My Little Reader

Ashton started wanting to learn to read about 6 months ago,  I was hesitant to teach him at first because I didn't know if it would work out.  Then a lady in my ward told me about a great book that made it easier to teach kids to read.  I bought it and within just a few lessons he was reading.  Last week he brought home his certificate showing that he had completed his preschool's reading program.  He does a really good job sounding out words he doesn't know and can read all the little readers at the library.  I'm so proud of him.

The book is called Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons for all of you that have wanted to know.

Our Trip

We had a wonderful weekend in Yellowstone last weekend.  Jake was able to get discounted tickets to ride a snow coach

into Yellowstone through his work before he got laid off.  Our family LOVES Yellowstone so I was excited to go.  I think that maybe if I had realized exactly how much snow and cold there was there, I may have never agreed to go so I am glad that I didn't know what I was getting into because I would have missed a great trip.  I am definitely not a snow and cold person, which seems a little strange living my whole life in Utah, but Jake made sure that I wasn't cold (and I wasn't) so we really enjoyed it.  I think that I like Yellowstone even better in the winter than any other season.

At first it was just going to be the two of us going, but since it was my mom's birthday on the weekend that the trip was planned, my parents decided to come with us to West Yellowstone and watch out kids there instead of at home.  I'm really glad they did because it made the trip fun to have everyone there.  And then to surprise everyone, my dad bought tickets for them to ride a different snow coach into the park also.  It was fun to see them everyone once in a while, but not have to deal with everything, that was my parents job.
We arrived at West Yellowstone Friday afternoon, after having a great drive with really no snow falling the whole way which made the drive really nice.  Here is a picture from the car on the way there.

We had dinner at a fun pizza place/bar which we had eaten at before that was still really good.  Here we are waiting...

and waiting...

and waiting.

Like father, like son.  I had to take this picture, everyone says that Ashton is a mini Jake.  He does have the same look and a lot of the same mannerisms, and here they are sitting the same way while waiting for out pizza to come.  

Saturday morning we awoke to -29 degrees on the thermostat and headed out to catch the snow coach.  The day started off cold, but sunny and beautiful, the first stop inside the park was to see this pair of bald eagles.  They were beautiful.  

This shot is through the spotting scope of our tour guide. 

Not long after this the clouds moved in and the wind started to blow.  The temperature tried to rise, it did but never much over 10 degrees.  We saw this little herd of bison not long after this.

The rest of our trip will have to come later.

Yellowstone in Winter

This is were we have been....

(Yellowstone) it was amazing....

The snow was deep....

really deep, (and Ashton is standing on about 14 inches of groomed snow that covered the parking lot.) Even Jake sank in thigh high when he stepped off the groomed trail in Yellowstone.

We saw lots of animals, but this was my favorite....

more to come later, but wanted to show everyone where we had been.

Spring Fever

 Spring Fever has officially hit our house.  We had nice warmish (45-50) temps this weekend and took advantage of them by hitting the park.  It was a little cool in the shade, but it felt wonderful in the sun.  We walked, biked, scootered to the park and played for a while then made the trek home.  It was a fun family afternoon.  I didn't get any pictures of Jake and Lexie, who spent the time at the park playing fetch with the dog, but I think that everyone had a great time.

And who can complain about being able to hit the park in February in Utah?  

Bountiful Basket

 I had heard of this co-op (bountifulbaskets.org) a few times and thought, hey I should give that a try, and then never did anything about it.  Well last week I finally did something about trying it.  And I loved it.  I went Saturday to pick up my "basket" and I was pleasantly surprised by what I got.

The only scary thing was the purple lettuce stuff, which I later found out was savoy, and found some recipes for how to use it.  We are going to get the organic basket next week, they only offer it every other week.  I'm really excited.  Now to make sure that we eat it all up before it goes bad.  

Sledding

We have the perfect sledding hill... next door!!!  While I am not a fan of sledding, myself.  I would rather stay inside where it is nice and warm :) My kids are very excited when I offer up sledding as a choice for something fun to do.  I haven't let Abbie go sledding before, thinking that she was too little to actually enjoy going down the hill over and over again in the snow, and then having to climb back up.  Well, I have to admit that I was wrong....  She had a blast!!  It did take her a while to get the hang of climbing back up, but she loved going down and would squeal at the top of her lungs every time.  Here are a few pictures.

at the top ready to go.

going back up the other side once they got to the bottom.

starting the long climb back to the top.

Christmas Card-the one I never sent :(

Picture Joy Christmas

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New Year's Resolution

Here was our morning snack yesterday.  Organic fruit kabobs.  What is significant is not what we ate exactly, more how it was grown that is important.  Throughout last year we started making some significant changes in the food that we eat.  Gone were high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, and white flours.  (As much as possible) We also limited our eating out and completely banned a few fast food establishments.  I have become much more of a label reader when it comes to food and will pass up anything that includes any of those things.  But this year I am taking it even further, we dabbled in organic products some last year and I had a hard time justifying the add cost of most of the items.  But I am trying to keep an open mind and realize the extra cost now will better our health and overall well being, saying nothing of what it will do for the environment.  I am going to try and buy only organic produce while growing what I can in my backyard garden.  I recently finished reading The Organic Manifesto and while I agreed with a lot she said, the book is a little too politically minded for my liking, overall the book gave me a lot to think about.  I would recommend that everyone read this book and think about the food that you eat and where it might come from.

How Ironic

I had the opportunity to speak in church this last Sunday.  I say that with all the sarcasm you can picture because I really dislike getting up in front of everybody, but overall the study and preparation were a good experience.  Doesn't it always seem that whatever topic we are assigned seems to be one that we struggle with?  Well we were asked to base our talks on President Uchtdorf's talk Of Things that Matter Most I took the first  half of the talk which talks of slowing down and focusing on the basics.  I found this quote from a prophet in a book that I was reading today, I wish that I had found it before my talk it would have been perfect.
"This is the counsel I have for the Latter Day Saints today... Do not be in a hurry... You are in too much of a hurry; you do not go to meetings enough, you do not pray enough, you do not read the scriptures enough, you do not meditate enough, you are all the time on the wing, and in such a hurry that you do not know what to do first..."  That sounds like today, imagine my surprise when I saw that it was from Brigham Young!!  I wonder what he would think of the pace of life today?

Crazy Boy!

This morning I told Ashton to go and get dressed before his cousins got here. This is what he decided to put on...

What is the problem with that outfit you may ask, well first off we live in Utah and it's January.  This is what it looks like outside.  The official temperature outside is 11.  But it feels like -2.  Yes, at 10:00 am.  

(sorry not the best picture ever, through the screened window, but you get the idea) 

I couldn't make him change after I heard his logic for why he choose this particular outfit.  He had obviously spent some time thinking about it.  

1.  We wouldn't be going anywhere so he wouldn't have to go outside.

2.  He doesn't like being hot, he would rather be cold.

3.  Dad wears shorts in the winter all the time and I don't make him change (thanks Jake)

4. They were clean.

I couldn't come up with another reason for him to put on pants, so shorts it is.   I guess it could be worse, we could be in Idaho and he could be wearing that outfit.  It's -3 there, but it feels like -16.