Starting 2012 off right

Hey Everyone. How's it going? I'm Will. I'm cute. I know it. That is all.

(Hahaha. Well, Will may not know he's cute, but his mama sure does.)

We have had a great start to 2012 so far.

I got to start the year by seeing one of my favorite people, a childhood friend who was in town and eked out some time from her busy work schedule to meet me for dinner. Angi is one of those friends for me with whom you can pick up right where you left off, and I am so grateful that 22 years after that summer before 4th grade when we first met we are still good friends.

I have many memories from my college days of watching BYU Men's Volleyball win game after game in the Smith Fieldhouse and Marriott Center. It was fun, then, to watch them once again, only on somebody else's turf. We went to UC-Irvine and watched BYU squeak out a narrow win against a really good opponent. They had a great year this year.

We joined Peter's family for the game and the cousins had a blast running around the concourse together as well as watching the guys play.

Sporting their pj's you can see how the girls' clothes choices are usually pretty eclectic, mostly with their pajamas.

I'm glad this kid is just happy to be alive and couldn't care about what he's wearing. He truly is just a happy-go-lucky kid and spends most of his time trying to make us all laugh. We love having him in our home!

But Avery is still our biggest ham around here. She actually navigated surprisingly well in my boots around the house and had us all laughing watching her in them.

Sophie's class made ice castles at school one day. They all had to freeze ice and put cool things in it and then put them all together at school in a castle. This picture is after it had all melted and you could see the things they'd put in the ice. She had a blast.

Avery and her friend Shea found the lip gloss and it was the perfect accessory for their dress-ups.

Sadly Will also became a victim to the lip gloss. With two older sisters I think he'd better just get used to it, poor kid.

When we took down our Christmas decorations Sophie wanted to know what was going to take their place, but I just didn't have a whole lot in the way of wintery decor, so we made snowflakes instead. It was actually really fun to make them and I now consider myself somewhat of a snowflake making expert...until next year when we do it again and I've forgotten everything, that is.

I was asked to speak at the Beehive Conference for our stake and service was my theme, so I had fun using mirrors to talk about not allowing ourselves to become so self absorbed that we miss out on opportunities to reach out to others. If the mirror is constantly facing us we can't reflect the light of Christ, but when we turn it around then His light can shine through us (or something like that).

It was a fun experience and I realized how much I miss working with the Young Women. I like my new calling with Visiting Teaching, but I definitely miss working so closely with those girls.

And that was a little bit of our January!

Open House for Scott and Tesha

It's good to see that these two newlyweds survived their first few weeks of mawwage and are still very much in love.

I love Tesha's ring! Good job you two!

The girls loved getting to finally meet their Aunt Tesha after Christmas and had fun getting to know her. They were shy at first but it didn't take long for them to warm right up to her. She loves everyone, though, so it's not hard to love her back. Plus she was really sweet to Sophie and Avery and they adore her now.

While they were in Utah we threw an open house for them at my parent's church building. I have to say I like winter-themed weddings.

The girls loved helping them open a few of the many presents they received after the open house.

Mom made all the food and it was very tasty.

Here are the happy parents of the groom, greeting their guests.

And here are the guests of honor themselves. Tesha was gorgeous in her purple gown. And if you know Scott well you know he's hard pressed to ever take a serious picture.

Joseph's parents came to give their good wishes to the couple. Now you know where Will gets his good looks from.

Cousin Jessie could've held AJ all night...

...but she had to compete for him with her mama, Stacy.

We had so much family come support us this night, especially my mom's side.

What a good lookin' kid! See, red hair does run in the family! I didn't just make that up!

Grandpa Austin with his three living sons and a few of their kids.

Will was so done by halfway through the night but he was a trooper. The kids mainly just played up on the stage behind the curtain to keep from getting too bored. (sigh) There weren't any other kids there to play with so it was kind of a long night for them.

It was a fun night, though, and we're glad we just happened to be in Utah so we could be there for it.

Sophie and Avery's favorite newest aunt.

And their favorite Uncle Scott.

We love you, Scott and Tesha! Happy Wedding!

More Fun with Cousins at Jungle Jims

We just don't get to see our Jensen cousins often enough, so it was perfect that all of them were in Utah at the same time after Christmas. It was Clarissa's birthday and she wanted to go to Jungle Jim's for it, so most of us met up there for a day of riding little carnival rides and eating pizza. (My girls are especially lucky to have so many girl cousins their same age on this side!)

William liked the little bouncy area, especially when he could be alone in it and not get bounced all over by big kids.

The girls rode ride after ride together, like the planes...

...and the safari Jeep ride,

and the Amazon roller coaster,

and the spinning cups,

and the swings,

and the bumper cars.

I'd say the roller coaster was the favorite of the day though, especially because it went forwards and backwards!

Their favorite part was riding it with their cousins like Jensen and Sadie. They'd finish a ride and all sprint to the back of the line to go again and again.

My favorite part of the day was watching the adults try to squeeze into the little tiny rides with their little kids. Looks comfy, Shelly!

"What do you mean this ride isn't for 6' 5" men?" I love how far Willis's legs stick out!

Will's favorite part of the day was riding the swings. It wasn't a very busy day so the girl let Will stay on the swings over and over. He probably rode them 8 or 9 times in a row.

Eventually, though, skipping his nap caught up with him and I saw his head start to nod and his eyes begin to droop. He was completely out within seconds, and didn't even wake up when the ride started again! It was hilarious! I got a video of it too and I think I'm laughing hysterically throughout the entire 2 minutes of it.

We had so much fun with you all! Thanks for the great time! We love you!

A TRAX Adventure

While we were at the Jensen's we went with Grandma Bob on an adventure on the TRAX train. We left Will asleep at home with Grandpa but the girls had a blast riding the train.

Our destination was the Grand America Hotel and its lavishness. We warmed up from the cold at this large fireplace.

The hotel had a really cool gift shop with a dressing room that had mirrors that Sophie thought were so awesome. Here are the 4 Sophies.

We met up with the Drysdales to do a fun scavenger hunt through the hotel. Each person got an answer card and a map and we had to find these windows all throughout the hotel hallways and find the star in each picture. At the end we got a cookie for completing it.

We passed this real life gingerbread house along the way. Every single thing on it is edible. If only we could've tested that claim for ourselves.

The hunt ended at this beautiful tree in the courtyard.

What a gorgeous hotel, and even prettier at Christmastime.

We had such a fun outing on Christmas Eve and are glad for the time we got to spend with such fun cousins, too.