New Years Eve...And Grandpas 90th Birthday Party

We celebrated New Years Eve with one of my all time favorite people. Grandpa Ted turned 90 years old!! I love him so much. He is such a great example to everyone he meets. He has a lot of spunk, and a lot of great wisdom. I have tried to take the kids often to go visit him. He is a very grateful , humble man. He has been inspired to write many poems for his grandchildren. I pray they remember them.

Happy, Happy Birthday Grandpa!

Is he not just darling?

Nancy Jo and Tasha came from California for this special event! Caitlin and Tasha decorated the church perfectly. There was music playing from the good ol' days, and food galore. We had a nice turkey and all the trimmings.

We had a program given by Ed, Jeff, and Nancy Jo. They retold his wonderful life. I could not believe how well Drew did. He sat and listened so well for only being the little two year old he is.

Grandpa really wanted a talent show. Sage played the piano, Tasha and Hallee sang. Lindsay did a puppet show, Raegan and my two girls danced, and I played a song on the harp. Grandpa ended it will his own little solo. It was hilarious.

McKenna and Aspens dance might have been the cutest thing you ever did see. We made big hearts with pictures of them with Grandpa on it. The song was "Last Christmas I gave you my heart". They ran and gave their "hearts" to grandpa with a big kiss. It was darling. Nate and I were very pleased with our beauties.

I had not played the harp for two years, so needless to say it was a bit rough. I am excited to start playing again. It inspired me to have McKenna take harp lessons. We are so excited about it.

The party was a hit. Everyone had a great time. I love the cute mustaches they had for everyone. Cause good ol' grandpa always sports the cutest mustache in town!

Cute Nate and Grandpa

Grandpa danced with all his girls.  I kept thinking how badly I wanted to freeze time.  What a special man he is, and what a special part he has in my heart.  

Aspen and Mckenna with their "hearts" that they gave him. 

Family Christmas Party

With all of the family in town, we decided to have a party.  What better way to celebrate the Holidays right? Right.  Nate rounded up all the fun toys from our house.  We brought Drew's new little car he got for Christmas so he could drive his little heart out.  We all got together at Ed and Lorna's church.  Family mixed with great food is going to turn out fun.  And so it did.  We brought the Xbox and Just dance.  We had everyone playing and trying to out dance each other.  Nancy Jo and Ed competed against each other.  It was hilarious.  

McKenna, Sage, Tate, Addie, and Drew

McKenna and her darling dad Nathan

The Fam: Jason, Eden, Brooke, Ed, Lorna, Tasha, Matt, Nate, Katie, Drew,
Abby, Lindsey, Addie, Hallee, Raegan, McKenna, Aspen, Sage, Tate

Raegan, McKenna, and Aspen danced all night long. 

Aspen and her Daddy

I love my girls!

I seriously don't know what I would do in this life without my Sage. 

Katie and baby Drew.  Yep he is two but he is still baby Drew to me. 

I love this man! I am so grateful as the year comes to an end that he is still by my side.  We have been  though so much and I am so grateful we are loving each other and raising beautiful children together! 

Temple Square

I love Christmas time! One of our favorite things to do is to go down to temple square and look at the lights. We went with Ed, Lorna, Jason, Brooke, and all of our kids. It was FREEZING. Went went to JB's after for some good ol' hot chocolate. Drew about died and went to heaven.

McKenna, Raegan, and Aspen

I really don't think there is a word to describe how cold we were! Thank heavens I had just gone to Dicks and bought my new puffy coat. Nate has a thing for puffy coats and really wanted me to buy one. It was a good day to have it!

I am so greatful to live buy this beautiful temple. We are so blessed to live in Salt Lake City. I love this city and all the wonderful things it holds. We are having a wonderful Christmas season. There is nothing like the spirit of Christ during this amazing time of year.

Aspens Birthday

Happy Birthday to our Aspen!  I am so grateful for my little beauty.  We don't know what we would do with out her.  Aspen is so smart and with it.  She gets the big picture and is so wise for her age.  

Here are some of our favorite things about this darling girl...

1. She is sharp as a whip and nothing gets past her

2. She knows what not to eat.  She has always known that chocolate gives her headaches and that red dyed     candy does the same thing.  She knows how to limit her self with sugar and treats.  She worries about her food and if it is healthy.

3. She is our rule follower.  She does not deviate from what she has been told to do.  She is very much black and white.

4. She is determined

5. She has about the cutest laugh you have ever heard

6. She is an amazing sister and daughter.  She loves her parents and siblings.

7. She is very talented and I can't wait to see all she does in her life

8. She loves to cuddle

9. She is sugar and spice topped with some sass

10. She is so beautiful and is such a standout

11. Every year her teachers confess she is their favorite kid in class

12. She is very serious.  She is always thinking deep. 

13. Life would not be worth living without our Aspen

 We had a great party for Aspen.  We love living at Highland Pointe and it has been an adventure.  One of the major highlights is all of the friends Aspen has made.  Lucky for her, there are about ten little girls her age.  We invited them all over for a pinata and cake.

Aspens friends are seriously some of the cutest girls ever.  We love them and I hope she always remembers this summer with her great friends.

Aspen, McKenna, and Brinlee

Ashley has been a huge blessing for Aspen.  She had a hard time leaving her darling group of friends behind from Navigator Pointe.  Ashley loves Aspen and invites her everywhere and her mother is a godsend and takes Aspen all over the valley doing fun things.  They have totally become two peas in a pod. 

Aspen with the twins

Aspen and Everly

Aspen and Raegan.  We are so happy Aspen and McKenna have a cousin so close to their age and someone who they both love and adore. 

Aspens very best friend at the apartment, McKenzie

There is nothing like a darling little girl and her handsome daddy.  They both put smiles on my face.

Youth Confrence-Zions National Park

Nate and I were both called into the youth programs for our church. Nate is an advisor for the Young Men and I (Katie) am also an advisor in the Young Womens.
We had our annual Bear Lake trip planned with our family, but last minute decided to go with the Youth. We LOVE Bear Lake so much. But decided we might not have this chance to get to know the youth and be apart of such a great trip.

We went down to Richard Paul Evans "Timepiece Ranch". It was a blast. It is barley outside of Zions National Park. He has two houses about a fourth of a mile apart. We had the women in one house and the men in the other. There was so much to do. Richard owns about 200 acres and there are four wheel trails everywhere. He had several four wheelers for us to ride and golf carts and dirt bikes. He had a man bring in hundreds of trout to stock his pond for the weekend so we could fish. It was awesome watching the fish being put in the pond. They built an outside movie theatre. We had a huge screen with eleven blow up mattresses outside to lay on. It was so amazing laying under the starry sky watching movies. We ate like kings the whole weekend. It was so much fun.

This is a view from faraway of our movie screen.

I could not believe how beautiful it was up there.

It was really nice for Nate and I to be able to spend so much time together not chasing after kids. We missed our kiddos a ton, but we needed a vacation together.

The first day we drove about five hours to get to "Timepiece Ranch". On the way we ate in Beaver at a surprisingly yummy Mexican restaurant. The Young Women all came the second day. So first things first with a bunch of men was....playing paintball for hours. Richard and I were on a team an won the first came. It was awesome. The second game, I was defiantly a target seeing how I stole the flag the first round. This picture is of my arm being shot at by Richard (now not on my team) . It turned really blue on day two and three through...hmmm um seven!

We decided to go into the park on day three. We took the older boys and girls and left some of the younger ones behind with leaders. Everyone was happy. The kids who stayed behind got all of the toys to themselves. I had never been to Zions, so I was very pleased to be able to go.

Nate and Katie

We hiked up the Narrows and took a swim in the river.

Swimming at the Narrow.

We were super excited that we were able to go spend time with the youth and our good friends Holly and Eric Fairbanks. Holly and I shared a room and stayed up until four thirty in the morning talking about everything you can think of. It was the best.

We have awesome youth in our ward.

Nate and I covered in paint.

Richard made us his famous crepes and pina colada smoothies every night. We had the best lasagna and salads for dinner. The Evans took care of all of the food. It was to die for.

It was so neat to get to know Richard Paul Evans. He has such a wonderful family. His two daughters are in young women's and his beautiful wife and I get to work together. He has a new book coming out soon and it was so cool to hear how he came up with it and how he is so inspired. He had so many neat stories that he shared that were right up my alley. He gave me a copy of his book and I think there are only two that were printed early, so I felt very spoiled. The new book Michael Vey is going to be a big hit so it was fun to see all the neat things that are starting to happen with it. While we were up there Amazon called and chose it to be the number one best seller on their website for young adult reading for the month of August. Pretty cool.

Rich has a really neat assistant named Diane. We really hit it off and it seemed we had been friends forever. We plan to go to lunch "quarterly". Isn't that darling of us? I loved meeting her and getting to know so many people better. I went home from this trip feeling so blessed in my life. I am so happy I moved. I never would have grown how I have and met all of these wonderful people. And I still get to keep my friends from where we came from. Life is such a gift.