6 Years and counting...

Todd and I had our 6th wedding anniversary on December 19. Now technically on December 19 I was in Utah and Todd was in New Mexico but we celebrated it the 28th and 29th. With the help of Todd's parents watching our kids we stayed at a hotel up in Salt Lake. We went shopping, ate out, and saw Blind Side and Avatar, both excellent movies. It was fun to get away. I thought I'd write some tidbits about how we came to be.



We met at auditions for a musical, West Side Story, for Riverton Arts Council. Auditioning with me was my friend Meredith and auditioning with Todd was his friend, Eric. I remember telling Meredith that I thought they were both so hot. I was auditioning for the part of Maria and during the audition they had me kiss the guy that would be Tony and Todd of course was there watching the whole thing. Todd and I made it as Maria and Riff. We didn't start dating until about half way through rehearsals. Our first date he took me to Beauty and the Beast at Capitol Theater in Salt Lake. I remember sitting in his blue ford escape after a rehearsal in the parking lot listening to Seven Brides for Seven Brothers CD "Going courtin" song and talking and I leaned in and gave him a great big kiss. Yes it's true I kissed him first, but I was sick of waiting for him to kiss me. Although, he did tell me that he loved me first but at the time I thought he was delirious. You see sometime after the play was done Todd got really sick with strep and being the cool girlfriend that I was I went over to visit. I found him deathly sick and sort of out of it. This is when he decided to tell me that he loved me. After he said that I brushed it aside saying nothing and thinking it was the fever talking. Days after he finally recovered he recalled what he had said and told me that he had meant it. We dated for a little over a year and he proposed to me where we first met, the Riverton Arts Building. There were rose petals leading to a candlelit table where we ate fettuchinni alfredo, salad, and breadsticks served by his two nieces Kira and Kenzee. We danced while he sang "Only Fools Rush In, but I can't help falling in love with you." He got down on one knee, pulled out the ring and asked if I would marry him.

Next came engagment pictures that my sister took. On our announcement we put the time of the reception as 6:29 p.m. to 9:34 p.m. or something stupid like that, cause we think we're funny.

The wedding pictures, I had a cloak too. We got married at the Timpanogos temple on a sunny day in December, still cold but sunny.

Our first two nights of our honeymoon we stayed at the Blue Boar Inn in Midway. Right after the reception we drove to Iceberg and stuffed ourselves with a hamburger and fries we were so hungry. and Todd would not let a day go by before we headed to the carwash to clean the soap, oreo cookies, etc. off the car so we stopped at the carwash. After Midway we took off to the Sandals resort in the Bahamas and this is how we spent our first Christmas together.

I thought I'd throw in a picture of our first place we lived, our home in Lehi.

Butterfield Chrismas Party

Christmas night we had Christmas dinner at my parents house with all my siblings. Mom and Dad and all the grandkids (minus James) My mom made all the grandkids matching pajamas.

I should have gotten a picture of all of us :(

Christmas

I forgot to mention that Freidric the elf left pajamas for the kids on Christmas Eve and then left a trail of Hershey kisses from their bedroom doors leading to the Christmas tree. Parker with his sister's reindeer antlers. Two weeks before Christmas Alexia kept saying that she wanted reindeer antlers to wear for Christmas. So after looking at several stores I finally found some.

Parker got a basketball hoop which has been his favorite! He's a total boy through and through .

Christmas Eve

Todd drove up on the 23 to join us. On Christmas Eve we went with Todd's family to see the movie Squeekel. We both thought it was actually better than the first Chipmunk movie. That night we went over to his parents house and played games, ate the annual stew dinner with the candle light ceremony, read the Christmas story out of the bible and sang a song. Here's the entire gang. Here was the babies tables.

And the adult table.

McMullin Christmas Party

The kids and I flew up to Utah on December 16 and were able to make it to a bunch of family parties including the annual McMullin Christmas party. Alexia was excited when her name was called to come and sit on Santa's lap. Parker did pretty good too.

But once he got his present he had enough

Elf on the Shelf

So some of you may have seen the book Elf on the Shelf in the bookstore but I didn't want to spend $30 for it. So here's our elf to start our new family tradition. Todd wrote this letter that explains.

My Dear Sweet Alexia and Parker,

Santa has so many children to watch this year that he has had to send some of his magic watcher elves to some very special homes to help him keep an eye on the children there. These magic elves will take a train to the North Pole every night while you are sleeping to tell Santa whether you have been naughty or nice. He will also watch to see if you go to sleep when Mommy and Daddy tell you to. These elves help Santa make the naughty and nice list, so you can be sure that this elf is watching you! To be sure you make it on the nice list; you must remember to be kind and loving to everyone. Sharing and talking nicely to others are great ways to get on the nice list, so is obeying Mommy and Daddy!

I hope you will take care of Santa’s little elf. He is a 101 years old, which is very young in elf years. His name is Freideric and he is very excited to be in your home to watch you! Although he is a magic elf, he is not a toy. You can talk to him (if you can find where he is hiding each day) but you must not play with him or touch him. Watcher elves lose their magic if people play with them—and if Freideric lost his magic he wouldn’t be able to tell Santa that you have been good—and what kind of presents you want! You can also write your wish list letter to Santa and put it next to Freideric during the day and he will take it to Santa at night! On Christmas Eve, when Santa delivers your presents , he will bring Freideric back to the North Pole with him. If you have done a good job taking care of Freideric, he might send him back to visit you again next year at Christmastime!

Have a Merry Christmas,

Mrs. Santa Clause
Oh I almost forgot--Please don’t forget to leave Santa his milk and cookies on Christmas Eve! Rudolph especially likes carrots!

Magnet Board

I bought this magnet board for Alexia's room forever ago and I painted it pink but it just didn't turn out the way I had imagined so I never hung it up. So since we moved I decided to try something different to the magnet board and finally put it up. Here's what the final product looks like. An upclose picture so you can see the design. It's pink and brown although the picutre makes it look pink and black.

And I finished it off by making two matching magnets.

Our new home in Albuquerque n some thoughts

Welcome to my home. So my family has been wanting to see pics of our new home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Here it is at least the main level. I'll do the upstairs pictures when everything is put away. My front yard and yes it is xeroscaped. One good thing not much yard work :)

The entryway looking in from the front door. See the door on the left that's where the bathroom is.

The three quater bathroom.
The house came with a potty Wahoo!

Whoops put in the same picture twice.

The lovely laundry room.

Here's the front room.




Just another angle of the front room. With our sliding doors that go to the backyard.

My kitchen. The door to the left is a pantry.

Kitchen sink

And to conclude the tour for now, here is kitchen table area. Wasn't that fun? So I want to share my opinions of New Mexico. And to start off I want to say that they may not be true and I may change my opinions but for now, here they are.

1. New Mexico is a brown state if you want to see green you'll have to look at the street signs.

2. Although I am very excited about not having much yard work (see picture above) I will never get used to or love a rock yard.

3. You think Utah drivers are bad? Come try New Mexico drivers, I'll leave it at that.

4. Such wonderful WEATHER! One thing I don't miss about Utah is the weather. Right now it's been in the high 60's. Fall weather, warm during the day and jacket weather at night. I'm in love with the weather.

5. My ward? Well we went the first Sunday and we had a heard of men help us out Monday night to unload our pod. So Nice. The Bishopric has visited, we've already fed the missionaries (yes we have our own set of missionaries for our ward, quite different from Utah where you'd see missionaries in your ward once a year.) , gone to play groups with other mom's from the ward. So as you can see we've really liked this new ward :)

6. Something we discoverd Saturday night is that 5 buck Little Ceasar's pizza is 6 bucks here. Come on I thought is was suppose to be cheaper living here?

7. One valuable lesson I have learned is to ask for the sauce on the side. New Mexico loves their Chiles red and green! If you like spicy, come on down.

So there are some opinions thus far. We have liked living here so far but we greatly miss our family and friends. and what I wouldn't do to have a Cafe Rio pork salad, black beans, no cilantro, with the house dressing :(

Disneyland

I forgot to add this picture of Todd and Alexia on Splash Mountain. She wasn't quite tall enough to ride it but we snuck her on it twice which was sort of a problem because she loved it and wanted to keep going on it so when we tried agian to get her on it they wouldn't let her and she was heartbroken.

I've been without a computer so I have some catching up to do with my blogging. We went to Disneyland the week before Halloween before we headed down to New Mexico. The trip started with of course Alexia throwing up on the airplane. We did expect this however because she has thrown up several times on the airplane. Once we got to Disneyland we headed over to Toon Towne and met Minnie Mouse. Parker loves Mickey Mouse he couldn't help himself and had to lean over and give Mickey a great big hug.

Alexia and Pooh bear.

Todd took Parker to his first Angel's game. He bought him an Angel's hat and he absolutely loves wearing it he gets mad sometimes if you take it off him.

The next day we headed to California Adventure. Notice Alexia's legs and arms. Do you think she's excited?

Meeting Cars

They have a new Toy Story ride in California Adventure it's 3D and you shoot at different targets. A lot better ride than the Buzz light year ride at Disneyland in my opinion.

This picture pretty much shows how Alexia felt about the Disneyland experience. She LOVED it!

In Bug Land on the bumper cars.

Meeting Snow White and Dopey.

Hugging Cinderella.

Parker loved the Bears whereas Alexia would not get near them.

Mr. Toad's ride.

Meeting Pocahontas.

California Adventure had a Halloween Party that we went to. Here are the kids dressed up as a Princess and a tiger.

Alexia had to meet Belle at the Halloween Party.

And she loves Ariel.

Parker's first kiss.

At the Halloween party they had several spots where they had music playing, a DJ, and disney workers dressed up dancing with all the kids. Alexia and Parker loved dancing and that's what they wanted to do for the entire party. I think we only rode 1 ride during the party. Here's Parker with one of the disney pirates.

With a scarecrow.

They had a Halloween parade and had the kids come in the streets and dance.

Giving 5's to Sully.

At the Pirate's Lair.

Peek-a-boo

Getting wet on a hot day. It was such a fun trip and the kids loved it. And we ended the trip the same we started it with Alexia throwing up on the airplane :)

Girls Trip-Arizona

I went on a Girl's trip with Todd's mom and sisters. Halee lives in Prescott, Arizona so this year we decided to go down to her and visit. Thursday we made the drive down and got down there just in time to go with Halee to teach her musical theater class, and adult ballet class (a side note Halee is such an amazing teacher, not only a beautiful dancer but she has a gift for teaching it). We had so much fun we were laughing the whole time at how ridiculous we looked (except Heidi in the ballet class she kicked butt, way to go Heidi!) Anywho this is a picture of us trying to stretch and yes the one doing the splits is Halee. Friday we headed off to the city of Jerome which is an old mining ghost town. We looked at the shops and ate at the Haunted Hamburger. Then we drove to Sedona and shopped some more and then headed to Fame the movie.

Saturday we went out to the lake and floated around on boats, we then saw Love Happens.

Cornbelly's

We took the kids to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point and LOVED it! Alexia especially loved pumpkin princess playland. Here she is with the pumpkin princess. Parker jumping with the big kids in the castle.

Alexia dressed up as a Princess in the carriage. We spent a lot of our time in Princess Playland if you can't tell.

Alexia begged to go in this creepy looking monster. It's like a haunted house, we went in and after she said it was scary and she didn't want to go back in.

Heritage Park

We took the kids to Heritage Park up in Salt Lake one Saturday. Half or more of the buildings were closed, so we could only see the outside of the pioneer homes. We weren't all that impressed with the place. Has anyone else been there and it's been fun? Maybe we just picked a bad time to go. The kids did enjoy the horse rides

Parker loved petting the little lambs and goats too.

July 24th

On July 24th we went to American Fork Canyon with Meredith and Jason. We went hiking and then made hotdogs, corn on the cob (cooked in the fire and very delicious) and s'mores.

Family Pictures

It was time for an updated Young family picture. Janae Bingham took our pictures you can check out her website at memoriesbyjanae.com She did such a great job and would recommend her to anyone interested. Alexia 3 years old.

Parker didn't cooperate as well the only time we could get him to smile was to throw him up in the leaves of a tree.

Parker 15 months old.

Big sister always trying to help little brother.
I felt like we were posing for engagement pictures, probablly since Todd and I haven't taken pictures together since then.

I never thought this day would come fast enough!

It finally came! My Bachelor's degree, Wahooo! This has been one of my biggest accomplishments. I did recieve my Associate's degree before I had Alexia but I think I appreciate this more now whereas if I completed this degree before I had my two kids I wouldn't have appreciated it as much because it wouldn't have been as much of a sacrifice. It was a hard journey getting this piece of paper into my hands; trying to juggle everything. I couldn't have done it without the help of so many people, you know who you are, so thank you again and again!!!! Next, Master's degree? Maybe, in the far, far, future. Right now I'm catching my breath and enjoying being a full time mom agian (the best job, you don't have to have a degree for)!

My New Haircut!

I chopped my long hair off! I was getting sick of it and needed a change.

Quick trip to Albuquerque and my birthday!

Todd and I left the kids with grandparents and went down to Albuquerque, NM to find a house. Overall it wasn't the funnest trip just looking at houses over and over and trying to navigate through Albuquerque. We were successful and found a house to rent that is about 10 minutes away from the temple and and pretty close to the freeway which will be nice since Todd will be commuting a lot. We did do some fun things on my birthday. We went on the world's longest tramway up the Sandia mountains. Behind me you can see the lifts for the ski resort.

There's a huge deck you can walk around and look out at all of Albuquerque. We also ate a restaurant they had at the top.

Here's the tramway.

We went to Old Town and saw all the cute little shops

We ate a mexican restaurant for lunch and there was a huge tree growing inside and out the roof. You can see the tree behind Todd. The food down there is so spicy!!!! Our eyes were watering it was really yummy but very spicy.

This is in Old Town

In Old Town there was a lady singing while this guy was dancing

Parker's Stiches

Todd and I were upstairs when we heard Parker screaming, we ran downstairs and blood was covering parker's head. According to Alexia he fell and hit his head on the corner of a baseboard on the wall. We took him to instacare and he got about 3 or 4 stiches (I'm not exactly sure how many I was pinning him down so he wouldn't move and trying to calm him down) He was so tired after the whole ordeal he fell quickly asleep in the car. Poor Parker, I hated watching him scream while he was getting his stiches.

Bows I Made

I actually made these two flower bows a couple of months ago but I thought I'd post them too.

So, last night I got with a bunch of gals and we made bows, so fun. Actually I only made these ones with the button in the middle last night and I had so much fun I continued today.

So I made these kork bows

and my personal favorite these two bows. I think this could become addicting! (This bow was made for one of Alexia's dresses that has so many colors in it and I never had anything that really went with it but now I do: )

Appendix surgery and we're moving to....

What an eventful weekend! Todd started feeling sick Saturday morning with a stomach ache and by Sunday night we went to the hospital to find out that he needed his appendix removed. Monday morning at about 3 a.m. Todd had surgery. His appendix had already started leaking and the doctor told me he should have it removed a day ago. He came home Monday night and overall he's ok. He's pretty sore, he'll have to take it easy for the next little while.

We also found out today that he got a job selling medical equipment in New Mexico. He starts training September 14 and sometime in October we'll move down to New Mexico. Before the 14th we'll head down and find somewhere to live. We're pretty excited this'll be a good change for our family and let us have a fresh start. Of course we'll miss our family and friends but we'll still come back and visit.

St. George Weekend

Friday after we dropped the kids off at Todd's parents' home we drove down to Provo where I took my last test to complete my BYU independent class. I'm happy to say that I passed and now only two weeks left of my internship and I've really completed my degree!!!! Wahoooo! After that we drove down to St. George ate at Olive Garden and went and saw Annie at Tuachan. My review of the play if anyone cares to read was average. The actors weren't bad by any means but none of them stood out to me as amazing. The stage version of Annie is quite different from the movie and the movie has such a better story. And I couldn't help but compare everyone to the movie. Carol Burnett is hard to live up to as Miss Hannigan. Saturday we were going to go golfing but the heat altered our plans into seeing Harry Potter. A little bit of shopping and we drove home. It was fun to get away but I wish we would have stayed one more day. I love St. George I think I could live down there :)

Pictures from Joseph

Here's some pictures of Todd from Joseph. This plastic wig he wore for the last song where they take their bows.

Here's the entire cast.

Todd teaching Joseph Elvis moves.

Todd did such a good job at being Elvis! It was fun watching the show and I'm sad that it's over, the cast and crew did such a good job! Even though I'd seen it so many times every night I'd laugh, it's such a funny musical.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Todd is in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat with Riverton Arts Council. For those familiar with this musical he's playing Pharoah. It's a fun musical that tells the story about Joseph and his brothers and has all kinds of styles of music (Western, calypso, elvis, etc.), anywho Todd (pharoah) has to act like Elvis.

Here's the dates for the show: July 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, & 20. Show starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Riverton Civic Center Sandra N. Lloyd Performing Arts Center 12830 South Redwood Rd. Tickets Adults: $9 Student: $8 and Child/Sentior: $7 I have some coupons for a dollar off up to six tickets if anybody is interested call me.

Fourth of July

Happy 4th of July!!! We had such a fun weekend. We started the 3rd off by going to Riverton's parade and seeing Todd in the parade ( he was in it for the Riverton Art's Council for their summer play Joseph) then off to Aunt Shauna's house for a BBQ with yummy homemade rootbeer and icecream. Then for the 4th we had a yummy breakfast and swim party with Todd's family. Ran over to Riverton Town Days to see Todd perform some musical numbers for Joseph then off to Jamie and Weston's house for yet another BBQ and Thanksgiving Point fireworks show. It was a busy but very fun weekend!

Anyone know how to make this picutre rotate???

Alexia's Nightmare!

Alexia woke up from her nap screaming, absolutely terrified. I ran into her room thinking she was hurt. She had a horrible nightmare about a lion chasing her and trying to catch and eat her. I held her for about ten minutes trying to calm her down and finally after awhile she then proceeded to tell me that the lion was downstairs and that she needed to get her wand, wave it at the lion and say, "hocus, pocus" and that would put the lion to sleep so it wouldn't eat her. She was persistent in wanting to do this that I finally found her wand and took her downstairs where I did discover that there indeed was a lion (We're living at Todd's parents house and in the basement above their theatre there is a carved lion, it's kind of hard to explain but anywho there is a lion), so she waved her wand and said, "hocus, pocus" and then she was content as could be, the lion was now sleeping and therefore would not eat her up for lunch :)