Kalun is a Big 3-0!

Kalun is now a big 3-0!! Of course for all of you that know the joke we are not sure if he turned 30 on the 1st or 2nd but nonetheless he is 30. So I thought I'd take a moment and brag about how awesome Kalun is. I am so grateful that Kalun is my husband. He takes such good care of me. He is also such an amazing dad. He loves being with his kids. Both kids have a laugh I refer to as the "dad laugh" because no one can make them laugh like their daddy. He is such a hard worker. He is very dedicated to his job and will do whatever it takes to get the job done. He has a strong testimony. He is also one of the most service oriented people I have ever met. He will never say no when someone needs help. He is a good friend to everyone. I don't think I know anyone who has more friends than Kalun. We cannot go anywhere without running into someone he knows. Kalun, thanks for being the person you are and for always striving to be even better. I love you, Happy Birthday!!





Okay, I'm not usually a mushy person, so moving on...We had a busy couple days around his birthday(s). Sunday the 1st (which is probably his real b-day, but not the one he grew up celebrating) he got to watch the super bowl at his friends house. That is pretty much a win win for a birthday for Kalun since he loves football and good food. On the 2nd, he worked all day but we squoze in a movie. We went to the dollar theater and saw Madagascar 2. On the 3rd we had a big party at classic skating. Not many people know that Kalun is a roller blader. He has loved skating for years. He used to skate around the neighborhood with his dog pulling him. So, he's actually really good. I on the other hand went old school and skated. I volunteered to push Haylie in the stroller most of the time because at the beginning I let Kalun take her and I fell really hard on my butt, so I opted for the stroller to hold on to. Tate had fun on his scooter with all the kids. We had a blast at the party. Kalun's mom even skated. We got to see a lot of people that we haven't seen for a long time. It was so fun to see everyone's kids having fun. Thanks to everyone who came and celebrated with us!!

Draper Temple

Thursday night we took our kids and went to the LDS Draper Temple open house. The temple was so beautiful!! It was fun to take the kids. Even though they are so young it was a great teaching moment. We were able to go into a Sealing room and I was able to talk with Tate about Kalun and I being married there, he thought it was cool. Tate also loved all the beautiful pictures of Jesus throughout the temple. I encourage all of you to take the chance to go. There is more info on www.lds.org. The open house continues until March.

Quick Cabin Trip

Our friends parents have a cabin. We have been saying we were going to go up to it since we went last time 3 1/2 years ago, and have never made it back up there. Finally we just decided to go. It ended up being a very short trip, because none of the hubbies could take time off. So we left friday night after work and came home late Saturday. We all felt like we had to be back for church, especially since the friends are in our ward and she's in the RS presidency, he's in the YM's, Kalun's in the Elder's quorom presidency, and I'm in the YW's presidency. Anyway, it was short but we still had a lot of fun. They invited a few other friends. We played lots of games and went four wheeling in the snow. It's funny that it's so hard sometimes to fit in a little get away, but every time we do we swear we need to do it more often.

Christmas Break

Wow, it's been really busy. We had a great break. We had a lot of fun spending a lot of family time. Kyli was able to visit for a while. So I thought I'd go back to the beginning starting with Christmas Eve. We went sledding. My mom has this perfect hill in her front yard for my kids. The kids love the snow. We then went home and got ready for the day. We then headed back to my parents for a big dinner. On the way though we had a horrible experience. We came across an accident on the freeway seconds after it happened. (I know a lot of you got stuck in the traffic) Needless to say, no police or paramedics had arrived yet. We slowed down and yelled to see if anyone needed help. They said someone needed CPR, so I jumped out and ran to help. I won't go into many more details because the scene was not pretty. But, I stayed on the scene and tried to help (I didn't have any kind of medical supplies with me) I stayed until the paramedics arrived and then worked with them for a bit, until I was no longer needed. Then we went on to my mom's. What a sobering experience to have on Christmas Eve.




Christmas Day
We had an awesome christmas. I surprised Kalun with a Wii. The kids are at such a fun age. We had a great time watching them all morning.



The Day after Christmas Kyli flew in. We went straight from the airport to Temple Square. It was so pretty, and also very cold. But we had a blast.



The next day we went swimming


We then had a big Christmas dinner with Kalun's Family where we did the nativity..

Monday Night we went to Jump-on-it



Next was the Dinosaur Museum


Then we went Ice skating. Tate loved it. Kyli took a while to warm up to it, but by the end of her trip she kept saying that was her favorite part.





The last couple days of Kyli's visit we went to my grandparents cabin. We played in the snow a lot, played games, and played wii. It was so much fun. We went with some of our friends who have kids that are the same age as Tate and Haylie, and have girls that have always been really good friends of Kyli's.





Sorry this is the longest post I've ever seen. I took like a hundred more pictures, I tried to narrow it down to only a few. I hope everyone else had a great Holiday Season!!

The Polar Express

There is a place in Lindon that does kind of their own version of the polar express. I don't think me trying to explain it will do it justice, but I'll try anyway. There is a family that owns a ton of land and all built their houses on it. They built a little train track going around all of their properties. Then they built a train that holds around 15-20 people. While you wait for your train you sit in this huge work garage and watch the Polar Express. Then you load on the train and it takes you on a little ride with lots of christmas lights playing music from the polar express. You arrive at Santa's Workshop and get to go in and sit on Santa's lap. He then gives all the kids a bell and you sing a couple carols with him. Then, and this is why I love it so much, Santa talks briefly about the real meaning of Christmas. You then reboard the train and go on a ride to beautiful Christ centered christmas Hymns while passing huge beautiful paintings depicting Christs' birth. It is very touching. This family does this as a service. It is completely free. They usually have some kind of charity at the end if you want to donate. Anyway, the kids loved it and so did Kalun and I. What an awesome thing it is to have santa talk about the real meaning of Christmas. And what truely amazing people to donate all their time to this wonderful thing every Christmas.

Sugar Cookies

I have really wanted to try harder this year, now that Tate is getting bigger, to be better at making holiday memories and traditions. Letting Tate decorate his tree was one of my ideas. Last night we decided to make and frost sugar cookies with our friends and their kids. The whole time I had to keep reminding myself that I'm trying to be a good mom and create memories, because wow was that a messy idea!! The kids however had a blast.

Putting up the Christmas Trees

I love Christmas decorations. It's the only time of year I feel like my house is decorated cute. I also very much love Christmas trees. Since having Tate I have learned that I have to have at least two. One for me, that no is allowed to touch or mess up, and one for the kids that they can put crazy decorations all over. However this year we went above and beyond and did three. My tree is in our living room, then there is a tree up in the playroom, and then Tate really wanted one in his room. Thankfully from Kalun's Target days we have a lot of trees that he would get on clearance. Next year we might have to have four trees because it's my goal to add one to the basement. I know, it's a little much, but what can I say, I love Christmas trees! Tate was so cute, he got really excited this year to put ornaments on the tree.

Family Pictures

So the time has come to take family pictures. I used to be so good about getting our pictures done. I think they are so important for memories and history etc. However, since all the Kyli stuff, I haven't been very good at it. It just feels odd doing pics without her, it feels like we are missing a family member. So, I have slacked on our pictures. But I feel like I am doing Tate and Haylie an injustice by not keeping up with our pictures. Anyway so we finally went and did some. It's funny that we took over 50 pictures and none of them of very good. My kids did not want to smile.

Bed Head

Haylie's hair has kind of been out of control lately. Some days she lets me put elastics in and some days she refuses. But the back of her head is especially of out control. It has a little curl in it, that makes it go kind of frowy. Anyway, she woke up from her nap the other day having a particularly bad hair day.

Disney on Ice

We donated food and got free tickets for disney on ice, talk about a good deal. The kids loved it. Tate was glued. His favorite characters were Woody and Buzz Lightyear. Haylie did good the first half, but the second half she had more fun climbing on the seats and eating popcorn.