Christmas in Utah

We had another wonderful Christmas in Utah.  Some of the highlights were:

Make a Smilebox slideshow

• Brian Family Party
• Nativity
• Lots of laughs
• Racker Family Party
• Decorating Cookies
• Singing carols at the rest home
• Sledding
• Having an adult dinner at Zermont's- yummiest buffet ever
• Grandma Karen's Choir Christmas Program
• Yummy food
• Doug playing basketball with his Dad
• Ladd going to feed the horses
• Darci getting to see all her girl friends
• Eating
• Treehouse Museum - thanks Grandma Rae
• Visiting with Shannon
• Christmas Eve with the Bullard's
• Awesome Christmas program put on by the ever-talented Bullard's
• Waking up Christmas morning with all the cousins
• Ladd's presents
• A Rescue Center (dollhouse)
• Animals (He especially loves Chief and Duke)
• Mr. & Mrs. Books (Mr. Grumpy is his favorite)
• Disney Movies (Loving Cars)
• Spending Christmas with the people we love most!!

A lot to be thankful for

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving with some ward friends (Cunningham's, Wilson's, and Bjorkman's). The food was killer good and the company was even better.  We are so grateful to have such good friends especially since our family is so far.

We just uploaded some videos from the last couple of months and thought we would share some things we are thankful for:

1. Grandpa's horses:



2. Ladd's mad singing skills:


not only can he sing his ABC's, but he's really good with numbers too:



3. My family: (WARNING- this video will be lame for anyone not in my family- ):



4. Doug's family: (Ok, this is only a showcase of Paul being awesome, but we love all the Timothy's):



5. Ollie continuing to be the best baby in the world:

Halloween was last month...

we've procrastinated long enough.  Here are our cute boys in their halloween costumes (Thanks Camie and Kimberly).

Here are the kiddos just before heading out around the neighborhood.

Ladd was "Officer Awesome" and picked up very quickly on the trick or treat thing. He loved running from house to house with his friends Lydia and Clayton. The best part about all of it is listening to Ladd ask for candy every 3.2 seconds. He is his mom's child!



This is just after he questioned Darci about eating his candy.



Here's our little Ollie, if you cant tell, he loved Halloween.



See, he loved it!



Can't wait for next year.

a little bit of this and a little bit of that

I've recommitted myself to blogging more frequently, but before I get started with our present happenings I need to do a lot of backlogging.  Here is a quick recap of the last couple of months.

In July my sister Rachel and her two beautiful daughters came to visit.  We had a great time and Ladd loved his full-time playmates and I loved having more people to hold my snuggly baby.

We loved the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden where the kids were able to climb on the art and me and Rachel enjoyed the art.  We also went swimming at the beach, farmers market, huge Target shopping days and had a girls night to Mall of America.  I loved having my sister and nieces here and can't wait until they come again...

And on our way home we got lost and happened upon this crossroad!!!!  If only we could change the "No Parking" sign to "Timothy" we'd have his entire name.

I bought some "Baby Legs" for Ollie and found out they aren't meant for chubby babies or little boys.

Ladd had lots of playdates with his best friends and they were super cool.

Shama Karen and Tara came out in August.  We didn't have a lot of time together because I left for Utah shortly thereafter, but we did have a fun day at the pool where Tara and Shama never tired of catching Ladd at the bottom of the waterslide.  Sorry no pics AGAIN!!!  


After some long runs in preparation for our race I convinced Doug to do a little Pilates to stretch those sore muscles.  Ladd must have needed a stretch too.  I couldn't help, but snap a couple of pictures of Ladd's attempts.  

We also had some long beautiful summer sunsets.  

I LOVE Minnesota summers!  Each day would wait by the back window for his neighbor friends to get home from day care and then they would run around like little hooligans.

This is an FHE we did with our friends the Wilsons and Christensens.  Theres nothing like a nature walk to appreciate all of Heavenly Fathers creations.

I love  this picture because almost all our friends have babies the same age as Ollie and this is just a typical scene when we hang out.

DOUG's 30th BIRTHDAY!!!


For Doug's 30th we decided to make a special trip back to Utah and do some of Doug's favorite things:


Cabin Trip with the Timothy's

It was non stop go for us up at the cabin. Horseback riding, riding bikes, throwing rocks, hikes, etc.   Ladd hasn't been able to stop talking about Chief and Duke, Grandpa's horses.  Just this morning he told me he wanted to go somewhere.  I asked him where and he said "i want to go see Chief and Duke with Grandpa".  Now everytime we pass a horse (or a cow for that matter) he calls them Chief and Duke.

Ladd loved his cousins and this picture is just classic. 
(Bath Picture)

Racker Birthday Party

We also went to Rachel's house to celebrate Doug's, Jessica's, Mark's, and Carly's birthday all within 11 days of each other.   
Ladd loved playing with his cousins, but Shaggy is who really stole his heart.  

These are the handsome men in my family not including my Dad- we missed you!

And all the girls.

Private Concert
One of Doug's "only birthday wishes" was to have his brother Paul do a little concert for us in his parents backyard.  So after a delicious dinner made by yours truly and Karen we relaxed to a delightful concert by Paul.  And needless to say he did not disappoint.  Honestly he's super talented and we loved every minute.

BACK TO REALITY


After returning home the weather turned cold and we've been enjoying a lot more time inside doing this:

This is my idea of a happy family

Ladd was singing one of his favorite nursery songs today "We are a happy family." This is how his version went:
"I love mommy yesiree (said "yetheree").
I love ice cream yesiree.
He loves us and so you see we are a happy family."


Daddy if you could bring some ice cream home today maybe Ladd will put you back in the song.

My Beautiful Family

Just thought I'd share some of our recent pictures...I feel so lucky to have such an amazing wife and kids. I couldn't be happier!

Darci and Ollie getting ready for pictures

Best wife and 6 month old on earth!

Ladd poses for candy, nothing else works!

Here's our sweet Ollie!

Great River Relay

For the last 7 or 8 months Darci and I have been training for the Great River Relay. It's a 200 mile, 12 person relay along the Mississippi river. The two or three weeks leading up to it I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out - it ended up being one of the best weekends of the summer. We started the race at 9:30am on Friday in Winona, MN and ended up crossing the finish line at 2:30pm on Saturday afternoon in Minneapolis. Throughout that time we ran three different legs and slept a total of 1 hour in the hallway of a small high school. I can't wait til next year!

Darci wasn't able to join us as planned during the race so we packed our two boys into the car this last weekend did it again (sort of), we had a great time. Darci ran two of the legs she would have run during Race and we spent the rest of the day at parks and driving up the river.

Here's part of our team at one of the exchange points.

I know it's hard to tell that's me when I'm running so fast!

Somewhere in Wisconsin along the side of the road. We were in and out of the van every 10 minutes to cheer on our teammates while they ran, it was great!

Along the way we saw some beautiful scenery, the northern Midwest is amazing during the summers.

This was the view as our van started our second legs!

Here's Darci right before running her first leg!

Wrapping up the first leg in Stockholm, WI. This was our favorite little town along the way.

This friendly guy cruised main street talking with all the visitors and raising money for a local animal shelter.

Ladd throwing rocks into the Mississippi - that could keep him busy for hours.