Catching up with everyone!

We headed to In-n-out for lunch on Monday…….of course it was on the to do list.  Yummy as ever!  The Taylor boys came over (Jake and Josh’s best buds) and hung out for awhile.  Man do we love these guys.  Luckily Mom and Dad moved in three doors down from their Grandma so we can always keep in touch with our buddies. 


Hanna and Jake performed their famous Rasputin dance from Just Dance on the kinect.  It was a hit wherever we went!  They are getting really good at it. 
 
Daniel joined in at the end……
 
We headed over to Anthony and Rachel’s house for a bit and finally saw for ourselves just how close Kim’s rental is to Anthony! 

Carter stayed to play video games with Andrew and Aaron for awhile cuz cousins are awesome…..we headed up to see Jason and Melinda’s new home in Mountain Green and to pick up Jake and Josh who had been playing there. 

Melinda and Jason’s home is fabulous!  We were blown away at how gorgeous it was.  Kaydee and family came up to see us too.  So many people went out of their way to come and see us.  We felt so loved! 
 

Our trip HOME to America

What started out as a trip to meet Baby Vivian with Mom, Josh and Cole evolved into a family trip to America.  Even Jared got to come along.  I’m so glad that it evolved this way.  I think I would have regretted it any other way.  It was a much needed reunion with cousins, grandparents, uncles, aunts and friends.  We felt so very loved and spoiled from the minute we walked out of customs in SLC airport to the time we re-entered customs two weeks later.  Thank you all who made this trip so special and memorable.  You know who you are! 

The trip was planned for one special little reason and here she is:  She is perfect, beautiful, and finally here.

I’ve shared her story lots over the past few months explaining why we were going to the states and taking our kids out of school for 9 days.  Just for the Record, here it is one more time….. My younger brother Anthony and wife Rachel have been trying to have one more baby.  They are already the parents of Sabrina 6 and Oliver 4.  They are an awesome family and are such great examples to me on how to be good parents and teaching your children all that they need to know.  The kind of people who are so deserving of raising more children.  They adore their children.  Children that were not easy to come by.  Each one has been a hard earned miracle with lots of disappointments along the way.  Vivian has been the hardest.  They have been trying for years with a handful of disappointments, surgery, and finally blood thinning shots for 28 weeks to get this little doll here.  Congratulations guys and thanks for letting us be part of her blessing day.  So glad ALL of us were there. 

Here she is again when she was awake a few days later!! This girl is always dressed to the Nines and her mom always has the perfect homemade headband to match. 

In preparation, Rachel designed and created this beautiful bedroom for the Princess.  And yes she did all these projects herself.  She’s kinda awesome like that. 

   

And since were talking about her mad decorating skills, here are a few more pics of her fun projects she has been working on.  She drags my brother in on all of them and makes him make frames, paint, hammer, saw etc.  Its good for him.  He’s a smarty pants computer guy and would probably rather do that, but since he adores his Rachel, her wish is his command.  Below is Oliver’s bedroom and the play room.  so cute!

 

More projects: Their master bedroom and extra music/craft room:

  

But more of their recent most fabulous creation:  She liked Carter and always smiled at him! 

   

Hanging out at G’ma and G’pas

After Vivian’s sweet blessing day at church, we headed back to Grandma and Grandpa’s awesome new house in Layton.  It’s a great hang out house with a large basement for all the grandkids.  We played pool and had a ping pong tournament that Carter won, and ate great food. 
       

The Gray Winter

Maybe I’ve already mentioned that it gets really ugly and gray here during the winter.  It has snowed every couple of days this January.  Even if it doesn’t stick we usually have some flurries during every day.  As much as I like a little snow, I could do with a little more sun.  Its hard not to experience some seasonal depression here.  Thankfully we have our trip to America to look forward to in February! 

Schwedelbach under snow up above and right by the bus stop for my kids below.  The blue house in this picture has a small bakery on the bottom floor that is a life saver sometimes.  The white poofy stick hanging off the blue house on the very far left is the spirit stick that they decorate every September.  Its starts very colorful and then the weather makes all the colors fade and wash away as the year progresses.  I don’t like that my kids walk through the busiest intersection every day to get to the bus stop, but that’s how it goes! 

 

There are lots of little farms here in our village and tractors on the roads are commonplace. 

 

We travel down this street every time we leave our house and this house in front of us is our view!  The green door is where we took our most recent family picture.  All summer long two little old German ladies sit outside almost all day waving as people go by.  Apparently they are crazy according to the younger gal who lives there.  I’ve gotten to visit with them here and there because of needing their door for pictures.