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Deals

Crucial Conversations Training

Would you like some training on how to talk to your teens? How about how to resolve that argument you and your spouse had? Now is your chance for a free two day training, valued at $1000!! This will be the first training of our brand new version, and if you keep a sharp look out, you might be able to find me in some of the videos.

“When, where, why and how?” You might ask.

  • When: May 17&18
  • Where: VitalSmarts HQ at Riverwoods Business park
  • Why: B/c it’s useful and free
  • How: B/c you know me

“Crucial Conversations is a two-day course that teaches skills for creating alignment and agreement by fostering open dialogue around high-stakes, emotional, or risky topics—at all levels of your organization.”

Let me know ASAP

Categories
Family Fun

Spring Time!

I adore tulips. I’m so glad we have some in our yard, and I will most definitely plant more bulbs this fall (if I remember) so we can have lots more of these cheerful spring flowers. If only they lasted longer than a month and stuck around all summer long!

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I love this picture of Caroline “planking.” Kinda reminds me of that super intense scene in Mission Impossible when Tom Cruise is dropping down into that crazy high-security, white lights room.

Caroline has started army crawling and can get anywhere she wants to go. It’s a lot of fun, and also tricky to keep tiny things off the floor that she could choke on.

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She lights up when that Daddy guy is around!

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Here’s Gretchen with her Big Baby Boy (Tyler), who is now home from his mission!

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The girls in their matching dresses (they have cute white matching cardigans that go with them). Caroline’s is still shiny gold pink, whereas Charlotte’s is just pink now since she wears it all the time & the gold sheen has worn off. She gets a lot of use out of any dresses she has that are frilly & pink.

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Easter Egg Hunt at the McGrandparents’ place

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I tried to be some sort of creative mom by cutting out 70 pictures from the Friend magazine & putting those in each egg along with the candy. The idea was to have the kids glue them all onto poster board and make a collage that showed things that we believe to be good & true & uplifting for a nice Easter Sunday discussion. Well, it was a flop. They tossed the little pictures aside & just dug into the candy!!

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Dying eggs! That was a little crazy, as you can see. Kind of fun. I don’t think we’ll necessarily stick with that tradition…

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The day after Easter, Chase was very eager to have his own Easter egg hunt with his neighborhood friends. So he went to everyone’s houses at 8am & invited them to come over at 9am (I made him wait till 9) to have a hunt at our house. I was fine with this because then we’d get rid of all the candy! Which we did!

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So they put candy back in the eggs & hid them all outside. Some kids came over and they had a blast having their own little Easter egg hunt. Oh, Chase, my funny boy! Such a social, creative kid who loves to share with others.

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Categories
Family Fun

Living Planet Aquarium Visit

The last time we went to the aquarium was when Chase was under two years old. I’ve wanted to take the kids for a while now, but wasn’t too jazzed about taking them on my own. So we decided to head over there after the baptism we went to in West Jordan. The Aquarium was much better this time than last time; they’d added a lot & I think it was actually worth the price this time! The energetic penguins & the adorable otters were especially entertaining to watch! No good pictures of those, but I think Pace might add some from his phone, that some random lady took & emailed to us. Kinda weird but kinda nice.

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Charlotte ended up throwing the tantrum of the century over sitting in this canoe one more time before we left, so we exited the building immediately. But it was a lot of fun for the rest of the time leading up to that!

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Caroline

Caroline Army Crawling

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Family Fun

Don’t mess with the terribilinis

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I snagged this image of the terrible weenies playing balderdash you can see how intense they are.

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Yes I used speech to text to type

Categories
Family Fun

A Baptism & Family Gathering

This post is mostly for my mom, because she’d be interested to see these pics!

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Our Family Photo Op

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My Kids’ 2nd Cousin, Natalie (the one being baptized)

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The women (from left: Dianne, Sung Hee, Leann, Shannon, Joy, Katelynn, her friend, & Ingrid)

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Awkward picture (above) for the records!

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Caroline & 2nd Cousin Jessica

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Easter Egg Hunt afterwards with all the kids!

Categories
Family Fun

Parade of Gems

We went to this free event about a month ago at the fairgrounds. Let’s just say, Charlotte was in heaven! We all had a great time checking out the gems, geodes, fossils, etc.

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IMG_3057IMG_3060IMG_3058IMG_3056IMG_3065Charlotte was so happy to be there, she even temporarily overcame her extreme fear of animals, & touched a bearded dragon!

Categories
Family Fun

The Kiddos

These were taken about 6 weeks ago.

Couldn’t get a perfect shot of all three kids, but here are some pics for you to enjoy, anyway!

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Categories
Charlotte

A Day in the Life of Charlotte

Charlotte gets to hang out with me all day & follow me around. She’s a great helper & enjoys doing chores, if we do them together. One day when we were cleaning the bathroom, she exclaimed,

“I want to scrub the bathtub until it sparkles!!”

…Alrighty then, be my guest!

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She likes to do “homework” (to be like Chase), so I have her do something each day. Her favorite activity right now is doing Dot-to-Dot pages.

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She also loves Disney music & movies, followed closely by Barbie movies.

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The queen sitting upon her throne.

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Playing with one of her two female friends.

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She is obsessed with juice. Otherwise, she likes vanilla soymilk. I want to remember her “drinking face”—very engrossed in drinking, & flashing those big baby blues.

Categories
Family Fun Personal

Pace’s 31st Birthday

Pace had a fantastic birthday this year! He did have to go to work that day… But his coworkers took him out to the best barbecue in Utah County (5 Star Barbecue) and then we celebrated with fun activities over the next 2 days! He felt very loved when all was said & done.

Speaking of love, he really loved this slice of homemade cheesecake drenched in hot fudge sauce (which we call “chocolate ganache sauce” to make it sound fancier).

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Annnd homemade brownies that I whip up & consume more often than I care to admit! They’re our favorite brownies.

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Ahh, so many choices!

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People thought it was weird that I put out a plate of veggies alongside the desserts… But I knew I’d be munching all evening, so I put those out there so I’d occasionally reach for those rather than another brownie. Tricky, I know!

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The helpful munchkins assisted in blowing out the candles.

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Handsome, awesome guy. We love you, Pace!