Happenings of the SLC Hughes

Monday, August 8, 2011

January and February (slowly, but surely!)

We started the New Year by driving home from St. George and going straight to a party at Jeff's Uncle's! If you can't tell by the way my children are wrestling Uncle Donald to the ground, we LOVE Uncle and Jackie! Being with them and Jeff's Mom & David, and Clay & Trish and their kiddos is always so much fun! This year, Uncle hosted a BINGO game for the kids! They loved that, too! This month also brought a visit from my sister Diane & family. Jeff helped them with a party for my brother-in-law's parents mission homecoming by BBQing as many hot dogs as could fit on our grill! If just reading that sentence didn't make you tired, I don't know what will! We also hosted the Niederhauser's, who are always a joy to have around! Kyle did an amazing job on his sun project. He made clay that could dry in the sun and then shaped it and painted and did a little research on the sun. I didn't expect Kindergarten to have so many projects! :) We celebrated his awesome work by heading to the zoo that afternoon (no sun to be seen, but still fun)! Miss Alison also enjoyed the month playing with her friend Lexi! Lexi's mom & I swapped kiddos during the year so we could each volunteer at the school! They just moved up to Idaho, and Alison and I are going to miss them soooo much!

February is supposed to be the month of love, and I certainly LOVE my husband, but I don't have a single picture to prove that we spent the month together! I do have several pictures with other people that we LOVE to be with! My sweet friend Leslie turned the big 4-0 in February and Leslie,Sarah, Traci, Krisa, & I had a true girl's night out slumber party downtown to celebrate! Crazy ladies and I LOVE them! Thanks to my sister Diane, we got to finally see what all the Jimmer hype was about! We caught a little Jimmer-mania! We took my nephew Cannon and got to hang with our friends the Sanderson's! Fun night at BYU! The youth in our ward went sledding up Parley's canyon, and I loved hanging with them! LOVE my calling at church! My cousin Brian was married this month and my sisters Kristina and Karin came up for the wedding. LOVE them! My cousin Marianne joined our family again for another month before her place finally opened in March! I could go on and on about having Marianne live with us, but I'll save that for another day! The kids and I went to see our neighbor Allegra participate in a gymnastics meet! We LOVED seeing her compete! She's amazing! And we finished the month by hanging with our neighbors and buddies, the Santangelo's, at the Safe Kids Fair. Face painting and booths and pure chaos, but the kids loved it, especially eating at Chik Fil-A afterwards! What a LOVELY month it was!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Christmas in June!

I really should wait until July to post December's pictures to have a "Christmas in July" post, but I can't put off posting any longer! We've had so many fun things happen lately and I feel bad not posting them right away. I'm going to try and get caught up....ahem...famous last words!

December was a wonderful month full of all the joys and stresses of getting ready for Christmas! We spent a lot of good time with family and friends and especially enjoyed carrying on our traditions in our own little family! Our first adventure for the month was to go to temple square to see the lights with our friends the Sandersons. My goal was to take a family photo for our Christmas card. It was cold and we didn't have a lot of luck with the photos, but we made one work!

I woke up one morning early in the month with a mysterious rash that sent me into crazy mode and my sister Karin had to rescue me by taking my cousin Marianne for the holidays! What an interesting year it was with my cousin!! More on that in the coming posts! We enjoyed several school performances by Chad and Kyle and their classes. The arts program at their school is amazing! We had a fun night out at Chuck E Cheese's with our friends the Broughs! We made a lot of fun treats to eat and to share! I was able to have lunch with some old high school friends, which I have missed out on for a few years! It was a great month!

Christmas Eve and Christmas day were wonderful, exciting, relaxing, full of fun and good food! Hooray for pillow pets, legos, remote control cars, a new kitchen, and many more games and toys! Our last gifts were new CTR rings for everyone. We had a little box sitting on the table that we let them open as we ate breakfast! We talked about our gifts for Christ this year and set new goals to choose the right more often throughout the year. Speaking of that, I better do some gentle reminding now that the year is halfway through! We had fun chatting with my Mom and Dad on their mission and we enjoyed a nice dinner with Jeff's Mom and David where the kids were once again spoiled! It was a fabulous holiday season!

I don't know if anyone will ever notice that I'm adding this, but I found some pictures from December that I missed in this blog entry. After Christmas we hung out with my St. George sisters and all of the cousins down there. We had a blast! Jeff and the boys also built a couple of birdhouses, and I just wanted to keep those pictures with this months pictures. Who knows if I'll ever do anything with these photos, but at least I'll have them saved here!

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

November 2010

Highlights for me for November included my sweet Chad turning 7 years old, running the Snow Canyon Half Marathon with some of the most awesome girls I know, selling Jeff's truck (This was NOT a highlight for him! In fact, he still wants to cry when he sees pictures of his truck, but it was something that needed to be done for our family!), celebrating Thanksgiving with some of Jeff's family up in Idaho, and starting our LONG Winter by getting to play in the snow! (We still got to play in the snow last weekend, and that was the last weekend of APRIL!) I do not have ANY pictures from the race or from Thanksgiving! Don't know what happened there, but here are a few from the month!

Friday, March 4, 2011

October 2010

On October 11th we headed to Wheeler Farm with our friends the Broughs and went through a hay maze, picked out our own pumpkins, and took a haunted wagon ride around the farm. A great evening especially since it was so cheap thanks to Screamin Daily Deals!

Two days later we returned to Wheeler farm for our friend Lauren's birthday party! I didn't take many photos, but I got one of Kyle attempting to milk a cow...not a single drop came out! I was so proud of him for giving it a shot though!

I also caught this one of the whole birthday group! Fun place for a Fall birthday party!

On the 14th and 15th Jeff took the boys camping again with our friend Casey and two of his children, Reed and Eliza. They planned on staying another night, but Chad was homesick and Reed was starting to feel sick sick! If I remember correctly, they had to hike in a mile or so to get to the lake. Jeff had the boys carry their own sleeping bags and pads, but on the way out, he opted to carry their pads to speed things up a bit! They had such a good time fishing and playing and Jeff helped the kids build a sweet bridge! Reed caught the fish, but Kyle had just as much fun holding it!

They got home from their adventures LATE at night and first thing in the morning we got up and headed to Idaho. Jeff's step-mother Irene was celebrating her 70th birthday! We were so glad to be there with everyone! My sister-in-law Brittney made the cake for Irene! She is so talented! I didn't catch a photo when the cake was still tiered, but believe me it was GORGEOUS!

Red ribbon week was the last week of October. One of the days the boys got to do crazy hair and silly socks! They were so excited! One of my friends called me busting up because of how sweet Chad's legs looked in his long soccer socks! Right now his legs are about the same size all the way up! So skinny!

And of course we will finish off October with all of our Halloween festivities! The boys participated in the parade at their school, and we all had a blast at our ward party! Jeff and I were Super Mom and Super Dad! Not as dressed up as some, but at least we tried this year! We participated in a mini pie eating contest, but sadly we both lost! We carved pumpkins and had lunch with our neighbors on Halloween day before the storm set in! Anyone want to guess which pumpkin was Jeff's? Our little Monkey, Ninja, and Harry Potter sure had a good time trick-or-treating...even in the rain!

Well, that's it for October! This is quite therapeutic for me to re-live these moments! Nothing wrong with focusing on the positives of the past when the current events seem CRAZY! Right, Mom?

Monday, February 28, 2011

Don't Worry!

I should not have started that last post with my DRAMA! No one needs to worry! Marianne is OK, my family is OK, everyone is OK! She and her sister had an incident, and she ended up at the E.R. for a Psych Evaluation. LOOOONG story short...she is happily sleeping back in our basement. We are eager for the Intermediate Care Facility to open in Payson, but for now, she will be with us. That is all, and I must go get some sleep!

September Wrap Up

Today was a HORRIBLY long day! Emphasis added on PURPOSE! I spent the day in the E.R. with my cousin Marianne. LONG story, that I'm not in the mood for right now! I'm going to blog about the rest of September to get my mind off of TODAY!

Back on September 10th we went as a family to the Elementary School Carnival! Cotton Candy, Bounce Houses, Cake Walks, and FRIENDS...what else can I say? Most definitely a great night out!

My sweet Kindergartener Kyle participated in the annual Incredible Edible Insect Show on the 17th! His Swedish Fish Fire Ants were adorable! We had a great time squishing and cutting the swedish fish to get them juuuust right! This is a super fun school tradition!

After the Bug Show we met up with my sister Kristina and her family for an afternoon at the zoo! We LOVE when our cousins come to town even for quick afternoons! We all had such a nice day at the zoo! Even Marianne ran into a friend from St. George while we were there...small world!

On the 24th and 25th, Jeff had some work to do up at a cabin and decided to make it an "in-door camping trip" with the boys! They had a blast riding the four-wheeler, hiking, playing games, seeing wild life, and cooking over the campfire!

While the boys were away, Alison and I stayed put and did some serious potty training! We had our moments, but she did such a great job! We've since had issues with going poopoo because someone likes to hold it in forever, but as of last week she seems so much more regular and much more comfortable! Gotta love this girl's facial expressions!

So there you have it! I'm sure there were more activities crammed into September that I'm ignoring, but this was a good glimpse! With February ending, I've still got 5 months of catch up, but I'm on a pretty good roll so far! All the pictures from the holidays might do me in, but I'll make it!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

September

This blog isn't big enough for the list of excuses I have for not blogging, and it obviously wasn't big enough for all of the photos I post! I think I have figured things out, AND I will SLOWLY be playing catch-up once again! The following is a post that I did back in October and just saved as a draft. I realize no one but my Mom will care for all of these old posts, but my Mom is worth it!! Yes, Mom! You are worth me going through 5 months worth of photos and coming up with clever captions that make it sound like I remember what happened 5 months ago! The rest of you are worth it, too, but don't feel like you have to care about all that we have been up to! Here goes:

October 11, 2010

I had wanted to take the kids to a drive-in movie all summer, but it never happened. Well, on my birthday I got to decide what to do, so I finally made it happen. I know, I know. Not romantic or exciting or spectacular, but that's not where my life is right now. With my cousin living with us, I really just wanted to be out of the house with Jeff and the kids. We hit Five Guys Burgers and then went and saw Toy Story 3 and Despicable Me, and YES we all stayed up for both shows! It was a blast! We brought popcorn and treats and even the chocolate mousse cake that I made for myself! It got all squished in the brownie pan, but it was delicious! The pictures aren't the best because of the flash bugging the cars around us, but we really had a fantastic time!

My birthday celebrations continued for several days! Lucky me! I had so many awesome friends and family send or bring by birthday greetings, presents, and treats! I did Cafe Rio with one group of friends, and my friend Bonnie had us over for a swim and banana cream pie another day! Our fantastic friends and neighbors, the Bertola's, even gave Jeff a gift card to Best Buy that they said they weren't going to use before it's expiration, so Jeff went and got me a new little camera to keep in my purse! I felt spoiled rotten! Thank you everyone!