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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october?

It does not feel like the end of October, and I'm not complaining. I have LOVED the warm Fall we've been having. I always feel a little cooped up and depressed when it gets chilly outside. I am so thankful for the nice weather right now. It's what I need. Nothing makes me happier than being able to play outside with my family. Last night while Zac was at work me and Zion went for a walk and played at the park. Zion loves climbing on the playground, swinging, and throwing wood chips everywhere. I love seeing him so happy... It makes me feel like everything is going to be ok.





I cannot believe how big he looks climbing the ladder. Luckily he didn't get any slivers in his toes, because he did not want to keep his shoes on.








I tried to get a picture of us swinging but wiggly boy + in motion + iPhone self portrait do not = success, so this is as good as it gets.


Right now we are driving to St George for the Houtz Family Reunion. I am so excited to enjoy a weekend of 80 degree weather, relaxation, family, and for Zion to be able to swim and play with his cousins non-stop. I think it's just what the doctor ordered.

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another month, another loss

I lost another baby this week. We were absolutely shocked when we found out we were pregnant again exactly 4 weeks after I miscarried. Usually it takes 1-3 months to get your cycle back after a miscarriage, so we were totally shocked. We felt like it was really meant to be this time, because despite all odds we were pregnant again. We went to the doctor to confirm that it was in fact a new pregnancy and not just left over tissue that my body hadn't "shed" on it's own causing a false positive. Sure enough it was a new pregnancy. Being "high risk" the doctor wanted to monitor me closely. I had to have my blood drawn and hcg level checked every other day. The first few days it was doubling exactly the way it was supposed to. We we ecstatic! Then it started to slow until it was increasing by less than 30%. The doctor told us he was 90% sure this was going to be another miscarriage. That feeling of helplessness I felt last month when I started bleeding, times that by about a million and that's how I felt as I was sent home and told to wait for it to start again. It took five very long days for the bleeding to start. Five days of trying to hope that everything would be ok, but being terrified of having too much hope and end up being heart broken again. Last month I was able to deal with the loss pretty well knowing that these things just happen sometimes. But two losses exactly 6 weeks apart. It just feels like a mean joke.


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laundry basket dresser

I have to say, I am more proud of this little project than any other project to date. I have never built anything from scratch so this little guy was quite an accomplishment. When I came across this image on Pinterest, I knew I had to build it. The actual tutorial came from Ana White's website.








I love this laundry basket dresser to sort dirty clothes. I decided to use Ana White's idea but had to modify all of the dimensions because I wanted to use square laundry baskets so it would take up less space. It was kind of a pain in the butt figuring out all of the dimensions on my own, and I made a few mistakes along the way, but in the end I am so glad that I did. The original tutorial makes a triple stack of baskets 26" wide and 3' tall and mine ended up being 19" wide (yay I saved 7" of floor space) and 4' tall. After I followed the steps in Ana White's tutorial I decided it looked a little unfinished. I wanted it to look a little more furniture grade rather than boxy so I added some 1/4" x 1.5" trim around all the edges to give it some decorative panels. I painted it Crystal Aqua by Valspar (my new favorite color) and added a little glazing over the top. Here is what my finished product looks like...












































I love it so much and am proud of my first build. Although I can't say I did it all on my own because my dad cut all of the wood after I figured out the dimensions and Zac helped me hold everything square while I assembled it. I think this is the first of many more building projects to come!

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