Freeze time!

I still don't have a fancy phone to take my photos, but I have been taking my little hand held one around with me for the past couple of months. Here are some photos to represent our life as we endured a polar vortex and are coming out to spring. Birthdays in there, holidays, and more. Our little family means the world to me and is my world. They make each and every day so special. I have loved our time together and cherish so many memories. With that being said...

 Brad was able to attend Dad's and Donuts with Miss Blue. She thinks her dad is pretty special so this was a fun treat for her.

 Did I mention, or perhaps you heard of it on the news...but the midwest and east coast were covered in a polar vortex from December until like last week. It was SOOOOOOOOOOO cold. I like the cold, I really do. I'm one of "those" people, but this was ridiculous. It never got about 10 degrees for the whole month of January and is was below freezing from Christmas till March and there were several days cushioned in there with negative temps. School was canceled 3 times. It was nuts. One day I took the kids out sledding in 13 degree temps. My friend's kids faired better than ours. Good thing our house is right next to the sledding hill so we just marched on home after 10 minutes. One day Brad was out shoveling the walks and I was listening to the news and it said you shouldn't be outside for more than 15 minutes in sub0 temps. So he came in. That same night my friend's husband who is an ER resident said an idiot came in because he had frostbite on his ear because we talked to his girlfriend outside for too long on the phone. Umm...it was really, really cold.
This shows home much snow we had. That is our lamp post down there and the girls are basically playing on top of the bush in front.

 You can see our house back there for some perspective with the height of this snow.

 During the vortex I had a birthday and was spoiled as usual.

Some of my cute friends I have met out here. We all share the common residency bond. Me and Jill on the right are moving this summer :( And the other two still have a few more years. I have loved and with forever hold dear the friends I have met along this journey. We all were brought together with the medicine bond and it is truly a strong one!

 
Here we are, 3 girls, at IHOP. I took Chloe out of school for free pancake day. I knew she would appreciate the pancake more than anyone else...and that she did.

 We had 5 families take one last horrah to Nauvoo and stay overnight in the Villas. Love Nauvoo.

 Ez has THE BEST preschool. They set up a little city where he road his bike to each station and had an experience there. I was lucky to be able to go.

 I went for a haircut and she asked to come along and chop her hair off. I trusted she would like the change and she did.

 She had enough to donate her cut off hair.

And while I'm talking about Miss Blue...somehow she went from being this spunky and smiley toddler (that picture was right when we moved to Illinois, but a little south of Peoria) to...

 
A smart, sensitive, spiritual and spunky 7 YEAR OLD!!!

 The traditional shirt I make. She LOVES baseball and she loved this shirt.

 Chloe asked us if she could have a poster on her future bedroom wall. I said sure and then asked her what the poster would have on it. She told me she would like a poster of David Ortiz (the huge red sox hitter) to be over her bed. Um...let me see. Maybe we'll go with a nice painting of a bluebird and a cardinal instead. But she loves her red sox.

 One afternoon Brad told me that he wanted to get back to doing creative things that he used to do for me and us. She he spent the better part of the evening making them an amazing treasure hunt, complete with clues for face painting and selecting their swords. At the end, the even had to dig up the treasure. EZ loved the map, Chloe the treasure of course and Miss Belle just running along. This was the only picture I got of Chloe with her bike helmet off. She ran the whole thing wearing her helmet. Too excited to take it off:)

 Playgroup had an Easter Egg hunt. Look at those adorable kids.

 I looked in the rearview mirror as we were driving afterwards and saw this. She puts stickers on her face and across each of her fingers and finger nails. It is kind of funny/bizarre.

 And about 3 months ago we were in Disneyworld. Miss it.

I trained for my half marathon during the polar vortex. I didn't have one single saturday that was decent. This was my first half since running the St. Louis one 12 weeks pregnant with EZ. I set a goal (well, Brad set me a goal!) and I worked SO hard for that goal and achieved it. 1 hour and 50 minutes. Booom! But back to training. I listed all my runs on the calendar and did every single one with gusto. Because of the lame weather (I'm no sissy, but negative temps can freeze a girl) I had to even run 9 miles a couple of times on the treadmill. But, I perserved and with the help of my nike gps watch, some great tunes, my new asics, and my pink beanie I loved training.
START...

 FINISH...Ironically, I am number 68 and finished 68th over all.

 Brad and I went to Logan and looked for a house to buy and Grandma Nancy came to be with the kids for a week. She spoiled them and they loved it. When we got back Jeff and Holli joined us for Easter and soccer games.

 So while in Logan we decided to buy a lot and are building a house. There is something about this house in Peoria I love. I think it is probably the dark color and white trim. I also can imagine it is so light inside and I have come to realize I need and crave natural light and the sunshine. I blame the polar vortex.

 And finally, this little guy. There are a million things that remind me of my mom and Utah, but one big memory is the bluebird that lives in my parents back yard. My mom says it is her mom flying around and watching out for her. This little guy flies around our yard and I know (Chloe and I) that it is a sweet reminder of those memories.

Our sweet Miss Belle

This sweet girl totally completes this family!! She is a free spirit in every sense.

I love that she loves to snuggle and really is expressive with her love and affection. She is a daddy's girl which is fun for daddy and her but not so much for this momma sometime!!

She always puts some crazy outfit or accessory on. She loves her sweatshirt. She pulls her clips out, but loves to have ponies in the back. She is petit as can be and full of spunk.

Miss Lola Belle we love you!

A lot...

This is a random picture of a volcano that Chloe built.

 Disneyworld 2014... a trip of a lifetime.
For the past 7 years, Brad and I have been doing this whole medical school thing and residency thing. We had been wanting to take our parents on a trip for that whole time; A trip to say thank you for all of everything they had done. Visits for new babies born, visits during the winter gloom, and fun visits when we were back in Utah. So, we got thinking...Florida in February. Perfect.
I actually can't believe the trip has come and gone. It was so fun.
We spent 2 days at Magic Kingdom, 1 day at Animal Kingdom, and 1 day at Hollywood Studios. We did have a couple of days of ugly weather but the good weather more than made up for it. Back home, in Peoria, they were experiencing negative temps and school closures, so this was a welcome retreat.

 Just some snap shots from the week. Lola always acts like a big kid and this trip was no exception. Brad pretty much carried her the entire week. She didn't love being in her stroller unless is was nap time. EZ on the other hand preferred to ride most of the time.

 We met a few characters. Luckily, our kids didn't want to wait in lines to meet them. So if we ran into them it was perfect. One morning we saw Sofia and Jake in their incognito spot. No traffic at all.

 Disney is magical with kids.

 And this guy...he was so happy all week. Always a big smile. He has put in so much work to get to this point in his career and it was nice to see him just relaxing and taking it all in.

 This girl was the funnest age to be there. She was tall enough to ride all of the rides, including the scary ones like Tower of Terror and the new Everest Rollercoast which went backwards in the dark and upside down.

 Everyone willing to stop and smile for my many picture moments. I am in the process of making a digital book on Snapfish, which is the only way to go for vacation memories.

 See Lola's face. She really loves Sophia.

 One of Chloe's souvenirs was a disneyland puzzle that she chose. On our day "off" we stayed at the condo and built the puzzle. I think I may pack a puzzle or two on future vacations because it was so fun to just sit around a build it together.

 The grandparents. They were having as much fun as the kids!

 And I got to ride a few rides with this guy!

 And then it was time to go home! Which involved a 5am-2pm day, which was supposed to be a 5am-10:30am day but atleast it didn't turn into a 5am-11pm day like it could have.

More posts coming soon. I still love to blog. Do you??

Merry Merry Christmas

I love Christmas. Love it, love it, love it. Enjoy the pictures of the season...

 Here is EZ singing in his first school programs. He turned around so we saw his back most of the time:) But the parts he did sing, you can bet, were outstanding!

 Sometime after Miss Belle stopped wearing shoes on her hands she started to only want to wear sweatshirts and dress ups.

 We slept under the tree on the 23rd. Actually, I slept in my cozy bed and they slept under the tree and loved every minute of it.

 Annual Christmas breakfast. It really was a ridiculous amount of food.

 Annual bowling. The alley was supposed to be closed, but I called just to see if maybe they might want to "be open". And they said they would!! Bowling is a tradition.

 The fun group. We're lucky to know so many great people.

 A Christmas Eve "appetizer" plate and the kids call it.

 I attempted a yule log!

 The elf brings the kids their jammies when we put the tree up. We had a gingerbread girl, santa, and a little reindeer.

 Christmas morning. This is how we'll remember her 2nd christmas. She wanted to have the clothes she wore during the pageant the night before. She pretty much didn't care about any of the gifts. The only thing she did care about was if the scarf and the blue blanket fell off.

 Coming in to get our gifts.

 Reading books on my bed after the excitement.

 The reason for the season. My mom gave us this as a wedding gifts because we were married a week later. It is one of my favorite things I own. Beautiful.

 And this...my favorite gift. When we went to visit Santa, Bluebird didn't really ask for anything major, but then she whispered to santa something else. She told me she had whispered something that she wanted him to bring to me for Christmas. I would ask her periodically if she would tell me what she asked for and she always told me, "nope, you'll have to wait till Christmas". She did tell B-rad though. So Christmas morning came and we opened gifts and she got what she asked for, but I could tell I didn't get the gift she asked Santa to bring me. I asked her if that was okay (seeing that she was happy with her gifts but a little disappointed that mine didn't come) and she said she was happy. She told me he'd bring it for me next year. A little while later she found a hidden gift. It was for me! Inside was this note with her picture and a baseball mit. You see, she had left my mitt out in the summer and it got rained on and it molded so gross. She loves baseball and she loves that I love to play catch with her. So she asked Santa to bring me one