Weekly Wrap-up: What a week!

What a week it has been!! Soo, soo busy! On Tuesday one of my best friends, Lisa, was in town and so we were finally able to get to see her new baby, Ella. She is such a cute baby-it definitely made me baby hungry! However, McKade was not too happy about his mommy holding another baby-that momma's boy will definitely have some issues when we do have another baby! It was so much fun to get to visit with them. I really miss not having Lisa around all the time to hang out. We have so much fun together and I miss her like crazy! Our kids have so much fun together too. I think their kids were sufficiently worn out for the long drive home after playing all night long!
Friday night was my girl's night out! I totally needed it after all the stress of getting Christmas shopping done and the last few crazy weeks. We headed up to SLC and went shopping at Tai Pan and then went out to eat. We had such a great time! I'm so thankful to have such great friends!
Saturday morning greeted us with snow!! The kids were sooo excited! We had such a busy day planned that I felt bad they couldn't head out into it to enjoy it. Skylar had a primary party early and then we rushed to my Grandma Henricksen's house to celebrate her 93rd birthday! My grandma is one of the greatest people on this planet and I'm so glad that she's still around to celebrate with!! I wish we had been able to stay longer and see more of my cousins. It's hard to get together anymore now that we're all grown up. But it was great to see those that I did see.
Afterwards, we rushed up to Sandy to the Festival of Trees to watch Skylar's dance company perform. Her Mini-Stars group danced to Jingle Bells and she did such a great job. It's so great to see how much she's improved in the last year. She is becoming quite the dancer! My parents were able to come and they brought my brother's kids too. My brother, Eric, was in town from the St. George area and him and his wife, Jen, had gone to do their annual "big city" Christmas shopping. My brother has three boys and one girl. Their daughter, Cassidy, is Skylar's age, and their youngest, Ely, is Nick's age so it's really fun to have them come so my kids can have playmates. Grandma (my mom) is really nice and lets Skylar sleep over at her house so Cass & Sky can have some "girl" time. They love it! By the way, we loved the Darth Vader tree at the Festival of the Trees. Ben's totally planning out next year's tree!!
After dropping Skylar off at my mom's we took the boys to IKEA to shop. Nick loves IKEA! It's so funny! It's one of his favorite place and every time we pass it on the freeway he begs to go. Nick got to go in the little daycare thing for the first time so he was as happy as could be. Now he'll really beg us to go more! Ben and I are looking for a new bed for our Christmas present. We really just need a new mattress since ours is at least 12 years old, but would love to replace all the furniture in our bedroom since it was my sister's furniture when she got married 24 years ago! So, we spent a few hours there-funny how time flies when you're there-and we're still not decided on what we're doing! It's a good thing we still have 22 days to go!
On Sunday, after Sacrament meeting, we headed up once again to SLC (3 times in one weekend for me!! Yikes!) We decided to get together since my brother's family was in town still. They very rarely make it up here-well, at least Eric doesn't so I suggested we take a family picture with our digital camera since we hadn't had a family picture taken since Nick was 2 weeks old. Of course, nothing could be that simple! My mom decided to get a professional photographer from her ward to come and it turned into a big event. Hopefully it will all be worth the chaos!!
After the family picture we ate dinner and the kids played like crazy. My kids always learn such interesting things after getting together with their cousins. Skylar has not stopped singing "Jingle Bells, Batman smells...." since. Since my kids are the youngest, they get so much attention! They totally love it! I loved being able to visit with Eric and Jen. They are so awesome! My brother has always been such a great brother-taking me on trips and to concerts and just letting me hang out with him even though he's 8 years older. I really wish they lived closer or at least came to visit more often! Anyway, the weekend was so exhausting but so much fun! I definitely need some down time this next week. I won't count on it though!