Dad and Wes: Trip to Utah

Brian was lucky enough to get to go to Utah for a special event:

We were so excited to hear they were doing this and jumped on the opportunity to be there and support.

We couldn’t all go, but Brian and Wes were the next best thing!

Bri was a touch nervous to fly with this babe, but yet again, Wes impressed and passed with flying colors.

Grandma Teresa was excited to see this baby when he deplaned, and I’m sure Wes was just as pumped!

It was a short trip and NO pictures of the main event, which Brian said was beyond wonderful and special, but we’ll take what we can get. :)

Wes kinda had an attitude like this most of the trip, I hear.
Brian thinks he missed me, but I think it was a combo of that, being out of his element, and as soon as he got home we upped the ounces in his bottle from 6oz to 8oz.
He may have been a hungry hippo.

Brian spent an evening with the Madsens, and Heidi was sure to get some pictures of this event!

I love these two together, and just wish they could be together more often.

Heidi loves my boys, and I love her for it.
I’m surprised there isn’t a picture of her kissing his cheeks, but I’m sure lots of that was going on!

She was even kind enough to change his bum and get him in jammies.
Now that’s love.

Sadie is turning into quite the photographer and took some pictures of this handsome guy!

As you can tell, Wes was fatigued by the end of the night, but well worth it!


Dinner on Sunday with my family was a hoot and Avery obviously loved having this boy in town.
She doesn’t take her hands off of him when he’s around.
Cousins are so fun!

Now don’t be fooled, we missed these boys, but we were having fun of our own back in CT:

A movie date to the “Silly Halloween Movie” was a success and we even had some fun friends that were able to join us!

Gina and Heidi were solo this weekend too, so it was perfect timing!

Impromptu stops at the park are a bit easier with one.
He loved it and I was even nice enough to play with him a little bit.

But I will admit, we were ready for them to get back here after 3 days of no dad and brother.

After a fun-filled weekend, they geared up for the red-eye back to JFK.

As you can see, this boy was tired and that played to Dad’s advantage.
He slept soundly in his arms the whole flight so dad could relax and not worry.

I’m so glad these two got to make this trip and support two special people.
What an important, special decision they made to be sealed for time and all eternity.
We have witnessed the blessings of an eternal marriage in our home and know Kaylee and Dayne will experience the same.

Half Marathon Mom and Dad

Brian and I have enjoyed running a lot lately. Brian more so than me, but we have both been running and it was fun to both be training at the same time for separate half marathons. Brian ran his back in September when my mom came to visit, and I forgot to put the pictures of the amazing accomplishment in that post!

His coworker Kathryn and her husband were training for the Detroit Marathon, and came out to this half marathon in Norwalk as part of their training.
It was fun for Brian to have someone to run this with and it was nice that it was so close! It was just about 10 minutes from our house and put on by a local running club.

Thad and I made it to the race to cheer dad on at the finish line.

Before we knew it, Dad was crossing the finish line at 1:43:13!!
What a stud! His average mph was 07:54. That’s fast.
He’s our hero.

Thad was so excited to finally see dad, but held off on the hug because of the sweatiness!

We are so proud of Brian and that he rocked this race!
I’m sure we’ll be cheering him on at a lot more of these, and most likely a full marathon one day.
Go Dad!!

Then, there was my race. I have decided I want to run a half marathon between each child, and I thought October would be a good month that would allow me to train through the summer.
I had made plans with a few friends to run different races, but they all fell through, and I ran the Entenmann’s Great South Bay Half Marathon over in Bay Shore, NY on Long Island solo.
We decided to leave the night before and spend it in a hotel, so we could all get a good nights rest.

Isn’t it funny that hanging out is so much better in a hotel room?
The kids seemed to like the change of scenery.

Wes wasn’t always so sure about hanging out in the play pen most of the time, but I wasn’t too keen on letting him roam on the floor.

They had fun playing in the hotel the next morning after dropping me off at my race.

Scenes like these were very common during my race.
There were beautiful homes and the weather was perfect for race day!

 I was so excited to finally see my boys cheering me on at the finish line!
I was struggling towards the end. I had kinda forgotten how hard it is to do this.
I was proud of myself for doing a pretty good job pacing myself at about 9.5 minute miles.
My goal was to match or beat my SLC half time of 2:05:15, and I was able to do that with a final time of 2:03:00.

I’m so glad by boys were there to support me and just be awesome.
I’m one lucky lady!

I hope to have more pictures like these throughout the years.
Running and crossing a finish line is such a fulfilling accomplishment and it’s such a good feeling to have support and love from family and friends.

Happy Halloween

Leading up to Halloween this year sure has been fun! Now that it’s here, it seems like it should already be over…Good thing it feels like that, because not much celebrating went on during the actual day due to Sandy. We have plenty of Halloween fun to go around until next year, tho!

We started out the Halloween celebrations with playgroup at the church.

Dora.Batman.Alex.Diego
Seriously? Look how cute these kiddos are!

Next on our list was trick-or-treating at the shops in down town Darien.

I thought this bathtub full of treats was pretty exciting!

After the treats, it all ended at a nearby at a beautiful park with a magician to enjoy!

Wes enjoyed himself too:

He’s honestly just a little ball of perfection.
I love that red headed Robin of mine!

And then, what else is a boy to do than fly around with all his super hero friends?

Ironman(Jared).Batman.Superman(James).Superman(Will)
This activity was technically a Joyschool field trip, and these boys are the cuties that we get to do it with!
They all love being with each other so much and can’t wait for “school” each week

The Trunk or Treat was also a huge success:

We weren’t quite fun enough to decorate our car, but we did dress up as a family with a theme.
You have to give us some credit for that. :)

I think it was a success.

That night we headed to a fun Halloween party with some friends in the ward.

It was funny to watch Brian talk to President Potter.
He is in our stake presidency and also works at Ernst and Young. He’s kind of a big wig around these parts.
Right after I took this picture President Potter said, “It’s hard to take this guy seriously!” Exactly what I was thinking!

We played some minute to win games, and luckily we ended up tying with the oldies!
Brian did not win this game, but neither of us performed particularly well on any of the games.
Thanks to Johnny and Emily, we made the tie and didn’t feel too foolish at the end of the night.

Thad sporting one of the many Halloween masks he somehow acquired.
Masks were definitely his thing this Halloween season.

The BIG NIGHTWell, it ended up not being too big because of Frankestorm aka Hurricane Sandy made her presence known the day before and I wasn’t sure that trick or treating was going to happen around these parts.
After a lazy day at home, and Thad not really caring that it was Halloween, some kids finally knocked on our door. Thad was so excited, there was no turning back.

So Batman and Robin got ready!

Luckily we were joined by Santa’s Little Helper (Heidi) to give her and her parents a break from their dark, powerless house.

And we were off!!

We only trekked to about ten houses, but that was all we needed to appease this Batman!

Garfield is Thad’s big thing right now, so he was excited to see this blow up down the street from our house.

I have to say that it was a huge success. 

I don’t think this holiday is hard to succeed at when we have kids as cute as these.
Happy Halloween!