Ice Castles

This past January I took my pregnant butt, my Jack and my brother to see the ice castles in Midway, Utah. Because duh - they're ice castles. It was a really fun evening and the castles were spectacular. Jack enjoyed breaking off and eating icicles (which was a total no, no), Billy enjoyed being mistaken for Jack's dad, and I enjoyed pretending to be Elsa. But seriously, the ice castles were a perfect place to go in the height of our my Frozen obsession.

 


 

 

"The cold never bothered me anyway!"

(Sorry, I had to...)

Christmas 2013

Obvs I love everything about Christmas. I mean, who doesn't? The music, the decorations, the activities, the shopping - it's the best! However, my favorite part is the baking and the eating. I'm pretty sure there isn't anything much better than Christmas cookies (well Easter candy is a close second). One of these years maybe I'll be proactive enough to blog about my Christmas cookies and the recipes before Christmas (a girl can dream). But lemme tell you something, my Mom's sugar cookie recipe is kick you in the crotch, spit on your neck fantastic! And since I was with child I let myself eat an insane amount of cookies this year. What the hell. I was going to get fat(ter) regardless. It was glorious.

Okay so the weather was definitely "frightful" but at least someone in our family enjoyed it:

 

Our Christmas was pretty typical. We had a great Christmas Sunday, even though Jack's bow tie was way too small. I totes spaced buying him a new one (#pregbrain). Christmas Eve was celebrated with bowling, pizza and ended with Jack opening his new Christmas jammies, leaving cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. Christmas morning went perfectly. Jack woke up eager to come downstairs and see what Santa had brought him. He then ignored the gifts we were most excited for him to get and played all morning with the tiny little afterthought presents. Typical. But no, it was great. Okay well Garrett didn't loooove the 3 hours he spent putting together and placing stickers on toys, but other than that it was wonderful.We spent the day together in our jams, finishing off our Christmas treats and playing with our new gifts. 

Christmas Sunday

 

Christmas Eve

 

  

Christmas Morning

Last year's Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Oh and by the way, we did everything a day early. Why? Because of course we had a trip to Texas planned and we were flying on (the real) Christmas Day - hello much cheaper flights! Since Jack had literally no idea it worked out perfectly for us. We were able to celebrate Christmas in our home as a family and celebrate Christmas, our anniversary and New Years with extended family. It was pretty awesome.

Plane ride

 

The first thing we did after landing in Dallas was met up with my family for our traditional Hibachi Christmas dinner. It was totes delish and Jack loved the show (and we all got a kick out of watching Jack watch the show). While we were in Texas we also got to Skype with my sister Hannah,  reenact the Christmas story with our Texas friends, play with cousins, use the jets in Grandma's tub, welcome in 2014, and ended with trip with a night of bowling. 

Hibachi Christmas Dinner

   

Skyping Sister Hagee

The Christmas Story - Jack was the angel

 

                             Aunt Lauren                                       Playing with cousins

 


Granda's tub

New Year's Eve

  

Bowling night

 

October

October in Utah is a dream. And although I am an indoorsy person, I actually do not mind being outside in the fall. The air is crisp and the mountains are gorge. I snapped this picture on a walk to our neighborhood playground -

We had quite a busy October; not only did the Powell girls come to visit but my parents did as well. It was so great, as always. They were able to see our new home, our new town and my new pregnantish belly. We had game nights, visited the pumpkin patch, had a spudnut party, and Harlow even broke his awful strict diet for a JDawg. 

 

I know that spudnuts are foreign to most people, but they are a yearly tradish for me. Luckily I am friends Claudia, the spudnut queen, and she graciously throws me and my family and friends a spudnut party every October. I'm pretty sure that my Mom makes sure to come to Utah every October just for the spudnuts (although she keeps saying she comes to "visit her kids and grandkids," puh-lease). Oh and for those who do not know, spudnuts are the most amazing donuts you'll ever eat. 

 

Of course our October included Halloween. Since I'm trying to get all caught up on the bloggy I will skip a whole long post, but you can read the one from last year. But this Halloween Jack was Max from the childrens' book Where the Wild Things Are. His costume was amazing. And it was all thanks to my fabulous Mother who can literally make anything (and a little thanks to my brother who brought home a fox tail from Ukraine). Jack was totally into the costume and asked to wear it often. When it was finally Halloween we hit up all the Halloween activities I felt I could handle. The best though was just good ol' trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. It was just the three of us and Jack was being especially adorable and hilarious - a few times he just walked right into people's houses as soon as they answered their door. And we have several older ladies in our neighborhood who handed out fresh baked cookies and Frosty coupons. Score!

Pumpkin carving - 

Boo at the Zoo -

Provo Riverwoods Halloween Night -

Trunk-or-treating - 

Neighborhood trick-or-treating - 

"I'll eat you up I love you so."