Valentine's Day 2016

Valentine's Day 2016

I LOVE holidays! Valentine's Day is always a fun holiday at our house. I love to decorate our home with heart garland, candy hearts and festive chalk art.  For as long as I can remember, we have spent Valentine's Day as a family. Usually we cook a fun meal together and enjoy a delicious dessert!  Last year, we spent Valentine's Day with grandparents and great grandparents. We called it a Day of Love.  

This year, we spent the day at my godparents house in northern Wisconsin with my parents. We had an amazing day together. It was so refreshing to have above zero temperatures to enjoy the great outdoors.  Our day started off with a hike down to the lake for some ice fishing.  I loved hiking with my daughter down the quiet snowy path. 

Fish on!

Tip up's are all ready for the next bite!

We only lasted a little while on the ice. Little miss wanted to hang out by the fire pit instead. We left the boys out there to catch the fish!

Staying warm by the fire!

Family photo time! We love exploring outside together!

Mmmm.... treat time! Fresh fruit & marshmallows inside an ice cream cone. 

Ahhh....one of the highlights of our day. The kids couldn't wait to get into the hot tub. I enjoyed relaxing in the nice warm water, the children on the other hand jumped into the snow multiple times and came back into the steaming water. Silly kids!

I hope you had a wonderful Valentine's Day!

Spending time with those we love is how we like to spend our Valentine's Day. 

Family Photos

Just to give you fair warning, you are about to see an obnoxious amount of family photos for one blog post! ha  Every single one of the photos turned out beautifully! It has been a long time since we had professional family photos taken. I always have nice pictures taken of the kids, but rarely of all of us. It was time for beautiful new photos in our house!  Andrea was so sweet and did such an incredible job even though it was 30* and the kids were freezing cold.  

I can't wait to pick out my favorites to enlarge for a gallery wall, but I have no idea how I am actually going to do that!

Want to see my favorites? 

I am so blessed to have two beautiful healthy children. I love this photo of us laughing together! 

My gorgeous girl! Her eyelashes are perfect!

Love these two. They are growing up so fast!

I love laughing with them! 

Our little model!

Those eyes! 

It was so much fun capturing these moments together as a family. I am so excited to put them up on the wall! Thank you so much Andrea for capturing such beautiful photos of our family; they will be treasured forever!

Photography by Andrea Larson Photography 

Oh Christmas Tree

oh Christmas Tree, oh Christmas Tree...

how lovely are your branches...

This past Sunday, we went on our annual trek to cut down our Christmas tree! We were lucky enough to have my mother in law & father in law join us. We took my husband's old car to bring our tree home Griswold style!  The kids were visiting in the back seat and I heard my daughter tell her big brother that she loved him and gave him a big kiss. The crazy, exhausting moments are all worth it for little moments like this. 

Time for our sleigh ride out to the tree farm! We have been going to the same tree farm for the last 10 plus years! 

It is an annual tradition for my husbands family.

We found our tree after searching and searching the aisles of trees! Some little, some big, some huge! My husband likes to pick LARGE trees!

The kids wanted to try to pull the tree back to the trimming station... Well, they attempted! They got about 2 feet! ha Mom attempted too, I got about 25 feet! It was heavy!

Time for a little hot cider and fresh popcorn back at the tree farm store!

We brought our tree home and let it sit for the day to let it's limbs settle. We poured in a bottle of mountain dew (for reason's I do not understand, but apparently a family tradition.. my husband believes it helps the tree when you first put it in your stand)...old wives tale??? haha

Time for tree trimming... The kids LOVE to help decorate the tree. Mom gets a tad bit nervous with some of the special and fragile ornaments...so she takes care of these!

Big Helpers!

It's perfect! I absolutely love it!

I hope you have a joyous holiday season! 
Eat, Drink and Be Merry!

Pumpkin Carving

.Pumpkin Carving.

Every year our kids beg and plead as to when we are going to carve pumpkins!! I like to wait until 1 week before Halloween so the pumpkins don't get icky before it's even time for the big day! My son was the first one to go outside to pick which pumpkin he was going to carve! 

Cleaning out pumpkins is apparently hard work, he was trying really hard to get out all the pumpkin slime & seeds!

She was excited about her pumpkin as well, well until the neighbor girl showed up and wanted to play. So she helped for a bit and then played for a bit, then helped some more! haha

The look in her eyes is priceless, she is telling me without words: this is gross! 

After he gutted his pumpkin, he started his Jackolantern drawing. 

Mom & Dad helped with the carving, but he was so proud of his pumpkin creation!

Mom's creation! I went with EASY- triangle eyes & big toothy grin! We carved pumpkins after a 2 hour family nap, I look a bit sleepy! 

All of our pumpkins on our front steps!

Oooohhhh...... scary! All lit up and ready for Halloween night. 

Did you carve pumpkins this year? What did your pumpkin look like?

Have a safe & Happy Halloween!!

youth football season recap

My son started his first year of youth football this year in early August. He had practice twice a week & had his first game in late August. He learned a lot those first few weeks, as most of the 2nd grade boys on his team had all played the year before. He had to catch up fast! He played Left Guard. Until my husband explained it to me, I didn't really realize what the Left Guard did. Oops! haha   He loved going to practice with all of his friends, doing drills and learning more about the game of football. We are lucky to have such a great program in our community!

The first few weeks of practice were funny to watch, all these little guys running around the field with huge helmets! 

They won their first game. They played hard & had fun! The other team thought our boys were huge! ha

My tough boy #61

At his second game, I was in Utah at the #doterraalive convention, so I had to rely on dad to take photos!!

Family picture after his third game! So proud of him. He played hard! I can't believe how fast he is growing up. 

I finally brought my DSLR camera to the last game of the season! Oops.  

RUN!

I loved taking some action shots of the boys!

Let's do this!

We ended the season undefeated! They were so excited! 

A short video of a game earlier in the season! They are a hoot to watch. 

We had a great year watching youth football. I am happy that he loved playing & made great friends. That is all that matters!  I hope you enjoyed my football recap as much as I did!