was going to happen.  So one night I searched Ebay and noticed there were quite a few for sale and at a reasonable price.  So with the help of Ebay savvy friend.  I bought one.  Then a few nights later Evan and Autumn went on the computer to "buy" one for me and when it arrived in the mail they wrapped it together.  She was so excited to give it to me.  She is very thoughtful.

Evan got lots of things for the house!

We gave Violet some fake phones.

Autumn and Maverick tweeting away

I'm very good at guessing what my gifts are...you could call it a talent...or a curse.  Either way this year Evan wrapped all my gifts in a large box.  Some of the gifts were wrapped multiple times in multiple boxes.  It was very thoughtful

The smallest box ended up being an iPhone.  I finally joined the 21st century and have a smart phone.

Twinner statues!

They liked to play with the toys once they were opened...not so interested in actually opening them.

Santa hid the toys in the play room.  No one has played with the kitchen....not even once.

After naps we went to Grandma Linda and Grandpa David's house.  Violet truly enjoyed the eggnog toast.

Video chatting with the rest of the family.

Frozen tent from Aunt Sara

Maverick loves to rearrange and move things around.  He decided that all the cereal should go in the tent.

GO POKES!