Britney & Justin's Wedding!!!

WOO HOO!!!  My niece, Britney, was married this past Saturday (Jan. 18th in the Mesa Temple!  This was a very exciting time for everyone involved.  Britney is the oldest child of my sister's kids and was the 3rd to be married:)  I think my sister just needed to learn a little patience:)  I knew Britney had this all under control:)

So she married an awesome guy--Justin--from Tucson.  They met through Justin's older cousin who lives in Las Cruces, NM and is very good friends with my older sister, Anne.  So long story short..they met, fell madly in love, and here is the end result:

Mr. & Mrs. Power

Justin is a returned missionary.  He and Britney have the SAME birthday--only he is a year older:)  His immediate family are members of the church but most of his extended family is not.  So they were sealed in the Mesa Temple on Saturday morning and then had an outdoor ring ceremony in the afternoon.  Seriously a PERFECT day!  Where else can you get married outside in January?!  So here are the ULTRA CUTE flower girls!!!

Hannah, Tatum, & Ollie

**Funny side note.  Ollie is Tatum's BEST friend who lives in NM.  Tatum LOVES seeing her every time we go for a visit.  Well, Ollie is Justin's cousin and Tatum is Britney's cousin so NOW, Tatum and Ollie are "cousins-in-law!"  Oh yeah…we made that up:)

Cousins--Wyatt, Carlie, Seth, Catlin, & Ethan

These 3 boys are the BEST of friends and cousins.  Max, Seth, & Ethan would LOVE to see each other every day.  Crazy boys!  Not sure WHY we had them in nice clothes:)

Carlie & I were TOTALLY photo-bombed!!!
Thanks Ethan & Max:)

EVERYONE LOVES PAPA FRANK!!!  The hands down FAVORITE grandpa:)

Britney had the BEST idea--a kid's table at the reception with TONS of candy!  Everyone had lollipops the size of their heads!!!  I am surprised that we had no rainbow colored puke later that night:)  The kids were SOO excited.  Wyatt exclaimed, "WE GOT CANDY!!!  WE GOT CANDY!!!"

Awesome food, awesome dancing, awesome people, awesome evening! 

Congrats to the happy couple!!!

Teen New Year's Party!!!

So it took me 6 months to recover from Carlie's birthday party--and it may take me another 6 months to recover from this:)--but we hosted a New Year's Party for 9 teenagers!!!  And it turned out AWESOME! 

First on the party itinerary--IKEA Scavenger Hunt!!!  We had 9 teens so we broke them up into 3 teams and set them off in IKEA with 20 tasks to accomplish in 1 hour:)  These are seriously some of the most creative teens I've ever dealt with.  We got some SERIOUSLY funny photos! 

Mitchell, Rachel, Savvy, Kayleah, Adam, LJ, Carlie, Lois, & Tayte

Here are a few of my favorite tasks and pictures:

"High School Musical" jump in front of a piece of red furniture.

"Watching a SCARY MOVIE!"

"Holding a stack of 10 pillows"

"Having an important business meeting"

"Team members wearing capes"

"Pretending to use the bathroom:)"

"Stuffed animals on heads"

"Being overcome with emotion over a piece of artwork"

"Pretending to be asleep"

"Acting out a fairytale" (This is Beauty & the Beast:)

"Build a fort" (2 teams in on this one:)

"Write an inspirational quote on a chalkboard"
No chalk available so Tayte is LOOKING inspirational:)

This one is just funny--Lois is adopted and jokes
here that she found her long lost brother:)

They are all exhausted afterwards!!!

Then back to our house for even MORE FUN!!!

Dance Party!!!

Games--this one was INTENSE--"The Candy Bar Game"

Chubby Bunny!!!

Kayleah wins!!! (8 marshmallows in her mouth:)

Countdown to midnight and sparklers!!!

I honestly can't remember the last time I stayed up until midnight--I know!  I'm a fuddy duddy:)  But it sure was fun.  Everyone had a great time, we didn't get kicked out of IKEA, AND there was NO BLOOD!!!  YAHOO!!!  Happy New Year's!!!  We kicked it off right this year!!!

Michael's Video:)

So my son, Max, and his best friend, Michael, LOVE to post videos to their YouTube accounts--well, the accounts are mine and Michael's mom.  Well, Max was going through Michaels' videos today and we found this one!  Oh my gosh!  THIS IS SOOO DARN CUTE!  He says in his video, "This is dedicated to my friend, Max."  I said, "How do you know he's talking about you Max?"  THEN Michael says, "Yep, Max my buddy Meeker."  So Max, this was just too darn cute not to share:)  Max and Michael are two of the most creative 8 year olds I know--no wonder they are best friends:)

Christmas 2013

Well, how could Christmas be any more fun after our amazing cruise?!  Well, it WAS!!!  

We were originally going to be gone (on the cruise boat) for Christmas BUT my kids were freaking out because they LOVE all of our "at home" traditions of Christmas Eve PJs, cookie ditching, light-seeing, and most importantly--SONIC!!!  So we opted for the shorter cruise to be home to do all our usual stuff:

New Christmas PJs!

Crazy kids--and dog:)

We did do our usual cookie-ditching.  Every kid got to pick a family.  Well Max picked a friend from school.  We have never been to his house but looked up his address on the classroom directory and wouldn't you know it?  He has a GLASS FRONT DOOR!  So there we sat in front of the house with the glass door and a happening party going on inside:)  Max was way to chicken to go ditch the cookies alone so Ethan was nice enough to go help.  OH MY GOSH!  I WISHED I had my video camera!!!  These two boys were like mission impossible!  They made it to the front door in stages, first they hid behind the tree, then a large rock, then finally to the door where Ethan had to do the actually door bell ringing and then they both ran like I've NEVER seen them run before.  I was laughing so hard that I was crying.  Funny kids!

Then we went to see Christmas lights in a few of our favorite neighborhoods.  And we then of course hit Sonic so we could all get our favorite shakes/slushes:)

Christmas morning we got up--Grandma Donna was with us this year--opened presents and then we went and watched "Frozen" (again:) at the movie theatre.  It was awesome because we had the whole theatre to ourselves at 9:30 in the morning:)  And "Frozen" is hands down our most favorite movie EVER!!!  So with the "Frozen" songs being sung the rest of the day, we enjoyed a nice Christmas day at home:)

Tatum wants to be Elsa for Halloween:)

Even our dogs got stockings this year:)

Rocco looks like he's smoking:)

Max became obsessed with the towel animals on our boat.  So our dear Elf, Buddy, got Max the "How to Fold Towel Animals" book for Christmas.  

Here is is first successful creation:)