Happy Love Day 2017!

Love my cute Valentines :).

Valentines Day this year was wonderful and full of so much love! Austin is at such an adorable age where he finds every holiday so fascinating and exciting! He asks a million questions about what we do for each holiday, when we do it, and why we do it :). For days he has been writing us love notes in his own unique scribble-language. And Evie of course just follows along like his ever faithful follower, always ready for something new!

We started off the holiday a couple days earlier with a trip to the dollar store where they each picked out valentines cards and then took them home to color them for all their friends :). Their excitement over something so simple was so stinking cute! Austin chose Minions valentines and Evie of course chose Minney Mouse. That girl has a serious obsession with Minney! She literally starts screaming and jumping up and down if she sees Minney on TV and she insists on wearing her Minney Mouse pajamas every. single. day. Of course that is disgusting and I don't allow it but she puts up quite a fight when I try to explain this to her!

It's Valentine decorating time!

Austin took the job very seriously.

Oh how I love my little man and his excitement for life! He makes the holidays come alive for us!

Mid-morning on Valentines Day, we had a Baby-Valentines Day party with all our little friends in the ward and neighborhood! We met up at the park and decorated cupcakes and sugar cookies and ran around wild on the playground. Besides the wind, it was so picturesque. The sun was shining and the temperature was perfect. The kids had a blast playing together and us Mom's had a great time catching up on each others lives. Austin sweetly handed out all his valentines cards to his friends and their Mama's (which was too cute for words) and we ended up taking Evie's valentines back home because she was more interested in going down the super high slide all by herself over and over and over. She is such a dare devil! And heaven help the person who tries to tell her she's too little to do something!

Decorating cupcakes! I love Evie's little chocolate mustache on her "I mean business" face!

MMMmmmmm!!!

The whole gang!

The kids took the  job of decorating and eating so seriously and meanwhile us Moms were having a blast while we watched! haha!

Evie likes a little booger to go with her chocolate ;).

The little girl next to Austin is Blakely, Evie's best friend. They are so cute together and love to give each other hugs and kisses. I can't wait to see where their friendship goes as they get older!

Evie getting down to go run off all that sugar before she came back for seconds :).

While the kids were napping I stayed true to tradition and made everyone their homemade giant pink sugar cookie! Made with love by Mom :). It is a tradition my Mom started with us when I was a little girl and I absolutely loved it! Now I carry on this tradition with my own family and it gives me so much joy to see how it lights up all their sweet faces! When Josh got home from work he came bearing gifts (Roses for me and candies for the kiddos)! Then we sat down and finally got to dig into the cookies! Austin had been begging to eat his cookie for hours so he was frustrated that we had to stop and take a picture first haha :). But these pictures are something I treasure because it shows our little family as it grows each year. The kids also got to give Daddy their Valentine cards! Austin kept reading his out loud and changing the words to make it more silly each time since we laughed so hard at how cute his original card was hehe :).

The moment he had been waiting for.....

That cookie was bigger than her head! LUCKY GIRL!

Later that night, Josh watched the kids while I got to skip making dinner and go to a Pure Barre class! He spoiled me rotten that night with jewelry, chocolate, and flowers, but the gift of an hour to myself was by far the greatest gift of all! After putting the kids to bed, Josh and I had a romantic Valentines evening together with Sushi, chocolate, and lots of kisses ;).

I came home from Barre class so refreshed and in love with my sweet hubby. It was the perfect Valentines Day!

Austin snapped this pic and I am so sad that it's blurry because it's so sweet! I love my life so much and all the sweet people in it!

Welcoming in 2017 With a Fiesta Bowl New Years!

The National Championship trophy!

We decided to make this New Years Eve a little different from our usual lights out by 9pm after we watch the ball drop in NYC. We decided to take a trip to Phoenix for the Fiesta Bowl Football Playoff Game with Josh's Mom, Step-Dad, Brother Nick & his whole gang! Originally Tony's gang and our kids were all going to go too but when Tony dropped out we decided to leave our kids at home and make a romantic trip out of it!! Yay!

I dropped the kids off for a weekend at my Mom's house and then Josh and I headed off on our adventure as soon as he got off work! It was possibly one of the scariest drives of our lives when we hit an intense rain storm up in the steep passages of the mountains. It was a two lane highway and we couldn't see the lines on the road. Every car that drove by was possibly going to be the one that killed us. Luckily we survived though! Our navigation system also took us all over Phoenix before actually finding our Hilton Hotel so to say we were exhausted, frustrated, and irritated by the time we got in Friday night is an understatement. We stopped at Nick & Jenn's hotel door to say goodnight and then we passed out in our hotel bed, thankful to be alive! Janis and Steve flew in later that night.

Saturday was game day! Before the game we all went out for lunch at Rodizzio! This wasn't just any Rodizzio however...... it's the restaurant we are all part owners in! We were all so excited to finally see the fruits of our labors! I can't remember if I mentioned this previously so I will catch you up if not. When Art died, we all inherited a large amount of money from his life insurance. With that money we paid off our house and then invested the rest into a family restaurant with Josh's two brothers! It has been a whole year in the making and we are still yet to see the monetary fruits of our labors but it was so cool to stand in a restaurant and be able to say we are the owners! We got a private tour throughout the place and met all the important people running the show while we all live far away. It was amazing!! Our meal was completely free (of course) so we ordered it all from the expensive drinks to the amazing desert!

The gang in front of our restaurant!

Good food, good people, good times!

**NOTE: We all decided to invest in this particular Brazilian restaurant because it was one of Art's favorites. Every birthday was held there. In fact, on the last trip we took to Utah the week before he died, he handed us a wad of cash and told us to go out on a date to Rodizzio while he watched the kids! So it has sentimental value and it just felt right to invest his life insurance in that way. Also, Nick somehow knows someone high up in corporate to make it all possible! Nick and Tony own a much larger portion than we do, but that's because we decided to use half of our money to pay off our house. We felt that the financial security and freedom that comes from being completely debt free was more important than a large risky investment. Our family goal (since we were given permission by corporate to be the sole owners of the Arizona region) is to open a chain of these restaurants in the near future! We will see how that goes!***

Anyways, after eating we headed to the big game! Josh is a HUGE Ohio State fan (although he does like Clemson too) so we wore our Buckeye apparel. There was a really fun pre-game party that we enjoyed walking around and then we headed inside University of Phoenix stadium for the game! Sadly, the Buckeyes lost miserably and now won't be going to the National Championship, but the game itself was really fun! Plus, Josh and I got to take a picture standing next to the National Championship trophy which is a once in a lifetime opportunity so that was good enough for us! We spent the rest of the evening after the game at a fun Mexican restaurant by our hotel eating wayy too much chips and salsa and enjoying each others company. We had all sorts of stuff planned for ringing in the New Year but Nick and Jenn's family was super tired and had to get up early the next day so we said goodnight to everyone and did the countdown by ourselves in our hotel room. We never get a chance to be alone these days so this was just fine with us!

The Pre-Game Party! 

Walking around the pre-game party!

It was so nice to be "us" again!

Such a cool stadium! Josh's first job when we were newly married was as a Financial Advisor for University of Phoenix :).

The famous Ohio State Band! They were incredible!

It really hurt to know that Art should have been with us at that game. We love Steve so much, but sometimes it just isn't the same. We love you Pops :(.

Game Time!

I have no idea who that random guy in the back is but he got to be the center of our picture! haha!

AMAZING SHOW!

The band spelling out OHIO! So cool!

The next day it was just us and Josh's parents because Nick's group left for home so we enjoyed it by sleeping in, going out to breakfast, hot tubbing in the rain, watching movies in our hotel room and taking a nap, and then later going out to dinner. It was the perfect Sunday!

SOOOO RELAXING!!!! And much needed!

We were so sad to go home the next day. We missed our kids but have missed freedom so much!! Luckily our drive home wasn't the white knuckler that our previous drive had been, so it was actually quite enjoyable! It was like old times, singing in the car, talking while holding hands, and laughing about the silly things. This trip was exactly what we needed!

LOVE THIS GUY!! And I LOVE the life we have together!

Even though she isn't showing it, Baby Girl was happy to have us home again haha! Oh silly baby!

And Austin was excited to ring in the new year AGAIN! Grandma Janis sent us home with all sorts of fun noise makers for the kiddos and they were a big hit!

While we were away, my Mom sent a couple pictures of the kiddos. Evie had a great time at Grandma's house riding her horsey!

And Austin got to stay up until midnight for the first time in his life! So basically we were all having a great time! :)

Cooley Family Christmas Party!

I was totally in heaven with these two cutie pies on my lap! It started out with Just Naomi's baby but Eve got jealous and wanted to hold him too :).

Although my Grandma Cooley is now remarried and goes by Grandma Wiegel now, she still hosts the whole Cooley family gathering each year. That includes her ex-husband (my Grandpa) and his wife Diana. I love her for this. For being able to take the high road and still make it possible for our whole family to get together without awkwardness. We have started making the tradition of this get together the day after Christmas so that we can all have our own individual Christmases and then get together for the big shebang!

Josh stayed home this year because he hasn't been feeling well since he got out of the hospital and he had to go to work the next day and we didn't know how late this party would go. So I took the kids and drove to St. George! I'm not gonna lie, this party was NOT what we were all expecting for a number of reasons. It was still fun, and still wonderful to see and catch up with everyone, but let's just say I was glad Josh stayed home or he would have been really irritated with me for making him waste his last day of vacation for drama....

While we waited for the rest of the group to arrive, we gave Great Grandma and Grandpa Wiegel their Christmas presents!

Grandma loved all the pictures :).

You see, it started off with everyone (except me and Sadie) being late. Not casually late, but ridiculously late. Hours after we were supposed to eat, we were hungry and awnery and I was once again irritated with my extended family for not being able to get it together and for being so disrespectful to my Grandma. (This is why Josh and I don't host parties with my Mom's extended family anymore. They always come late, always forget to bring the food they were assigned, and I always end up extremely angry). I felt so bad for my Grandma because I knew the feeling all too well... Anyways, once we got food into everybody's hungry bellies things started looking up! Sadie brought her boyfriend (who at the time she was planning on marrying but they are since broken up) to meet the family. I felt bad for her because it wasn't the best day to meet everybody since they weren't showing their best selves. My mom was doing her usual "I'm too sick to get out of bed today so I'm going to be 3 hours late" (oh Lord that one gets old). Brian and Amanda couldn't go because Brian lit himself on fire while working on his car that had a gas leak with the garage door closed (rolling eyes here). Heidi and Dave were hours late and forgot to bring food because they had partied too hard the night before (both have been through the temple and Dave even went on a mission but they LOVE their alcohol). Our cousin Emma came with Heidi but her extreme Liberal Feministic ideals are enough to drive anyone crazy. Gena was here from Florida which was exciting! Oh and Naomi brought her drug dealing boyfriend.... Yeah, everybody's really done good with their lives (insert sarcasm here). Scott and Tammy also came and Jason brought his girlfriend (they're engaged now). Grandpa Cooley came without Diana this year because she is feeling worse than he is these days :(. He is so sickly and frail.... who knows how long he will be around. It is hard to talk to him because he has Parkinson's Disease and can barely get words out; it takes him a really long time to say something simple.

I love this 4 generations photo with my Grandpa. He is truly the sweetest man! It makes me sad that my kiddos won't remember him the way I do.

Anyways, we did the best we could with what we had and the middle portion of the party was actually really fun! We ate, and did a white elephant gift exchange. That was as far as the games went though because all the people who were supposed to plan games DIDN'T. I loved talking with Jason and his girlfriend Hannah because they are the most like me. I loved hearing their love story and feeling that longing for my own dating days when Josh and I were just starting out our lives together. I also loved watching my kids eat and play, talk, and make memories. I did my best to talk with Grandpa Cooley and I loved on Naomi's baby boy like there was no tomorrow :).

Then the worst part came. My Mom and her siblings decided since this is probably the only time they will be together for a while, to take my Grandpa Cooley into a private room and discuss what to do with him since this is obviously his last days. They all want to be there to help care for him but his wife Diana and her family have made that difficult. Her family is using his retirement for their own living expenses (so annoying) and they don't want our family knowing about it or having anything to do with their manipulating a poor old man for his money. Well, as always when my Mom's family gets together, someone started a fight. Like a REALLY BIG fight! Nathan and I sat back and watched while my Mom lost her mind sending everybody into a screaming frenzy. Nothing after that was the same. Supposedly after hours of fighting they had "worked it out" but nobody would look at each other or talk to each other. My Grandma Wiegel was so mad that her party that she had planned had taken a really unexpected turn (once again, SOOO DISRESPECTFUL!) and the layer of anger and awkwardness was so thick in the air you could cut it with a knife. So that was how the party ended. We got some cute pictures though! ;)

Sweet baby Cayson!

Evie getting jealous haha!

Evie girl running around barefoot and having a good time!

Baby girl never strays too far away from her Mama :).

Grandma and Austin!

I love this picture :).

Sister love!

I was really hoping this boyfriend would be the one for her. I REALLY want someone to go through the child raising part of life with me!!! The support and understanding would be so nice....

Hanging out with Grandpa who thinks he's funny hahaha!

All the tables were decorated with Hershey's kisses and Evie made it her duty to go around eating them all!

I love my life! Motherhood is the greatest blessing!

Oh Austin... hahaha!

Evie loving on her baby cousin too :).

Seriously this was probably my favorite moment of the whole day! I can see these two being close friends :).

Sadie's boyfriend John. He was nice while he lasted....

Sadie and I have such different looks, but sometimes you can actually tell we are related.

Like I said, she's never far! I'm constantly tripping on her!

The entire drive home my Mom sat in the passengers seat rehashing everything while I reminded myself to continue cutting these crazy people out of my life as I have been over the past couple years. You see, I used to allow this crap to come into my house, into my life, into my heart. But not anymore. Josh and I have set boundaries and have let everyone know that we don't want anything to do with their drama anymore. I have made so many people mad and have been the topic of angry gossip in my family now for years but I don't care because I have peace in my life. I wish so badly all these people could get it together because I truly do love them. But in the meantime, I can't live like that.