Southwest Airlines is the best!

Let's talk about Southwest airlines for a second.

They are just the best.

We love them so much, signing up for their Southwest Credit card has helped us tons, and we love earning points that go directly to flights to help us travel to see family more often!

2 free bags? Yes please.

Family boarding? Yes please?

Really nice flight attendants? Yep. I just can't say enough positive things about this company

This time coming home from our Christmas vacation we are cheap idiots and booked a flight to leave Saturday night at 11 pm and then drive through the night from Denver to Lincoln (our original plans were to be in Laramie, WY right after school for interviews and then fly out of Denver which is 1.5 hours away but interviews got cancelled because of bad roads but we still had to proceed forth with our flights, ha)

We arrive at the airport with 2 babies strapped onto us, Maxson running around (I forgot his ladybug leash backpack (man bug bag, thank you very much) at my mom's house much to our dismay, backpacks (1 on each of us), 4 luggage (one of those being a very heavy carryon full of computers, camera, and books), and 2 carseats. Ooh, we had so much stuff coming home from Christmas!!!!!

So we go check in and when we give them our confirmation numbers the agent say "Oh no, your flight goes out tomorrow night!" We couldn't believe it! AHHHHHHHH! In our minds we booked this flight for Saturday night so we could drive home Sunday morning and have a day to recover before Casey goes to school, we must have accidentally booked it on the wrong day when we were going back and forth between days of what to do. Oh man!!!!!

That kind woman goes and talks to a fellow Southwest gate agent, comes back and I hear her kinda yell back to the other woman "Ok, that's what I was thinking, it's the right thing to do." She then tells us she'll just move our flight to tonight for us. BLESS THAT WOMAN'S HEART!

She said there were 7 empty seats (in reality when we were on the plane there was 30 extra seats so it was really no big deal but still, they had no obligation to, but still did it for us which was SOOOOOOOO nice!)

Security went smooth (a million times faster than Denver's Security!), the babies were adorable in the airport waiting to get on the plane talking to all the strangers, we got stared at a ton from every stranger who couldn't believe we EACH had a baby strapped to the front of us (not small babies either I might add!) PLUS another kid with us, we were that circus. The babies slept on the flight, Quinn, who I had, went to sleep right away without a problem, Bryson chose to be awake quite a bit longer for poor Casey and after a tiny fit went to sleep in the baby whisperer's arms. Max somehow stayed awake the whole time watching a movie, he's crazy. Since it was a pretty empty flight we both had rows to ourselves which was the best!

A great thing I did this time around was hook the kids camelback's to a caribeaner onto the outside of my backpack and left them empty which made it all quick, easy, and not heavy. And then in one of my water bottles I filled it with milk for the babies.

We landed early, found our bags pretty easily. A great friend of mine in the Denver (hi Charley!) area did this tricky car situation for us and we walked out of baggage claim to our car there in pretty much the first parking spot at 1 am. IT WENT SO SMOOTHLY!

The kids all fell asleep immediately in the car, we stopped once to fill up with gas on the 6.5 hour drive. Casey drive the first 3.5 hours listening to the podcast Serial, I then drove the next 3 hours listening to what he had just heard. (we have SOOO enjoyed listening to it! can't wait to finish it! I was amazed at how easy the drive went for us all!

We got home at 8:45 am to our neighbors leaving for church. Our kids had just woken up and were going to be nowhere near letting us relax at home. But we were both surprisingly not that tired. So we packed up the crew and headed out to 9 am church getting there a bit late. We stayed in the hall the whole time not wanting to even THINK about struggling with out children inside the room our meeting was in which was good because they were all loud and needed time to roam.

I'm really glad we went to church. It's an important thing for us that our family go to church each week, we've been asked to keep the Sabbath Day holy and we're trying our hardest! Yeah, it was hard and it would have been SO much easier to stay home but that just didn't feel right. I've made covenants to keep the Sabbath Day Holy and bear His name, going to church is a very simple way I can show my love and gratitude towards my Father in Heaven!

Glad we are home!!!!!!!!!

PS- our original flight we accidentally scheduled for Sunday night ended up being delayed from 11 pm to 1:30 am!!!!!!!!!!! How awful would that have been for our little family! Tender mercy we were able to leave Saturday night!

Maxson turns THREE!

A little Mr Maxson had a birthday while we were in Wyoming! He woke up giddy to the traditional birthday decorations, faces and all. 

He and Casey got in the hot tub for his birthday which he was so totally excited about.

He loves getting in the "hawt tub!"

Max and I made the birthday cakes early in the morning when he awoke and then Aunt Tayli decorated them for us in the afternoon. Max was super stoked over the decorated cupcakes.

So excited to finally get to blow out his candles in the evening!

He counted the cupcakes and candles lots and lots.

We sang happy birthday to him about 7-8 times and he just kept blowing out the candles over and over, ha. We kept singing fast and faster, he just loved. it!

He went on a money hunt in the evening which he totally ate up. He sure does love money oddly enough already. Not clue why!

Love this crazy little boy of ours with all our hearts, he's truly the best.

**Update on potty training!**

Day 1 was miserable. 1 go in the potty and 4+ accidents
Day 2 was awesome. 8 successful potty trips and zero accidents! (I put a pull up on him when he and I went outside to play in the snow, it was wet when we came in but whatever).
Day 3 was awesome. No accidents,  6 successful potty trips.

I'm not sure what to do when we go out of the house (play outside go somewhere) just today while playing with friends at the church building I asked him a million times to go potty and then he finally peed his pants WHILE he was out of the gym get a drink at the drinking fountain RIGHT NEXT TO the bathroom for pete's sake! I don't want to rely on pull ups over the next few months, I just want him to do it! Any suggestions?

I was honestly about to give up after Day 1. He was AWFUL. Day 2 game changer was I finally convinced him to wear a longer shirt and no underwear and he went by himself every time. He would absolutely not go when I asked him to even when he drank tons of juice, ha. He likes to dictate his own actions I see. I love looking at how proud his face is when I'm cheering him on after going potty. He's trying to hold back the smiles but can't. SOOOO I hope this sticks and we do it this time around!!!!!

Christmas (festivities) with the Cutlers in AZ

For Christmas evening we headed down to Casey's brother's house, about 30 minutes away to join with the Cutler's on the rest of our Christmas festivities! We had a delicious Christmas dinner with ham, rolls, green beans, potatoes, and sparkling cider; the normal awesomeness. Maxson was excited to "cheers" everyone with his cup

The kids spent A TON of time outside on the ball pit tramp all week. Cody and Camille were brilliant to add the balls to the tramp! Sadly it was a tin bit cold all week and with the tramp being in the shade the babies didn't get to spend as much time out there as they would have liked. Whenever the door opened and closed without them going outside they had a fit crying at the door, ha. There were also lots of tears shed on the tramp from kids (cough cough Maxson) being too rough on others.

We went in the evening to see temple lights! Did I mention we loved having Tayli back for Christmas? She is such a joy to be around, truly. We love that girl so much.

The girls got pedicures one afternoon and we all thoroughly enjoyed. It was disgusted at the amount of skin they got off with literally a cheese grater! Eww. BUT the sugar scrub was so wonderful, it's my favorite part! I was stoked for my gold nail polish. On a different day the boys went golfing per usual.

We watched a few movies while together including Far from Madding Crowd, Transformers, and the Ultimate gift. There were 2 games of settlers played together, and a bunch of delicious desserts thanks to Camille!

We went to San Tan Flats for dinner one evening, that sure was a fun place! Imagine this: a "restaurant" outdoors with tons of fire pits and camping tables smooshed together as close as they could fit, loud country music, no waiters, no rules, a building close by you can go in and order great steak/cowboy food. It was just a super fun atmosphere. i wish the babies had been on year older though, they make things difficult ha. Cody and Camille came prepared with skewers and marshmallows. graham crackers, chocolate, and reese's for dessert, it was so fun! It was a little colder than we all anticipated, we totally would have stayed longer if we weren't worried for the babies being cold, oh yeah, and cranky to go to bed. But I definitely recommend this place if you're willing to get there!

The family went to Fat Cats and went golfing, then headed to Oregano's for delicious dinner! I stuck back at my parent's house with the babies to visit a cousin who came in town from SLC. Divide and conquer.

For 3 mornings straight we went to Camille's boot camp she does every morning. It was really fun and super hard! She's got a great thing going on with the group she's apart of. We were all super sore but it was fun working out as a family. Half the year they workout at a park while 2 moms watch the kids on a playground and during the really hot months of the year they workout at a dance studio in one of the rooms.

We met up with my mom at this really fun park kinda far away. It was totally worth the drive though, the Camille's and our kids had an absolute blast there. Do you see that huge structure smack in the middle? It's this super duper tall rope structure that kids can just freely climb. Totally dangerous and totally awesome. I love that these ropes courses give kids a legit challenge and once the succeed their confidence is totally boosted.

For New Year's Eve we went with Cody and Camille to Schnepf Farms! The stake rents out the facility and all are invited! The rides and food were free, the kids loved it all so much. At 7:45 they lit  off fireworks for a great end to the evening. The Cutlers had already left town that morning but my mom joined in with us and we couldn't have done it without her!

Other memories to be added:

Sleeping was hilarious. We began the week with our family of 5 in one room. We can sleep like that for one night but beyond that it's miserable and the babies wake up more and realize we're in the room with them and it's just awful. So we took our air mattress into Cody and Camille's room on their floor where Tayli was on the floor too. It was comical with all the beds everywhere. And their little boy was in their closet, ha. To add to the fun we had to blow up our air mattress like 3 times or more during the night, ha. Oh the memory making.

Often when we're with the Cutlers it feels like I'm living in the beginning part of Home Alone (without the really mean Uncle). There's so much hustle and bustle and noise and people working in every direction, children making mischief, but an overall sense of happiness of being together. And it's always really loud with the children awake.

A week or two later while writing this I know there's fun details I'm missing but oh well. It was a fun time together, Cutlers. Glad we were all able to meet up!

Life with Maxson

Bubbles, yay! Max dumps them out

Play dough, yay! Maxson smears it in unwanted places.

Water color painting, yay! Maxson takes a fork to the paint and forces it out to make a mess on the floor.

Sigh. Hopefully he'll grow out of it someday?

We also went to Sam's Club one evening with a gift card we needed to use although we don't have a membership. After a really long trip stocking up on food and other life necessities we end up spending about 30 more minutes at customer service working out details. Our children were going CRAZY. We were THAT family at the store with screaming children (Bryson with is shrieking unhappy sounds, Maxson when we forced him to get in a cart, Quinn when someone else wanted a sip of water from the drink). Maxson kept running away from us behind the worker's counter and after counting to 3 about a million times he absolutely WOULD NOT listen to us. It's one thing discipline your child at home and another out and about in front of people, there's only so much whisper-threatening can do. It was undoubtedly one of the most painful nights of my life, far worse than the airport and traveling. For one, I wasn't prepared  for it and two, there was so much eye staring.

AND we're potty training Maxson, or should I say fight training Maxson. Holy monkey I should have just stuck to it back when he was SUPER eager about it a couple months ago. Yesterday he went potty once on the toilet and like 5 times in his pants plus a ton in a pull up when we were out and about. I should give up but I don't want to let him win! Grr! It's 11:30 am, he's drank a ton of juice and gone once on the toilet, no accidents, but only once all morning, seriously? I need to stick to it for at least this week and not just give up because the first day was insanely unseccusful compared to the first time we did it. He picked out potty prize of fruit snacks at Sam's Club, we'll see if it works.

Christmas (festivities) with the Woodruffs in AZ

Christmas reallywas great this year. We spent the first chunk with my family, and then Christmas Day afternoon we went down to Queen Creek to Casey's brother's house to spend almost a week with them while Casey's parents and other siblings were in town too. Then back to my parents for 2 days and then we left back home. 2 weeks REALLY does go fast when you're trying to cram a ton in. 

I have so many photos and we had so much fun that I honestly am not even going to try to blog it all. I've pretty much picked one pictures from each event to write about so it can be remembered but beyond that i just can't do it this year, ha. At least it will be blogged in some form!

We visited a close family friend's home where they had 10 day old puppies, it was just the sweetest and made my heart so happy! We then basked in their super wonderful backyard outfitted for an Arizonan king: play set, tramp, pool (we did not bask in that fun), huge open grass area for Maxson to RUN to his heart's content, and orange trees galore. It was a really great hour we spent there. Thanks, Walkers!

We bought POGO passes for Arizona last summer and since they last a year we tried our best to use those babies as much as possible and we sure had a freaking blast with them! This was the Idea Museum. My kids favorite part was building huge tower structures from these huge blocks (or in Maxson's case destroying everyone else's towers, sigh). Our nieces joined it and made it tons of fun. If I lived by Annalen and Phoebe I would honestly pay them a $1 a day to come play at my house/watch the twins because they do such a great job of it.

The POGO passes took us bowling to Fat Cats one night. Max was insanely eager to throw a ball down the lane CONSTANTLY, he is exhausting. My parents, Logan and Blair's family, and Kirk and Whitney joined us here.

POGO passes brought us to a huge bounce house place which Max absolutely ATE up. Actually both Max and Casey loved it. Casey was so sweaty after having so much fun with Maxson and our nieces there, I love that he sincerely enjoys fun kid activities like this. The babies loved going down the slides too, they were so cute to watch. I was surprised that there were pretty much no other parents at the place that really joined their kids on the bounce houses and played with them. Casey, my mom, and myself were constantly going in and out with the kids, it's so much fun to join them! (To Blair's credit she was pregnant or she would have too). We REALLY loved Pump it Up and can't wait to go again.

Went to the temple

The inside of the temple has a room full of nativity displays, they are truly so beautiful! We went with my mom.

Met little 2 week old Liesl! My brother Scott's baby. She was so super adorable and small. I wanted to just kiss on her little face tons and snuggle her constantly! This is the first baby in the family that's been born when I didn't have my own baby in a LONG time. So I was INSANELY happy to be cuddly a sweet little baby!

On Christmas Adam we had a little fire pit in the front yard while roasting marshmallows and drinking hot chocolate. My whole family was up for this and we had a great time with them all.

On Christmas Eve we played the annual unwrapping games! We love this game so so much! My mom takes a gift card and wraps it in TONS of layers of wrapping paper, duct tape, seran wrap, tape, etc. If you roll doubles with the dice you get to try and open the ball but with work gloves on your hands. it's hilarious how intense this all gets, especially towards the end when you feel like you're SO close to the end prize you just want it! Or when you FINALLy rolled doubles and as soon as you get the gloves on someone else rolls doubles so you don't even get to try opening it. It's one of the best and funniest traditions I think we have and we all enjoy it so much, it never gets old. This year Megan won it but it felt like Logan opened half of it with all the doubles he rolled. This was also the first year we had "rules" from previous years i.e. no teeth or other objects were allowed to be used, only your hands.

A new addition was that the kids had their own ball! This ball was all seran wrap but instead of just one prize at the end the layers with filled with candy and small toys so they all won something throughout the whole ball unwrapping. I think the kids had so much fun unwrapping their own ball after seeing their parents do it right before them. As soon as a kid would get candy they essentially put the ball down and focused on their candy ignoring the fact that they still had time to unwrap the ball! Those silly kids.

Christmas tree picture!

Look at all them cute grandkids!

We had a live nativity Christmas Eve. The children were SOOOOOOOOO proud of themselves dressed in their adorable nativity attire. Their faces were beaming as they walked in while my dad read through the Christmas story as told in the scriptures. It was seriously so sweet. We also exchanged sibling gifts that evening.

Christmas morning! Logan and Blair spent the night with us which made it special having Christmas morning with their family. They are so sweet to make all the effort to come up and be with us so much during our time in AZ, all my siblings are, truly, but L&B go beyond all hopes we have. Christmas is seriously so magical with these adorable little human beings, they are so excited over simple gifts, and their eyes are THRILLED to open a simple thing like BUBBLES! Oh how I love these children of mine!

Cool fact, Casey and shopped the Goodwill by my mom's house a few days before Christmas and scored with some AWESOME gifts for our kids for insanely low prices. Arizona Goodwills have such a great selection of all items, good prices, and a well organized store!

The rest of the family came up Christmas afternoon where we had lunch together and opened Granny and Papa gifts.  Max loved getting sweet cars from Papa and Granny.

After all that fun we drove to the church and played in the gym for awhile with some huge balloons my mom blew up. The kids, like always, went nuts over these balloons, even the adults had fun punching them around. it was a really great activity for a Christmas Day afternoon.

We had our annual stilly string fight on Christmas Day too. We've been doing this since like 1998 or 2000 I think, pretty crazy but stinking fun! Maxson and Tristan LOVED the silly string, most the nieces were still not fans of it all. I love love love doing this each year with my family!

When we came back around New Year's we lit off firecrackers in the backyard which scared us all half to death. None of us were truly ready for how loud they were and half the children ended up crying, poor things. BUT it was still fun. I wish we had gotten to go shooting with my brother and hid family New Year's Day but sadly it didn't work out.

 My mom bought a fun new game called pie face which everyone LOVED playing.

 We gathered for our traditional New Year's morning breakfast at IHOP! My children shoveled down way more food than I thought they possibly could (it was totally delicious, maybe that's why), I will admit I shoveled down some gloriously yummy stuffed french toast as well. We were a rowdy messy bunch there and after an hour of being there my children were chomping at the bit to get outside and run around, ha. Restaurants are still one of the hardest things for me, I don't enjoy them quite yet with my children.

 Our POGO passes to us to the Phoenix zoo which was so much fun! Logan and Blair's family and my mom joined us and we had a great time.

 Max was super adorable and walked around looking at his map the first 25 minutes.

 And I met up with some of my bff's for lunch and then a playdate with our families the next day too. I love these girls so much. They teach me a lot. PLUS look at how gorgeous they all are! Hopefully some of their beauty and fashion will rub off on me more.

A huge shout out to my mom for making all our activities in AZ possible with her extra set of hands and patience, and love, and accommodations!

Back from Christmas

Back to the grind of life!

It was a wild ride back, I'll write more about it later.  But for now know that we had a SUPER insanely smooth ride back even though there were about 10 horrible things going against us, it all worked out thanks to the Lord's tender hand!

We have truly been so blessed this Christmas season. We've been around all our wonderful family for some time now, we've been in great weather, we celebrated our Savior Jesus Christ's birth, it's just been so stinking wonderful these past couple weeks.

I'll get to the pictures hopefully this month but for now the aftermath of all our going and doing is still taking a number on me, ha.

As wonderful as my wonderful children are, they are at a stage where it's so beyond completely exhausting. Maxson is wild. Everyone describes him as wild, tornado, busy, go go go, crazy, determined, smart, etc. He has such a passionate spirit about life that it can be exhausting. I love him to death and he makes me laugh and smile so much, but he is at a hard age. If he could just be in one of those huge bounce house places all by himself for weeks straight with an audience watching him he would be one insanely happy soul. But that's not how life works. He needs to learn how to share and be kind to others, to be calm at times and restrain his passion for life. Bless his soul I love him so dearly, but I do not see this coming year of being three being any easier for him or myself. Especially with his lack of desire for naps anymore these days.

The babies are hilarious and cute as well these days. But they sure are needy and cry-ey. Anyone who has been around them long enough gets when I say "they cry a lot." They just seem to follow me around all day and cry at my feet and legs and want to be held and since there's so much to do I can't just hold them both all day long. I wish I could but that's not life.

Today begins potty training. We've been telling Max for the past 2-3 months that after we get home fro Christmas there's no more diapers and he gets to wear big boy underwear and go potty on the toilet! Oh how I really hope it works for us this time around. He can do it, because for one whole day in October he did freaking fabulous. It just comes down to him choosing to stop his activity and GO!

So here's to making it. As always send good thoughts my way because I surely ALWAYS need them!