Remii's Big 3-0!!

I am finally posting about Remii's birthday.  Better late than never right??  I swear time goes by way to fast and I am falling behind on the family blog!  But thats ok because I was able to surprise Remii with a fantastic birthday all paid for by my blog.  I told Remii that I had a blog conference the night of his birthday and asked him if we could celebrate it the following week.  Remii being the amazing guy that he is said that it was ok and if I wanted to go to this blog conference I could!  So he had no idea that I had a huge surprise planned.   The morning of his birthday I did surprise him with balloons and and over the hill banner.  And it is tradition in his family to have this breakfast (here) on your birthday.  A finnish pancake is delicious and turned out perfectly.

After breakfast, I told him that we had to pack and that we are staying in an executive suite at a resort.  He was so surprised and he said to me, Who is going to buy the pizzas at my meeting tonight?  Not quite the first reaction that I wanted, but I assured him that his meeting had a bunch of grown men that are perfectly capable of ordering pizzas.  He was so excited to go!

 We started our giveaway tubing.  I look at these pictures and honestly this was one of the funnest things that we have done!  We laughed the whole time and had so much fun racing down the hill.  I seriously am so in love with this old fart!

Back at our resort, they had this awesome glacier.  We had to take pictures in front of it.  The resort is so beautiful and peaceful.  It was such a great stay!

 We had dinner that night at the resort and Remii got a steak and I had an awesome grilled salmon.  Then completely out of the blue I gave Remii his birthday presents.  I got him a new Nixon watch to add to the collection and the best tickets I could by to his favorite hockey teams.  The Avalanche vs Blackhawks in Denver.  He was so grateful and happy and even had a tear in his eye.  So worth it!

A New Year!

2012 was such a great year for me!  The highlight of last year was...drumroll... getting married to my best friend! We did so many fun things last year.  San Diego on our honeymoon, Disneyworld together, Remii went to Hawaii, and we went on some fun family trips to Myrtle Beach, Washington DC and lived in North Carolina for the summer.  A great idea that came to me this summer was to start a food blog and share my love for cooking with everyone.  Little did I know that my idea would become what my blog is today and I am so glad that I have a family that supports me.  Who am I kidding?  Of course they support me.  I make delicious food and treats all of the time!  This has been a great year and I am excited to see what 2013 brings.  And it better be a baby or two!  Ok definitely just one baby but I would love for an addition to the River's family to come this year!

Goals for this year:

Get Preggo

Lose 10 before our cruise next month

Run at least a mile every day

Read the BOM with the family this year

Be a loving and supportive wife

Be more patient with life in general

Christmas Festivities

I wish that I could hire someone to blog for me.  My family blog is getting neglected.  And this is most important to me because I want to remember all of these fun things that we do together!  I am forcing myself to sit down and get caught up on it.  It was our first Christmas together as a family and it was a great one!  Ben and Luke were in our ward nativity play and it was so amazing!  Ben was a shepherd and Luke was a donkey.

 That night we went to temple square with my parents and saw the lights.  It always amazes me how beautiful it is!

We had a great Christmas together.  Nice and low key and relaxing.  The boys didn't really know what to ask for this year and since they just had their birthdays, they didn't ask for much.  Ben wanted the new diary of a wimpy kid, a guiness book of world record book and the new Paper Mario for his DS.  Luke wanted some Lord of the Rings Legos and a construction set.  That is really all that they asked for this year!

All dressed up for church!  Love these boys more than anything!!

Merry Christmas!

Santa Comes to Preschool

I absolutely love Luke's preschool.  The teacher is amazing and they do the funnest things!  They put on a cute little Christmas program that had to do with their 5 senses and even got a visit from Santa!

Luke told Santa that he wanted Lord of the Rings Legos.  This was news to us!  Santa being wonderful as always was able to bring Luke what he wanted for Christmas! :)

Blog Lovin'

I have been keeping quite busy lately with my blog!  It has blest us in so many ways while keeping the family happily fed.  My blog has been doubling in money every month and far exceeded what I had ever expected.  I can't even believe that I am making the same as those mom's that work on a blog!  I have met a lot of fun blog people along the way.  I have become very close with a friend over at High Heels and Grills and her sister in law is Chef in Training.  They are both amazing bloggers!   We have been wanting to meet for a while now, and finally got to meet and go to lunch on Friday.  It was so much fun!!

I was seriously ecstatic to meet Chef-in-Training.  She is my blog idol.

Me and Sarah from High Heels and Grills.  She is so amazing!

Remii and I spoke today in sacrament.  After we were done a lady came up to me and asked if I was the Recipe Critic.  She said she recognized me and made one of my recipes last week!  Awesome!  I love everyone that has supported me and helped my blog to grow!

Halloween

Ben, the red headed zombie.......

Luke, the Ninja Batman

And Remii as the modern day Superman.

The night before Remii took the boys to my parents trunk or treat.

It is always fun to go see the Halloween Parades.  At Ben's school, they parade outside around the school.

And Luke looked so cute in his little preschool parade.  After their program, they got to go pick out a pumpkin out of the pumpkin patch and then they had delicious Halloween treats!

Luke with Ms Wendy

We had so much fun trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.  We could have trick-or-treated for days.  I even got lost in the avenues.  (Everyone that knows me won't be surprised by that!)  At our church they have hot dogs every year.  We just missed it but luckily one of the houses nearby had some witches brew that they were handing out.  We just love where we live!