W H E R E W E L I V E

We live in a small town in Southern Utah and our home faces a big mountain range! The million dollar view is what sold us on our house 4 years ago but the people around us are what really helped us plant our roots here. To give you an idea of the size of our town, there is one little store that carries everything from produce to paint. When we go buy something, we just write our name down on a tab and pay our tab once per month - it's the absolute best to be greeted by name when we walk in the door.

O U R H O M E

Our house is so warm and welcoming. It has a big wrap around porch, lots of bedrooms, a big backyard where we spend most of our nights and plenty of room to host BBQs and celebrations all year round. Our goal while remodeling our house these last few years was to make it the house all our kid's friends want to be at. There is a playhouse in the loft, a trampoline, outdoor projector screen for movies, Pickleball, Basketball, a fire pit, and a swing set with a twisty slide. Our house has loved us so well since we bought it and we love to share that same love with everyone!

A D A Y I N O U R L I F E

Andy is a Commercial Lender at a bank and I (mom) work from home in Human Resources. Both of our jobs are so flexible and we are so grateful that we never have to miss anything that Lo has going on and we can even help coach, be on the PTO, etc. We're excited for many more years of watching Lo and our future kids do what they love to do (whatever that may be!).

Our normal days start with working out, reading scriptures, eating breakfast (Lo usually requests French Toast) and then heading off to work and school! Our evenings are spent going to ball games, dance practice, gymnastics, or just hanging out together at home. We love playing Pickleball in our backyard, jumping on the trampoline, or having people over for a BBQ! Bedtime is kind of like the wild wild West. We have a whole routine where Lo gets in the tub, we all go into her room and chat, read scriptures, say prayers, get jammies on and talk about our favorite parts of the day. Lo lines up her stuffed animals on her bed, we give hugs and kisses and there is usually some debate on if we've missed any step in the routine! Lo has it memorized and she'll call us out if we miss anything. It's wild but it's actually one of our favorite parts of the day. Weekends are usually spent in the yard, travelling or visiting family members who all live close by.

In the winter, we watch a lot of our favorite movies and play Mario Kart (Lo is getting so good!). In the Spring, we do a lot of yard projects like planting flowers in the greenhouse, trees in the yard, and getting the grass to green up! In the summer when we're on school break, Lo and I run through the sprinklers, have play dates, read books, play Barbie's, do chores while Andy is at work. We look forward to when Andy comes home for lunch every day and we get to hang out all together. We go on family vacations every year and spend a lot of time outside. Fall might be our favorite time of the year! Andy is the head baseball coach at the high school so we go to a lot of games and stay busy with that. The weather here in Utah is THE BEST this time of year, it's so pretty! We love watching football and going for drives up the mountain. We usually spend a lot of time in Andy's home town with his brothers and their families in the fall.

P A R E N T I N G

Right after our daughter was born, we heard the term "Positive Parenting". At first we just thought that it seemed like a way for kids to get away with everything and never have consequences, but the more we learned, the better it sounded! I don't know if our style of "parenting" has a name but whatever it is, our house is a pretty fun, calm and love-filled place. It's almost like magic that when we point out the good our daughter does, she lights up and wants to do more of that thing.

Lo has a few jobs that she's responsible for every day and making her bed and cleaning her room is one of them. One day she asked to have a friend over and I told her "Of course! As soon as your jobs are done, you can have a friend over!" She did not like that answer but she went to her room so fast and started cleaning like a tornado! Within minutes, she was racing back downstairs to tell me she was done. I went up to her room and checked it out...her bed looked like she had thrown everything on top of it blindfolded. The toys in her room were tossed into her closet in a huge pile and let's just say, I've seen better work from her! She knew it and I knew it. Instead of losing my cool and fighting with her, I just decided to thank her. I told her thank you for contributing to our family and helping to keep the house clean. She smiled so big and went off to call her friend. Since that day, she does the best job making her bed and cleaning her room because she knows she's appreciated and capable of much more than what I praised her for that day.

I once heard the phrase, "When you focus on the good, the good gets better!" and if we had a family motto, that would be it! Of course there are days when one (or all) of us is just having a hard day. Sometimes Andy and I find ourselves in a fight with a 6 year old but most of the time, things are pretty cool and we are so grateful for that!