new year's in tahoe

We spent New Year's in Lake Tahoe. Our friends Brett and Juliann invited us and a few other friends to come spend a few days with them at their family cabin. It was AMAZING! While we were there we-
Took naps...




Ate at a few delicious restaurants...








Went for a gorgeous drive around Lake Tahoe...








Played games all night every night...




(The teams were always boys against girls)...








And rang in the New Year with a ton of yummy appetizers and sparkling cider...
















Of course Zion slept through the New Year's celebration but we made sure to get a picture with him anyway...




Me and these two cute girls stayed up until 5 am on New Year's chatting about everything...




It was so nice to get away. Nothing beats a few days with great friends laughing your guts out. Thank you so much Brett, Juliann and Mae for inviting us. And thank you Josh, Candice, Eddie and Marianne for making the trip even more fun!
As a side note, Zion did so well with the 9 hour drive each way. He literally only fussed for a total of 20 mins. He got caught up on his beauty sleep and watched a bunch of movies...




He also tried his first cheeseburger and HATED it, but I'm pretty sure it's because he couldn't figure out how to eat it. This kid will only eat with utensils. He hates touching his food. I can relate. It's this OCD thing I passed along to him. I hate when my hands smell like food.




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Location:new year's in tahoe

christmas

Christmas was so much fun this year! The celebration started with all of the extended Houtz family at the cabin on Christmas Eve day. We ate way too much, acted out the nativity, exchanged gifts, showed off our homemade ornaments, and had fun visiting with all the family for a few hours. Here's our little family with Granny Houtz.


And here we are with Grampa Houtz and Zion's ornament. It was a cute little footprint reindeer, but Zion ripped the antlers off.


Then we went over to Gary and Leesa's to spend the evening with all of the Price/Ewell clan and my family came, too. We all just relaxed and enjoyed the evening. I think the ping pong tournament was the highlight of the evening.


Christmas morning we woke up at our house for the first time in a few years and it was so nice being home! Zion was so excited when we went downstairs and he saw his new play kitchen.





He loved his table, chairs and dishes, too.


We wrapped all of his other presents, but he was so distracted with his kitchen stuff that we couldn't get him to open a single present. We tried, but he wasn't really interested. At least we know he loved his kitchen.


After we opened gifts and had breakfast, Gary and Leesa and my parents each stopped in to see Zion's presents and bring him a few more to add to his pile. Zion loved the drum set my parents got him!


Here is a picture of his entire load....


Spoiled much? Zac and I got spoiled, too. We each got a few new outfits, new watches, a couple pairs of shoes, a bigger TV for the family room and my parents got us this little beauty.....


We spent most of the day at home and then we had a nice prime rib dinner at my parent's house. This Christmas was by far our best yet! I feel so blessed to have all of our family living so close to us. We really enjoyed the holiday with all of them!





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december

December has been such a fun and busy month. Pretty much every day has been spent at the gym. We've baby proofed everything, put a tv in the office, taken a bunch of toys down there, and turned it into a safe place for Zion to run around while I work in the office and Zac trains. Zion LOVES playing at the gym.


This new set up is perfect because it gets me and Zion out of the house for a few hours every day, we get to spend more time with Zac, I feel like I'm contributing to the business again, and it takes some of the pressure off of Zac because I can help a lot more with marketing, finance, etc. The best part... if me and Zion decided we don't want to go in, we don't have too. We have no set schedule and can work however much or little we want. This month we've worked a lot, though.

Our days have been filled with work, and our evenings and weekends have been just as busy. Between weddings, Christmas party's, my birthday, BUNCO, a weekend in Salt Lake, and Christmas shopping, this month has seriously flown by! Here are pics from a few of those events.

We had our company Christmas party at Tucanos. We seriously have the best trainers. Thanks Cody, Matt, Isaiah and Nicole for being so easy to work with.


I turned 25 and had a fun birthday weekend. My actual birthday was on a Monday so we kind of celebrated all weekend. We shopped a lot, went out to eat a couple times, had Sunday breakfast with my family, and Sunday dinner with Zac's family. On Monday Zac only worked until noon and then came home with these in hand...


He also bought me some fabulous boots, a coat and this watch I have been obsessing over...


And then he cooked me a delicious meal of king crab legs and asparagus for dinner. I have always hated my birthday because it is so close to Christmas, so this year Zac wanted to spoil me and make it feel extra special. It worked. Thanks Zac! You're the best!

I went to an ugly christmas sweater themed BUNCO and it was a blast! Thanks for hosting Candice, and thanks for inviting me to join the group Jewels! I can't wait for next month!



We spent a weekend in Salt Lake with my whole family minus Heather. We've made it a tradition to go see the lights and take coats to the homeless shelter. This year we ended up staying overnight and getting a bunch of Christmas shopping done, too. I love that Cyd is home from school for a couple of weeks and was able to go with us.


Did I mention we have shopped a lot this month? Zion has gotten really good at taking naps in his stroller (a full 3 hour nap while we were at Fashion Place last weekend) and carseat, but I can't wait for this month to be over so we can be back to our normal schedule.





Don't worry though, we have had plenty of downtime this month. I somehow convinced Zac to watch The Vampire Diaries with me starting from the beginning of the first season. It's my guilty pleasure. I've already seen all of them, but I wanted to watch them again. I'll admit, we've watched about 55 episodes this month. Hahaha! Seriously, though, check out these peeps... How could you not want to watch a show with such gorgeous people in it?


That pretty much wraps up December thus far. Now bring on the rest of the Christmas festivities! And Happy Christmas Eve!!

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ps...

ps... I guess I did take one picture on Thanksgiving. Proof of my sick boys that night. Sad, but cute.


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thanksgiving

Wow... I'm so far behind. I can't believe I haven't blogged since Halloween. We've had a lot going on but I'll skip most of it and go straight to Thanksgiving. Have I mentioned how much I love that mine and Zac's parents are such good friends? It makes holidays so much easier. This year dinner was at Gary and Leesa's house with all of the Price/Ewell gang and my family. I loved not having to juggle two families in the same day and just spending the whole day with everyone. Poor Zion had a rough Thanksgiving day, though. He was cutting all 4 of his canine teeth and had a horrible cold that turned to croup that night. I felt so bad for him. He could barely breath, had no voice, his cough was the saddest little bark that hurt him so much he would cry every time he did it, and he had a fever. I kept rotating ibuprofen and Tylenol, hot steam in the bathroom, and cold air outside, and he was still miserable. Thankfully my sister-in-law's kids had just gotten over croup and she had a nebulizer we were able to borrow that helped a ton. Zac also ended up sicker than a dog Thanksgiving night. He fevered for a couple days and had horrible body aches. Between the two of them, I'm not sure who the bigger baby was. Needless to say, Thanksgiving night as I was thinking of all the things I have to be thankful for, good health was at the top of my list. I'm grateful I didn't catch their bug and that I was able to take care of them all weekend. Health is one of those things that is so easy to take for granted. It's so easy to not appreciate it until you or someone you love losses it. Thankfully Zac and Zion's was just a very temporary loss of health and they both were as good as new a few days later. I didn't take any pictures on Thanksgiving but I do have a few of the Price/ Ewell family photos we had taken the end of October that I need to post, so here they are.











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halloween

Halloween was a blast this year. I had so much fun making mine and Zion's costumes. I don't think I have mentioned it yet on this blog, but Zion is obsessed with Toy Story. OBSESSED! We have tried getting him to watch several other movies, but they only hold his interest for about 2 minutes and then he's climbing on our laps with either an iPhone or iPad in hand waiting for us to start Toy Story instead. He will literally sit on the couch and hold still for the entire movie, and he looks this adorable the whole time.


Obviously being Woody was the only option we had for Zion's Halloween costume this year. Zac and all of the trainers decided to dress up as 80's workout instructors, so I decided to match Zion and be Jessie. Like I said, I had so much fun putting our costumes together. I pretty much found everything at the DI and Walmart and then spray painted it.... Both of our boots, hats, and belts were originally different colors. His yellow shirt was a cheap white shirt that I found and dyed yellow, and I made my 5 strand braided bracelet out of some left over white fabric that I dyed yellow along with it. I made his vest and my chaps out of some cute cow print fabric I found at JoAnns for 40% off. I think our costumes turned out pretty cute and were really inexpensive.





On Sunday we went to Gary and Leesa's for a big Halloween party with all of the Price family. Leesa's homemade doughnuts were delicious! Monday morning Zac went to work looking like this.


Yes, that's a real and very nasty mustache. And this is him and the trainers that were working that morning.


Monday evening we stopped by my granny and grampa Houtz's house for chili and to visit with them and my parents for a little bit. Then we were off to another Halloween party with our friends. Brett and Juliann hosted the best party! Everyone brought tons of yummy soups and fall treats and we played a way fun game. I don't know what it was called but it was a blast. Here's our little family at the party.


Everyone dressed up in such fun costumes. Here are the girls-



And here are the boys-



Brett and Jewels, thanks again for such a fun party! We had such a great time!

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