December 2014

We had such a fun Christmas season! We decorated gingerbread houses while listening to the First Presidency Devotional for FHE one Monday night. Jenna was a great listener. She kept pointing out words that she recognized during the talks. Ivy didn't decorate but she helped us eat the candy while we decorated. :) We went to see the lights at Temple Square which was really fun! We sang Christmas songs the whole ride up there.  At one point, Andrew turned on the radio but Jenna told him to turn it off because she was enjoying our caroling session.  We saw the lights and many Nativities representing different cultures.  On the way back. Andrew pushed the empty stroller while I carried Ivy in one arm, and held Jenna's hand with the other and we skipped and laughed our to the van.  :)  It was one of those times when you look at your present situation from outside yourself and can't help but smile.  I don't know if that makes sense.  They were precious moments. :) We had FHE at our house one Sunday with the Blacks, Daltons, Sara and some of her friends.  We did a White Elephant gift exchange and dessert.  During November and December we filmed the kids answering gospel related questions and Sara spent hours editing it all and made an awesome "Out of the Mouths of Babes" video for Andrew's parents.  It will forever be a family treasure.
One night, Andrew went to the gym and the girls and I went to Seagull book, bought a bunch of awesome Christmas books for a crazy bargain, and then went to see the "Tree of Life" in Draper.  It is a huge tree filled with lights that glimmer and shine.  Once we were close to the tree it was kind of hard to look at because it was so bright!
We were able to get a great deal on Ice skating tickets to the Gallivan Center.  Jenna liked it but the ice skates bothered her.  Ivy wasn't even walking yet, but she LOVED ice skating!  Every time we tried to take a short break and pick her up, she would kick her little legs with ice skates on them until we put her down to ice skate again. :)
During the week leading up to Christmas, we stayed at my parents' house for a few days.  my sewing machine broke and I needed to use my mom's to finish making my parents' stockings, my Dad and Wendy had both recently added dogs to the Hughes household and visiting was getting a little difficult, so I wanted to stay at the house for a few days so the girls could get used to the dogs and not be afraid of them.  Mission accomplished!  And I had just been around my dad a few moments here and there and I wanted to spend some good quality time with him.  I wanted to see him still being himself since all of this stuff with Parkinson's has happened.  It was really kind of healing for me.  We have had a very warm December.  No snow in sight!  But on Christmas morning, lo and behold, we woke up to a white christmas! It has been snowy and cold ever since. :) On Christmas Eve we had prime rib, which has become a tradition for my side of the family over the last couple of years. It is such a delicious tradition!  We also made cookies for Santa and left them with a note on the fireplace. On Christmas morning, we woke the girls up at 8 am and went upstairs to enjoy opening presents! It was a really fun Christmas.  We talked with Jenna a lot about how Christ is in the word Christmas and Christmas is about Him.  We also taught her that the reason we give gifts is because we are celebrating the greatest gift ever given, which was Heavenly Father sending Jesus to us, and all of the gifts Jesus gave us through the atonement and His resurrection.  She totally gets it. :)  It is very easy for her to understand the true meaning of Christmas. She is a sweetheart. :)
I am so grateful for my little family and my big families and the time we are able to spend together doing fun things!

Tree of Life in Draper

Ice skating family date

Sirloin!

Shopping with Grandma

Prime Rib Christmas eve dinner. Mmmm

Christmas eve

Drews!

Stockings I made

Baby Alive from Santa

Jenna dressed up for her dance recital

Slide Ivy got from Santa

Anniversary Trip - August 2014

     Andrew and I celebrated our 7th anniversary this year.  It  is crazy that we've been married that long! We're old. ;)  Andrew has really been wanting us to have a getaway with just the two of us for a while.  So, I finally agreed and we let the kids stay with Becca, and then with my Mom while we went to Midway. We were away for 3 nights.  The first night, Sunday night, we stayed at The Homestead Resort.  On Monday we went mountain biking at Dutch Hollow.  It was so fun!  We are certainly not pro mountain bikers or anything, but we both enjoy it, and haven't been in several years. It felt great to hop on our bikes and hit the trail!  There were some pretty awesome views from the top!
     We were planning to stay at Johnson's Mill the second night, so after mountain biking we went to check in.  It was an awesome place.  There was a pond at the Mill that we took a canoe ride on, and tons of land to explore, so we hiked around for a while.  It was a bed and breakfast, and their breakfast was delicious!  I had never been to a bad & breakfast before, and had always wanted to.  It was a lot of fun.  Tuesday, after breakfast, we drove to the Park City Outlets, did some shopping, then headed to Salt Lake and saw 'Wicked' at the Capitol Theater.  It was SOOO good!  I LOVED it! Andrew thought it was ok, but I was blown away by how awesome it was!  However, I was really missing the girls by this point.  They were in Orem and the musical ended at a late hour, so we slept at out house, and I picked the girls up from my parents house Wednesday morning.  We had a really fun little get away!  It was fun to eat a lot of food, watch a lot of our favorite shows, just relax, and hang out together.  I'm happy I'm married to this guy. :)

Flaming Gorge-July 2014

We LOVE Flaming Gorge!  We had so much fun!  This is another trip we would like to make a tradition out of.  We went to Flaming Gorge 2 years ago for the first time.  We went again this year and it was such a blast!  We all stayed in a house together that my parents rented for the weekend. We rented a motorboat and went knee boarding, water skiing, and jumped off some of the red cliffs into the lake.  We were nervous about how Ivy would do on the boat because she would have to wear a big puffy life jacket the whole time, but she did great!  She even fell asleep in our arms while on the boat. :) We jumped off a few cliffs, which was really fun.  Well, Andrew and Darian jumped off a few cliffs, I only jumped off one. :) We also went water skiing and knee boarding.  Andrew had a goal to complete a 360 on the knee board and he did it!  He was also able to go in and out of the wake on the skiis. He is pretty athletic. :)

 The next day we rented rafts and went river rafting down the Green River.  It is such a fun river.  Very smooth, with just a couple of little rapids to keep things fun. :)  We played games every night and had a lot of fun together.  Flaming Gorge is so beautiful.  We were surrounded by tall, red rock cliffs while boating and when we were rafting.  I am excited to go again!

July 2014 Cecret Lake

One of our favorite hikes is the Cecret Lake hike up Little Cottonwood Canyon.  The wildflowers are so beautiful during the month of July.  We didn't get any good pictures of them but they were awesome!  The girls did great on our hike!  We were hiking for like 3 + hours because we had to take a longer route, I don't remember why, but they did great!  Jenna liked to climb like a mountain goat, and have piggy back rides, and Ivy LOVED riding in the hiking back pack.  G & G Hughes came with us and we all had a great time. Oh, and we saw a moose! :)

Happy Girls

We were swinging on the swings and playing dress-up and Princesses one day in July, and I captured some of my favorite pictures ever of my cute girls.  Totally in their element,  These sweet, joyful, full of fun moments make my Mommy heart so happy. :) I'm so glad my little camera phone captured this moment so well. :)