Ogden Temple!

Mark and I went to the Ogden temple last week. We went to our last session there before the renovation! I love the Ogden temple because I grew up in Ogden, and it is the Temple Mark and I were married in!
When the church announced the renovation I was a little sad that it will not look how it looked when we were married, but I think it's going to be even more beautiful so I'm excited!

Here are a few pics of how the temple looked on our wedding day:

This is how the temple will look in 12-18 months!

It really is a gorgeous design, so I'm excited for it!

We took the kids on Sunday to take a few pictures by the temple before they close it. We weren't the only people there taking pictures either! :)

I like this picture Mark took of Owen and me!

The kids and me!

Baylee is a "tree hugger!" Her words!

I think I'll get one of these pictures printed and hang it on my wall!

(We don't have an Ogden temple picture!)

Resolutions and other things. . .

Well I've been working on my new years resolutions. . . kind of.

If you'll remember this year I resolved to

• Make dinner four or more nights a week
• Read the ensign cover to cover every month
• Read eight books

Making dinner four nights a week has been going pretty good. I usually cook most of the time anyway but sometimes I just have to pull out a frozen pizza :)

My second resolution reading the Ensign has not happened. Apparently our Ensign subscription expired and I didn't renew it. I'll work on that. But I have been reading all of the general conference talks from 2010 on my phone! So that is kind of like reading the Ensign.

My third resolution is the one I've been working on the most! I read the first two books of the hunger games series around Christmas time. I read the third on this year but I'm not counting it as one of my eight books cause I'm grouping it with the other two.

I'm sure many of you have read these books. They are ok. I really liked the first one. The second one is kind of a repeat of the first one. The third one is weird but I liked how it ends. They are not the best ever but definitely worth reading!

I also finished reading No Apology by Mitt Romney. It was really good. It kind of makes me wish Mitt Romney was president now :) I started reading it in October and finished in like February! Ha ha! It's a good book but not the most exciting. It doesn't count as one of my eight thought cause I started reading it in 2010.

The first book I read this year that I'm counting as one of my eight books is called Longshot it was written by Lance Allred. Mark has a serious love of Weber State basketball and all things related to WSU basketball. Lance Allred played for Weber State in 2004-2005. Before that he played at the University of Utah with coach Rick Majerus.

Longshot is a book written by Allred about his life growing up in a polygamist community in Montana and then about how he started playing basketball and eventually made it to the NBA. An amazing feat in itself and even more amazing if you consider that Allred is deaf.

I think this book is very raw Allred is very honest about his life. He suffered from OCD and depression. Rick Majerus was very verbally abusive to him while he was at the University of Utah. Majerus was "cleared of any wrongdoing" by the University. I found the last 50 or so pages of the book the most interesting. That is when Allred talks about playing overseas and in the NBA developmental league.

It took me about two weeks to get through Longshot, but the next book I read I finished in 3 days. It was very well written and very interesting. I read Staying True by Jenny Sanford. Remember a few years ago when Mark Sanford the governor of South Carolina went missing? His staff said he was "hiking the Appalachian trial" but it turned out he was in Argentina with his mistress. Well his now ex-wife wrote a book about their life and marriage. She talks about how she stayed true to what she believed in. She comes across as a very strong woman with very high moral values.

If you are looking for anything to read I really would recommend any of these books! Also if you have any good book suggestions let me know!

Okay here are some other things. . .

I made some new decorations for my kitchen.

These topiaries took forever to make but I liked how they turned out!

Our Primary had a talent show last week. It was on Saturday so I had to work but Mark took Baylee and Owen to it. I made a poster of pictures of Baylee helping me bake because she loves to help me in the kitchen. I figure that's a good talent for three-year-old!

Then Mark's dad took us to see Peter and the Wolf at WSU a couple a weeks ago! It was really fun. I tried really hard to get there on time but Baylee was very determined to get dressed all by herself this day (I picked out her clothes she just put them on). I am proud of Baylee for wanting to dress herself so I try to encourage it but when you're in a hurry to go somewhere it's hard to be patient while she buttons up all of her buttons! We made it though, we got there just before they closed the doors!

St. Patty's Day x2

Isn't St. Patrick's day one of those holidays that you can never remember what day it is? No? Just me? Ok. Well a couple of weeks ago at dinner one night I said to Mark, "St. Patrick's Day is coming up huh? When is it like the 14th?" Mark replied, "Yea, something like that." So I took this as confirmation that St. Patrick's day is on the 14th (but I guess Valentin's is the holiday that is on the 14th). Anyway, so Sunday night I'm lying in bed thinking to myself, "oh St. Patrick's day is tomorrow I guess we better wear green. . . What else could we do? Maybe a treasure hunt!" So I wake up before the kids on Monday morning and set up a little treasure hunt.

I get the kids dressed in green. Baylee, of course, is wearing green from head to toe!

Green food coloring in some waffle batter = yummy green waffle's!

I sent Baylee on her treasure hunt! She LOVED it!

Proof that Owen was there too!

Owen got "gold" fish!

Baylee got a ring pop and I just happend to have a fun size "gold" twix for her treat!

But, wait I know what you're thinking. . . St. Patrick's day is the 17th of March not the 14th and you're right!

So after we finish our treasure hunt I got on the internet a Google comes up and there is no green shamrocks for the Os or anything like that. So I start thinking wait maybe St. Patrick's day isn't today I Google it and yep it's on the 17th! Ha ha! (I blame it on being a stay at home mom I'm kind of out of it these days!)

But it's ok because we really just doubled our St. Patrick's day fun! The day before the real St. Patrick's day I found out that Discovery Gateway Children's Museum was having free admission on St. Patrick's day. My friend Breann and I went down and spent a few hours there with our kids! It was lots of fun and the kids loved it but I was exhausted by the end of the day! It really wore me out!

This is "The Beehive" The kids can take these balls and put them in the tubes then they float up! They loved it!

Here Baylee is putting a ball in the tube.

Owen was helping Baylee and Bensen gather balls.

Since we were by Mark's work we stopped by his office on our way home!

Yea for warmer weather!

It's getting warmer outside! We have been waiting for so long to be able to play outside (without freezing)!

The last few days have been so nice and sunny! I'm not getting my hopes up for spring yet though because this is Utah so it will probably snow a few more times!

We have been enjoying the nice days we have had though!

Baylee playing on the tire swing at our playground!

Owen had lots of fun in the wood chips! He put one in his mouth then decided that was gross so the rest of the time he would just pick them up and drop them! It kept him entertained!

Here is Baylee on the swing!

Owen was going for my camera.

Baylee has had self imposed color days lately. It all started a couple of months ago when she was helping me put her clothes away and she picked up a black shirt and some black leggins. She said, "Look mom these are my black clothes!" Ever since then she has days when she picks out a solid color to wear. This was her "white" day! Notice the white socks over the white tights! She even found a "white" hat to wear. . . close enough :)

We went to dinosaur park last week but it was still pretty cold! Owen and I sat in the car and Mark stayed with Baylee while she finished playing!

When it's been too cold to go outside we've been trying to keep busy inside. I had Baylee help me clean the walls and baseboards the other day.

She did pretty good helping me, but we were in her room cleaning the walls and I went downstairs to get something. When I came back she was trying to clean the floor so she had dumped out the bucket of water!

Baylee helped me make some yummy banana bread!

We made the bread while Owen was sleeping. I went to get him from his nap and when I came down Baylee was hiding under the kitchen table. . .

She had taken a big bite out of the bread! I don't even know what to do with this girl sometimes! She's kind of exhausting :) But we love her!

Here's my Owen buddy! I love this sweet baby!

Mark was trying to watch a BYU basketball game one day so to get Baylee to leave him alone for a minute I made her a fort!

Then I let her watch a movie in her fort!

I thought it turned out pretty awesome!

Baylee helped me decorate cupcakes to take over to our new neighbors the other day.

Baylee has a new Spiderman umbrella! We were grocery shopping at Wal-mart one day and she saw these little kid umbrellas. She really wanted one but I told her that we could go home and she could get some money out of her piggy bank and if it was still what she really wanted we could go back and get it sometime. We waited a couple of weeks and she still kept talking about getting her money to buy her umbrella so we took all of her change to the bank and got out six dollars to buy her umbrella and put the rest in her bank account for college.

Then we went over to Wal-mart and the umbrellas were on clearance for only $4! There was a princess umbrella and a Dora one but Baylee insisted on getting Spiderman!

The day after she got her umbrella it started raining a little bit so I had her go outside with it. She was pretty disappointed there wasn't much rain. In this picture she was going to look for a puddle to splash in. She never found one :)