New friends and Roommate Reunion

Life is good in our hood. We found a new granola recipe that we can't get enough of! We went for Sushi to celebrate love (was that two weeks ago now?) and we are making new friends. I visit teach Danielle and she is not active (but pays tithing :), her husband is not a member. We’ve had dinner with them twice now and played board games twice. They are very fun, friendly and genuine people. I had the idea last week to have Danielle be an assistant YW camp director. It felt like inspiration so if the Bishop thinks it's a good idea I'll be really excited! 

Habitica is helping me to slay my daily tasks. It's fun to be playing the piano more regularly and to be exercising regularly with our workout program. :D 

I've almost finished with the Anatomy of Peace. It’s just soooo good. Everyone should read this book. 

 Heather and I just spent the most wonderful weekend with our Birch Plaza roommates from almost 9 years ago! We had lots of yummy food, made some friendship bracelets and went to see Cache Valley’s production of “My Fair Lady”. And we had LOTS of conversation which was my favorite part. These ladies are amazing! Alyssa (polka dots) flew from Pennsylvania to be with us! the others are from Idaho (near Rexburg) and Arizona. 

Yes, this is a cookie monster/pazookie aka GIANT cookie straight out of the oven with ice cream, whipped cream, caramel and chocolate on top. 

Our Valentines Day sugar cookies! 

St. George Trip

Dad and I spent the week (Mon-Fri) in Saint George. In my mind it was going to be warm in Saint George, but most of the time we spent trying to get warm. We didn't pack quite enough heavy warm clothing!  But the views were still beautiful and we enjoyed great company, great food and fun games in the evening!  Here's a few of my favorite pics.

Here's our party

We're at the tri-corner of Utah, Nevada and Arizona!

Dinosaur tracks

February Family Photo

February Family Photo

Not much has gone on this week. I guess the highlighlight was Valentine's Day. I got to spend the day with the girls at Heather's making cookies. We weren't as professional as Jill, but they were pretty tasty.

Last Sunday Hunter got his Patriarchal Blessing. That was a special occasion. President Allred is our Patriarch, and he gave Hunter a very special blessing. He said it would be appropriate for me to have all of my children's patriarchal blessings to keep in a family history. I thought that was a great idea, so I'd like each of you to send me a copy of your patriarchal blessings if you would.

Dad and I are getting ready to leave in the morning for some ATV riding in Saint George. We're looking forward to returning to some warmer weather.  So better pictures will follow next week.

Love you all!

Happy Valentine's Day

One of my friends posted this on Facebook and I really appreciated it... couldn't stop smiling :) Enjoy!

Fun in the Caribbean and Puerto Rico

We had a wonderful time on our Southern Caribbean Cruise as well as the time spent in Vieques and Puerto Rico. Islands visited were St. Thomas, St. John, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, & St. Maarten.

Here are a few of my favorite pics.

This is a picture with Victor on Vieques. He picked us up at the airport and was a favorite of ours. He took us to his farm and showed us all the work he has gone to to make a living. He's awesome!

The above picture is in Puerto Rico in the Yunque Forest. We took a nice Sunday hike to this waterfall.

Then we made it to the port and boarded the Carnival Fascination Ship.

 Here is a picture of it in the daylight at a different port.

The next few pictures are taken at Hunte's Botanical Garden on Barbados. We thought it well-represented the Garden of Eden. It was so beautiful!

On the way to the botanical garden, our driver took us to a place where he held a banana out of the window and monkeys came right to us and let us feed them. It was pretty awesome!

Another beautiful picture stop on Barbados

The next pictures were taken in St. Lucia - a very mountainous, beautiful island.

The volcanic, sulfuric, mud bath here is adding 10 years to our lives. Woohoo!

This is Diamond Waterfall in the Botanical Garden we toured in St. Lucia

The Pitons are famous here.

Not a favorite picture, but this represents the snorkeling trips we took - four or five of them. I'm not raving about the coral or large amounts of colorful fish, but it was still fun.  We saw a turtle or two.

Our fun table each night for dinner with our helpers. We loved all the different food selections and often chose two or three appetizers and maybe 2 main dishes. Yes, we were pigs.

All too soon it was time to leave the fun ship. The waiters and waitresses always entertained us during dinner time. This is part of their farewell song to us. If it won't play, try hitting the youtube icon.  I agree that we need to go "again, again, again!"

Workout Incentive Program

Hello,

I'm looking for a few people to join me in this new workout incentive program. As many people as want can participate, and if nobody is interested then I'll just have to do it with Dad. Here is how it works:

• Everyone is required to workout 5 days a week. 
• Each workout must be at least 20 minutes long.
• At the end of each week, you donate a dollar to the pool for every workout you missed.
• The donated money is then split between everyone who hit their 5 workouts.
• If everyone misses, the money carries over into the next week.

Pretty simple right? Obviously nobody is going to get rich or lose a lot of money; However, if you commit to playing, you are not allowed to drop out for six months. Let me know if you want in. We will start next week.

Photo Credit - Heather DeLong

We are boring, but I take lots of pictures

Not much new in life here. Below is a selection of photos of my phone. 

Lovely.  I find lots of shots like this on my phone. I'm lucky. The ones of Chris are the best but I'll spare you #noseboogers

Chris and I are done with our whole 30 this week.  YAY! I made a chicken veggie soup tonight that I didn't think the kids wold like because it was super spicy so I made them chicken cheese broccoli nachos.  Kaden approved. 

Beckham uses a lot of purple and pink things. The bumbo, the bouncer, the play mat. He's cool with it.  

More fun selfies.

I like him.  A lot. 

We've started feeding Beckham cereal at night.  It has made us all happier.  He sleeps about 10 consecutive hours at night now.  And hooray his belly issues are slowly getting better.  

Brielle LOVES makeup.  She is always extra happy when she gets to wear it and walks around the house saying random things like "I am beautiful" and  "This is perfect!"

When I saw this outfit I had to have it Beckham is called "little dude" the majority of the time at our house.

That's all from us.  

XOXOXO 

Life is Good in the Cook Hood

It’s always such a happy thing to see January go. It’s such a cold, drab month. One month closer to Spring makes me a happier woman! 

Josh and I make juice about every other day and it is the bomb dot com. It seriously makes me feel amazing within seconds of drinking it. It's like magic. Our go-to juice has carrots, kale, apple, parsley, and then sometimes beet, lemon, ginger, celery, cabbage just depending on whats in the frig. 

Joshua went to a NUCCA chiropractor in SLC on Thursday who specializes in “atlas” work. He aligns the spine by focusing on aligning C1. We are hoping he can work a miracle with Josh’s back! Josh is feeling much better even after the first visit. Its certainly a huge difference from the chiropractor he was seeing in Provo who was adjusting him twice a week. Lots of snap crackle and pop with very little to no positive results. 

Clara and I met up with Grandma Sharp while Josh went on to his appointment in SLC. We did a bit of shopping and then spent some time just hanging out at grandma's house. That was fun! 

Clara turned 10 months old yesterday. She also took a couple of steps this last week! She can drink out of my water bottle and was quite pleased with herself when she discovered that fact. 

I decided to pick things up with Usborne Books. I’m trying to promote to team leader now and I got a recruit last week!! Woot! I’m obsessed with these books and have quite a large collection now. Josh is a good sport and doesn’t hound me when yet another box of usborne books shows up on our doorstep. But I guess we each have our own crazy business ventures, so we’re happy to support one another. 

Life is good and we are blessed. 

Family Update

This week has been full of sickness. We could tell that Bennett was getting sick last Sunday, and throughout the week it has spread through the whole family. This is the THIRD round of colds since Christmas. We are all ready for warmer weather and healthy bodies.

These colds have been extra hard on Katie because I have had to stay extra late at work a couple of times this week which means she has had to deal with most of the sickness on her own. To give her a break from the kids, I decided to take them to Brigham City on Saturday and leave her at home to recharge.

The DeLongs were watching Hunter and so we got to spend some time with them. Here are all of the kids watching Finding Dory on Netflix.

Hunter is a great Uncle! He always knows how to get my kids laughing.

Pick Your Plum Party

My boss/client at Pick Your Plum is so nice. I only work maybe 6-8 hours a month for her but she treats me like part of the team and invites me (and my family) to their company parties. They had their belated Christmas party on Friday at a movie theater in Layton. We brought Hunter along since we were on "babysitting" duty ;)
First we had food and prizes... There were three bigger prizes (a Kitchen Aid mixer, a Traeger grill and an XBox) that they did a raffle for and a bunch of smaller prizes that we played Plinko for. Everyone walked away with a prize. We played Plinko and won movie tickets and concessions coupons! Woot woot! Free date night! Oh, and we also won the Traeger grill... Say what?? True Story. Am I a terrible person for accepting it? I didn't realize 'til later that I probably shouldn't have, since I am not even an employee. Uhh... Oh well, I guess. :/ We will have to have a big barbecue at our place after we bless the baby this Summer.
After prizes they treated us all to a movie and 30 dollars in concessions (basically like 5 dollars worth of food/drink if you were to buy it from Walmart. Unbelievable!). We saw SING and we all loved it. It made me laugh and made me cry. I am pregnant though so I can't guarantee it will affect you in a similar way. Also, I went in with low expectations since I'd never even heard of it before.




What a fun night!

In other news, we are all sick again! Booo. The girls rarely sleep past 8 these days but this was my view at like 9:15 this morning.

We are looking forward to our 20 week ultrasound on Friday!! :) And looking forward to hearing all about your trip, Mom and Dad! We're glad to (almost) have you back.