Backcountry Powder

Blue sky days have been rare this winter, but Matt caught a good one last Monday during a day ski trip. A link to his website post with more photos.

9 months!

This beautiful little water girl turned nine months recently. Here are her stats:

Weight: 19.4 lbs (53%)

Height: 27.5 in (38 %)

Head Circumference: 17.9 in (84%)

I just love this little girl to pieces!  She has such an adventurous personality and just can't wait for me to put her down so she can explore the world.  At the same time, she is such a snuggle bug and will just crawl up to me and pull herself up my leg and just look at me until I pick her up, just so she can be with mom.  Oh, I just love her so much.  She is crawling EVERYWHERE now and getting into everything, but I love this stage, and I  am cherishing every minute of it.

I love this little Beach Boy...

I love, love, love this picture of Tanner. He looks like the perfect beach/surfer boy. And if you look closely over his left eye, you can see his first black eye - from jumping off the bed.

Guitar Lesson...

We just got back from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico with Matt's family about a week ago. We had such a wonderful time, it was definitely a very much needed vacation! I have sooooo many pictures to filter through, but I had to post something about our trip (my parents have been asking). I will be posting LOTS more...soon.

Tanner is having a guitar lesson from his Uncle Nick...


Is this not adorable?  Perfect hand position, and I love how closely he is watching what Nick is doing and trying to copy.


Trying it out on his own.


"I think this is more efficient, I can hear much more music this way."


"Nick, can you come show me again, I already forgot..."


Watching very closely this time...


"Okay, so I see that's where you place your hands, but...


"...I still think this way works just as good."


"This guitar thing is a lot of work! I'll try it again when I'm a bit bigger."

Christmas...a bit late...

...but since our Christmas tree is still up, it doesn't feel as late.


My first White Christmas! This is what our front yard looked like Christmas morning. Isn't it beautiful!


Our family room Christmas Morning. Santa found Tanner and Kate!


We had two Christmas tree's this year. I wasn't sure if we would be moving back to UT before Christmas, so we set up a little tree in AZ.


Tanner loved it because he could reach the top! Well, almost.


Our Christmas tree in UT.  Even though we still had boxes all over from moving, I insisted that we put our Christmas tree up.  It was our first Christmas in our house, there was no question where my priorities were.


Tanner coming around the corner to see his...


"...Big, noisy digger!" This is the only thing Tanner asked for, he saw this digger at Costco, and LOVED it. He had to have it. Look how happy he is, I Love it!


Trying the buttons out.


Kate's first Christmas. Playing with her new phone!


Loved opening the presents. We could have just wrapped empty boxes and she would have been happy.


Trying out her new "Peek-a-boo" toy.


Tanner trying out his new Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Magnet book from Grandma (see, she always gives the coolest books!). He loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!


"Wow, it's snowing in there!" I loved these as a kid, they seem so magical!


Kate trying to reach Tanner's chocolate from his stocking. She always wants whatever Tanner has in his hand.


My beautiful babies in their matching Christmas jammies. Merry Christmas everyone!

A Visit to Texas!

I know I haven't posted for a while. Things have been sooo busy! We moved back to Utah (yeah!) a few days before Christmas. The day before we moved we spent several days in Texas for my younger brother's graduation. He graduated from Texas A&M. We had so much fun hanging out with my family, and seeing Spencer get his diploma. We are so proud of you!

I'm going to be a posting machine for a while. Here's our trip to Texas...



Tanner thought it was very cool that he could check out the cockpit of the plane when we were waiting to take off. He was amazed by all the buttons.


The night we got there, we were quite entertained with Tanner's piano skills and...


...Kate's flexible gymnast moves. (I still can't believe this picture when I see it, she's doing the splits!)


The happy graduate! Isn't my brother so handsome!


Gig' Em!


Spence with his favorite niece and nephew (they are the only ones, so I can say that).


I love this picture because Kate and Tanner are looking at each other and NOT the camera. I'm sure Kate probably grabbed Tanner or something so he was her his "How dare you" glare.


My wonderful family! I miss them so much!


Spencer and his BEAUTIFUL girlfriend Claudia (whom we adore by the way!)


Getting a well deserved kiss!


Spencer and my adorable mom and dad.


Giving Spence the greatest graduation gift! 6 of us in this picture are BYU Alumni, but we dressed up in Aggie gear to get a picture that he would always remember. Love you Spence!


Acting silly, and giving the famous "gig' em" sign. We had such a great time with everyone. We love you!

Kate's Grandma...

My mom is the most adorable grandma to my sweet babies. You will never meet a more sweet, gentle, kind, and loving woman in the entire world. I feel so blessed that my children have such a wonderful grandma! I took advantage of some Grandma and Kate time and started snapping pictures...


My mom is a school teacher, so she always has the coolest books. All the books she has sent to Tanner have become his favorites. Here my mom is reading to Kate. She's absolutely loving it.


LOVE this picture! LOVE you mom!

Hooray we're back in Utah! Matt wasted no time testing out the snow!

Here are some beautiful photos he took of his backcountry trip with Ryan, his brother.

Star of the Show!!

A few months ago, Matt was asked to be a speaker at the Best Practice Seminar, a Sales and Marketing Summit for Assisted Living.  

The invite alone is quite a big deal.  This is a National Seminar where people pay $1000 to attend.  Everyone else presenting (as you can see from the program), are all widely well known as the tops in their fields of expertise.  So, as I'm sure you can imagine, Matt was quite intimidated but decided it was a great opportunity, so he gladly accepted the invitation.

Today was the big day and let's just say, as the title says, he was the "Star of the show!"  He was blown away and humbled by the rush of people who came up to him after he presented.  "You were by far the best presenter," "You are the reason I came to this conference," "Phenomenal" are just some of the comments others made to him.  They had to ask Matt to step out in the hall afterward because there were so many people who wanted to talk to him and they needed to get on with the rest of the conference!  They even invited Matt to present at next years conference in Florida as well (with an hour time block instead of 20 minutes).

I am so proud of you Matt!  You deserve every bit of praise.  I have been watching you for almost 6 years now develop into the incredibly talented V.P of Marketing for Courtyard Senior Living.  It has been a long, not always easy, road and today I hope you felt a small amount of why we keep telling ourselves, "This will all be worth it in the end."   Congratulations sweetie! I love you!

We've Been Elfed!!

If you want to see us do a little elf song and dance, go here.