First time Roller Skating....

A week or so ago, a few of my girl friends and our kids went to play at classic skating in Sandy. It was so much fun. The kids loved handing out on the bounce around things and climbing through the jungle. The boys absolutely loved it. Well part of your pass for all this other fun stuff is also skate rentals. WOW, not sure I was ready for this adventure without Matt's help to take the younger son, but we tried and he left smiling, so it was not a complete fail. He was really cute. He didn't do so great on the actual rink, but once he built up a little confidence, he did pretty good on the carpet. It was lots of fun and I am glad I got to share this time with my boys and some great friends.

Lake Christmas Party

I feel very sad that I did not take more pictures at this Christmas Party. I'm not exactly sure why I didn't. I really do love this family dearly. I'm not sure if I was just busy with other things, or if I forgot. Whatever the reason, I am just a little saddened by it.

This is my Mom's Family.

Eli played the cutest little Shepherd ever.

Our family was in charge of the nativity this year. We have enough people in our family that we can pretty much act it out quite nicely. Eli was very excited to get to dress up and be a Shepherd.

Christmas Parties..... at least the first set of them

I hope that my brother in law doesn't get to upset with me for posting this picture. But I just have to show everybody how awesome he is when it comes to getting into the spirit of an ugly sweater contest. He went all out and was rocking the creepy looking mustache as well. He grew it out just for the party and man was he a bit creepy looking.

This was at our second party of the day. We went to the May family cousin party. I sure do love these people. This was such a fun party. Good food, great family and friends, and fun entertainment ( mostly just watching the kids, but that was entertainment enough). I am mostly posting most of these pictures for Grandpa Doug. This is his family, and I am pretty sure it has been awhile since he has seen most of them, so I thought I would share what pictures I did get of some of the family.

Eli rocking his ugly sweater. Well, sweater vest. He had no desire to wear a shirt underneath it.

This is Ethan rocking his ugly sweater. Yes I know it is a size or two to small, but that just makes it that much uglier and that much cuter.

This was at the first party of the day. We went up to Hill Air Force base for the Cottle Christmas party. It was also very fun. Again, great food, great company and a serious grueling game of minute to win it. I have to say, I was lucky enough to marry into some of the best families out there. There are so many good people and such a neat family, well families, to be a part of.

This is Great Grandma, and Grandpa Cottle.

Christmas Tradtitions

We have a tradition in our family, probably the same tradition as many of the great people that live in Utah, but we go to temple square to see the lights every year around Christmas time. We just love it. It is always so beautiful and the spirit is always so strong there. Well this year we actually made a slightly bigger night of it and went and did Zoo lights the same night. We have never done this, and to be honest, Im not positive I would ever go do it again, but it was really fun to at least see once and the boys had a blast. We got to take our cute nephew Corbin with us.

This is my favorite picture of the night. We used bribery to get one good picture of all three of them. We told them if they would all just sit there super nicely and let me get one good picture of them, they could go ride the carousel. That was all it took to get this super cute picture of these three adorable boys.

Although, I have to admit, the unknowing back pictures turned out super cute as well. The boys loved the lights. There where so many light up animals, and most of them actually moved and that made that boys even more happy with the lights.

My two super cute boys sitting in front of the temple.

Love this statue, and love the feeling you get in the visitor center.

My three boys sitting in front of the temple. I love these three soooooo much.

This is my Family....

So one hour of continual picture taking, attempting to get just one good family picture for our Christmas card and well.... that just isn't quite how it all happened. I never did really get a GREAT family picture, but hey, what can I say, this is my REAL family. We are a little goofy, a lot of funny, and always being silly, but there is LOTS AND LOTS of love in my little family and I would not have it any other way. Merry Christmas everybody, hope you have an amazing holiday season.

Santa... take two, and other randomness

I just have to say... I have one of the cutest little missionary's in training. He found one of my little over the shoulder purses and he turned it into his scripture carrier, so now he looks really official. He is growing up WAY to fast. I'm not ready for it at all.

So, as you can see from previous posts we have seen Santa a few times this year. It was so much fun. Eli was sooooo excited to go tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas, and Ethan was not afraid at all. Eli was so scared when he was Ethan's age. I don't know if it is because he saw his older brother run up and jump on his lap, or what, but he was so cute. They both were very excited to see him. This was the Santa at our Ward christmas party.


We went to the aquarium a while back and this was just a picture that I took of Ethan. I just think he looks really grown up in this picture. I love that he can't smile with out squinting. It is his signature look. He is so handsome.

Just a cute one of Eli.

A very cute video of Eli showing off only a very small portion of his KILLER moves. This kid has a future in dancing. He is so cute and he loves moving to almost any music.

Santa.... take one

My family is some what strange... but man do I LOVE THEM

There really is not a lot of reasoning behind the silly things that my family comes up with for entertainment, but I have to say that I never stop laughing and there is seldom a dull moment around my house.

So Matt brought home a few new backpacking bags from work that he was testing and we decided to have a little fun with them. Honestly not sure what inspired the insanity, but as you can see, the boys had a blast playing mini Matt.

I just like this picture and thought I would through it in there.

December Weather.... REALLY?

Okay, Okay, so I love the summer as much as the next person, but honestly, I am ready for a little snow. I have not been able to build a snowman not even one time with my boys. These are our pictures from us, at the park, barely needing jackets, in the middle of December. Come on snow. We just need one really good, massive snow storm to get it out of my system.

Not MIA...... Just really, really busy

So December seems like it just flys by, because it is so busy and there are so many things to attend and get done. But I just wanted to say that I have not dropped off the face of the earth and there are many posts to come in the soon future, but I thought I would share this years cute Christmas card with everybody. Merry Christmas. Hope everyone is having as much fun with the Holiday season as I am.

My little boy turns 4

Wow, what a day. Can you say spoiled? Okay, okay, as Grandpa always says, "Not spoiled, just really, REALLY Loved" He most certainly is. Once again the pictures are all backwards. I will get it all figured out one of these days. We had so much fun celebrating with Eli. Look at this kids present load. Wow, to much love? Is that even possible?

Eli and Grandma Gaye spending some quality time together after a very fun and exciting party.

Look at this super cute, awesome outfit that Grandma and Grandpa Hatch gave Eli. He is a super huge BYU fan because of his daddy, and I suppose that is a good thing. They are a pretty good team to support. He was so excited for his new Cougars outfit.



Eli blowing out his candles on his super cute Phineas and Ferb cake. This wasn't the exact cake that he wanted, but it was kind of a combination of three different ones that he wanted. We took some different factors from all of them and came up with this. He really loved it and we had a blast making it together as a family.

Grandma and Grandpa Hatch also got him a way cool Tonka truck. Honestly this was about the only thing that Eli evey asked for when we would ask him what he wanted for his birthday. He wanted one so that he could play with his friend Tommy next door. Tommy is all about Tonka trucks and Eli was pretty sure that he needed one as well. He cant really play with it outside right now because of how cold it is, But he has surely figured out how to load it with treos and dump them out and Ethan thinks the back of it is the best seat in the house. Pictures of that to come soon.

This is Eli's new bike, but Ethan needed to get in on that action to.

Eli and is new Perry shirt. It was slighly to big, but it was the smallest that we could find. He was sure a happy camper though. Look at that smile.

As part of Eli's party, we set the basement up to be Dr. Doofensmirtz evil science lab. Look at how intrigued those kids are. I think this was one of their favorite parts of the party. In this picture, Matt is making Evil Elephant toothpaste. The kids were just amazed. They watched so well followed all the rules excellent.

In this picture, Eli is adding alka seltzer tablets to the evil lava lampinator.



The kids were so fascinated and really enjoyed the different science experiments.

They all started sitting down but then they had a really hard time seeing everything that was going on on the table, so they stood up and gathered around the table.

Ethan pinning the tail on Perry the Platypus.

Evil Dr. Doofensmirtz joined our party as well.

We mummified the kids with crate paper and had a relay race. This is only a few of the kids that were there. A few of them were a little late, and a few others really didn't want to be mummified. But in this picture, from left to right, Corban Fegley (cousin), Eli, Tommy Kieffer (neighbor next door), Lindie Parkins (Neighbor down the street), and Dash (Neighbor around the corner). At the party, there was also Malcom (Dash's Brother), Maren ( Neighbor a few houses down), Jason Potter ( Eli's Best Bud), Zander ( Eli's cousin). It was such a fun party.

Eli and his very cool Phineas and Ferb cake. Eli couldn't decide exactly what cake he wanted us to make so we kind of combined a couple of cakes and came up with this. I think it turned out awesome and Eli really liked it as well.




Happy birthday Eli. I sure to love you and look forward to watching you grow and learn more and more each day. You are intelligent, kind and an amazing big brother to Ethan. You know all of your Abc's by sight and sound. Lower case and upper case. You can read or sound out most three letter words. You can write the entire alphabet both upper case and lower case only getting slightly confused sometimes on the lower case p, q, b, and d but for the most part can write all of them. You are a charmer and have lots of friends. You enjoy reading and have a great understanding of what you are reading. We can read beginner chapter books and you are able to tell me what it is that i am reading to you, even if it is very limited on pictures. You love to do I spy's, either in book form or on the computer. You enjoy seek and finds. You are a big help to your mother and are always willing to do most chores that are asked of you. You always help me by putting the silverware away out of the dishwasher, and helping your dad gather up all the garbage on garbage day. You are pretty good about helping me put your laundry in the correct drawers. You are completely potty trained during the day and the night. You actually have been for about six months, just thought that this is something that I should finally document about. You are a sweet spirit and a very important part of this family. Your father and I love you very much.