{Friends are such a blessing}

This past weekend my favorite gal in the world came to see me!! Robyn and I played volleyball together at Rick's College and just clicked from the second that we met. I still remember getting to the dorms the day before 2-a-days started and walking in and meeting her. She said "hi I'm Robyn." and I said " hi I'm Paige." we were pretty much strangers but we automatically just hugged each other!!! From that moment on I just smile when I think about Robyn. She is one of the funnest people on earth to hang out with!! Robyn is coaching a club team that travels and plays close by, so she came and slept over before her team played on Saturday. It was so fun staying up all night catching up!

Robyn and I spent HOURS and HOURS in hot gyms together...all for the love of Volleyball!

But my family room was all the excitement we needed this weekend.

We have shared so many millions of memories together. From the horrible ones to the wonderful ones, from the sad ones to the hilarious ones, from state to state, gym to gym, and hotel to hotel, there are so many things we went through together. That is how I know she really "KNOWS" the true me.

A lot has happened in the 9 years between these two pictures. We have both been married, started families, moved around, and had our lives go different directions. But when we get together we can pick up right where we left off, and laugh and laugh, and sincerely care about how the other one is doing. That is one trait of a true friend.

The best thing about Robyn is she is not afraid to GOOF OFF! We could be silly silly stupid, or just plain disgusting and we just loved each other even more for it.

I guess some things never change...no matter how wise and mature you've gotten!

(yes, our hair is tied together....compliments of Brecken)

{Olympic medals here we come}

Brecken and Tate are in Gymnastics and Love it. I figure it's a great way to let out all that bottled up energy and they just think it's fun, play, show off time.

I thought I'd take a few pictures of all their awesome moves and share them! Brecken has her back handspring (with a spot) down really good now and Tate is the fastest one in his class at scaling the huge rope that is attached to the ceiling. He can shimmy up that rope faster than you can believe!

I wish I had more pictures but my camera ran out of batteries so this is all I could capture.

{Winter Fun}

We had a great snow tubing day a couple weeks ago. We had a huge snowfall and decided to hit the slopes. It's a good thing we did because within a couple days it had all melted! I miss the beautiful trees in Virginia, but I love living so close to the mountains. We drove 5 minutes and were right in the mountains!! The kids had SO much fun, they were very brave and big dare devils! They are not afraid of anything, which scares ME sometimes!

Here's Aaric and Tate going over the "jump"... They are crazy! I would purposely steer myself away from it every time!

Here's a shot from the bottom of the hill, and one from the top. It was the absolute PERFECT size of hill for our little kids....steep enough to be quite the rush and full of excitement, but not so huge that it was dangerous.

Here's an action shot with Brecken flying by. It doesn't look like it, but she was actually flying by me when I took this picture!

Avery wasn't the biggest fan of tubing. We took her down a few times but she would just cover her eyes with her hands and say no, no, no .....I thought it was odd because she's usually so wild and not afraid of much. But it worked out okay because we were able to park right at the top of the hill. It was literally steps away from where we were taking off so she spent most of the time in the car watching a movie. She did however not want to take her sunglasses off. She has such a funny personality. Once and a while she'd stick her head out the window and talk to us. I think everyone really enjoyed just getting some fresh air and breaking out of our cabin fever.

{New Years day.... football, fun, and of coarse FOOD}

We had a fun New Year's day at Aaric's parents house. I thought these pictures were hilarious because it was so typical...........guys at the table eating and playing games..........girls in the kitchen cooking.......and kids having a party in the hot tub (yes holding snow!) I wouldn't have it any other way, everyone had a blast no matter what they were doing!

This is Tate and cousin Ashton enjoying the hot tub, can you tell it was a spontaneous swimming day?....Tate in his undies and Ash in Grandma's swim suit. These two were the only grandkids who lasted long enough for me to catch a picture.

{What a great way to start a new day}

This morning I was fixing breakfast for the kids, Brecken and Tate were sitting at the bar, I had gotten them both a drink and they were watching me finish fixing their eggs. I brought the eggs over to the bar and started dishing them up, out of the corner of my eye I saw Tate doing something so I looked up. He had his pointer finger held up against the middle of his forehead. I looked at him puzzled and said what are you doing? He kept his finger there not moving a muscle and just started giggling really hard. "hhhmm weird" I thought. I kept working on the food and he said "mommy, he he he he" and was laughing holding his finger to his forehead....................Then it finally hit me.......oh he was making fun of ME!! I then recalled the huge zit I have right in the middle of my forehead. I said " are you making fun of my ZIT?" this made him laugh even harder. So Brecken says, "well mom how did you get that there?" at this point I was feeling a little worthless you could say. I answered her, "well I just tried to get the white stuff out and I made a scab on my face okay?" at this point I thought the conversation was over because we were all giggling.....but oh no.......Tate then says " well Mom I guess you're the NERD today." We all just laughed because well what exactly can you say to that? I already knew I was a nerd but I didn't want my kids knowing!

My question is....How does a four year old know that you're a nerd if you have zits? And as if physically having children doesn't thrash your self confidence enough........you then have to deal with the emotional trama that is created because of their brutal honesty. Well at least I know they call it as they see it, They are hilarious sweet little kids who are completely naive to what a mother really wants to hear! Sooner or later if they're smart They'll learn to tell me I look Beautiful in the morning. For now I'll just have to take a few confidence busters and giggle with them!

{Around here...You never know what will show up at your door!}

My kids love to play this game of dressing up, sneaking out the back, then coming to the front door! They think it's hilarious, and quite often I do too. This particular time they just looked plain wacky, all the way down to the 4 toothbrushes Avery is holding. GOOFY GOOFY GOOFY.

Brecken thought her "ornament- earrings hooked onto sunglasses" creation was so great that she needed to take them to school. She's getting sneaky now, The night after she made these was my carpool day for Tate's school so I was walking the kids into the school. Brecken turned to leave (her classroom is down the hall a little ways) then I noticed her zipper was open, so I said wait honey let me close this. She turned around and I went to zip up a pocket on her back pack and saw this sunglass ornament earring invention in there. I started laughing and said, "why did you bring this to school?" She laughed and ran off to class before I could get them from her. She came home raving about how popular they were and how cool everyone thought she was when she put them on. Oh the little joys in life!

These were my "visitors" at the door back in October........silly silly, but I love it.

{Good friends, Good times}

Leah and Kurt are some of our best friends from dental school. We had kids the same age and went through the "same life" together for 4 years. They were around visiting Kurt's Parents for the holidays and came to see us just before the new year. We had such a blast catching up on life and hanging out again. Leah and I spent many many days together and I love her so much. She is a very giving person who is always serving others. She helped me through many hard days and always has a positive happy perspective. Thanks again for coming Leah!!

Brecken and Annie were best best friends in Virginia, They hadn't seen each other for almost 2 years. We talk about Annie all the time but I was anxious to see how they would react when they actually saw each other (because it had been so long). When They pulled up Brecken ran out the front door....they ran to each other and threw their arms around each other and held on for at least a minute straight, they were SO CUTE!! I was crying of coarse! We lived in the same little town house subdivision with Kurt and Leah throughout dental school. Brecken could walk straight to Annie's door since the time she was 2 years old. These two girls spent SO many hours playing.....okay and occasionally fighting, but they really were the cutest little friends for 4 years of their lives!

Here are all the kids together...they were all so little when we left Virginia, it was so crazy to see them all grown and big! hhmm now if the Niepraschk girls could just teach my girls how to grow some hair I'd be a very happy woman!

{Christmas Morning}

I've decided that Santa has the most fun on Christmas morning...I love seeing the kids so giddy and excited, and I love knowing secrets! This year our kids left cookies and milk for Santa along with 5...yes that's right 5 letters to him also. Each of them were unique and hilarious. They thanked Santa and told him how much they loved him, but this small post it was my absolute favorite.....talk about getting down to the nitty gritty. if you can't read it this is what it says, "Santa Claus we promis to be so good and never fite, I promis"

Santa went for a different approach this year, not a ton of small toys that will pile up or break, just a few big toys....this made for very easy shopping this year, we were completely done just a few days after Thanksgiving!

We have an unfinished basement right now, so it's perfect for the kids to ride around down there until the snow melts!

I Love the morning Hair-do Brecken, looking good! Brecken was smart and grabbed the sissors for easier access to her presents... Santa brought her a keyboard to start playing the piano and her pink Cadillac!

Tate finally got the DS he's been begging to have for about 6 months! I loved his face when he opened it. and he also got a cool Jeep to drive around!

Avery was a little sleepy having been pulled out of bed by the other kids, but she was excited and loved her baby and princess stuff. She got a little 4 wheeler to ride with the big kids too. She feels pretty big now!