Sydney Church Book

I wanted to post Sydney's church book that her teachers gave her. They worked all of 2017 on it. It's been so cute to see her grow in her faith and love for Jesus and Heavenly Father. 

Honestly, Sydney did not even like to say prayers - but Tyson started asking everyone 1. What's one thing you are grateful for and 2. Who can we pray for. That has really changed our family prayer and Sydney really takes time to think about it. 

ps. Tyson and I went to the Temple on Saturday and when I told London that we were going she said "you guys are going to get married again?" it was so funny!

February So Far ...

February - such a short month but BOY are we packing a lot into it. 

1. The girls finished swimming lessons. 

2. Sydney entered her 1st Science Fair at school. We did apple science - and Sydney got 2nd place out of kindergarten. 

3. We celebrated London's birthday - that will be another post.

4. Tyson shaved his beard and now looks 16 again.

5. Tyson got called as EQ 2nd counselor. 

6. We have had several great days and have been so warm - so we walk. We even found this HUGE ball of snow - as big as the girls. 

7. We leave for Cancun in 2 days 

8. We have been watching the Olympics nonstop 

9. I turn 35 next week 

Can you believe we did this in all 28 days?! It's been a fun and busy month. I have been walking when I can and we try to go the gym 2 times per week.

Work is good and busy but we are working on some big project - which take a lot of time and mental perseverance. it feels like you move so slowly and there are setbacks - but you keep going!

Q&U Wedding

Goddard held their annual Q&U Wedding last week. Super cute. London was so excited. She wanted to dress up with multiple bows and necklace. She was the flower girl. 

Sydney has really taken to reading simple books - our favorite are Elephant and Piggie. We are loving these books. 

January 2018

Oh January, where to begin. It's been a slow month - but some key things have happened. I flew to Austin for a work trip. It was awesome. I finally got to meet my Triad - they rock. 

 We have been busy with swimming lessons again. The girls are loving them. We will stop after this round and take a break. Since we are going to Cancun in February, I thought it would be good to just hold off. Sydney is doing great and actually swimming. London is slowly coming along. Honestly, they seem a  little tired of it so it's good to take a break. I also got into 2 car accidents this week. It's such a long story but I am glad everyone is ok and I am so glad we have savings. I can see how just regular life and accidents can send people into debt and feel pretty hopeless.

Last weekend the girls had 2 birthday parties - but Sydney got a nasty stomach bug Friday after and stayed with us the next 3 days while London got to attend. Thankfully she is all better. 

Tyson has been really working out a lot - it's fun to all go to the gym, work out and then come home. I've been busy with work and implementing ASK. It's coming along slowly.  I've been getting back to walking and listening to some great podcast. I'm excited because I am learning a lot about marketing tactics and hopefully it will work for the PR project and my clients. 

We had stake conference on Sunday and the girls did great. We have also been playing more games as a family and I really like it. 

New Years Eve 2017

Wow! Another year is passed. 2017 felt different in so many ways. New years eve was church in the morning, then nothing by lounging at home. At 7 pm we went next door to the Blakely's. We had traditional Moldovan food, played minute to win it games. Tyson was amazing and did all the dishes - because he is amazing. Then we played until 930 and then did a "countdown" and went home. 

I loved that it was relaxing and safe. I loved that we played games and stayed in our Pj's. 

I  use to be so freaked out to be "alone" during the holidays - but slowly I am letting go of that and embracing just being alone or with another small family.

I won't lie, the 1st 6 months kicked our butts in every aspect - financially, emotionally, marriage-wise, health-wise, parenting-wise ... it was so hard and so humbling. 

But here we are  - at the end and we have seen so much growth and so many blessings. 

I think the most important changes have been really internal. We did counseling for 6 months and it was so key to help heal our marriage and heal after losing Baby B. Both Tyson and I really had to dig deep and rely on the Lord and humble ourselves to stay together. 

Our marriage was so low and yet I think it was necessary to see that we were faking our commitment - but now we really really do feel committed to the real versions of each other.

Work wise, we really took risk. Tyson was in school and started working at Voltage.  This change has been amazing and SO hard. Tyson has had to do it all himself and there have been many days that have left Tyson wondering if he can really do it. 

The thing that keeps coming to my head as I see him struggle is "God is the gamechanger"

And what I  mean by this is that both Tyson and I often feel like our talents are not up to the task - and there is a lot of truth to that. But GOD is the gamechanger. He can take our sub-par talents and partner with us to make up the difference. He will take all our effort and work and sweat and faith - and make it enough. There is NO way Tyson could have done this by himself - but God is making up the difference. 

I see that in my business. My clients have grown and my clients have made me grow. I feel so humbled. We have many dreams but we know ultimately, God will create what he wants out of our lives.

The girls grew so much in 2017- he grew so much closer to each other. We have learned to love them for who they are and for the challenges they bring.

I finished my Primary time and I am thankful and sad at the same time. We were able to really hit some financial goals and I have continued to see the benefits of minimalism. 

So I am thankful 2017 is over - but will be forever changed by the lessons it taught me. 

Here's to a better 2018 :) 

Christmas 2017

The week of Christmas has been so wonderful.  I feel like this year for the 1st time we really geled as a little family. It was wonderful to be with others, but when it came down to it, we really did just fine with out little family. 

The week before Christmas was so busy - I was closing up launches with my clients and getting as much work as I could so I could really relax the week between Christmas and New years. Both girls were off school and even daycare was closed - so thankfully all but one of my clients took off. 

Christmas eve fell on Sunday - so we only had sacrament. The girls sang and we had a lovely Christmas program. We got home and it was time to start cooking for our Christmas Eve Favorites night. The Ashby's got to the house around 445 and we had a yummy dinner of chicken wings, breadsticks, Veggie treys, greek salad, pita chips,  artichoke dip ... and lot and lots of cookies. We played minute to win it games, spoons and watched some shows. It was super relaxed and honestly I did not even take photos. 

Everyone left at 8 pm and we quickly cleaned up and put the girls to bed by 845. Can I just tell you how much I love Minimalism during the holidays. Tyson and I often talk about how quickly it is to just clean up our house and how much peace it brings us. 

Tyson and I stayed up late to get ready. I also my casserole for the next morning. We went to bed by 10:30 PM. A funny story is that I headed to bed and Tyson stayed up working - and Sydney came up the stairs around 11:20 - she was half sleep but did not even notice Tyson - went straight to the bathroom an back to bed :) 

Tyson woke up at 6 am to put the breakfast casserole in the oven. Then at 730 we all got up. The girls went upstairs and then came down to "wake us up". We all headed up stairs and did the stocking. We got toothbrushes, toothpaste,  fruit snacks, oranges, candy, playdoug ... lots of fun things. 

Then we had my breakfast casserole - it was good but still not perfect. We tried to drag out the presents but only lasted until 10:30 :)  We watched the Disney parade on tv. 

The best part was that we had so much left overs that I did NOT have to cook at all. We just ate left overs. I loved that. After lunch we went sledding fro 45 minutes. The girls loved it. They even started going by themselves. 

We came home, watched a movie and I fell sleep. I've been having a sore throat for a few days and it kept me up at night. 

When I woke up we called our parents and spent time talking to them. Honestly, it was just so chill. We were all in bed by 830 and it felt so so good. We are thrilled that we are going to Cancun in February with the entire family :)