Conference Weekend

We had a fantastic conference weekend! It turned into a party with Chelsey, Cody, Garrett, Emily, Bekah, and Xander came down from Logan for the weekend. The Coopers joined us for the afternoon and we had so much fun visiting, eating yummy food and being together. We spent part of the day in Salt Lake celebrating Baer's first birthday! So much fun.

Nana sent these awesome conference bags for the girls.

Fashionista's! Bekah, Audrey, Allie, Kirsten, and Eliza

Jess, Emily, Xander, Timothy, and Baer

Handsome boys that will be causing trouble together before we know it. Look at Xander already dreaming of the adventures they will take.

Emily and sweet Xander

Happy 1st birthday Baer!

The Farm

Last week we met Camille and her kids and Josh and Kevin at the Thanksgiving Point farm. We had so much fun enjoying the animals, pony rides, and carriage ride with everyone. Afterwards everyone came over for dinner. It's so much fun to be together. These are the reasons we are happy to be in Utah!

Audrey, Allie, Kirsten, Jacob, Abby, Josh, Eliza, Kevin

September

Audrey was ecstatic to start preschool

New hair

Kirsten and Timothy are the best of friends

This is how Kirsten loves to carry Timothy around

The scrapbook page Kirsten made of our family for school.

And this is what she had to say about it.

USU football party in our basement. They are all holding cookies :)

Garrett, Emily, Brett, and cute Xander

We celebrated Eliza's fourth birthday party with her

I have 100 pictures like this on my phone, we are a little obsessed with My Little Pony here

Kirk's mom, Karen, received her Silver Beaver scouting award.

Afterwards the girls got to play in the mud with their cousins

Handsome Howcroft men

Aren't these two cute? She carries him around every chance she can

We met a friend at Thanksgiving Point were the girls got to ride ponies!

Her first time on a horse and she LOVED it

Teaching Timothy to walk is definitely a family event

Coloring pictures for a Halloween contest

Luckiest kindergartner in the school

New *warm* Utah jammies

Cute boy with gorgeous eyes

Audrey's first attempt at writing her numbers

First snow of the season in September! The girls were soooo fascinated.

I was lucky to go to Women's Conference with some girls in my ward

My cute "firefighter"

Timothy and his new cute friend

Uh oh. We are in trouble now!

10 Months!!!

Our cute (and favorite) son is already 10 months. He is the cutest and sweetest boy ever. He loves to give kisses (by opening his big slobbery mouth and putting it on my mouth) even if they are kisses only his mother can appreciate. He's busy, charming, loveable, and likes to eat. He cruises on furniture and stands alone for a few seconds. Bedtime is the most fun because he is delirious when tired and super cuddly and giggly. He gives me lots of kisses, doesn't like to leave my arms, and giggles over everything. His very favorite thing is the vacuum. The other day I left it in the middle of the room and he crawled all over it giggling, he kept glancing my way grinning at me. He's the cutest best little boy in the world.

8 YEARS

8 years!
It seems like Kirk and I have been married forever. Our 8th year was my favorite. So many great things happened for us. Kirk started working from home, we welcomed Timothy to the family, bought a family car, and moved to Utah! There have been moments that were most assuredly the happiest of my life but there were also the nights I cried myself to sleep or wondered if Kirk and I would ever see eye to eye on an issue. Our anniversary couldn't have come at a better time. A baby, move, and job game all in a year isn't easy on a marriage, we desperately needed some time to reconnect.
My sister Chelsey gracious watched all three kids for two days and two nights. I had a really hard time leaving Timothy (he is so little still) but I kept reminding myself he was in good hands, he would be fine, and this would be so so good for our marriage.
We wanted to go somewhere different and somehow ended up in Sun Valley, Idaho. We had a lot of time together in the car to talk. We were really able to open up and connect on a deep level. Sun Valley was beautiful and we scored a super nice hotel. We saw a lot of beautiful mountains, a few different lakes and even ate an "Idaho" pizza made with steak and potatoes as toppings.
As Kirk and I talked about where we thought we would be in 5 years and 10 years I realized 5 years ago, when we were celebrating 3 years, we had hoped we would have a few more kids, a decent job, live outside of Utah, and own a home. We are so blessed to have life turn out like we wanted. Now here's to 8 more years and eternity after that!