Carrie & Shane's Wedding Week

Due to a malfunctioning camera...I have absolutely no pictures from Carrie and Shane's wedding. Good thing all of my siblings took plenty. Steve and I captured plenty of video, but for some reason we can't figure out how to post them on a blog.

Anyway...Carrie and Shane are married! Carrie Ann Draper is now officially Carrie Ann Hunter. The wedding was Friday, February 15, which also happens to be Cody's birthday. Happy Happy Birthday. The day went off without a hitch expect for the power outage at Trolley Square. The Hunters had planned the wedding lunch at Rodezio Grill and it had to be moved last minute to another restaurant nearby. But it turned out just fine.

It is always fun to hang out with the entire Draper clan. I know my kids love to be around their cousins. Unfortunately Stevie had kind of a rough day and cried in almost every picture. But I guess that can be considered cute for a 1 1/2 year old. Right? The 5 little girls looked adorable in their brown "bridesmaid" dresses. And the boys all looked handsome in their brown pants and red ties. Jake wasn't sure if he liked Carrie as a "princess." In fact he asked me before we went to Idaho Falls if I could ask Carrie "not to be a princess again." I thought she looked beautiful, but I guess children don't like change.

Carrie & Shane went to Grand Targhee for their honeymoon and then came back to move into their apartment in Idaho Falls. The week continued when most of us traveled to Idaho Falls last weekend for an Open House at Shane's church. The Hunters are such a nice family and Shane's dad James loved to be around all of the kids. He will make an awesome grandpa.

Thanks to Mom & Dad, the Hunters, and Carrie & Shane for all the hard work.

Wayda Family Visit

The Wayda Family came for their annual Deer Valley ski vacation a few weeks ago. Krissy got most of the pictures from the trip, but here are a few. Everyone got plenty of skiing in and playing in the snow. Drew and Cooper came home from skiing and went right back out in the backyard to play. Do they ever get tired? :-) The answer is yes because everyone was early to bed every night. I got to ski with Mike and Drew on Saturday and we ran into the head coach of the UT football team, Coach Fulmer. Of all places...in Park City, Utah. (Read the Wayda family blog for the whole story.) It was good fun. I can't believe how well the Waydas ski for only coming once a year. Amazing. Looking forward to next year already!

The only bad part of the trip is that we transferred the nasty stomach virus to Louisiana. All four of them came down with it within a week of leaving our house. Sorry guys. Love ya.

Blog Break

We took a little vacation from the blog for the past month. A stomach virus, a cold virus, family visitors, Carrie's wedding, lazy pregnancy days, and work at Deer Valley kept us pretty busy. But we are back!

Jake and Stevie seem to be changing so much lately. Jake has entered a new behavior phase that we are still trying to get our arms around. I think I am planning on taking a parenting class next month about the Love and Logic series. Hope it will help me understand this little boy better. On the flip side...potty training finally settled in very well after 4 long months. Jake has had almost a perfect month last month. Yeah!

Stevie still says new words every day. She has started to understand the concept of stopping bad behavior before she has to go to time out. That is a huge improvement. A few days ago Jake made her feel bad because he didn't say hi to her when he woke up from his nap. I cracked up when she went and stood in the corner and pretended to cry with her hands over her eyes. She kept looking back at Jake to see if her plan was working. Funny...

I'm 30

My big 30th birthday came and went. When I was in high school, I thought 30 was so old and that I would be such a different person at that point in my life. I really feel so much the same, except just maybe more like myself (if that makes sense). What has changed...a few wrinkles under my eyes and my metabolism has slowed down. But I now have a wonderful husband and two beautiful children. And I can say that I think I like 30 more than 20. Who wants to go through dating again :-) As my brother-in-law Mike said, "Only 10 more years until 40." Now that one might affect me a little more...

My Mom & Dad gave me a great birthday gift by watching the kids Friday night and Saturday morning. Steve and I went to dinner and a movie with no thoughts of having to be home for the babysitter. Saturday morning we slept in and then went skiing for the morning. Thank you Mom & Dad.

So Much Snow!

Really...enough snow already! I never thought I would say that, but at this point we will have snow until May. We had over a foot of snow last night. But the major damamge came from wind drifts. There is a drift next to our driveway that is over my head. Our neighbors had a four foot drift in their driveway to clear this morning.

The kids and I went out to investigate and to play this morning.

Jake & Puzzles

Jake has always had a love for puzzles. He picked up on them very early, and has now graduated to "big boy" puzzles. Miss Sharie told me that he concentrates on puzzles at preschool quite often. When I went to pick him up on Tuesday, he had saved two puzzles that he put together. I was impressed and decided to round up a few "big boy" puzzles for the house. This is a new one that he put together this morning.

Stevie & Shoes

Stevie Kate loves shoes. What girl doesn't love shoes! She has two favorite pairs right now. Some sparkly silver church shoes that make some noise when she walks. The other favorite pair are Jake's old cowboy boots. Jake would never wear them, but Stevie brings them to me almost every day so we can put them on her.

Along with her two favorite pairs, she also loves to put on Mom's shoes, Dad's shoes, and Jake's shoes. Here are a few pics with my boots on.

The lovely thing is...she loves to put them away. I ask her to put all of our shoes away at the end of the day, and she usually does a great job!